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I've rewatched season 1!
It's amazing how chill Jim is in this season. His place gets wrecked twice and he doesn't even appear bothered. He is very 'this is my life now' about all the chaos, rampaging apes and loud drumming that Blair brings into his life. I read fic for this fandom for 2 years before I every saw any of the canon. A lot of fic has Jim as very controlling and uptight, likely for reasons of plot, kink or catharsis. Writing characters certain ways for reasons is valid, but it's amazing to me how in canon it's Jim who is very chillax and Blair is the one who is wound up.
The show is, so far, better than I remember. I think when I've gone back to watch bits I guess I chose some of the more train-wreckey episodes. I did a canon review last year for a short gift fic I wrote. One of the eps I picked to rewatch was really not good. I'll talk about that episode when we get there.
Season 1's production team also has the ability to do daylight shots and dress the characters in ways that make sense. They lose this ability later on. When we get to later seasons I'll have screen caps and me going 'wtf?' a lot.
The show very quickly deals with Simon finding out and also the issue of Jim knowing things he can't use to build a case on. Those are issues that sometimes get drawn out for drama, the whole 'will bossman find out about my secret' thing. They get all of that out of the way really quick in the first two episodes.
In Siege and other episodes they really nail the entitlement of militias and anti-government types. A bunch of 90s genre shows did good on this front.
Night Train has handcuffs and vintage train cars. One train car even has a back deck, a favorite train feature of mine! It also has light-induced migraines, which I really relate to. Did I ghost write this episode? If only the 'ancient strategy game' Blair and the accountant dude were playing was Go, I'd be suspicious of me.
Cypher is an excellent episode. They made David Lash very creepy. They managed to make a serial killer have some viscerally unsettling scenes without any gore. Serial killers were a popular storyline at the time because advances in computing had made it easier to connect cases is in different states. 'Possible serial killer' was a phrase people suddenly heard a lot on the news around this time. A lot of shows leaned into gore, shock or psychosexual aspects to make their take on serial killers pop. I'm a Hannibal fan, so I am definitely okay with those things when done well (or medium-rare), but it's still impressive how they pulled off David Lash being scary without all that. Blair's distress is great!
If someone asked me for just one episode to watch I'd likely pick Cypher. It's got everything, Blair whump, Blair being horny, Blair screwing up a relationship, etc.
I know it's better pointed out before, but Jim and Blair suddenly sharing an open plan loft is kind of hilarious. Jim's bedroom is fully open to the entire loft and Blair's nook has a curtain instead of a door. It's basically a large studio and after Blair shows up he just stays. Between that and Jim's near instant acceptance of Blair as part of his life, and Jim needing Blair due to his powers, it's no wonder the show was catnip for slashers. It's like it was custom made for ficcers. We don't get deep into the Sentinel/Guide bond yet, but that is coming, as is lots of gratuitous canon Blair whump.
The season finale is ... odd. Why a monastery? Jim is up for being whisked away with few details, and Blair goes with a monastery? One of the few things that Jim is going to balk at.
The episode wouldn't seem so odd to me as a mid-season thing. Shows often have kind of odd, forced feeling episodes in the middle of the season. Finales tend to be the more planned and meaningful episodes. A lot of the scenes seem to have the wrong tone, and Blair's enthusiasm seems forced at times.
The scenes with Blair and Marcus feel solid to me. I remember reading a fic back in the day that expanded on their relationship and was a fix-it for the weird tone of the episode. They added in backstory and missing scenes to make the character motivations and attitudes make sense, which is something the ep sorely needs.
The season starts out solid, but ends on a very odd note. It's likely that wasn't meant to be a season finale, just a ten episode order that become a season when the show continued.
I'm going to watch one more episode just to try to find a better stopping point.
All in all, it starts strong with a lot of smart narrative moves and then ends in a way that makes me want to *headtilt* a lot. Why isn't headtilt an emoji yet?
It's amazing how chill Jim is in this season. His place gets wrecked twice and he doesn't even appear bothered. He is very 'this is my life now' about all the chaos, rampaging apes and loud drumming that Blair brings into his life. I read fic for this fandom for 2 years before I every saw any of the canon. A lot of fic has Jim as very controlling and uptight, likely for reasons of plot, kink or catharsis. Writing characters certain ways for reasons is valid, but it's amazing to me how in canon it's Jim who is very chillax and Blair is the one who is wound up.
The show is, so far, better than I remember. I think when I've gone back to watch bits I guess I chose some of the more train-wreckey episodes. I did a canon review last year for a short gift fic I wrote. One of the eps I picked to rewatch was really not good. I'll talk about that episode when we get there.
Season 1's production team also has the ability to do daylight shots and dress the characters in ways that make sense. They lose this ability later on. When we get to later seasons I'll have screen caps and me going 'wtf?' a lot.
The show very quickly deals with Simon finding out and also the issue of Jim knowing things he can't use to build a case on. Those are issues that sometimes get drawn out for drama, the whole 'will bossman find out about my secret' thing. They get all of that out of the way really quick in the first two episodes.
In Siege and other episodes they really nail the entitlement of militias and anti-government types. A bunch of 90s genre shows did good on this front.
Night Train has handcuffs and vintage train cars. One train car even has a back deck, a favorite train feature of mine! It also has light-induced migraines, which I really relate to. Did I ghost write this episode? If only the 'ancient strategy game' Blair and the accountant dude were playing was Go, I'd be suspicious of me.
Cypher is an excellent episode. They made David Lash very creepy. They managed to make a serial killer have some viscerally unsettling scenes without any gore. Serial killers were a popular storyline at the time because advances in computing had made it easier to connect cases is in different states. 'Possible serial killer' was a phrase people suddenly heard a lot on the news around this time. A lot of shows leaned into gore, shock or psychosexual aspects to make their take on serial killers pop. I'm a Hannibal fan, so I am definitely okay with those things when done well (or medium-rare), but it's still impressive how they pulled off David Lash being scary without all that. Blair's distress is great!
If someone asked me for just one episode to watch I'd likely pick Cypher. It's got everything, Blair whump, Blair being horny, Blair screwing up a relationship, etc.
I know it's better pointed out before, but Jim and Blair suddenly sharing an open plan loft is kind of hilarious. Jim's bedroom is fully open to the entire loft and Blair's nook has a curtain instead of a door. It's basically a large studio and after Blair shows up he just stays. Between that and Jim's near instant acceptance of Blair as part of his life, and Jim needing Blair due to his powers, it's no wonder the show was catnip for slashers. It's like it was custom made for ficcers. We don't get deep into the Sentinel/Guide bond yet, but that is coming, as is lots of gratuitous canon Blair whump.
The season finale is ... odd. Why a monastery? Jim is up for being whisked away with few details, and Blair goes with a monastery? One of the few things that Jim is going to balk at.
The episode wouldn't seem so odd to me as a mid-season thing. Shows often have kind of odd, forced feeling episodes in the middle of the season. Finales tend to be the more planned and meaningful episodes. A lot of the scenes seem to have the wrong tone, and Blair's enthusiasm seems forced at times.
The scenes with Blair and Marcus feel solid to me. I remember reading a fic back in the day that expanded on their relationship and was a fix-it for the weird tone of the episode. They added in backstory and missing scenes to make the character motivations and attitudes make sense, which is something the ep sorely needs.
The season starts out solid, but ends on a very odd note. It's likely that wasn't meant to be a season finale, just a ten episode order that become a season when the show continued.
I'm going to watch one more episode just to try to find a better stopping point.
All in all, it starts strong with a lot of smart narrative moves and then ends in a way that makes me want to *headtilt* a lot. Why isn't headtilt an emoji yet?
no subject
Date: 2020-01-06 10:59 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2020-01-06 11:26 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2020-01-06 01:35 pm (UTC)From:THIS. It's amazing to realize that the Sentinel wasn't a huge hit in the general populace, but the way fandom ran with it, HOLY COW.
I remember some of the episodes being really well done. Lash creeped me out, I almost couldn't watch that episode. But, honestly, I wasn't watching all that critically (if at all critically) back then; mostly I was there for the eye-candy and the fill-in for the fic. :D
That said, I could never really reconcile fandom!Jim with canon!Jim. Controlling, super-anal-retentive, borderline-to-outright abusive Jim was not canon as far as I could tell, and fandom's insistence on writing him that way frustrated me. Then again, I was probably in the minority in that Jim was my favorite character, not Blair. Fandom seemed to ignore Jim's issues and vulnerabilities in favor of Blair, Blair, and BLAIR, especially as the show went on and after it was cancelled. That led to me saying some things I probably shouldn't have said on Senfic, the major gen email list, and then with the fandom shift to slash (and OMG, yes, they totally set themselves up for that in canon, didn't they?) which I could not write (still can't, even after years of reading it), I meandered on to other fandoms--with with maybe a boot to the butt helping me on the way.
no subject
Date: 2020-01-06 10:51 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2020-01-07 03:30 am (UTC)From:YES!!! I never understood why fandom at large did not see this in Jim. It's so obvious! I'm so glad you see it, too.
no subject
Date: 2020-01-07 03:40 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2020-01-07 04:13 am (UTC)From: