the trend is not encouraging
May. 10th, 2011 06:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kindkitWhat the hell has happened to Sanctuary? For two and a half seasons it got (for the most part) better and better, then suddenly in the second half of S3 there've been five dire episodes in a row. And dire in a tedious, uncreative way--it's not that the show took risks and failed, but that it hasn't taken any risks, in fact its ambitions could hardly be lower, and it's still failed.
I suspect some of the problem is a directive from On High telling the showrunners to (a) cut the budget and (b) make episodes that are easy for new viewers to understand. So we get a retread of the boring early episodes of S1, with Abby and Erika as the new POV characters. And waaaaaay too much focus on Will and especially on Will's love-life. And most of the rest of the main ensemble sidelined--even Helen! Not to mention great secondary characters like Declan and Tesla vanishing.
Still, none of that fully explains the badness of the writing.
Or Abby. Abby is inexplicable. She's very pretty, but the way she's written is implausible (has any FBI agent in history been that dumb and incompetent?) and the actor doesn't seem to know how to convey sweetness and warmth except through giggling, high-pitched babyish speech patterns, and perky little handclaps. I've tried to give her a chance, but I dislike her more every time.
Abby's presence in "Wingman" helped to make me like Erika, who in comparison is a paragon of wit, poise, and genius. And to be fair, Erika is genuinely a lot more interesting now that she's started to find herself and isn't a near-helpless ingenue under her aunt's thumb. So, naturally, the show chose to get rid of Erika and keep Abby OH GOD WHY? And I say this as someone who really doesn't want to see Henry in a het relationship, okay, and whose still-unfinished Henry/Big Guy story was terminally jossed by "Wingman." But Abby is an appalling limp dishrag of a character, and I hate to see even Erika written off in her favor, let alone the marginalization of women characters with much more depth, agency, and importance to the ensemble. Also, Will becomes a fatuous, selfish jackass whenever he's near here. Will's never been my favorite character, but I always thought he was dull, never that he was a jerk.
About the only part I did like about "Wingman" was Henry rolling his eyes whenever Abby did or said something especially ridiculous. I wonder if that was in the script or if it was Ryan Robbins's own little contribution.
Apparently (I haven't seen next week's trailer, although I'm spoiled for who's in the episode) we'll be returning to more interesting things now. I hope this run of crap episodes was just a fluke. But show: no more Will-and-Abby rom-com episodes. No more focus on characters' love lives, at least not unless the love interest is a real, well-thought-out character, not a cipher or a stereotype. No more "girl of the week," especially if the girl of the week then wears out her welcome by sticking around for episode after episode without acquiring a tolerable personality. Let's have more ensemble, more proper adventures, more development of the characters who are already there, more friendship, more creativity (which doesn't have to mean more budget). Stop giving us episodes that are designed for new viewers, especially when even the first time around you weren't able to make the exposition interesting. Credit your viewers with some intelligence and taste, and assume they can "identify with" (pah, I hate that phrase!) one of the wide variety of existing characters and don't need a blank slate POV-bot. (And I get it now! That's who Abby is! She's the Buffybot, only reprogrammed with a new name.)
I've never seen a show decline so far, so fast as Sanctuary has done in season 3.5. If I were a new viewer and these eps were all I'd seen, I'd never suspect how good the show could be.
I suspect some of the problem is a directive from On High telling the showrunners to (a) cut the budget and (b) make episodes that are easy for new viewers to understand. So we get a retread of the boring early episodes of S1, with Abby and Erika as the new POV characters. And waaaaaay too much focus on Will and especially on Will's love-life. And most of the rest of the main ensemble sidelined--even Helen! Not to mention great secondary characters like Declan and Tesla vanishing.
Still, none of that fully explains the badness of the writing.
Or Abby. Abby is inexplicable. She's very pretty, but the way she's written is implausible (has any FBI agent in history been that dumb and incompetent?) and the actor doesn't seem to know how to convey sweetness and warmth except through giggling, high-pitched babyish speech patterns, and perky little handclaps. I've tried to give her a chance, but I dislike her more every time.
Abby's presence in "Wingman" helped to make me like Erika, who in comparison is a paragon of wit, poise, and genius. And to be fair, Erika is genuinely a lot more interesting now that she's started to find herself and isn't a near-helpless ingenue under her aunt's thumb. So, naturally, the show chose to get rid of Erika and keep Abby OH GOD WHY? And I say this as someone who really doesn't want to see Henry in a het relationship, okay, and whose still-unfinished Henry/Big Guy story was terminally jossed by "Wingman." But Abby is an appalling limp dishrag of a character, and I hate to see even Erika written off in her favor, let alone the marginalization of women characters with much more depth, agency, and importance to the ensemble. Also, Will becomes a fatuous, selfish jackass whenever he's near here. Will's never been my favorite character, but I always thought he was dull, never that he was a jerk.
About the only part I did like about "Wingman" was Henry rolling his eyes whenever Abby did or said something especially ridiculous. I wonder if that was in the script or if it was Ryan Robbins's own little contribution.
Apparently (I haven't seen next week's trailer, although I'm spoiled for who's in the episode) we'll be returning to more interesting things now. I hope this run of crap episodes was just a fluke. But show: no more Will-and-Abby rom-com episodes. No more focus on characters' love lives, at least not unless the love interest is a real, well-thought-out character, not a cipher or a stereotype. No more "girl of the week," especially if the girl of the week then wears out her welcome by sticking around for episode after episode without acquiring a tolerable personality. Let's have more ensemble, more proper adventures, more development of the characters who are already there, more friendship, more creativity (which doesn't have to mean more budget). Stop giving us episodes that are designed for new viewers, especially when even the first time around you weren't able to make the exposition interesting. Credit your viewers with some intelligence and taste, and assume they can "identify with" (pah, I hate that phrase!) one of the wide variety of existing characters and don't need a blank slate POV-bot. (And I get it now! That's who Abby is! She's the Buffybot, only reprogrammed with a new name.)
I've never seen a show decline so far, so fast as Sanctuary has done in season 3.5. If I were a new viewer and these eps were all I'd seen, I'd never suspect how good the show could be.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-11 02:06 am (UTC)I haven't seen Wingman yet - it's starting to be a bit hard to make myself watch the show right now. And Abby, poor Abby. I'm in the middle of writing an FBI big bang, with X-Files and Twin Peaks characters, and I've researched training and entry requirements. It hurts me so much to see the way they're writing a professional, who is a scientist, who wouldn't have gotten in the Bureau if she wasn't top of her game, who can drop and give you an average of 30 push-ups in a minute. And they make her titter.
*shakes fists in frustration*
no subject
Date: 2011-05-11 03:30 am (UTC)It hurts me so much to see the way they're writing a professional
Exactly. If they'd decided to write Abby as a naive rich girl who got bored with the trust-fund lifestyle and decided to take an interest in the Sanctuary, I'd find her much more plausible and less offensive. Or even if she was, I dunno, a preschool teacher or something where being giggly and childish and stereotypically ultra-feminine would make sense.