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Invisible Man watch/rewatch - 1x01 Pilot
Welcome to the Invisible Man watch/rewatch! If you'd like to join in, Hulu has the entire show for free. There are also a number of full-length episodes on Youtube (search "Invisible Man 2000" or "Invisible Man tv"). You are welcome to join the discussion at any point, whether or not you're watching episodes with us.
Because some people are watching it for the first time, spoilers for future episodes or plot developments (anything in advance of the episode we're discussing) should be hidden. For spoilers, please use your choice of the following:
Otherwise, anything's cool except for bashing other people's character/pairing preferences (but I don't think anyone would do that anyway). Critical discussion and squee are equally welcome.
LET'S GO!
Invisible Man 1x01 - Pilot
Not having watched the pilot in a long while, I felt they did a really good job of making it feel like a movie. They mostly avoided that TV-pilot thing where the character introductions/interactions feel forced -- at least, I thought so. We had plenty of time to get to know Darien as the plot unfolded.
And Darien is very charming. Well. Actually adorable.
But he's also a total fuckup, and I'm glad the episode, and the show in general, doesn't pull punches with the extent to which he's messed up his life. He's a good person, he's brave, he's smart, and he throws his freedom away because he can't walk away and leave someone to die. But he's really, really not living up to his potential. Like he says in this episode, he likes being a thief (and one thing I get a kick out of with Darien is that he's not a particular brilliant thief; he's just a run-of-the-mill thief and petty criminal). At the end of the episode, he is very nearly friendless -- the handful of people who care about him are all either dead or thoroughly alienated due to his actions -- and he is, in essence, a slave of the government. Darien's life sucks, and some of it was out of his control, but a lot of it is just down to bad choices on his part.
It's hard for me to talk about this show without talking about White Collar, due to the similarity of the premise: con man/thief ends up working for the government to win his freedom. (Plus I've had my head buried in White Collar for the last three years, so that's where my brain goes.) Darien's version of government work-release, however, is far darker than Neal's. He doesn't have a "Peter" -- someone above him, pulling strings for him, that he likes, who likes him and is at least partly on his side. No one is really on Darien's side. Even his brother hides the true nature of the experiment from him, and doesn't warn him about side effects. His handlers are interested in him mainly for what he can do for them.
And for Darien, there's not a clear-cut way out of his predicament, unlike Neal who just has to tough it out for four years and he'll be free. Darien faces the possibility of being owned by the government for the rest of his life, not to mention entirely dependent upon them for a steady supply of the drug he needs to keep himself sane.
... which brings me to the Quicksilver Madness part of Darien's "condition", which is something I'm not quite sure how I feel about. In general the way the show handles mental illness is .... very, very mixed. On the one hand, there are a number of baddies throughout the episodes I've watched who are explicitly referred to as crazy, and there's Darien's "madness" = evil as a recurring theme. On the other hand, there's a major character who is mentally ill -- I can't remember the exact nature of it, it's either bipolar disorder or some form of psychosis, who is on meds and therapy and it's just kind of there, it's a recurring aspect of his character that, while it impacts his life in negative ways, never, ever results in him becoming deranged or violent. This is actually one of the only shows I can think of with a major character who has a mental illness they take medication to control. (Well, two of them I guess, if you count Darien.) But then you have Darien being constantly one step away from becoming a classic cliche "psycho" cliche and killing people. Like I said, I don't know how I feel about this. I am wide open to people's thoughts on it.
Other things I could really have done without: Darien spying on the couple having sex, and his attempted rape while under the influence of Quicksilver. On the bright side, subsequent episodes (at least those I've watched so far) have mostly done away with Darien's creepy-invisible-stalkerness and his rapiness when affected by Quicksilver. (Mostly. Not entirely. But there's nothing so far, in the episodes I've watched, that is either as unpleasant or as gratuitous as those two scenes.) I really wish they had made other writing choices in the pilot.
I haven't talked about Darien and Kevin yet! How did people react to Kevin's death? I remembered that he'd died, of course, but I didn't remember that there was so much interaction between him and Darien beforehand. Despite being somewhat estranged, they were really fun together, a lot cuter than I remembered, and it was sad to lose him.
And then there's Arnaud:
Who is creepy and awful, but entertaining. ("Little prick!")
There are a ton of little things I really enjoyed in this episode, beyond the bigger-picture stuff which I mainly liked too (aside from the above issues) and am now going to throw at you in no particular order. The (nameless) Agency having no funding and getting shuffled into the Department of Fish & Game! The "wrong" spy getting flustered when he presents his ticket half to Darien for identification and it doesn't match. (In general I absolutely love how this show handles spy stuff -- it's such a fascinating blend of playing it straight and poking tongue-in-cheek fun at the spy genre cliches.) Darien's giddy delight as he explores his new powers. Eddie the Mammoth and his black market organs! Canadian terrorists! Arnaud's rather sweet and sympathetic brother. Casey not being a damsel in distress, but giving medical assistance and helping rescue Darien. Darien's "Don't move or the gland gets it!" and his fakeout with his head getting "blown off".
This:
Fun episode. Fun show. I'm glad to find that I still like it as much as I hoped I would.
Tell me your thoughts!
Also, for the next episode, shall we try two episodes a week to start? I can put up a post for the next one, "Catavari", in the middle of the week on Wednesday or so, and then a post for 1x03 this upcoming weekend. We could also wait and do "Catavari" on the weekend if people would like more time.
Because some people are watching it for the first time, spoilers for future episodes or plot developments (anything in advance of the episode we're discussing) should be hidden. For spoilers, please use your choice of the following:
- rot13 (copy-paste text into the cypher window to code or unencode it)
- LJ spoiler cut: <lj-spoiler>spoiler text</lj-spoiler> -- does not work on DW
- spoiler span text: <span style="color:white;background:white;">spoiler text</span> -- does not work on LJ
Otherwise, anything's cool except for bashing other people's character/pairing preferences (but I don't think anyone would do that anyway). Critical discussion and squee are equally welcome.
LET'S GO!
Invisible Man 1x01 - Pilot
Not having watched the pilot in a long while, I felt they did a really good job of making it feel like a movie. They mostly avoided that TV-pilot thing where the character introductions/interactions feel forced -- at least, I thought so. We had plenty of time to get to know Darien as the plot unfolded.
And Darien is very charming. Well. Actually adorable.
But he's also a total fuckup, and I'm glad the episode, and the show in general, doesn't pull punches with the extent to which he's messed up his life. He's a good person, he's brave, he's smart, and he throws his freedom away because he can't walk away and leave someone to die. But he's really, really not living up to his potential. Like he says in this episode, he likes being a thief (and one thing I get a kick out of with Darien is that he's not a particular brilliant thief; he's just a run-of-the-mill thief and petty criminal). At the end of the episode, he is very nearly friendless -- the handful of people who care about him are all either dead or thoroughly alienated due to his actions -- and he is, in essence, a slave of the government. Darien's life sucks, and some of it was out of his control, but a lot of it is just down to bad choices on his part.
It's hard for me to talk about this show without talking about White Collar, due to the similarity of the premise: con man/thief ends up working for the government to win his freedom. (Plus I've had my head buried in White Collar for the last three years, so that's where my brain goes.) Darien's version of government work-release, however, is far darker than Neal's. He doesn't have a "Peter" -- someone above him, pulling strings for him, that he likes, who likes him and is at least partly on his side. No one is really on Darien's side. Even his brother hides the true nature of the experiment from him, and doesn't warn him about side effects. His handlers are interested in him mainly for what he can do for them.
And for Darien, there's not a clear-cut way out of his predicament, unlike Neal who just has to tough it out for four years and he'll be free. Darien faces the possibility of being owned by the government for the rest of his life, not to mention entirely dependent upon them for a steady supply of the drug he needs to keep himself sane.
... which brings me to the Quicksilver Madness part of Darien's "condition", which is something I'm not quite sure how I feel about. In general the way the show handles mental illness is .... very, very mixed. On the one hand, there are a number of baddies throughout the episodes I've watched who are explicitly referred to as crazy, and there's Darien's "madness" = evil as a recurring theme. On the other hand, there's a major character who is mentally ill -- I can't remember the exact nature of it, it's either bipolar disorder or some form of psychosis, who is on meds and therapy and it's just kind of there, it's a recurring aspect of his character that, while it impacts his life in negative ways, never, ever results in him becoming deranged or violent. This is actually one of the only shows I can think of with a major character who has a mental illness they take medication to control. (Well, two of them I guess, if you count Darien.) But then you have Darien being constantly one step away from becoming a classic cliche "psycho" cliche and killing people. Like I said, I don't know how I feel about this. I am wide open to people's thoughts on it.
Other things I could really have done without: Darien spying on the couple having sex, and his attempted rape while under the influence of Quicksilver. On the bright side, subsequent episodes (at least those I've watched so far) have mostly done away with Darien's creepy-invisible-stalkerness and his rapiness when affected by Quicksilver. (Mostly. Not entirely. But there's nothing so far, in the episodes I've watched, that is either as unpleasant or as gratuitous as those two scenes.) I really wish they had made other writing choices in the pilot.
I haven't talked about Darien and Kevin yet! How did people react to Kevin's death? I remembered that he'd died, of course, but I didn't remember that there was so much interaction between him and Darien beforehand. Despite being somewhat estranged, they were really fun together, a lot cuter than I remembered, and it was sad to lose him.
And then there's Arnaud:
Who is creepy and awful, but entertaining. ("Little prick!")
There are a ton of little things I really enjoyed in this episode, beyond the bigger-picture stuff which I mainly liked too (aside from the above issues) and am now going to throw at you in no particular order. The (nameless) Agency having no funding and getting shuffled into the Department of Fish & Game! The "wrong" spy getting flustered when he presents his ticket half to Darien for identification and it doesn't match. (In general I absolutely love how this show handles spy stuff -- it's such a fascinating blend of playing it straight and poking tongue-in-cheek fun at the spy genre cliches.) Darien's giddy delight as he explores his new powers. Eddie the Mammoth and his black market organs! Canadian terrorists! Arnaud's rather sweet and sympathetic brother. Casey not being a damsel in distress, but giving medical assistance and helping rescue Darien. Darien's "Don't move or the gland gets it!" and his fakeout with his head getting "blown off".
This:
Fun episode. Fun show. I'm glad to find that I still like it as much as I hoped I would.
Tell me your thoughts!
Also, for the next episode, shall we try two episodes a week to start? I can put up a post for the next one, "Catavari", in the middle of the week on Wednesday or so, and then a post for 1x03 this upcoming weekend. We could also wait and do "Catavari" on the weekend if people would like more time.
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