![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
Traveler
I've been watching the first episodes of Traveler, a show that I have been looking forward to ever since I first saw the pilot sometime last fall.
To make it short, it wasn't worth the wait.
I don't think Traveler is a bad show. I wouldn't call it good either, at least not in any notable way, but it's definitely not good. It's very one-dimensional: our guys are the good guys, they've been framed, the others are the bad guys, except we don't really know who they are yet. One of the bad guys is maybe not really a bad guy, at least he loved his girlfriend and wanted to take off with her, which makes him a romantic, and that's good. The other bad guys are really bad and wear black sunglasses when they swarm out to invade houses. Let's not forget the rich Dad with connections who is a criminal as well (though I admit that they whole trying to shoot his own son was a surprise, except we don't really know if it was him. Please let it have been him?)
Did I forget anything? Oh, right, the FBI are the idiots and the bad guys are really Homeland Security, cause, yay!, conspiracy involving the US government.
Yada yada, been there, done that, own nine seasons of the x-files and then some.
If I were going to continue watching this show, I'd feel really bad about not watching CSI:Miami before, because as far as one-dimensionality goes, that's definitely Traveler's biggest competition. (and I loved Horatio, but I still gave up on him)
But one-dimensionality isn't the real reasons I won't continue watching Traveler. It's the format of a show that is based on a mystery and that is told in an arc rather than in an episodic way. I like TV because there are episodes. I find the concept of telling a story within this time-frame and at the same time building characters and connections that have to be recognizable, known every week a fascinating one. A show which tells its one story over the course of 22 episodes is in general not something I'm interested in.
I have a good reason why I won't let myself be convinced of this concept: it's because I think it is one that generally doesn't work on TV, because it can only ever work if there's an end to the story, and an end would mean cancellation. Nobody writes a show with a definitive end to it in that way. And that leads us to the X-Files effect: a net of conspiracies and ever-changing, illogical story-lines that can and will be changed on a whim. So every theory we will ever have about this show, every time we think we know the characters, that will be destroyed if it fits the "new" story, the story they come up with when they run out of the story they planned to tell in the beginning.
And the worst thing is that one day the show will be cancelled, and don't you think they are offering a solution then. Maybe, if you are lucky, you get an ending. And ending which will leave you very unsatisfied, because it is made up just as much a those last episodes were taken out of the blue. But more likely your show will end just in the middle of something and you will never know if bad guy a way really bad or only sufferred from indigestion for the last three years.That's what seems to be happening with Lost, that's what kept me from watching Heroes. And it's also what will keep me from watching Traveler.
Also, the guys? Not as pretty as I'm used to. Well, the one guy with the blue eyes is kind of pretty, but 1) he's a student and dresses like a student (I wasn't even interested in students when I was a student myself), and 2) he reminds me of Frodo.
Supernatural has really spoiled me when it comes to The Pretty. And don't tell me that Sam is a student as well, I'll just put my fingers in my ears and sing "lalala" until you stop.
To make it short, it wasn't worth the wait.
I don't think Traveler is a bad show. I wouldn't call it good either, at least not in any notable way, but it's definitely not good. It's very one-dimensional: our guys are the good guys, they've been framed, the others are the bad guys, except we don't really know who they are yet. One of the bad guys is maybe not really a bad guy, at least he loved his girlfriend and wanted to take off with her, which makes him a romantic, and that's good. The other bad guys are really bad and wear black sunglasses when they swarm out to invade houses. Let's not forget the rich Dad with connections who is a criminal as well (though I admit that they whole trying to shoot his own son was a surprise, except we don't really know if it was him. Please let it have been him?)
Did I forget anything? Oh, right, the FBI are the idiots and the bad guys are really Homeland Security, cause, yay!, conspiracy involving the US government.
Yada yada, been there, done that, own nine seasons of the x-files and then some.
If I were going to continue watching this show, I'd feel really bad about not watching CSI:Miami before, because as far as one-dimensionality goes, that's definitely Traveler's biggest competition. (and I loved Horatio, but I still gave up on him)
But one-dimensionality isn't the real reasons I won't continue watching Traveler. It's the format of a show that is based on a mystery and that is told in an arc rather than in an episodic way. I like TV because there are episodes. I find the concept of telling a story within this time-frame and at the same time building characters and connections that have to be recognizable, known every week a fascinating one. A show which tells its one story over the course of 22 episodes is in general not something I'm interested in.
I have a good reason why I won't let myself be convinced of this concept: it's because I think it is one that generally doesn't work on TV, because it can only ever work if there's an end to the story, and an end would mean cancellation. Nobody writes a show with a definitive end to it in that way. And that leads us to the X-Files effect: a net of conspiracies and ever-changing, illogical story-lines that can and will be changed on a whim. So every theory we will ever have about this show, every time we think we know the characters, that will be destroyed if it fits the "new" story, the story they come up with when they run out of the story they planned to tell in the beginning.
And the worst thing is that one day the show will be cancelled, and don't you think they are offering a solution then. Maybe, if you are lucky, you get an ending. And ending which will leave you very unsatisfied, because it is made up just as much a those last episodes were taken out of the blue. But more likely your show will end just in the middle of something and you will never know if bad guy a way really bad or only sufferred from indigestion for the last three years.That's what seems to be happening with Lost, that's what kept me from watching Heroes. And it's also what will keep me from watching Traveler.
Also, the guys? Not as pretty as I'm used to. Well, the one guy with the blue eyes is kind of pretty, but 1) he's a student and dresses like a student (I wasn't even interested in students when I was a student myself), and 2) he reminds me of Frodo.
Supernatural has really spoiled me when it comes to The Pretty. And don't tell me that Sam is a student as well, I'll just put my fingers in my ears and sing "lalala" until you stop.