TV year-end meme

[snickfic]

This meme seems especially apropos this year, not only so I can look back on what TV I've watched this year (answer: more than I thought), but as a way of introducing my fannish self to all the new folks who've come in from the friending meme.

Shows I’ve started watching

Leverage. I've started this and found it pleasant enough; I shriek with delight at least once per episode over some antic or bit of chutzpah from Hardison, and that's more than can be said for many supposedly fluffy and entertaining shows. However, I want Nate Ford to just go away, and I want Sophie to grow up into a much more complex character than she's allowed to be right now. Also the actual plots are more than my suspension of belief can take at times, and the team's ethics, it seems to me, are frequently a whole lot less ethical than the writers seem to believe. Eh. I have two more episodes of the first season, and then I may continue if I can get hold of more conveniently. Or not. I am uninvested.

Oddly, despite my lack of investment, Leverage is one of the few shows I watched this year that I could see myself getting fannish about and writing fic for. (The other is Twin Peaks.) There's just so much going on under the surface of these characters and their motivations and their relationships, and I could see myself getting interested in telling some of those stories. And also I want to write all the crack. Someone at insmallpackages asked for Leverage wingfic, and I was like, "I want to write that!" This after having only seen, like, four episodes.

Mad Men. You guys, this was exactly as good as you all said it was. It inspired me to write more meta than I've written on anything since, like, Buffy. And then I went through a slump and never got back to it (which really disappointed my roommate, who continued to watch and had no one to exclaim about it with). But I want to!

I also started watching Revenge, IT Crowd, Goong, and Coffee Prince this year, but I'm discussing them all under other categories.

Shows I’ve stopped watching

I started watched Revenge because of this vid, which is composed entirely of Emily and Nolan and watching the fires they start burn the world down, which sounded excellent. Alas, the show itself pretty soon got tied up in love triangles (how much do I not care about Emily/Jack? LET ME COUNT THE WAYS) and incidental characters I didn't care about at all (Declan/Charlotte, Ashley, Conrad). Also there was a lot less of Emily taking revenge and more of her doing damage control, and that was less the dynamic I was hoping for. I got through 1.09, I think? And I think I'm done.

The Vampire Diaries – I got bored, you guys. I didn't care about the werewolf plot at all, and I didn't care about Elijah, and I mostly just wanted Katherine to go away (preferably with Stefan, FOREVER). And even the characters I enjoyed, I wasn't feeling anymore – Caroline, Bonnie, Damon, Tyler. upupa_epops and ever_neutral have compiled me a list of must-see Damon/Elena eps, and perhaps I will take a look at that some of those eps at some point, but for now I think I am done. :P

Goong – I started watching this, my second kdrama, because it came highly recommended and because I loved Coffee Prince SO MUCH, but I got bogged down in the slow pacing. You'd think this would be exactly my sort of thing, what with the arranged marriage and the slow burn to romance and all, but I think the two main characters were just too young and too young-acting for me to get enthused about it. Also the male lead's old girlfriend was shaping up to be Evil, and I wasn't looking forward to that at all. So I think I'm done with this one, too.

Farscape – I TRIED. I think this is just not my show – too goofy in both its plots and the way it handles its relationships between its characters. Eh.

Sherlock - I watched the Irene Adler ep, and was both underwhelmed by the ep itself and overwhelmed by the fannish reaction to it. Plus, I'm apparently bored of the John-Sherlock dynamic.

Downton Abbey – see below in the "show that impressed me the least" category, because it was just that bad.

Shows I’ve continued to watch or completed

The IT Crowd! I watched the entire run this year and found it a delight, start to finish.

BSG! I finished it, you guys! Definitely one of my big TV accomplishments for the year. Looking back, I can’t say I think that last season was good, and in particular I hated the finale a lot, but the series as a whole is one of the meatier chunks of television I’ve ever seen. It’s a show in love with big ideas, which it frankly doesn’t always execute very well, but still they’re there and you have to either engage them or navigate around them to get on with the show. And meanwhile the cast of characters is richer and more varied (and let’s be honest, just larger) than almost any other show I can think of (LOST comes to mind; let us not speak of it), and the acting is superb. I didn’t enjoy a lot of it, but I can’t deny the power of what it was trying to do, however often it failed.

Coffee Prince: another piece of sheer delight. I adored this. I adored the entire ensemble cast of characters, I adored the gender stuff it played around with, I adored all the actors. This show had basically no flaws, IMO (except possibly for the lackadaisical finale, but whatever).

I continue to watch Twin Peaks. I continue to love it. I brought it home with me to the Land of Dial-Up, so I have hopes of actually maybe finished it before the new year. (It’s only, like, 29 episodes! You wouldn’t think it’d take me this long!)

SPN. Presumably y’all already know how I feel about that. There have been some great bits this eason (all the Dean+Cas stuff; the concept of the Sam/Amelia stuff, if not always the execution; the Trans; and the end of Heartache), and everything else has been some combination of unpleasant, inexplicable, and just plain bad writing (the dialogue, it is so obvious). But I’m in this one to the bitter end.

Chuck. I enjoyed Chuck and Casey and Elle and Captain Awesome as much this time around as I did before; I was even less enthused about the treatment of Sarah Walker as a character than before. That element alone might have killed the show for me. Bleah.

Monster – an anime my sister talked me into watching the first few eps of. It seems to be a mostly-real world story of a doctor too principled for his or the world’s good who accidently saves the life of the Antichrist. My sister wanted me to watch it because a) it’s full of medical goodness, which she enjoys a lot, and b) it doesn’t do any of the overemoting that I find off-putting in most anime. However, I just didn’t care. The pace is glacial, and I didn’t give a fig for the protagonist. Also his girlfriend is a shallow, self-absorbed brat who dumps him as soon as he’s out of favor with his boss, and I just didn’t need that.

Avatar: The Last Airbender – man, talk about lost momentum. I only have half a season left, and I can't get up the care to watch it. I really enjoyed most of S2 of this show, but somehow it lost me in S3. IDK.

So You Think You Can Dance - I only saw a couple of episodes of this, because the actual-real-live-TV situation at my house is complicated, and the delay before eps get put online is ridiculous. I was pleased that Keyon (sp?) won, though.

Shows I want to check out and/or finish next year

New shows:
* Breaking Bad (I'd say it wasn't at all my sort of thing, but the word of mouth is strong with this one)
* Dexter (again, mostly because of the amazing things I've heard about the first few seasons, and also for Julie Benze <3)
* Babylon 5 (depending on my tolerance for cheesy plots and bad dialogue; the first ten eps that I watched years ago suggested that there were things there I would like a lot, but the writing was so bad)
* The Sarah Connor Chronicles (dude, dystopian SF with female protagonist, I AM THERE)
* maaaybe Teen Wolf (It’s all Verity’s fault; if half the gender stuff is happening in this show that she says is happening, then maybe I can put up with the werewolves and the teen drama. Also, Lydia the math princess <3.)

However, as usual, I mean to be pretty casual about whether or not I watch any of those; TV is for fun, and I refuse to be ~pressured into watching it.

That said, next year I AM GOING TO FINISH TWIN PEAKS. Also I really want to watch a bunch more Mad Men.

Show that impressed me the least

Downton Abbey. UGH. Okay, so season two was not good, but it had redeeming features! Mary continued to be complex and interesting, there were some interesting character beats involving Thomas and the war, I came to really enjoy O'Brien, and Lavinia was the best thing ever to happen to the show.

S3, on the other hand, had all the soapy melodrama and really ridiculous and unbelievable plots of S2, but none of those redeeming features. I mean, Edith was tolerable. There was some enjoyable Matthew/Branson bromance going on. But mostly I alternated between being bored and actively hating most of the moments onscreen. And then the fifth episode happened, and I threw in the towel. I wasn't even particularly invested in that character, but the way it was handled was just Too Much.

All the other shows I quit this year, I quit because I was bored. This one, I am quitting in a fit of righteous annoyance. Show, we are done.

Show that impressed me the most

Ugh, this is hard! I think a list is required here. As mentioned, The IT Crowd and Coffee Prince were both delightful, if not perhaps impressive in that diamond-edge artistic sense. Mad Men was brilliant. Twin Peaks continued to be wonderful and unique. So let's go with those.

Comments

[likeadeuce]

Excellent write-up!

How far are you in Mad Men? I have distinct thoughts about different seasons.

I enjoyed the hell out of Sarah Connor. It's one I'd like to rewatch if I ever get time (though I haaaate that it got cancelled when it did.)

[snickfic]

I got a little ways into S2 of Mad Men. As someone else described to me, in S2 it feels like the show becomes less about Themes and Saying Something and more about just telling the story. Except, I was really enjoying the more structured (if slightly more artificial) approach of S1. Also in S2 I was becoming increasingly bored with the Existential Crisis of Don Draper.

But I seriously do plan to get back to it.

Sarah Connor is one of those shows that's been on my radar for years, but which I just have never gotten to. But perhaps this year.

[likeadeuce]

I definitely recall Mad Men season 2 being the Slough of Despond for that show (Betty's story is particularly hard to watch), and I have a hard time remembering specific incidents and episodes.

I was becoming increasingly bored with the Existential Crisis of Don Draper

Ha ha, that's a thing that never entirely goes away -- and I think the main thing I'd say is that the show is pretty good at giving you things to look at besides Don/ ways to watch around what's happening with him. Which I often do find interesting, but not always as much as the show does.

[snickfic]

That's very encouraging, actually! I don't have a good sense of which seasons are supposed to be the good ones and bad ones, so I wasn't sure if that was just what the show was going to look like from there on out.

I do find it peculiar that a show so interested in discussing the misogyny of the period spends so much of its time on a male protagonist. I feel like there must be some kind of clever commentary intended there, but darned if I can see what it is.

[likeadeuce]

I sort of go back and forth on how much I think Mad Men has a plan and how much they just threw a bunch of elements Matt Weiner was interested in together and went wild with them. So the show is interested in the idea of the man coming out of nowhere and creating this identity for himself and then not being sure what he wants to do with it, and it's also interested in the ways the role of women has changed over the last few decades but -- they're not necessarily part of the same interest, if that makes sense.

Alternatively, Matt Weiner might just be working out massive issues with his parents. I feel like I would have to get to know the entire Weiner family for several generations to figure out the "why" behind a lot of stuff. But I don't mind that a lot of it's opaque, I guess?

My general feeling is that seasons 3 & 4 are the strongest, partly because they build on such a rich layered foundation of the earlier seasons (thus making the Slough of Despond worth it, I guess.) Season 5, the most recent, feels less essential (like maybe the story was over and they kept going) and seemed to lose its way a bit but still has some great individual episodes. And come to think of it, it feels a bit more like season 1 w/ the theme-i-ness so that might appeal to you.

[snickfic]

So the show is interested in the idea of the man coming out of nowhere and creating this identity for himself and then not being sure what he wants to do with it, and it's also interested in the ways the role of women has changed over the last few decades but -- they're not necessarily part of the same interest, if that makes sense.

That does make a lot of sense! I would say, from what I've seen so far, that those two interests do not always serve each other well, but it definitely makes sense to me as way of viewing the show.

Your comments about S3 and S4 give me new enthusiasm for getting back into the show! (It doesn't hurt that I had my first Mad Men dream ever last night. It involved Betty in an affair with some man who was using her, and meanwhile Sally Draper was trying to talk Don into letting her go to a Catholic high school. What? What? But it did remind me of all my feelings about the show. :) )

[likeadeuce]

Since you bring up Sally -- and this is somewhat skewed by my being absorbed in a later-season rewatch lately -- but I think one thing that brings the divergent themes together as the show goes on is Sally. Just as Peggy begins to emerge as the "true" protagonist of the office storylines (not that Don goes away but Peggy is the one with the more straightforward trajectory, and the dynamic between the two of them is a big part of what keeps work-Don from being utterly loathsome,) around mid-season 3, Sally begins to emerge as the real center of the home storylines. And in that sense, Don's not solely a center of male angst that we're supposed to sympathize with as the elusive father that you can never quite figure out.

And now, I know that "daddy issues" are not exactly groundbreaking as a basis for storytelling (though the seeking/exploring characters being his literal & metaphorical daughters is at least more interesting than father-son angst -- and I honestly don't know how much of this could have been planned or was a happy accident when they made Sally the older child and happened to cast a brilliant actress, which I don't think you can really know when you start with a kid that young.) But anyway, I think Don is more interesting when the show is trying to figure him out rather than asking/assuming we'll side with him.

I hope that makes some sense!

[snickfic]

I am actually shielding my eyes from most of your comment, because I try to stay fairly spoiler-free. But I will come back to your analysis as soon as I've seen the relevant episodes!

(Also, re: your comment to beer_good_foamy, I've watched through early S2, so whatever you wanted to say about the end of S1 is fair game. :) )

[likeadeuce]

ok, I actually didn't think of that as a spoiler but if it is than the other thing I was going to say probably is too, so we can take it up later :)

[snickfic]

No, I figured you didn't! No worries. I just try really hard to watch the first time without any expectations. Although sometimes, a girl needs to know that the next season gets better, to keep her moving forward. :)

[likeadeuce]

Also, I forgot to say, "Twin Peaks, hoorah!" I rewatched a lot of the first season last year for the first time since it aired (not sure why I stopped, there aren't that many episode) and I was really impressed with how it starts camouflaged as a pretty standard soap/procedural and just lets the weird leak in. Also impressed with how un-dated it looks (esp compared to other stuff from the late 80s/early 90s), which I attribute to a blending of contemporary and classic style.

[snickfic]

I was really impressed with how it starts camouflaged as a pretty standard soap/procedural and just lets the weird leak in.

YES. Aside from a moments that are just slightly off-kilter (Andy the sensitive policeman, everything with Pete), the polite seems so staid and sensible. HA HA. I've been telling people they need to watch at least three episodes, including the pilot, before they can really judge whether or not they might be interested.

[likeadeuce]

It's weird to think that the first season of that show was legitimately mainstream popular, even by the standards of a not-yet-fragmented-by-cable network audience. I don't know the numbers but probably WAY more people watched the first run of Twin Peaks than ever see most of the 'critically acclaimed' shows of today. Which, considering the content of the show, is pretty amazing -- and it also helps explain the logic by which the weirdness is slowly introduced.

[beer_good_foamy]

in S2 it feels like the show becomes less about Themes and Saying Something and more about just telling the story. Except, I was really enjoying the more structured (if slightly more artificial) approach of S1. Also in S2 I was becoming increasingly bored with the Existential Crisis of Don Draper.

The funny thing is, most of the complaints I've heard about the later seasons is that they've "run out of stories" (ie don't have any big juicy reveals left about Don Draper) and just want to do Themes. Which is what I love about them. It's one of the few shows that dares to openly challenge its viewers' sympathies and know when the Stylish Heroic Plucky characters are being complete assholes without giving the audience the easy way out of simply hating them. So I think you'll like the later seasons just fine.

[snickfic]

Yes, your description sounds very appealing to me! I look forward to getting past all the Don reveals and getting to Themes and Challenging Viewers' Sympathies.

[likeadeuce]

Well put.

I have thoughts on the Don Reveals but I should probably save them until Snick has seen at least the end of season 1.

[zanthinegirl]

That's pretty much exactly my thoughts on Downton Abbey season three!

I liked the early seasons of Dexter quite a bit, but honestly? After the *spoiler* I kind of gave up. I hear from other people that they're liking the current season though so there's that

I'm not quite rational on the subject of Babylon 5; I just love it so much. I highly recommend, and would be curious to hear your thoughts. If you do try, don't juge it all on season one. It really doesn't get going until season two!

[snickfic]

BLEAH Downton Abbey.

I had heard that Dexter got suddenly very bad circa S6, but I'm not sure I'd make it that far at any rate.

I did not realize you were a B5 fan! I know I have several others on my flist (ruuger, in particular). One thing I did like in the episodes I watched was how lived-in the world felt, unlike the Star Trek series I'd tried. Babylon 5 was a place with waste disposal and news reporters and things, and I very much liked that aspect.

[zanthinegirl]

re: Dexter-- the first two or three seasons are well worth watching. I don't think you have to feel bad if you give up there.

I was a big, big fan of B5 back in the day, though I was never a shipper. Well, maybe Ivanova and Marcus, but I think that's a requirement. Yeah, B5 is a very lived in universe. There's a whole episode about union organizers and strikes I can't in my wildest dreams imagine happening on ST. In a lot of ways it's kind of the prototype for BSG, though I honestly love B5 more. They just do such amazing things with the characters. So much love!

[snickfic]

I remember being favorably disposed towards Ivonova. I would be; she's exactly the sort of character I would like.

It doesn't seem to be on Netflixt Instant right now, alas. OTOH, it's less than $20 a season on Amazon. Hmm...

[chemm80]

Interesting! I have so many new friends on my flist, but I'm finding I don't know enough about some of them to even interact much (and I almost feel presumptuous jumping in and doing so, especially if it's something personal and I feel like I tuned in after the commercial break or something), so it's nice to start out talking about TV, I think.

Leverage has always been my happy-place show, the one I don't analyze or write fic for or worry (too much) about the unbelievable elements. I love Hardison's wit, and I think Eliot, Parker and Sophie are hot (in roughly that order), but I don't care much about Nate one way or the other.

The Vampire Diaries – I got bored, you guys.

Oh my god, me too...I had to force myself to watch the last few episodes of season 1. I couldn't stand Elena from the start (too whiny, too indecisive and too teenage drama queen) and I never cared about Stefan one way or the other, unless he was interacting with Damon. I stuck around as long as I did for Ian Somerhalder, and his snarky, pretty Damon.

I vaguely remember watching Twin Peaks back when it aired and enjoying it, but I can't remember a single thing about the story or characters, except that it was very odd. I seem to remember the series ending on a cliffhanger? Maybe...that was a LONG time ago.

As for SPN, it cracks me up how fans of this show are forever saying things like, "The writing is bad, the characterization is off, the plots don't make sense and they hate women...but I'm in this until the bitter end." I certainly don't exclude myself from that number, either. What is it about this show, lol?

[snickfic]

Hi, there! I know what you mean about dropping into conversations where you haven't been introduced yet. TV is generally a safe topic 'round these parts, though. :)

I had a lot of issues with TVD (the biggest being boredom), but Elena wasn't one of them. She had a lot of really awful things happen to her, and they just kept happening; I think anyone in those circumstances is due some angst.

Twin Peaks is indeed very odd. I can't imagine it getting on the air now, certainly not on network TV. I'm boggled that it managed two seasons even back then. I love the pacing of it, though, and I love about 80% of the characters and plotlines. There's such deliciously underplayed black comedy in it.

I've been a pretty staunch defender of SPN right up until... well, this last episode, actually. I hated this last episode a lot. And I do get very tired of how we kill off all the side characters and underdevelop all the female characters (which, let's be honest, this show has a lot of actually really interesting female characters). But it's still my show, and it's already put me through so much by this point that I have trouble imagining how it could put me off now.

[chemm80]

(which, let's be honest, this show has a lot of actually really interesting female characters).

colls and I were just talking about Gwen Campbell earlier today, and about how I'd paired her with Olivia Lowry in one fic because I really wanted to know more about both of them. (We also both want Gwen to get with Jo and Charlie, timelines be damned. *g*)

I guess I do have some loyalty to the show itself, even though I've not been particularly invested in the story arcs since...well, since Dean went to Hell, really. I don't think I'll ever completely stop loving Sam and Dean, though.

[sistabro]

SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES IS THE BEST. That is all. And then once where they left off at the end breaks your heart/leaves you tearing your hair out in narrative frustration, you then need to go read this fic Out on the Wire. I need to rewatch again.

Teen Wolf.. the second season is better. It's fun but I'm not super invested in it. I mostly watched it to be able to follow people's conversations about it and did enjoy it, just not fannishly.

I want to watch B5 too. I think it may be something I'd like. And also Twin Peaks, I def need to watch that.

[snickfic]

I don't know when I will get to T:SCC, but I've been meaning to for ages! This seems like a good year to try, though.

I watched the Teen Wolf pilot earlier this year, and although I fell in love with Stiles, otherwise I was bored. Also I kept going, "No, Scott, don't do that, NO NO SCOTT DON'T DO THAT." Which I find stressful. But I am promised excellent ladies, so.

TWIN PEAKS. It is a not-so-secret dream of mine for a Twin Peaks renaissance to happen here on my flist, where we all watch the show and make fic and stuff. I could totally write fic for this show, I think, which is rarely true even of shows I like. Twin Peaks is pretty special, though.

[pocochina]

It is a not-so-secret dream of mine for a Twin Peaks renaissance to happen here on my flist, where we all watch the show and make fic and stuff.

Yes please do! I'm kind of stuck in early S2 and I feel like that would push me into committing to watch the rest.

[snickfic]

I noticed in your 2012 TV summary that you said you'd watched some - did you talk about it? I don't remember this at all.

Anyway, yes, occasional bouts of Twin Peaks squee happen here as I watch more episodes. I'm on episode 11 now, and the initial suspense has slowed down some because of BIG THINGS happening in, um, 2.07. BIG THINGS. But I'm still loving it. (Although I hear some unfortunate plotting is going to strike here soonish, but that I should hold out becuase it gets better at the end.)

And then yes, I'd really like to try writing fic for it.

[pocochina]

I never did a post because I kept thinking I would have enough thoughts to put up when I finished it. Maybe that was a mistake and writing about it would have engaged me more. But, short story even shorter: I like the meta nature of it, and the way it totally embraces the cheesiness, and AUDREY. I feel like it has a really wonderful sense of place, for a part of the country I've never been, and that's always such a joy for me. But it's missing something to hook me in entirely, and I don't know what. I enjoy an episode when I watch it but I'm rarely eager to watch another one.

[snickfic]

Whereas one of the things I love about it is that it has a wonderful sense of place for a part of the country very, very similar to where I'm from. Woodsy far-north settings are just not common on TV, much less small-town ones, much less ones that actually feel like woodsy small towns. But the show was filmed not too far out of Seattle, up into the Cascades a little ways, and the authenticity really shows.

And yes, AUDREY. I continue to have conflicted but very strong feelings about Audrey; she's such a brat, and she's much more confident than is good for her, but at the same time she's got a bravery and true-to-herself quality that I really appreciate.

It's a show that I love when I watch it and then happily go for months without watching, and then come back and love it all over again. So I get what you mean about that. But I have the full series now, and finishing it up is top on my list of 2013 TV Things To Do. So perhaps that will inspire you. :)

[netgirl_y2k]

Sherlock - I watched the Irene Adler ep, and was both underwhelmed by the ep itself and overwhelmed by the fannish reaction to it. Plus, I'm apparently bored of the John-Sherlock dynamic.

Hi, brain twin! I alternated between epic boredom and being annoyed at Sherlock's dickishness. I just don't get the fuss

Babylon 5 (depending on my tolerance for cheesy plots and bad dialogue; the first ten eps that I watched years ago suggested that there were things there I would like a lot, but the writing was so bad)

B5 improves drastically after it's first season. If it were any other show I'd recommend starting later on, but for all its weaknesses S1 does set up some things that will have massively satisfying payoffs later on.

[snickfic]

To be fair, I really, really liked 1.01 A Study in Pink. It's just, I could happily have taken that as a standalone Holmes reimagining, and left it at that.

I have just ordered the first two seasons of B5 off Amazon, so there will probably be reports soonish! (I'm much more motivated to watch TV if I actually have the DVDs, even if it's also available via streamming.)

[pocochina]

I can't do Farscape either! I'm told S2 gets more cohesive, I am really intrigued by Aeryn and John (and Zhaan and her lesbian separatist commune, obvs) and so I'll probably give it another try, but....eh.

I keep saying I'm going to go back to Downton Abbey because Mary is one of Those Characters for me, but I never got around to recovering from my ragequit that everyone saw coming from a mile off. Maybe I'll catch up with it when it's airing on PBS?

Mad Men is amazing and I totally second the comments about S3&4 being strong. I think you have a lot to look forward to there.

ahahaha, BSG. I tip into loving it insanely because I think I care more about concept and character development than actual execution, but I completely agree with your analysis.

I think S8, so far, has done a pretty good job picking the elements of SPN that have made the show work for so long, and so I am cautiously optimistic that the groundwork I'm seeing for a strong season is there.

[snickfic]

I don't recall - when did you ragequit Downton Abbey? Was it at the end of S2, or before that? There was certainly plenty there to ragequit about, there at the end of the season. >:(

I do very much look forward to more Mad Men. I never meant to go so long without seeing more of it.

I think I care more about concept and character development than actual execution, but I completely agree with your analysis.

Ha ha, thank you! Coming from such a devoted fan as yourself, that means a lot. :)

[pocochina]

Whatever the episode was where Lavinia was all "I gladly sacrifice myself on the altar of the OTP!"

[snickfic]

YES THAT ONE. What even was that? What even?!? That was weird and awful on so many levels. And then (SPOILER) they keep drawing out Matthew's angst over these events for, like, ANOTHER HALF A SEASON. We can't even pretend it never happened because THE SHOW WON'T LET US.

This requires a lot of caps, okay?

[pocochina]

This requires a lot of caps, okay?

Or at the very least, laconic social-class-transgressive contempt.



such bullshit.

[goldenusagi]

To be fair, you saw Elijah in what, two episodes? (unless you watched further than you posted about). I didn't like him then, either.

Though it sounds like TVD just isn't a show that grabs you.

Also, I do not get Farscape, either.

[snickfic]

That's true. I didn't see very much of Elijah. But given how I was feeling about the rest of the show, I don't think he could have saved it.

Alas for Farscape. I wanted to like it... :(

[goldenusagi]

True. Possibly watching a show for a minor character is the wrong way to do it. However, if you're giving up on TVD and don't care about spoilers, let me show you why I think he's awesome, and why he and Elena have the definition of an uneasy alliance (which I know is one of your things, lol).

2x10, when I first became intrigued in what the hell he was up to:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQyVUmCDDGs

2x11, Elijah offers Elena a deal:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOzcYzcrk5U

2x14, Elijah bitchslaps Damon and later saves him from werewolves, lol:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbM2LKVcS10 (not strictly necessary to watch, but it's Elijah in Mystic Falls interacting with someone who's not Elena)

2x15, after Damon tries to kill Elijah and he says the deal is off, possibly Elena's most bamf moment in the entire show:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOfAknn7OvQ

2x19, Elena wakes up Elijah as a last resort because Damon's plan to kill Klaus involves Bonnie dying:
http://youtu.be/FPyQnGo4xgc?t=1m48s (should start in the middle)

2x19, Elijah needs Elena alive, and they both know it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rnmUUL-WuI (not necessary to watch after 1:45)

Their relationship is just very peculiar. Elijah fully intends to sacrifice Elena (for a mystical reason that is NOT breaking the Sun and Moon curse), but once Elena figures out that he needs her alive, that's her one weapon to get him to do what she wants in the mean time. And also because Elijah is truly immortal, you can't actually kill him, so you have to figure out some way to deal with him other than the Salvatores' usual method of kill kill kill. In spite of being a mystical object (the doppelganger), it gives Elena all the power in her dealings with Elijah. And then she kind of impresses him a lot, and then they keep soulfully looking at each other in 2x19, and then I ship it, lol.

[snickfic]

Thank you very much for the links! When I am at a computer with Real Internet again, I will check them out. :)