The Unofficial TV series review thread

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speaker-to-trolls
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The Unofficial TV series review thread

Post by speaker-to-trolls »

I've been wanting to start this thread for some months now, and now I have, go me. I begin with a review of a series I finished in its entirety a few weeks ago.

Justice League/Justice League Unlimited

Now before I start, a couple of points, these are two very closely related series, functionally the same in terms of plot, in fact, but have different names. I will be distinguishing between the two by referring to each as a series and referring to each of the thirteen episode segments within each series as a season. I gather this is the American way of describing such things although my people tend to refer to the 13 episode stretches as series and the thing overall as a program. Thinking about it the American way is neater in general and definitely makes more sense here;

Justice League Animated-

The first series, or the first two seasons, however one wants to describe it, follow a very different and slower kind of format to the later ones. A surprisingly good illustration can be found in the theme tune, just listen to that majestic, funereal tune. The first series is not quite as solemn and epic as this might suggest, but it’s somewhat more so than the later one.

The basic formula for the first series is ‘Earth’s Seven Mightiest Heroes’ fighting various bad guys, either individually or all at once, and importantly, each episode is a two parter. This does give all the plots time to develop properly, but to be honest the extra development is unnecessary because a lot of these plots only need 20 minutes.

This series doesn’t get off to a good start because the first episode is awful. Plot=bad, acting=bad, dialogue=really bad, animation=not nearly good enough to make up for the other bad points. In fact I think it was probably the single worst episode in the whole Justice League Anything run, most of the rest of season one isn’t particularly bad, though, just lacklustre due to the unnecessary lengths and the fact that the plots are often just not as good as they could be. Some episodes which I will say rose above the rest and were;The Brave and the Bold, Injustice for All and Legends.

Season two of JLA, on the other hand, gets off to a smashing start with the epic Twilight two parter (no, nothing to do with that, it’s short for Twilight of the Gods), and the season continues in this vein with a generally higher level of quality (dishonourable mention for The Terror Beyond, where the writers cannot do Lovecraft or the question of faith vs rationalism, at all) and more convincing epicness... if epicness is a word which I suspect it is not. The whole season finishes with a considerable bang in the most epic episode yet, the three part Starcrossed

Season two also sets up a lot of plot points which become focal to the later series and generally has more of an impression of continuity, there is no overall arc exactly, but the consequences of one episode are more clearly shown in the next than they were in season 1.

With that said I’d basically say you can skip the first season except for the episodes I’ve mentioned, whereas season 2 is generally worth watching.

Justice League Unlimited

This picks up presumably some time after Starcrossed and, wow, a lot has changed while you haven’t been watching. The Justice League is no longer Earth’s seven mightiest heroes but a massive super-army based on a cluster of space stations armed with teleportation, a worldwide communication network and a fleet of shuttles. The episodes are also, with a few exceptions, all singles in this series, making each story a mere 20 minutes long. I initially thought I would hate all these changes, but in fact they were all for the better.

First of all the upsizing from squad to army meant a lot more characters could be brought in as regulars, and they all turned out to be pretty cool, interesting additions, (my personal favourite probably being the Question, who was a bit Rorscharch like in a weird case of like-son, like-father). Frankly it also just makes more sense for the Justice League to expand, since it was clear in the earlier series that they had plenty of super-friends. I’m not quite sure where they got all the space stations or the fleet of shuttles from, but hey ho, they’ve got friends in very far-away places. The constant 2 parter format was also, as I noted, too long in the first series, so this turned out to be a good move that streamlined a lot of the stories.

The first season, again gets off to a damp start. Not bad, I should note, just damp, not particularly impressive, but it does well enough to introduce the change in concept. The first season is generally very enjoyable and kind of eases into the new format by maintaining a generally episodic nature although setting up a lot of plot points for future seasons.

The second season and its story arc are, in my opinion, concentrated greatness, weaving nicely into plot points set up throughout both series and centred on a conflict between the Justice League and sectors of the American military and government who don’t trust them. The conflict is handled very well, with the people on both sides having plenty of their own reasons and their own perhaps unreasonable prejudices for taking the actions they take. The development of new characters and the plots of the more stand alone episodes also easily stand up to and knock down anything from previous seasons.
Right up until the end, which I was kind of disappointed by, since a new plot kind of comes out of left field, as does the solution for it. Well, actually it was not out of left field, but it was set up for in Superman; The Animated Series which I have never seen. Full props to Bruce Timm for continuity but it kind of lost me as a less dedicated viewer. Make of this what you will.

The third season is a bit of a halfway house, more arc-y than season 1 but less arc-y and thus less focussed than season 2, and I think is the weakest because of it, probably about on par overall with season 2 of the first series, or a bit better. The writers seemed to be trying to juggle a lot of plots in this one and ended up dropping a few as a result. Also a dishonourable mention goes to Grudgematch for being seven kinds of stupid. The grand finale Destroyer is also very epic but finishes a little abruptly for my money, being outdone by the penultimate episode, Alive!, which set up for it incredibly well and was a bit let down afterward.

Now, a few of my thoughts on the show overall: The writers of this show expect you to be able to keep up with events you have seen and catch up with those you have not, there is none of this 'at the end of the episode everything's right back to normal' stuff. Many characters have crossed paths with the mains in other series by the same company, and you're expected to kind of infer their history from what you see of them and how they interact. I quite like this, mostly, as I think it gives a sense of depth and history.

Second is this: Viewers may or may not have heard of Hawkgirl, the Green Lantern, the Flash, the Martian Manhunter or Wonder Woman, and even if they have they may not know much about the characters, but the other two mains don't even need an introduction, and the writers know it. Thus it seems those two get far less characterisation and far less time trying to introduce them to the audience than any of their co stars.
Despite or maybe because of this, they did not seem to know quite what to do with Superman, you see everyone knows he's an invincible demigod and the strongest man on Earth... but they still want to have him fight all the time without instantly crushing his opponents. So basically everybody acted as if he was an unstoppable force when he obviously wasn't, since they ran into things that gave him trouble all the time. The limits of his powers also basically ended up as 'faster than a speeding plot! more powerful than a roaring plot! Able to leap tall plots in a single bound!'

Third is this: Wonder Woman annoys me, I don't know if it's the actress or the dialogue or the stupid 'I am immune to bullets so long as every single one hits these small patches of my forearms covered by these bracelets lol' but in almost all episodes I just find her very irritating. Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkgirl and the Martian are all cool though.

Fourth: Animated Lex Luthor has made his way onto my list of favourite villains, he's exceptionally cool, charming, completely confident in his own superiority and dedicated to his own quest for power and utterly amoral with it. His voice actor, Clancy Brown, also has a fantastic voice for the part. Here's a spoilerific clip of him with the equally well voiced (by Powers Boothe) Gorilla Grodd. Basically this version makes you understand how a biologically normal man can consistently pit himself against invincible aliens and expect to win.

'Oh come on, it's Lex flipping Luthor!' (actual quote, that's censorship for you):D
"Little monuments may be completed by their first architects, but great ones; true ones leave their copestones to posterity. God keep me from completing anything."
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Re: The Unofficial TV series review thread

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Actually the call backs to the S:TAS, were not planned as such from the start but written in later as an explanation for the plot they'd come up with. The Cadmus Story arc itself was only conceived off part way through that season as well. The early one-shot episode villians being retconned as working for them.
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Re: The Unofficial TV series review thread

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Now for something completely different

Brrrrrang! Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo...

I Claudius

Recently I have rewatched this series, which I would say pretty much without reservation is my favourite television series, and it was good to be reminded of exactly what led me to think so highly of it in the first place.

The story begins with the title character’s informative opening monologue.
I, Tiberius Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus, who was once, and not so long ago known to my friends and relatives as Claudius the Idiot, or Claudius the Stammerer, or That Fool Claudius, am about to begin this strange history of my life.
Claudius, the despised grandchild of Augustus Caesar’s wife, frames the story by writing it at the end of his life, an unwilling, Republican Emperor. Having it told in this way, looking back over events that have already happened to see just how Claudius got to this stage and what happened to all his friends and relatives on the way, I think helps to keep the series focussed and coherent (especially when compared to more recent shows). It also adds to a sense of inevitability that pervades the series, giving the whole thing a kind of air of myth or tragedy. Finally on this point, Claudius is not just an impartial narrator, he’s a fantastic character; inquisitive, principled, compassionate and above all an intelligent man and a born survivor. Everything in his story affects him as he goes from an uncertain, frightened youth to a world-weary old man looking only to set the record straight.

Historically the series moves from the early reign of Augustus Caesar, before our narrator is born but dealing with events that affect him later, to the end of Claudius’ life, inbetween those two there are the reigns of Tiberius and Caligula. A constant theme is the slow descent of Rome away from its Republican roots towards absolute monarchy. In the first two thirds-three quarters this is accompanied by a continuous decline in the stability of the Emperors and the strength of law and order, and for the rest is mainly a decline in Claudius’ own faith in the idea that Rome can be saved. That sense of inevitability creeps in to the story time and again, both as Claudius watches the movements of other characters with no power to stop them and as those same characters are reduced from the heights of power to the depths of ruin.

All of this would be unbearably depressing and dull were it not for the quality of the acting, writing and direction, and for the fact that there is a huge amount of humour and lightness woven into what seems a pretty bleak story. First of those; I Claudius had an absolutely fantastic cast of classic Shakespearean actors, the most famous members being Brian Blessed, John Hurt and Patrick Stewart (who appears in 3 episodes as the head of Tiberius’ secret police). I don’t know if you guys also know Derek Jacobi (he was the Professor in Dr Who’s Utopia, and I think he was in Ken Brannagh’s Hamlet) Sian Phillips, George Baker and Margaret Tyzack, I haven’t seen most of them in anything else.

The writing is very good despite originally being panned for being too modern, a criticism that I think has been levelled at Rome. It may lose a little in terms of historical-cultural accuracy, but by having the characters speak essentially like modern day people it really highlights the strange world of the Roman Empire, with its reason and high civilisation mixed with superstition, prophecy and viciousness. It’s also, as I mentioned, excellent in combining aspects of humour and horror, best shown in the show’s chief villains, Livia and Caligula, the latter of whom especially often manages to be hilarious and horrifying at the same time (Livia is usually either or, and her humorous moments are either what Sian Phillips described as being fairly camp or in delivering cutting one liners).

The direction is, I think, helped by the fact that there were far fewer things you could do with effects in the 1970s, which means that the director uses every advantage he can get using just the set and the actors. In many ways it’s on screen theatre rather than small screen cinema, with very long scenes and no background music. The director used the actor’s talents and the power of suggestion to get across many things he couldn’t illustrate directly, the best example I can think of is the end of Poison is Queen, which I found absolutely chilling the first time I saw it. Also, as a side note, according to a behind the scenes documentary on the DVD the series only had 15 extras, yet they managed to pull off bustling marketplaces, lascivious orgies, troops of soldiers and a rhubarbing senate, that’s some skill. I am prepared to admit, though, that some of the camera techniques look a little dated, such as the frequent zooming in on people’s faces.

Something which is a function of all three of these things is that all of the characters are human. With the exception of a few background characters and minions everyone is shown to have their own reasons for doing what they do, their own emotional conflicts, their own strengths, ambitions and frailties. I realise every show tries to do this, but a lot of them don’t succeed where I Claudius does so. Claudius is probably the closest thing to a hero in the series, but he spends most of his time grovelling and feigning idiocy just to stay alive, and there are times when he loses all hope and simply despises the city he lives in. Conversely Livia, an almost Satanic figure for much of the first series, clearly sees everything she does as necessary for Rome, and clearly deeply regrets some of it, and even she has fears and frailties which catch up with her.
None of this sounds original or unusual, but that’s only because it’s what almost every program these days aspires toward. In my opinion, though, I Claudius succeeds on these points where many, many others have failed and continue to fail.
"Little monuments may be completed by their first architects, but great ones; true ones leave their copestones to posterity. God keep me from completing anything."
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Re: The Unofficial TV series review thread

Post by Booted Vulture »

Speaker-to-All, you have awesome taste in tv series. that is all.
Ah Brother! It's been too long!
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