Tru Calling season 1
May. 24th, 2006 07:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethHave now finished watching Tru Calling up to the end of the first season.
Which was the episode that got me to buy the DVDs in the first place.
Only 6 episodes in season 2?
Grrr! Arrgh!
Network suits.
But. I kind of felt like they spent the whole first season setting up the basic premis. I mean, the early Tru only episodes were okay, apart from how annoying I found her then. But only once Jack started to play did they really totally grab me. Especially since he isn't just the bad guy, he has a plausible point of view. Who he chose to use to demonstrate it seems like spite, but if Tru saving someone she cared about inevitably would result in the death of someone else, then making it someone she cared about is from a certain perspective fair. "I didn't know it would be one of us" is too easy to get into. Tru saves the ones she sees and doesn't have to see the consequences. He shows her.
Except I believe he is working from a false premis. There is no fate but what we make, and the universe not only doesn't keep strict books, it probably doesn't keep books at all. That being the case, save the one in front of you, and live in hope.
Of course the whole thing where their universe rewinds them tends to suggest something bigger than them is up, and if he's been told that is the why, I can see why he would buy it. But in doing so he seems to be buying despair, yes? No hope for an out.
*But* he has also said that he believes the dead go to a better place. In sure and certain hope of the resurrection, says the funeral. Given *that*, then keeping people alive is just plain selfish. After all, they go to the good place, its only the people here who suffer.
One has to wonder, if he believes in heaven, does he also believe in hell?
Because then redemption becomes a factor.
But he was dead.
The way he told it the first time made it a few minutes in elsewhere.
The way he told it the second time made it sound like the *rewind* saved him, because he experienced the day over again and... knew when to duck? Or just didn't try and shield the victim? Because that would be an interesting point.
There's a lot of problem trying to figure out Jack, because he lies like he breathes, continuously. He lies to create an effect.
But so does *Tru*, and the story calls her on it sometimes too, like when she nearly saved that med student but got caught giving her no reason to trust.
Giving Tru an equal and opposite takes the whole show from trite and comfortable pleasures of life=yaay to a complex philosophical debate played out with lives at stake. And *that* was what grabbed me.
And knowing it only has a half dozen stories in that mode?
No fair.
In random comment: What is it with characters called Jack? Is there, like, a quota? Jack Harper in this, which incidentally turns up a whole bunch of characters on imdb. Jack Harkness on Doctor Who. Jacks everywhere.
In possibly more random though on topic comment: On the DVD menu right now Tru is posing on a morgue tray. Is it just me or is that, like, very creepy? I mean she isn't half naked or anything, but morgue and pretty are just not things I try and associate.
ETA: season 2 bit: Jack mentions the surgeon that pulled a bullet out his neck, and a coma. With a whole lot of detail. Did he get shot both times? Because coma says longer than one day. Also he mentioned previously a precise length of time his heart had stopped, which if true also suggests it was in regular time and not rewound for how else would he that data have?
He gets more interesting. I mean there he is, an EMT, saving lives, and then he switches sides? What did he see?
Which was the episode that got me to buy the DVDs in the first place.
Only 6 episodes in season 2?
Grrr! Arrgh!
Network suits.
But. I kind of felt like they spent the whole first season setting up the basic premis. I mean, the early Tru only episodes were okay, apart from how annoying I found her then. But only once Jack started to play did they really totally grab me. Especially since he isn't just the bad guy, he has a plausible point of view. Who he chose to use to demonstrate it seems like spite, but if Tru saving someone she cared about inevitably would result in the death of someone else, then making it someone she cared about is from a certain perspective fair. "I didn't know it would be one of us" is too easy to get into. Tru saves the ones she sees and doesn't have to see the consequences. He shows her.
Except I believe he is working from a false premis. There is no fate but what we make, and the universe not only doesn't keep strict books, it probably doesn't keep books at all. That being the case, save the one in front of you, and live in hope.
Of course the whole thing where their universe rewinds them tends to suggest something bigger than them is up, and if he's been told that is the why, I can see why he would buy it. But in doing so he seems to be buying despair, yes? No hope for an out.
*But* he has also said that he believes the dead go to a better place. In sure and certain hope of the resurrection, says the funeral. Given *that*, then keeping people alive is just plain selfish. After all, they go to the good place, its only the people here who suffer.
One has to wonder, if he believes in heaven, does he also believe in hell?
Because then redemption becomes a factor.
But he was dead.
The way he told it the first time made it a few minutes in elsewhere.
The way he told it the second time made it sound like the *rewind* saved him, because he experienced the day over again and... knew when to duck? Or just didn't try and shield the victim? Because that would be an interesting point.
There's a lot of problem trying to figure out Jack, because he lies like he breathes, continuously. He lies to create an effect.
But so does *Tru*, and the story calls her on it sometimes too, like when she nearly saved that med student but got caught giving her no reason to trust.
Giving Tru an equal and opposite takes the whole show from trite and comfortable pleasures of life=yaay to a complex philosophical debate played out with lives at stake. And *that* was what grabbed me.
And knowing it only has a half dozen stories in that mode?
No fair.
In random comment: What is it with characters called Jack? Is there, like, a quota? Jack Harper in this, which incidentally turns up a whole bunch of characters on imdb. Jack Harkness on Doctor Who. Jacks everywhere.
In possibly more random though on topic comment: On the DVD menu right now Tru is posing on a morgue tray. Is it just me or is that, like, very creepy? I mean she isn't half naked or anything, but morgue and pretty are just not things I try and associate.
ETA: season 2 bit: Jack mentions the surgeon that pulled a bullet out his neck, and a coma. With a whole lot of detail. Did he get shot both times? Because coma says longer than one day. Also he mentioned previously a precise length of time his heart had stopped, which if true also suggests it was in regular time and not rewound for how else would he that data have?
He gets more interesting. I mean there he is, an EMT, saving lives, and then he switches sides? What did he see?