![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jedi_of_urth posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
tori_reviewsSo...I didn't mean for that to turn into a full two month hiatus, I thought I would just slow down on posting. But, new year, time to actually get back to this (for a little while...at least). I may focus on TVD for a while, as I still have a bigger stock pile of reviews for that.
The Vampire Diaries 1x03: Friday Night Bites
This episode brought to you be compulsion.
This episode is…odd, and I’m not sure how I feel about it. There’s enough good here that I want to give it a decent grade (haven’t decided if I’ll do grades for this show overall), but I do feel a bit like the story is treading water in this one. In some way, that’s part of what works (what do I say about needing to have a status quo before breaking it), but it feels like we just end up doing the same plot points over and over, and kind of worse this time.
I do want to comment on how Damon trying to create a version of events that crams the Damon/Katherine/Stefan mess into something that happened less than a century ago doesn’t really work. While the truth of ~17 year-old Stefan and ~22 year-old Damon sharing a girlfriend is…iffy, it is made marginally less so by it being 1864 when different things were iffy; the necessary idea for the fiction that ~15 year-old Stefan and ~20 year-old Damon were sharing a girlfriend in the modern day raises some questions that presently no one is trying to ask.
As for the Caroline plot…I’m sort of torn. On one hand, it’s so early in the show that the audience hasn’t built up a lot of affection for Caroline and we don’t have any idea what’s in character and what isn’t. On the other, this plot kind of has to happen early in the show, because it is establishing something about Damon, that being that he’s the villain of the piece. Whether or not people (or even the writers) really take that fact away from this plot, that’s why it’s there, so that we are especially creeped out when Damon tries using the same sort of tricks with Elena.
But that’s where the show is doing something weird. Because it’s establishing Damon as the villain at the same time it’s trying to build sympathy for him. I think there is a bit of Rorschach test to this episode in that way. There’s a spectrum of how much you can react to each end, but that spectrum is between sympathizing with him and liking that Elena is sympathetic to him, or thinking he’s the irredeemable villain of the piece who needs to die.
I think the first time I was going through this, I was kind of in the middle, still able to be persuaded to either side (although probably thinking they were going to need one hell of a redemption arc before I was really going to like him). But I have since gone to one side, so I just want him dead.
The other weird writing trick it’s doing, is not writing Caroline very sympathetically. In some ways this is a product of how the early show hadn’t quite settled on her character, but it’s also unfortunate as I think it’s there so the audience isn’t too upset by what’s happening with her and Damon.
In some ways this episode is still very TVD time, in others it actually seems to allow there to be some time for people to have a life. It picks up pretty quickly after the last episode, but it does seem to cover a few days that we don’t need to see because life is just happening. And I could work with that if the show got a little better at it.
I don’t think we’re getting into Bonnie’s head enough with her subplot. But I’m feeling tolerant to that so far because it’s only episode three and there are a lot of plots/subplots to get in motion,
The Stefan/Elena stuff this episode is…interesting. Superficially, it’s pretty cute; in a lot of ways I think this is kind of how they both see their relationship for a lot longer than it lasts in this honeymoon phase. But in that same way it seems very naïve. Because it can’t stay in the honeymoon phase, and not just because no relationship does; because the fall from what they pretend their relationship is to what it will actually be is a steep one.
I feel like both of their individual arcs this episode needed some more time though. This is Stefan wanting to be more human in more ways than just dating Elena who looks like Katherine. I would kind of like to see him spend more time with the team, maybe understand a little more why he wants to join, maybe we spend more time seeing how it can be difficult for him since people get hurt and there can be blood around him. If they wanted to characterize Stefan outside of Elena and Damon, this would be a golden opportunity.
And Elena’s decision to try getting back to her old self and ultimately deciding she’s not her old self is a valid arc, I just wish we got more insight into it. We don’t really know what drew her to cheerleading in the first place, or whether she actually doesn’t enjoy it now. Because I can believe her heart just isn’t in it, and that maybe it never fully was, she just didn’t notice until she lost that old version of herself. But I don’t think it’s well communicated to the audience. It’s easy to invent a reason why she feels the way she does, but I’m not sure the show actually does.
I am knocking a couple points off Matt’s character score this episode. Because as predicted, they don’t go any further with what was said about Tyler and Vicki last episode. What he gets upset with Tyler for is a bit of a mixed bag, but it’s not that Tyler is mistreating his sister. Matt let himself get talked into being a jerk to Stefan when it clearly isn’t really his instinct to get in a pissing match; getting mad about Tyler egging on jerk behavior I suppose is a reason for their friendship to be strained. But then you bring in the Jeremy aspect. And it is further evidence of Tyler being a jerk and a bully (he was determined to pick a fight that Jeremy likewise let himself get pulled into), but because Matt doesn’t acknowledge the accusations from last episode, it makes it seem like he’s more upset about Elena’s brother than his own sister. And that’s unfortunate; because I would analyze Matt’s outburst to Tyler differently without that hanging over the story.
(And yes, I know that’s two episodes in a row where I make Tyler’s assault of Vicki more about Matt’s development than Vicki herself, and I do feel bad about that. But the show has even less interest in Vicki’s feelings than it does most of the female characters.)
I make no secret of the fact that I have a soft spot for Matt/Elena. It hits a lot of my shipping preferences, including that I just like Matt, and he’s not a Salvatore. He also does what the Salvatores will repeatedly not do and gives Elena space when she wants it, including letting her grieve and not making things about his feelings (look, watching this show again is reminding me of things I really didn’t like about it). But there is something to be said about him also not really letting go. He's not handling it the best way be probably could.
But I think it’s fairly understandable. As the show tells us this episode they would have been together for 2+ years minimum (Bonnie says this is the first time Elena has been single in high school and Caroline brings up them having been matched in the sandbox). And they are actually high schoolers, not knowing how to deal with a breakup from your first SO that you were together with as long as they were together in some form, is to be expected.
In fact, I would like to point out that the two years they were actually together, not to mention having known each other so long, is *way* more time that the Salvatores knew Katherine for.
(And with that thought I seem to have lost what my point was about Matt.)
What am I shipping?
Basically no one. Maybe Elena/Bonnie, but that’s more in concept than in reality. I had more to say about Elena/Matt than I actually felt like shipping it.
Who do I hate the most?
Damon definitely takes the crown this time. But hey, look, Tyler’s joining the race too.
The Vampire Diaries 1x03: Friday Night Bites
This episode brought to you be compulsion.
This episode is…odd, and I’m not sure how I feel about it. There’s enough good here that I want to give it a decent grade (haven’t decided if I’ll do grades for this show overall), but I do feel a bit like the story is treading water in this one. In some way, that’s part of what works (what do I say about needing to have a status quo before breaking it), but it feels like we just end up doing the same plot points over and over, and kind of worse this time.
I do want to comment on how Damon trying to create a version of events that crams the Damon/Katherine/Stefan mess into something that happened less than a century ago doesn’t really work. While the truth of ~17 year-old Stefan and ~22 year-old Damon sharing a girlfriend is…iffy, it is made marginally less so by it being 1864 when different things were iffy; the necessary idea for the fiction that ~15 year-old Stefan and ~20 year-old Damon were sharing a girlfriend in the modern day raises some questions that presently no one is trying to ask.
As for the Caroline plot…I’m sort of torn. On one hand, it’s so early in the show that the audience hasn’t built up a lot of affection for Caroline and we don’t have any idea what’s in character and what isn’t. On the other, this plot kind of has to happen early in the show, because it is establishing something about Damon, that being that he’s the villain of the piece. Whether or not people (or even the writers) really take that fact away from this plot, that’s why it’s there, so that we are especially creeped out when Damon tries using the same sort of tricks with Elena.
But that’s where the show is doing something weird. Because it’s establishing Damon as the villain at the same time it’s trying to build sympathy for him. I think there is a bit of Rorschach test to this episode in that way. There’s a spectrum of how much you can react to each end, but that spectrum is between sympathizing with him and liking that Elena is sympathetic to him, or thinking he’s the irredeemable villain of the piece who needs to die.
I think the first time I was going through this, I was kind of in the middle, still able to be persuaded to either side (although probably thinking they were going to need one hell of a redemption arc before I was really going to like him). But I have since gone to one side, so I just want him dead.
The other weird writing trick it’s doing, is not writing Caroline very sympathetically. In some ways this is a product of how the early show hadn’t quite settled on her character, but it’s also unfortunate as I think it’s there so the audience isn’t too upset by what’s happening with her and Damon.
In some ways this episode is still very TVD time, in others it actually seems to allow there to be some time for people to have a life. It picks up pretty quickly after the last episode, but it does seem to cover a few days that we don’t need to see because life is just happening. And I could work with that if the show got a little better at it.
I don’t think we’re getting into Bonnie’s head enough with her subplot. But I’m feeling tolerant to that so far because it’s only episode three and there are a lot of plots/subplots to get in motion,
The Stefan/Elena stuff this episode is…interesting. Superficially, it’s pretty cute; in a lot of ways I think this is kind of how they both see their relationship for a lot longer than it lasts in this honeymoon phase. But in that same way it seems very naïve. Because it can’t stay in the honeymoon phase, and not just because no relationship does; because the fall from what they pretend their relationship is to what it will actually be is a steep one.
I feel like both of their individual arcs this episode needed some more time though. This is Stefan wanting to be more human in more ways than just dating Elena who looks like Katherine. I would kind of like to see him spend more time with the team, maybe understand a little more why he wants to join, maybe we spend more time seeing how it can be difficult for him since people get hurt and there can be blood around him. If they wanted to characterize Stefan outside of Elena and Damon, this would be a golden opportunity.
And Elena’s decision to try getting back to her old self and ultimately deciding she’s not her old self is a valid arc, I just wish we got more insight into it. We don’t really know what drew her to cheerleading in the first place, or whether she actually doesn’t enjoy it now. Because I can believe her heart just isn’t in it, and that maybe it never fully was, she just didn’t notice until she lost that old version of herself. But I don’t think it’s well communicated to the audience. It’s easy to invent a reason why she feels the way she does, but I’m not sure the show actually does.
I am knocking a couple points off Matt’s character score this episode. Because as predicted, they don’t go any further with what was said about Tyler and Vicki last episode. What he gets upset with Tyler for is a bit of a mixed bag, but it’s not that Tyler is mistreating his sister. Matt let himself get talked into being a jerk to Stefan when it clearly isn’t really his instinct to get in a pissing match; getting mad about Tyler egging on jerk behavior I suppose is a reason for their friendship to be strained. But then you bring in the Jeremy aspect. And it is further evidence of Tyler being a jerk and a bully (he was determined to pick a fight that Jeremy likewise let himself get pulled into), but because Matt doesn’t acknowledge the accusations from last episode, it makes it seem like he’s more upset about Elena’s brother than his own sister. And that’s unfortunate; because I would analyze Matt’s outburst to Tyler differently without that hanging over the story.
(And yes, I know that’s two episodes in a row where I make Tyler’s assault of Vicki more about Matt’s development than Vicki herself, and I do feel bad about that. But the show has even less interest in Vicki’s feelings than it does most of the female characters.)
I make no secret of the fact that I have a soft spot for Matt/Elena. It hits a lot of my shipping preferences, including that I just like Matt, and he’s not a Salvatore. He also does what the Salvatores will repeatedly not do and gives Elena space when she wants it, including letting her grieve and not making things about his feelings (look, watching this show again is reminding me of things I really didn’t like about it). But there is something to be said about him also not really letting go. He's not handling it the best way be probably could.
But I think it’s fairly understandable. As the show tells us this episode they would have been together for 2+ years minimum (Bonnie says this is the first time Elena has been single in high school and Caroline brings up them having been matched in the sandbox). And they are actually high schoolers, not knowing how to deal with a breakup from your first SO that you were together with as long as they were together in some form, is to be expected.
In fact, I would like to point out that the two years they were actually together, not to mention having known each other so long, is *way* more time that the Salvatores knew Katherine for.
(And with that thought I seem to have lost what my point was about Matt.)
What am I shipping?
Basically no one. Maybe Elena/Bonnie, but that’s more in concept than in reality. I had more to say about Elena/Matt than I actually felt like shipping it.
Who do I hate the most?
Damon definitely takes the crown this time. But hey, look, Tyler’s joining the race too.
