You Watch Too Much TV, You Play Too Many Games

Friday, huh? I feel a Grab Bag coming on...

Cancelled Netflix Shows

So, I saw this on NME. Depressing, right? Of those fifteen cancelled shows, I watched and enjoyed four: Raising Dion, The Imperfects, Space Force and Fate: The Winx Saga. Of the four, one was tight, well-crafted and highly professional, one a little loose around the edges but fundamentally sound and two were sloppy and chaotic but still fun. 

I thought Raising Dion wrote itself into a corner it was never going to find a way out of, although you could argue that, like Cloak and Dagger, it was another superhero show that spent two whole seasons on an origin story and then folded before the first real adventure. 

Fate: The Winx Saga was yet another supposedly dark, edgy teen-oriented reimagining of a much-loved children's show. The first season was so clunky and shambolic I was amazed it got a second. The second season was, if anything, even less believable than the first but it did seem to be developing some internal momentum that might carry it forward.

Key to both shows were likeable characters. That's the main reason I enjoyed them and stayed with them. Unfortunately, likeable doesn't sell. It may also be the reason Space Force didn't make it. That was a very well-crafted, well-written, well-acted, grown-up show, genuinely funny throughout. I suspect it was also just too amiable to generate much of a commitment from the audience. You always felt it was nice while it was playing but you wouldn't really miss it if it wasn't there. And now it's not and I don't.

Of the four shows, the only one I'm mildly annoyed to see cancelled is The Imperfects. I thought it had real promise and it certainly didn't suffer from the "too many likeable characters" problem. The opposite, if anything. Mostly, I wanted to see more of Rhys Nicholson, an astonishing screen presence of whom I had been hitherto unaware. I did a bit of googling on them after the show ended and found out they're an Australian stand-up. I really hope they take on more acting work.

Of the other eleven shows Netflix cancelled, I was thinking about watching only one, The Midnight Club. Guess I won't bother now. It's funny but when I'm considering watching something that's not brand new these days, I routinely check how many seasons it ran and if it's only one I don't even bother. Which is nuts.

Wednesday

I think I'm safe with this one. As I write, it's still #1 on Netflix UK. It's a major hit and even now I get some spurious "news" item about the show in my feeds pretty much daily. People just don't want to stop talking about it. I haven't heard if the second season has been commissioned yet but I assume it's a lock-in

I really liked the show, which was smart, funny, sharp and good to look at. I'm not exactly sure why it's been so well-received, other than the obvious name recognition of the title character with eighty-four years of history behind it. It didn't seem to be obviously superior to a number of other teen-inflected fantasy/horror series I've watched, particularly The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina or Riverdale, both of which began in a similarly grounded fashion, before spiralling into glorious insanity.

Once again, the absolute highlight of the show was the excellence of the performances. Jenny Ortega was pretty nearly perfect in the lead and Emma Myers equally brilliant as her friend and roomate Enid. I particularly enjoyed Gwendoline Christie as Principle Weems, so it was a big disappointment when... okay, no, I won't go there. I guess there may still be someone reading who hasn't watched it yet.

Probably the biggest surprise for me wasn't anything to do with the twisty plot. For the record, I worked out who the real villains were well before the end. I assume we were meant to be one step ahead of Wednesday all along. When it comes to High School P.I.s she's no Veronica Mars, that's for sure. 

No, the thing I wasn't expecting was how convicing a Morticia Catherine Zeta-Jones would make. It's a shame she was only in a couple of episodes. I hope she gets more screen time in Season Two. Luis Guzman was great as Gomez, too. He looks very much the Gomez from Charles Addams original New Yorker cartoons, although I have John Astin's suave, sophisicated take on the character from the sixties' TV series so firmly embedded in my brain, the transition took a bit of getting used to.

Wednesday the show is a gloriously female-led affair but I think it would have helped if the male romantic leads hadn't been quite so wishy-washy. It's hard to see why any of the girls would give them the time of day. As has been pointed out pretty much everywhere, there's close to zero chemistry between the would-be romantic couples, while you could power the Christmas lights of a small town off the electricity generated every time Wednesday and Enid get together. I'm totally shipping Wenclair for the next season. If Wednesday's going to break character for anything, it ought to be that.

And finally, I lied when I said Catherine Zeta-Jones performance was the biggest surprise. That had to be the scene where Wednesday first meets Eugene at the beehives. It was one of those "Wait... is that? It frickin' can't be!" moments. Moosa Mostafa, who plays Eugene, was also Nasir Roman in The Last Bus, a show I described as being like "something the Children's Film Foundation or the National Film Board of Canada might have made in the 1970s".

To see him pop up in a major U.S. show like Wednesday, in a significant supporting role no less, was positively bizarre. He was great, too, albeit playing almost exactly the same character as he played in The Last Bus. Apart from a tiny role in a Christmas movie as a background character who doesn't even merit a name in the credits, those two shows seem to be his entire career so far. I wonder if he can play anything else?

Other TV Stuff

On Amazon Prime I finished the first three seasons of Veronica Mars, every episode of which was genius. The fourth season wasn't included for some reason, so I did a little investigating of my own to find out why. That turned into a whole thing, which I'm not going to get into here except to say what kind of dimwitted network exec cancels a show like Veronica Mars, ffs?

I ended up subbing the Lionsgate channel, which used to be Starz, because that's where Season Four is playing. I already used up my free month of Starz back when I was watching Doom Patrol but luckily there was a three months at 99p a month deal going on so I took that. The second and third seasons of Doom Patrol are on there, too, so it's a steal.

And of course so far I haven't watched a single show on Lionsgate. The fourth VM season apparently feeds off the movie, which I have on DVD, so I need to watch that first but so far I haven't made the time. I'd better get on with it. The clock's ticking.

On Netflix I watched Exception, a pretty good anime Science Fiction show that ended in a way I didn't like. I'd recommend it all the same. I'm also re-watching Parks and Recreation, whose characters are nowhere near as likeable as I remembered. Might explain why it ran for seven seasons. Still funny, though.

I had to take a break from The Bastard Son and the Devil Himself, not because it isn't excellent, which it is, but because I was finding it just too intense to watch, right before I was supposed to be going to sleep. Of course, it's fatal to pause anything mid-run. Now I've fitted something else into that slot and there's no room to ease it back in. I guess I'll have to watch the rest of the season in the daylight. That's going to be weird. TV is for nighttime.

The show that replaced Bastard Son in my schedule was Wednesday and the show that's replaced Wednesday is One Of Us Is Lying. I was a little surprised there was a second season because it's based on a book, the plot of which Season One followed closely, and that book has a very definite conclusion. The showrunners have done a fine job of coming up with a way of keeping the whole conceit going, albeit somewhat at the expense of realism.

The least useful criticism of any work of fiction, however, is "Well, that would never happen." Fuck realism. All that counts is internal consistency. Nail that and we're good. I think they've managed it although it's been a close call at times. Still a couple of episodes to go and I have to say I almost want to go to bed early some nights just so I can find out what happens next.

I probably watched some other stuff but if I did it hasn't stuck. 

New Games For Next Year

Yesterday I only had one multiplayer online title to look forward to. Now I have three. 

The one I had is Nightingale. I declined to apply for the alpha/beta because of the NDA so I'm reliant on press releases but my decision not to participate has had an odd effect on my interest and involvement with the title. I'm still just as keen to play it when it arrives but since I decided not to get involved I find myself shying away from any news I see about the game. I was going to link one of the latest videos, which I haven't watched, but now it comes to it I don't even want to do that much, so I won't.

Instead, I'll link one for a game I wasn't planning on playing at all: Blue Protocol. I knew there was a hype wave building for it but it hadn't swept me along... and then I saw this morning that Amazon Games have picked it up for worldwide publishing next year.

That means I won't have to set up a load of new accounts or email addresses. Well, I hope I won't. I should just be able to use my existing Amazon credentials. It's astonishing what a psychological difference that makes. I wasn't keen and now I am.

Game looks good, too. The weirdly filmic flatness of it is intriguing. I'd like to see what it looks like from the inside. It's free, anyway, so why wouldn't I try it?

And finally, a game I had never heard of until a few hours ago but for which I have now submitted a beta application: Wayfinder. It's being developed by Airship Syndicate and the people behind Warframe, Digital Extremes and it's "a character-based, online action role playing game", which totally sounds like a thing.

I wouldn't have been particularly interested but then I looked at the promotional screenshots. Once again, that's a place I want to see from the inside. It has housing, too, and it's going to be on Steam, so there are a lot of plusses. Whether they outweigh the negatives (Seems like grouping is strongly recommended and I never really got on with Warframe) I guess I'll find out in testing - if I get in. 

If I do, I'll be sure to post about it here, always assuming I'm allowed. If I'm not then I suppose I won't bother. Testing, that is. Or I might. I'm fickle that way. Depends on the fine print in the NDA, if there is one, which you can bet I will read thoroughly. Well, skim, at least. Let's not go overboard.

That's enough for one Friday, I guess. Time I went and played some games.

Après View

A couple of days ago I mentioned in passing that the New Musical Express used to be my bible in my teens and early twenties. It wasn't just the NME I followed with quasi-religious fervor, it was the music press in general, something that lasted through my college years. 

By the time I'd left full-time education my obsession with other people's opinions had swelled to include those I found in fanzines, magazines and books about everything from comics to movies to gaming and even travel. If someone was willing to review something, I was willing to read about it. 

It would be disengenuous to say I never used any of those reviews point me in the direction of something worth buying but it was certainly rare. I generally know what I want to buy without anyone having to tell me.

I mostly read the reviews for the pure pleasure of reading them. My first, often only, requirement of a review was that it should be well-written. I had favorite reviewers and they were writers first, performers second, reporters a distant third, if at all. I came to reviews as a reader not a consumer. I wasn't looking for advice, I was looking for entertainment.

Belghast and Everwake both touched on the topic of reviewing as it affects games recently. I commented but I had to edit myself heavily. I have to restrain mysef almost physically when the topic comes up on blogs. Partly it's because I have such very strong views on it I find myself ranting like a street preacher but mostly it's because the focus is always specifically game reviews and I really don't feel remotely as strongly about those, nor know very much about their history and culture.

Reading game reviews in order to decide whether or not to play does seem like an odd thing to do in the third decade of the twenty-first century, anyway. It made sense in the eighties and nineties, when all games were sold in boxes at high-street stores, a product you bought, took home and played on your own. That made them more or less like records or books.  

Nowadays, though, when gaming happens online and millions of people stream their gameplay live while talking about it, the printed review seems like a peculiar place to go for consumer advice. As has been pointed out, games take a long time to play. A film reviewer can go to a dozen screenings in half the time than it takes a game reviewer to rush through a first playthrough. It's just not a good fit.

Ironically, what long-form published game reviews would be a good fit for is the kind of reviewing I prefer. I like to go to reviews not to get ideas on what I ought to be playing or reading or watching or hearing but to read another person's considered take on things I alread have played, read, watched or heard.

After entertainment, my second reason for reading reviews is confirmation. I like to compare my understanding of what I've experienced with someone else's so I can triangulate my reactions. I like to read someone else describing things I know for that delicious thrill of recognition but also to find out if there were things I missed or misunderstood.

Reading reviews after the fact feels far more appropriate to me than reading them in advance. I don't like spoilers and what's a review other than that?

It's not just plots that can be spoiled, either. You can't plot-spoil an album but I never read music reviews ahead of time anyway. If I'm getting a new album I don't want to come to the music with any more thoughts about it than my own.

After I've heard it, though, the opposite applies. I go online and search for reviews. I'll read half a dozen in a row if I can find them. I do the same with movies and TV shows, which is how I came to write this post.

Last night I finished watching the first season of Raising Dion. It's a show about which I knew no more than Netflix' one-line description: "Dion's a smart, sensitive boy with mind-blowing superpowers - and a fiercely protective mom who'll shield him at all costs." I'd added it to my watchlist a while ago, purely because it was a superhero show but it wasn't until Nimgimli mentioned in passing that he was watching it that I decided to give it a go.

I'm not going to review the show although I am going to tell you what I thought of it. I enjoyed it a lot.

I preferred the earlier, very slow episodes to the later much faster ones but the whole season was solid with some strong performances and several very likeable characters. I'm going to go straight to the second season tonight, which certainly suggests I had a good time with the first.

What I am going to review are the reviews. I read a bunch of them immediately after the credits rolled on the season finale. I often go straight to the reviews as soon as I finish a show, partly because reading about what I've just watched makes for a gentle withdrawal from the intensity of the faux-breakup feeling that always comes with leaving a bunch of imaginary friends and partly because I watch all this stuff on my Kindle Fire so it's incredibly easy to click through and find what other people thought about it.

The reviews for Raising Dion are not great but they're not bad, either. They're in the "Good of its kind" or "If you like this kind of thing, this is the kind of thing you'll like" area that usually suggests to me the reviewers considers themselves a bit above the job they've been assigned.

Most of the reviews tended to agree on certain things: the early episodes are slow, even dull but it gets better towards the end; the special efects are patchy, at best; the child actors are not great. The IGN review collects all three of those in a neat summary: "bad CGI, poor pacing, and shaky child acting."

The reviews I read tended to group fairly predictably. The comic-book culture sites were comparatively harsh, the mainstream press relatively forgiving. Neither side really took against the show, though, which would be hard to do given the ages of some of the main players. 

Dion is seven when the season starts, eight when it ends. There are three other significant child roles as well as several minor characters among his friends and classmates. All of them are around the same age.

Rolling Stone, whose Alan Sepinwall liked the show more than most, tried to be generous to Ja’Siah Young, the actor playing the eponymous Dion, describing him as "energetic and endearing, but also limited in what he can do as an actor at this very early stage of his life." Lucy Mangan in The Guardian, in what feels like a much more positive review than the 3/5 stars it gives, calls Sammy Haney, the actor playing the wheelchair-using Esperanza "revelatory".

Mangan also compares the show, somewhat unexpectedly, to the CW's long-running superhero soap opera Smallville, a show that begins in high school and ends in after the key players graduate college. That stumped me a little. About the only similarities I could see was the quotidian setting and the sometimes shoddy special effects. 

While I agreed with most of Lucy Mangan's observations other than the Smallville connection, I found Robert Lloyd in the L.A. Times a lot more on the money concerning Raising Dion's claims to originality: "Emerging powers are more often assigned to teenagers — it’s a killer puberty metaphor — who will typically be recruited into some underground Breakfast Club of similarly gifted individuals to fight an epic battle between light and dark, good and evil, topsy and turvy. It’s rare, though, that the new mutant is an actual child..." 

Yes it bloody well is. Nice that someone noticed. A young child with superpowers is almost unheard of in live action superheroics and hardly commonplace even in the comics. The whole USP of Raising Dion is that its a show about a superhero who's seven years old. That is insanely young. Of course he can't be a superhero. It would be ridiculous if he even tried. And the show would be ridiculous if it tried to make him, which it doesn't. 

If Dion doesn't present as a superhero, his friends come across consistently like children, not child actors. Esperanza is indeed the stand-out among them, both as a character and in the way she's played, but even she doesn't stage-act her way through her scenes. None of the children really feel natural on screen in that irreal way child actors often do. They act like children acting as well as you imagine seven and eight year olds could act. It's about as convincing as the special effects, which is convincing enough.

As Robert Lloyd also says, astutely, "you could cut out the supernatural material and still have a decent little drama about an overwhelmed widow, her rambunctious son, her friends, her family." You could indeed and based on the first three or four episodes it would be a better show, too. Unfortunately, without the superpowers that show would never get made.

Not to mention that, if it did , I would never watch it. I only noticed the show at all because it came up in a "Because you watched" along with all the other superhero shows I've seen. I watched Raising Dion very specifically because of the kind of show it is; an adult, live-action superhero show.

Or that's what I thought it was. Having read all those reviews, I realise now that it's actually aimed at a specific audience, "a decent choice for families with older kids": The Review Geek

A couple of the reviews I read seemed confused that a show for kids would have so much contemporary dance in it, not to mention so many scenes of adults just talking to each other about adult problems. I was just confused by their confusion. Just because a show has families in it doesn't make it a show only families will watch.

What almost none of the reviews I read seemed to care about, or even mention, are the gigantic holes in the plot. There are many, they are huge and they gape. I'm usually very bad at noticing these things and even I couldn't stop spotting them. I didn't care much, though. None of them affected my enjoyment so I just suspended my disbelief a little higher and carried on watching. So, it seems, did everyone else.

Reading the reviews helped me get a better perspective on why I'd enjoyed the show. It also gave me better understanding of where the show stood in relation to other shows I've watched. Things I learned from some of the reviews will factor in to the way I place other shows, culturally, in future. If I'd read the reviews before I saw the show itself, those same valuable insights would have become awkward obstacles, which is why I try never to do that.

Reviews are best taken as a digestif, not an appetiser.