You may have noticed some very popular TV shows missing from yesterday's list.
Dexter.
Let's get this out of the way, I like Dexter. But it is a deeply flawed show. Not in the endearingly stupid manner of Doctor Who or numerous Sci-Fi series. It's just not very well made all the time. The first season of Dexter was a masterpiece. Plain and simple. The forth season was also wonderful. However, the rest are problematic.
There's a simple reason for this: Dexter doesn't know what to do with any of it's characters. Oh, they're funny, and have personalities which complement each other and there's some genuine comedy between them, but none of them are interesting. The only people in Dexter who are interesting are his adversaries.
Dexter himself is boring by definition. He is an emotionless wreck, and therefore can only be dry and simple. There isn't a single member of the supporting cast who made me wonder "What's going to happen to this person next?" Unless they were on Dexter's tail. And everyone who is on his tail is not really ever presented as a dilemma, just an obstacle. (Except for one notable case, which for the sake of spoilers, I'll have to be subtle about mentioning.)
The best seasons of Dexter are the ones with the best villains, which are undoubtedly the first and fourth seasons. But after every season is done, everything pretty much gets reset. not completely reset, just enough that after the initial fallout in the first two episodes of the next season, pretty much all the tension has gone back down to a cool simmer.
This is the crux of the issue. All of the problems described so far could be remedied by the introduction of true consequences. Dexter wouldn't stay boring forever as his character grew and changed, Batista, Laguerta and Masuka would have something to do every once in a while, and we might eventually get the sense that Dexter is actually slightly better than some of the people he tortures to death.
But the only people who get this sort of treatment in the show are his sister Deb, who slowly works her way towards the revelation that her brother could be responsible for all the heinous crimes around her, his girlfriend/wife Rita, who is trying to get over a past abusive partner who raped and beat her, and her two children, who are witnesses to the aforementioned abuses. Although the growth shows huge potential throughout the show, it never really goes anywhere, except in Deb's case, but one character growing a bit (and taking 7 seasons to do it) is not really enough to redeem this problem. And it means that they do know how to make a half decent character arc, they just decided not to for their other characters.
The final problem with Dexter is the emptiness of the thing. A friend and I used to watch entire seasons of it in a night. And it wasn't until we finished season 4 that we realised we'd been watching it at 1.3x normal speed the entire time. I'm serious. And it still felt slow and vacant. If the seasons were half as long, then it would feel much tighter and more focus, and it would be looked on a lot more favourably by me and a few others.
You should still watch it, and I still like it, just be aware of the problems.
The Walking Dead.
Undoubtedly the best trailer for a tv show I've ever seen. Seriously, go on youtube and watch the initial trailer for this show. It's unbelievable. I was so excited when I first saw that, I made everyone I could find watch it. I sat in anticipation for months.
Then the first episode came out, and it was brilliant. I absolutely love the pilot for the Walking Dead. It's one of the best I've ever seen. Unfortunately, the show has been gradually losing that spark ever since. The first episode had style, and class, and a brilliant ending. But they lost the momentum quickly. The rest of the show suffers from the problem of not having much happen. Huge, barren wastes of characters arguing with each other and crying, then every now and then zombies come and 2 or 3 people are killed off. It just doesn't seem well paced to me.
Issue number one is the blandness of the characters. They just aren't interesting. I don't care about what they want, or why they do things. They're all just trying to survive a zombie apocalypse, which is fair enough, but they're so one-dimensional that it's impossible to become engaged or enthralled by them.
It also seems like someone decided to remake Lost with zombies instead of mystery. They've got the characters from all walks of life thrown into a survival situation together after a catastrophe, the show attempts to give them dark pasts and motivations, although it fails in this respect. They even did the love-triangle thing for a while, although it had a much more satisfying end in The Walking Dead than in Lost. (Death by stabbing.)
The problem is that a nebulous and complex mystery is simply more engaging than zombies. And there's no two ways about it. the greatest test of storytelling is, while someone's reading a book or watching a show or playing a game, pause it suddenly on them, or pull the book out of their hands, and say: "What do you hope happens next?" a good, immersive, well crafted experience like Lost would have me answer: "I want to find out who Ben is you fucker! Turn it back on and shut up!" or "I just want Charlie to be happy!" followed by a brief spell of sobbing and talk of ninjas leaving onions around the place again and making your eyes water. fucking ninjas. (sob).
The Walking Dead can't really do this. Oh, it has it's moments for sure, but they don't rise organically out of the subject matter as in Lost or Breaking Bad. They must be painstakingly manufactured in an obvious manner. You can tell when a dilemma or turning point is coming in The Walking Dead is coming, and it's usually brief, jarring and then the story just moves on. And the fact that most of these events happen in the same way is getting old.
"We've been sitting around arguing for three episodes now, and the audience is getting bored, oh shit! someone made a stupid mistake and now two more cast members have turned into zombies and are about to become part of someone else's personal growth when they have to put them down."
Still a good show, but not really in the ranks of the others I mentioned.
Boardwalk Empire.
Stunning work, brilliant setting, impeccable characters and writing and a beautiful soundtrack. The only reason this wasn't there is that I'm really far behind on it, because of reasons. Here's some other shows which everyone should watch but I'm not finished with and thus can't talk about at length:
The Sopranos.
Deadwood.
The Shield.
Utopia.
Honorable mentions from last time:
There are also 3 webseries that you absolutely must watch.
Video Game High School.
One of the flashiest and most groundbreaking online series ever, it's high production cost, twisting narrative and unique premise, coupled with humour, well-written romance and several cameos both from online personalities and network televison actors, make it a joy to behold. There's only two seasons on youtube, about 4 hours in total. Go and see it.
Red Vs Blue.
Undoubtedly the oldest webseries still going today. Starting in 2003, it follows two groups of spartan soldiers fighting over a box canyon in the middle of nowhere. Initially it was just a comedy. One of the best comedies I've ever seen, but just a comedy. But about halfway through the show's run, creator, Burnie Burns decided to add a serious element to the story. With fantastic characters, and some of the best twists in any series I've ever seen, you will kick yourself for not having watched it already. The first 5 seasons are on youtube as single, hour long hd videos, and I could not recommend it highly enough. Featuring cameos from Ed Robertson of the Barenaked Ladies, and fucking Elijah fucking Wood as the villain in season 10.
Marble Hornets.
Go and watch Marble hornets right now. Seriously. Right now. Or wait until dark, it's better in the dark.
Most of the episodes are only a minute or two in length, but it's brilliant. Probably the single scariest piece of visual media ever made. And I'm not exaggerating.
Stupid, shitty games like Slender made the Slenderman a meme among the idiots and brain-damaged walruses that make up the majority of the internet. But Marble Hornets is what codified the monster in the first place. This shit is genuinely terrifying. Mainly because it understands pacing and subtlety. Something that tv and movies can't by design. You can't spend a multi-million dollar movie budget on subtle horror that the audience may or may not notice. Marble Hornets isn't constrained by that. and because of this, it fucking shines.
This has been an Empirical Opinions journal, allow me to play you out:
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