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Sanctuary through 2x02
Still sick, still don't feel like doing much ... so I mainlined Sanctuary through 2x02 (the conclusion of the first-season-finale arc). My reactions are ... very mixed?
Okay, I gotta admit -- when this show gets fun, it gets pretty fun. :D And the fights with the (not so)supersoldiers were a ton of fun. I have decided that Tesla + electricity = OTP for me. Tesla, in fact, is still MAJOR WIN, even though I do have a sort of a problem with the fact that he's a crazy evil sociopath. (See also the not-squee section below.) But, damn it, he's a charming and very entertaining sociopath, and he can run around dressed in black and snark at people and light up my screen (literally!) and plot world domination all he wants.
Basically this show just has some awesome id-stroking flashy stuff -- characters in black leather running around blowing shit up and solving (slightly nonsensical, but who cares) puzzles in Ancient Labyrinths o'Doom, oh yes, I am there. :D
I'm intrigued, amused and fascinated by their world. I'm still bothered by the "abnormal" terminology and the way the characters draw a line between "abnormals" and humans (someone saying "x humans and y abnormals were killed" in one of the episodes made me wince -- how about "x+y people were killed", huh?) and, in general, the abnormals (aside from Henry) are given very little agency in their own lives in the Sanctuaries. It bugs me. But I'm also fascinated and delighted by the glimpses of wonder -- the walrus people (!!) just being casual neighbors of the rural folks up there on the Alaska-Yukon frontier, the mermaids dwelling under the sea. It's a world that I'd like to step into, to meet all the wondrous creatures that exist there. I keep getting annoyed with the show and then five minutes later it makes up for it with something that's cool or creepy or just delightful.
Aand then there's the not-squee.
I can deal with the contrived-ness of the plots (though the Cabal make me giggle, with their mustache-twirling evilness -- moral complexity, we don't got it!), but I don't like it when a show makes me want to wail "You people are SO STUPID!" at the screen on a regular basis. I like shows and books that challenge me mentally, that show me characters who are competent and clever, who use the tools at hand to come up with nifty solutions to their problems. It's one of the big reasons why I've always loved science fiction, for the problem-solving aspects of it. And these characters are SO BAD AT IT that I just want to shake them sometimes. As the episodes unfolded, I just kept thinking of all the many, many plans they could have tried against Ashley's bunch if they'd stop and think for five minutes. Tear gas! Tranquilizers! Explosives! Booby traps! Freezing them with liquid nitrogen! In the end, they used ZERO strategy and just reacted to whatever the bad guys did, which usually meant fighting them in their own strength areas (hand-to-hand) or just running away. *cries* I keep having to rewrite the plots in my head as I go along, to elide over the areas that bug me so that I'm not getting annoyed and frustrated all the time. I used to have to do that with the worst Stargate episodes as well, but here I have to do it constantly. YOUR BRAINS, PEOPLE! USE THEM!
(ETA: Oh, but Kate with the rocket launcher? TOTAL WIN! See, this is what I kept wanting them to do when they were running around fighting the bad guys with frikkin' swords. Actually Kate in general = win, I believe. :D She's so outside their whole crazy world that she can see how crazy it is and how caught up in their own head games they are.)
I also have a similar problem to the one that plagued me in Stargate, especially SGA, where the characters' less savory traits and occasional psychopathic tendencies are handwaved away in a cloud of cute warm fuzziness. It bothers me with Tesla (everybody does remember that the guy is out to enslave the human race and tried to kill Helen, right?) and even more so with Druitt (you know, the guy who likes to torture and kill women for fun?), and with the way that the potential problems with the Sanctuaries are not just handwaved but apparently do not even occur to anyone. I like moral shades of gray as much as the next girl if they're dealt with, but Sanctuary has the same issue SGA used to, where the characters are contemplating genocide one minute and then ten minutes later they're snarking cutely in the cafeteria and all is forgotten. I just ... *flappy hands* I guess it's not surprising since it's the same batch of writers as SGA that it would have some of the same issues, but it makes it harder to enjoy Tesla bickering cutely with Helen when a couple episodes ago he was trying to kill her and create a race of superbeings to replace humanity, and no one seems to have a problem with this. I just like my heroes to be a little more ... heroic? Or at least a little less self-centered and creepy?
And yet, my id has decided that Tesla is WHERE IT'S AT. I don't know about my brain sometimes. I just live here. *flails*
In the final reckoning, I seem to be engaging with the show on the "shallow flashy fun" level and not really getting into the characters or plots much. So, since I don't particularly care about being spoiled, I think my next move is probably going to be going on IMDB and finding all the episodes that Tesla is in, and watching those. BECAUSE I AM NOT SHALLOW AT ALL, NO SIR.
ETA: I ... don't suppose anyone has seen any Tesla icons around anywhere lately? :D
This entry is also posted at http://friendshipper.dreamwidth.org/306027.html with
comments.
Okay, I gotta admit -- when this show gets fun, it gets pretty fun. :D And the fights with the (not so)supersoldiers were a ton of fun. I have decided that Tesla + electricity = OTP for me. Tesla, in fact, is still MAJOR WIN, even though I do have a sort of a problem with the fact that he's a crazy evil sociopath. (See also the not-squee section below.) But, damn it, he's a charming and very entertaining sociopath, and he can run around dressed in black and snark at people and light up my screen (literally!) and plot world domination all he wants.
Basically this show just has some awesome id-stroking flashy stuff -- characters in black leather running around blowing shit up and solving (slightly nonsensical, but who cares) puzzles in Ancient Labyrinths o'Doom, oh yes, I am there. :D
I'm intrigued, amused and fascinated by their world. I'm still bothered by the "abnormal" terminology and the way the characters draw a line between "abnormals" and humans (someone saying "x humans and y abnormals were killed" in one of the episodes made me wince -- how about "x+y people were killed", huh?) and, in general, the abnormals (aside from Henry) are given very little agency in their own lives in the Sanctuaries. It bugs me. But I'm also fascinated and delighted by the glimpses of wonder -- the walrus people (!!) just being casual neighbors of the rural folks up there on the Alaska-Yukon frontier, the mermaids dwelling under the sea. It's a world that I'd like to step into, to meet all the wondrous creatures that exist there. I keep getting annoyed with the show and then five minutes later it makes up for it with something that's cool or creepy or just delightful.
Aand then there's the not-squee.
I can deal with the contrived-ness of the plots (though the Cabal make me giggle, with their mustache-twirling evilness -- moral complexity, we don't got it!), but I don't like it when a show makes me want to wail "You people are SO STUPID!" at the screen on a regular basis. I like shows and books that challenge me mentally, that show me characters who are competent and clever, who use the tools at hand to come up with nifty solutions to their problems. It's one of the big reasons why I've always loved science fiction, for the problem-solving aspects of it. And these characters are SO BAD AT IT that I just want to shake them sometimes. As the episodes unfolded, I just kept thinking of all the many, many plans they could have tried against Ashley's bunch if they'd stop and think for five minutes. Tear gas! Tranquilizers! Explosives! Booby traps! Freezing them with liquid nitrogen! In the end, they used ZERO strategy and just reacted to whatever the bad guys did, which usually meant fighting them in their own strength areas (hand-to-hand) or just running away. *cries* I keep having to rewrite the plots in my head as I go along, to elide over the areas that bug me so that I'm not getting annoyed and frustrated all the time. I used to have to do that with the worst Stargate episodes as well, but here I have to do it constantly. YOUR BRAINS, PEOPLE! USE THEM!
(ETA: Oh, but Kate with the rocket launcher? TOTAL WIN! See, this is what I kept wanting them to do when they were running around fighting the bad guys with frikkin' swords. Actually Kate in general = win, I believe. :D She's so outside their whole crazy world that she can see how crazy it is and how caught up in their own head games they are.)
I also have a similar problem to the one that plagued me in Stargate, especially SGA, where the characters' less savory traits and occasional psychopathic tendencies are handwaved away in a cloud of cute warm fuzziness. It bothers me with Tesla (everybody does remember that the guy is out to enslave the human race and tried to kill Helen, right?) and even more so with Druitt (you know, the guy who likes to torture and kill women for fun?), and with the way that the potential problems with the Sanctuaries are not just handwaved but apparently do not even occur to anyone. I like moral shades of gray as much as the next girl if they're dealt with, but Sanctuary has the same issue SGA used to, where the characters are contemplating genocide one minute and then ten minutes later they're snarking cutely in the cafeteria and all is forgotten. I just ... *flappy hands* I guess it's not surprising since it's the same batch of writers as SGA that it would have some of the same issues, but it makes it harder to enjoy Tesla bickering cutely with Helen when a couple episodes ago he was trying to kill her and create a race of superbeings to replace humanity, and no one seems to have a problem with this. I just like my heroes to be a little more ... heroic? Or at least a little less self-centered and creepy?
And yet, my id has decided that Tesla is WHERE IT'S AT. I don't know about my brain sometimes. I just live here. *flails*
In the final reckoning, I seem to be engaging with the show on the "shallow flashy fun" level and not really getting into the characters or plots much. So, since I don't particularly care about being spoiled, I think my next move is probably going to be going on IMDB and finding all the episodes that Tesla is in, and watching those. BECAUSE I AM NOT SHALLOW AT ALL, NO SIR.
ETA: I ... don't suppose anyone has seen any Tesla icons around anywhere lately? :D
This entry is also posted at http://friendshipper.dreamwidth.org/306027.html with
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KATE = TOTES WIN
(Yes, I have a new favourite character. And, once again, she's an 'outsider' and the clever muscle, and non-white. CAN HAZ TYPE? CAN HAZ TYPE!)
And, yes, the plots are...winceworthy. But the characters have awesome potential and I'm presently asking why I attach so damn hard to characters in shows like these!
*sigh*
But, overall, Sanctuary is fun and relatively fluffy, and yes, they need to lose the stupid and think smart and different. (Imagine greater?) And if they don't...I shall rewrite it in my head so they did!
Try
'icons' tag at
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I can tolerate a lot of plot-stupid if it's delivering on other levels, but I wish I didn't have to. I keep feeling like this show is giving me hints of a much better show that it could have been, except it went off the rails somewhere.
And thank you for the links! I sort of wish I didn't like Tesla so much, because he's just this side of evil if not right over the line. But ... he makes evil look good! *runs off to look for icons*
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I think it was that she was too direct, and without any hint of cunning. Kate has cunning and street sharps and clever. She wouldn't have survived as a freelancer if not for the smarts.
And yes, I know exactly where you are with the plot-stupid. It burns us, preciouss! It burns us! But the characters just have that...something which I like. (And, um, Kate is my new TV girlfriend. *glomps Kate*)
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Or common sense, either. That was the big problem I had with Ashley, at least in the early eps; admittedly I skipped a few, but Helen seemed to spend a lot of time and energy reining her in, or excluding her from missions because she (justifiably) couldn't be trusted not to do something incautious or dumb. I get that she's young, but she also grew up in this world, and it seemed like she ought to be able to shoulder more responsibility than she was able to. She was "the muscle" but she always seemed to be lacking the brains or common sense or, like you said, the cunning to be anything more than the muscle.
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Yes, this exactly. *sigh*
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and the third season is just coool
oh yeah and Tesla is awesome.. always
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I have some Tesla icons. They're not the best things ever, but you're welcome to them if you'd like.
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At this point, given the problems I have thus far, I'm not sure if watching all of season two (well, possibly minus "Hero") would result in me being more squeeful about the show or just giving up on it. I'm more inclined to indulge my id, watch the Tesla eps, and maybe go back and re-watch episodes if I get more into it or just get hopelessly confused. :D
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They, er, sort of deal with some of the moral ambiguity (at least argue over it) with the Kali episodes, and they do spend more time focusing on Henry's and Kate's histories here and there. And...sort of end up with an excuse for Druitt, um. Sort of.
I definitely got more into it when they replaced Ashley with Kate, and every episode with Tesla in it pretty much rocks...
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The season two finale / season three intro made me cringe at the cultural appropriation and Too Soon plot elements, just fyi.
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The season two finale / season three intro made me cringe at the cultural appropriation and Too Soon plot elements, just fyi.
Yeah, it totally had "potential fail" written all over it just from the bits of plot summary that I'd seen. That's one of the ones I skipped.
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I'm assuming you know that Tesla is played by the guy who played Dr. Parrish on SGA. I'm mentioning this because one of the Tesla eps played right after the S5 ep Parrish was in (don't remember the name). Talk about whiplash. Going from seeing him as Parrish to Tesla in the span of an hour was crazy. It's like switching Ryan Robbins from Ladon Radim to Henry.
But as much as I want to, I just can't love Sanctuary. It's too kitschy, with too many bad plots and bad special effects. For my sci-fi pleasure these days, I have Warehouse 13 and Eureka. I still watch Sanctuary but really more to see the familiar faces and the guest stars.
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I think I'm getting used to Sanctuary's cheesiness, although I still find myself having to rewrite aspects of the plots to try to make them better, which is a bad sign. I do get the feeling that the cast really have fun working together, which is always a positive thing for a show. I don't think it'll ever be an absolutely-can't-miss-an-episode show for me, but I think I'll be watching the new eps when they start up again.
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I don't want to bash Sanctuary. I do watch it, and I like the cast. However, there is something about AT's character that is... I don't know - standoffish? While Sanctuary has a team, the focus is primarily on Magnus (whom I haven't really connected with) as opposed to the entire ensemble. I think WH13 does a better job of spreading the love.