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30 days of your favorite TV show meme, days 6-8
Catching up in this post as my internet connection has been very spotty.
6) Favorite writer (This is an alternate question, as the original question showed its Doctor Who origins by asking about the best title sequence.)
I have two answers for this. Overall I'd pick Patrick Harbinson, who could do both plot and great characterization (he wrote "Number Crunch" among others) but who unfortunately left the show after S2.
So my favorite writer who's still working on the show is Sean Hennen. His plots aren't generally the show's best, but he writes fantastic Finch-and-Reese interaction: playful, deeply affectionate, and flirtatious as hell. It's Hennen who gave us Finch and Reese going to the movies together on their day off (in "Proteus") as well as the almost-literal suit porn in S1 (the bit in "Risk" where Finch does some tailoring of Reese's suit. on his knees. in the dark.) and in S3 (if you've seen S3 you'll know the bit I mean, but I will say no more because spoilers).
Sean Hennen also gave us what are, so far, the only canonically queer characters with speaking roles: the heart surgeon and her wife in "Critical." So I consider him to be on my side, as it were, and that's a nice feeling.
7) Most romantic moment
Nothing says "I love you" like leaving a place of safety to find your bomb-vest-wearing friend and either save him or die with him.
8) Favorite character moment (another alternate question)
I'm going to name two, one sad and one . . . also pretty sad. First of all, there's the heartbreaking scene at the end of S2 when Harold, injured and emotionally shattered by Nathan's death, hobbles up to the library and asks the machine, "Did you know?" Harold becomes a different kind of person in that scene, and Michael Emerson plays it beautifully, suggesting a dozen whirling emotions without overacting any of them.
My other favorite, which is funny at first and then sad, is Harold on ecstasy in "Identity Crisis." Of course it's funny to see him be happy and silly and dumb, but then you realize that the humor comes from the contrast to how tightly-wound, inhibited and unhappy he normally is, and that's less funny. The kicker, of course, is that final moment when John wanders off into the library and Harold murmurs happily, lovingly, "Good night, Nathan." In that moment of having forgotten his loss, Harold is all glowing contentment . . . but we viewers remember that Nathan is dead and Harold's happiness in this moment is based on an illusion.
Of course in real, undrugged life Harold was probably never as happy as in that scene, but we know that Nathan did give him a certain kind of happiness and emotional security that is gone. By this point Harold is already well on his way to building a new emotional connection with John, one that echoes the older one with Nathan in a lot of ways--as the scene emphasizes--but a new relationship with a new person doesn't eliminate or invalidate the pain of loss.
6) Favorite writer (This is an alternate question, as the original question showed its Doctor Who origins by asking about the best title sequence.)
I have two answers for this. Overall I'd pick Patrick Harbinson, who could do both plot and great characterization (he wrote "Number Crunch" among others) but who unfortunately left the show after S2.
So my favorite writer who's still working on the show is Sean Hennen. His plots aren't generally the show's best, but he writes fantastic Finch-and-Reese interaction: playful, deeply affectionate, and flirtatious as hell. It's Hennen who gave us Finch and Reese going to the movies together on their day off (in "Proteus") as well as the almost-literal suit porn in S1 (the bit in "Risk" where Finch does some tailoring of Reese's suit. on his knees. in the dark.) and in S3 (if you've seen S3 you'll know the bit I mean, but I will say no more because spoilers).
Sean Hennen also gave us what are, so far, the only canonically queer characters with speaking roles: the heart surgeon and her wife in "Critical." So I consider him to be on my side, as it were, and that's a nice feeling.
7) Most romantic moment
Nothing says "I love you" like leaving a place of safety to find your bomb-vest-wearing friend and either save him or die with him.
8) Favorite character moment (another alternate question)
I'm going to name two, one sad and one . . . also pretty sad. First of all, there's the heartbreaking scene at the end of S2 when Harold, injured and emotionally shattered by Nathan's death, hobbles up to the library and asks the machine, "Did you know?" Harold becomes a different kind of person in that scene, and Michael Emerson plays it beautifully, suggesting a dozen whirling emotions without overacting any of them.
My other favorite, which is funny at first and then sad, is Harold on ecstasy in "Identity Crisis." Of course it's funny to see him be happy and silly and dumb, but then you realize that the humor comes from the contrast to how tightly-wound, inhibited and unhappy he normally is, and that's less funny. The kicker, of course, is that final moment when John wanders off into the library and Harold murmurs happily, lovingly, "Good night, Nathan." In that moment of having forgotten his loss, Harold is all glowing contentment . . . but we viewers remember that Nathan is dead and Harold's happiness in this moment is based on an illusion.
Of course in real, undrugged life Harold was probably never as happy as in that scene, but we know that Nathan did give him a certain kind of happiness and emotional security that is gone. By this point Harold is already well on his way to building a new emotional connection with John, one that echoes the older one with Nathan in a lot of ways--as the scene emphasizes--but a new relationship with a new person doesn't eliminate or invalidate the pain of loss.