Blood Ties, disc 2
Aug. 10th, 2008 11:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethStill liking it.
Still think it's not quite there yet.
There's a bit too much 'poor woobie misunderstood vampire who only kills the really bad people' and a whole lot too little sense of tension or debate about it. I've never got the feeling the cop is supposed to be right about where the line is. So there's no sense Vicki is pulled between or choosing between.
Also - she's not dated either of them? She's not had sex with either of them? Am I remembering wrong, or is that a change? For what reason? She's a grown woman, she can shag people if she wants.
Also there's the thing where she keeps *saying* she's half blind, but she doesn't turn the lights on when she walks into a place, she doesn't seem to have any low light problems, she only that one time drove the car wiggly, she takes her glasses off all the time... I'm not seeing the not seeing. Which actually may not be a flaw. She's not seeing but she's dealing with it so we're not seeing the not seeing. Just... Eh. They're not having fun with visuals from her point of view, even though they do silly heat vision shots for monster vision... I think they're wasting it.
I like Coreen. I like Coreen's clothes and hair and knowledge. She's research girl and she can pull exactly the right info out of a university library and recognise different guns and she built her own flamethrower... even if it did only work for one shot and that wasted. Basically I want to keep her.
Specifics of episodes...
The first episode on the disc seemed to be setting up the brown guy as the killer. I was *facepalm* and said it had one chance or I was out of there. Thankfully it was setting up the brown guy as a decoy, so phew, I get to keep watching. There just hadn't been enough episodes yet to really rely on that.
I love the diversity, the casual background diversity like the way any random cop walking past is about even chances to be white. I love it that there's so many women characters they're actually making up half the cast *and* background people. There's Vicki, Coreen, the nice lady at the morgue who I can't spell but she gets a name too, the cop lady who is the boss of Mike, the cop lady who is not the boss of Mike, and the professor lady who does occult research. All keep turning up, all keep talking to more of each other, all have an interesting angle on the situation, and all have some professional or research stuff to bring to the deal. We do not have a story full of victims here.
Has happy!
Has the feeling this is rare. Has the feeling this isn't like Angel. Hmmm.
Evildoer count:
One jealous husband, one man who kills for religion, one woman who kills because she was raped once, one man who kills for money. So it isn't turning into the evil women show. Good*2.
There's elements of the good stuff in there, about power, life and death, use and abuse, good guys and bad guys, good women and bad women. Nice even distribution, some rough places.
It's a promising start, but there's stuff I'm not feeling.
Though some of that could be cause of knowing some bits already. Like they don't feel like we're being shown them because I knew that already. Maybe the balance feels off because of that.
... not just that.
If you're going to have a vampire who has killed, and a cop who thinks this is a bad thing, then the points you need to hit include there's no statute of limitations on murder and killing people is bad. Items for the defence then become the way hanging on to really old grudges twists things and people can be doing good work now. If you only present the defence side... we have an overly pretty overly confident killer, and teh bad guy is the guy trying to stop him. Um, scuse? Issues?
Eh.
Good thing: The vampire is the sidekick. The cop is the sidekick. The women are the smart ones and the one the story is about.
And I think it's getting better.
You know what though? I don't really care who Vicki dates. And they're acting like I should care. So that's a whole chunk out of the middle missed. *shrugs*
Still think it's not quite there yet.
There's a bit too much 'poor woobie misunderstood vampire who only kills the really bad people' and a whole lot too little sense of tension or debate about it. I've never got the feeling the cop is supposed to be right about where the line is. So there's no sense Vicki is pulled between or choosing between.
Also - she's not dated either of them? She's not had sex with either of them? Am I remembering wrong, or is that a change? For what reason? She's a grown woman, she can shag people if she wants.
Also there's the thing where she keeps *saying* she's half blind, but she doesn't turn the lights on when she walks into a place, she doesn't seem to have any low light problems, she only that one time drove the car wiggly, she takes her glasses off all the time... I'm not seeing the not seeing. Which actually may not be a flaw. She's not seeing but she's dealing with it so we're not seeing the not seeing. Just... Eh. They're not having fun with visuals from her point of view, even though they do silly heat vision shots for monster vision... I think they're wasting it.
I like Coreen. I like Coreen's clothes and hair and knowledge. She's research girl and she can pull exactly the right info out of a university library and recognise different guns and she built her own flamethrower... even if it did only work for one shot and that wasted. Basically I want to keep her.
Specifics of episodes...
The first episode on the disc seemed to be setting up the brown guy as the killer. I was *facepalm* and said it had one chance or I was out of there. Thankfully it was setting up the brown guy as a decoy, so phew, I get to keep watching. There just hadn't been enough episodes yet to really rely on that.
I love the diversity, the casual background diversity like the way any random cop walking past is about even chances to be white. I love it that there's so many women characters they're actually making up half the cast *and* background people. There's Vicki, Coreen, the nice lady at the morgue who I can't spell but she gets a name too, the cop lady who is the boss of Mike, the cop lady who is not the boss of Mike, and the professor lady who does occult research. All keep turning up, all keep talking to more of each other, all have an interesting angle on the situation, and all have some professional or research stuff to bring to the deal. We do not have a story full of victims here.
Has happy!
Has the feeling this is rare. Has the feeling this isn't like Angel. Hmmm.
Evildoer count:
One jealous husband, one man who kills for religion, one woman who kills because she was raped once, one man who kills for money. So it isn't turning into the evil women show. Good*2.
There's elements of the good stuff in there, about power, life and death, use and abuse, good guys and bad guys, good women and bad women. Nice even distribution, some rough places.
It's a promising start, but there's stuff I'm not feeling.
Though some of that could be cause of knowing some bits already. Like they don't feel like we're being shown them because I knew that already. Maybe the balance feels off because of that.
... not just that.
If you're going to have a vampire who has killed, and a cop who thinks this is a bad thing, then the points you need to hit include there's no statute of limitations on murder and killing people is bad. Items for the defence then become the way hanging on to really old grudges twists things and people can be doing good work now. If you only present the defence side... we have an overly pretty overly confident killer, and teh bad guy is the guy trying to stop him. Um, scuse? Issues?
Eh.
Good thing: The vampire is the sidekick. The cop is the sidekick. The women are the smart ones and the one the story is about.
And I think it's getting better.
You know what though? I don't really care who Vicki dates. And they're acting like I should care. So that's a whole chunk out of the middle missed. *shrugs*