sholio | (no subject)

White Collar is renewed for season five! \o/

LOL, I was actually expecting it so thoroughly that I hadn't even realized that it wasn't a sure thing yet. It's nice to be fannish about a show that isn't constantly on the cancellation chopping block for a change!

At the same time, I am in the weird position of kinda ... not really wanting it to go very far past season five? I'd much rather watch it go out on a high note than slide into mediocrity and repetition and eventually limp to a miserable conclusion that makes everyone wish it had been cancelled a few seasons ago.

... and then I started to write something here about how "It's not a great show, but it's a fun show", and then realized that I'm tired of feeling like I ought to apologize for liking things that don't adhere to some arbitrary standard of quality. Or, well, not apologize exactly, but I guess that I always feel like I ought to slap on a caveat admitting that I am aware this show I talk about all the time is not actually fantastic, award-winning-quality TV. Yeah, I know that. But I also think there is something slightly messed up about the idea that "good" is an entirely separate thing from "fun and entertaining and makes me happy". Can't "fun and happymaking" also be a kind of "good"?

Anyway - season five! \o/ Here's hoping no sharks are jumped in the making of it.

Oh, and also,

nefhiriel at

collarcorner is looking for someone to help archive prompts on Delicious, if anyone has a little spare time and wants to help out.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Yay, Season 5! I know what you mean about feeling torn: on the one hand, I want more White Collar! On the other hand, I don't want bad WC. So. Hmm.

WC might not be award-winning TV, but I actually think there are ways in which it's outstanding. The long-term plots are pretty terrible, but the standalone plots tend to be clever (though most of my favorites were back in S1 and S2; "Bottlenecked" and "Front Man," how I love you so!), and the character dynamics, when they are not being shoe-horned into serving Jeff Eastin's agenda, are among the best on TV. That show does friendship incredibly well.

Yeah, I think WC is actually a pretty solid show, and (with a few exceptions) I absolutely love how it handles women and sexuality and violence -- it's a show that very rarely makes me feel poked in the eye, which is something I can't say for most of the other shows I watch. It's a warm, nice little show that's fun to curl up with, and it's well-written enough that it doesn't make me feel like I'm getting dumber when I'm watching it. *g*

Like you, I'm super excited about season 5, but I'm not sure how much longer I want it to go on. Not only do I worry about it sliding into the mediocrity that plagues so much of TV, but WC has a very time sensitive premise. They put two years into three seasons, which I thought was pushing it a little, considering that some of those episodes had time skips. I don't want to see them stretch the timeline any more than they have to, nor do I want them to come up with ways to add time to Neal's sentence.

I think Eastin has loose plans for up to seven seasons, but I could be wrong.

And, yeah, sometimes I feel awkward about how much I love this show, and I feel the need to defend myself. "I know it's silly! Don't judge me!" But, I agree with

sahiya. WC is actually really intelligent in some ways. It does things with characters and character relationships that I'm not used to seeing on TV. The significant number of male/female friendships would by itself be enough to get my attention. And if it is silly, well, I still love it.

So, I agree with you, and I agree with

sahiya. I suppose the point of this comment is that I have no independent thought of my own. I'm a sheep! Baaa!

Someone on LJ mentioned the 7-season thing, too. I just want it to go on for the right length of time, not too short and not too long. Enough time to wrap up the loose ends, but not long enough to start getting saggy and repetitive. I hope they'll be able to strike the right balance.

And I agree that even though it's a silly, goofy show in a lot of ways, it's also a very smart show in others. Like I was saying in my comment above, I absolutely love a lot of the things that WC does with women and sexuality and violence ... it's a show where, in four seasons, not a single female character has ever been threatened with sexual violence (even in situations where you can easily imagine another show going there, like with Elizabeth's kidnapping), and damsels in distress invariably participate in their own rescues. I love the show's matter-of-factness about Diana's sexual orientation, and I love that both she and Jones are from middle-class/upper-middle-class backgrounds; there is never a "Very Special Episode" feeling about the way that the show handles the diversity of its cast, and while I totally think there is a place on TV to address serious issues of race and class, the pasted-on way that it's often done, where the one black character gets their spotlight episode and it's all about their Ghetto Past(TM) ... I'm just glad that WC really doesn't treat any of its characters differently for being black or gay or whatever. It's not the world's greatest show, but it's a warm, nice little show that seems to be produced by lots of warm, nice people, and sometimes that's the very best thing of all.

I've been continually impressed with the way they've handled Diana's sexuality. I think normally, on another show, I would be really upset that her relationship with Christie fell through. But while I am upset, I'm upset because Diana is unhappy, not because I'm pissed at the writers. And I really think it has everything to do with the fact that they've treated Diana's love life no differently than with any other character. Other things in that episode helped. They obviously weren't trying to hide from her sexuality, given Abigail's advances. And then on the other side, Diana's interactions with Abigail were not there to titillate. They kissed, but they also went out on a date, and Diana's conflicted feelings felt very real. I love that the people in the van treated Abigail kissing Diana not as a sexy show, but the same way they would react if it had happened to any other agent. (Though with Neal it's kind of expected by now, I imagine.)

Honestly, I used to watch a number of shows on HBO, Showtime, and AMC, and I've given up on just about all of them, despite many of them being quite brilliant. I got tired of watching characters I was attached to slide deeper and deeper into misery with each season. I get that's it's "deep," but it depresses me, and to some degree it bores me. In it's own way, it kills the suspense. "Will character X find happiness at last?" No, no they won't. Because no one ever seems to find happiness on these shows. WC allows the character to grow. They face setbacks, they get hurt, they make mistakes; but they're different people than they were two years ago show time. The show allows them to be happy and sad, and that's refreshing for me.

Sorry, got into a rant at the end of that.