Since you asked... though it's a little weird for me to share with you... I'm 2/3 of the way through Cancer Ward by Alexander Sozhenitsyn. Welcome to the crags and canyons of life, in a 1950s Soviet cancer treatment ward. Deft, compassionate, and merciless all at once. And those ETCHED characters. Every one a genuine person, and you feel their desire and brokenness. And so beautiful while seeming effortless. Total reading pleasure. Violates the simple-minded crap about "no head-hopping" and it works. But, kids, don't try this at home.
Re-watched Tokyo Vice to prepare for the 2nd season, and I liked the re-watch even better. That's when you can really appreciate the good writing behind it all. But 2nd season episode 1 has some clunky "as you know, Bob," for the purpose of reminding viewers of all we knew at the end of season 1, but it breaks the hitherto-natural dialogue flow. And, my biggest bugaboo: too much implausibility. Is this the fate of multi-season video shows, where writers feel pressured to ramp up the stakes at the cost of ejecting the viewer? Unlike the 1st season, there are things you just go "huh?" about. As in, "how was that even possible?" Scenes happen that lean too much on the viewers' benevolence for the medium. "Oh, yes, the plot required that confrontation, so we'll let the viewers figure out how it actually came about, because on the surface of it, it's preposterous." For a tight, reality-based thriller/drama, a writer can't afford to do that. But they do it anyway. That's why I stop watching a lot of stuff. The immersion magic goes "poof!" when you find yourself uttering the wrong kind of "huh?": The kind of "huh" that means you don't have anticipatory faith that your question will be satisfactorily addressed at some later time. A gloss-over. The tyranny of plot machinations over substance. Oog. A misguided sort of efficiency, perhaps. But those are the joints of the skeleton. When you don't get the joints right, you know what happens.
Since you asked... though it's a little weird for me to share with you... I'm 2/3 of the way through Cancer Ward by Alexander Sozhenitsyn. Welcome to the crags and canyons of life, in a 1950s Soviet cancer treatment ward. Deft, compassionate, and merciless all at once. And those ETCHED characters. Every one a genuine person, and you feel their desire and brokenness. And so beautiful while seeming effortless. Total reading pleasure. Violates the simple-minded crap about "no head-hopping" and it works. But, kids, don't try this at home.
Re-watched Tokyo Vice to prepare for the 2nd season, and I liked the re-watch even better. That's when you can really appreciate the good writing behind it all. But 2nd season episode 1 has some clunky "as you know, Bob," for the purpose of reminding viewers of all we knew at the end of season 1, but it breaks the hitherto-natural dialogue flow. And, my biggest bugaboo: too much implausibility. Is this the fate of multi-season video shows, where writers feel pressured to ramp up the stakes at the cost of ejecting the viewer? Unlike the 1st season, there are things you just go "huh?" about. As in, "how was that even possible?" Scenes happen that lean too much on the viewers' benevolence for the medium. "Oh, yes, the plot required that confrontation, so we'll let the viewers figure out how it actually came about, because on the surface of it, it's preposterous." For a tight, reality-based thriller/drama, a writer can't afford to do that. But they do it anyway. That's why I stop watching a lot of stuff. The immersion magic goes "poof!" when you find yourself uttering the wrong kind of "huh?": The kind of "huh" that means you don't have anticipatory faith that your question will be satisfactorily addressed at some later time. A gloss-over. The tyranny of plot machinations over substance. Oog. A misguided sort of efficiency, perhaps. But those are the joints of the skeleton. When you don't get the joints right, you know what happens.