Spontaneous Musings

Having a nice quiet morning, going to do an art walk tour later in the day. Around 2.
Should also look at book edits, but was dead tired from work this week, so taking a breather.

On the Television Front:

I think Heroes may be dead in the water. It's starting to bore me at any rate. I find myself caring less and less about these characters and their arcs appear to be rather meaningless - constantly reset by the writers to suit whatever theme or idea they want to talk about. In some ways, Heroes reminds me of some of the X-men comics I used to read, with story and plotlines that often felt at the expense of the characters. The characters mere pawns or tools for whatever crazy or inspired idea the writer came up with - as opposed to the story coming from the character's actions, it at times felt at their expense. This is unfortunately one of the flaws of the on-going serial format - the tendency to decide to bring character's who have died back from the dead, or forget a character's background or history, merely to do a specific story. It happens a lot with soap operas and comic books - but in their defense, it usually happens after the show or comic book has been around for about ten-twenty years. Heroes has only been on for three years - this is the third. They don't have any excuses.

The problem with constantly bringing people back from the dead is it sort of makes a character's possible or eventual death meaningless to the viewer. It has no gravitas. It no longer resonates for us. For instance - it's become clear that Peter Petrilli is not going to die, nor is Nathan. They've killed them three times now.
I'm no longer worried. Actually, at this point - it would be sort of cool if they did "die" as in permanently. Nor am I worried about Claire or HRG - who have also not been irretrievably hurt by any of the things that have happened to them.

Time travel - while cool - is also problematic in story-telling. If done poorly as it is done here, it can become confusing and boring. They are using it as a bit of crutch in Heroes. If they don't like what has happened or the audience doesn't, they can change it, by merely stating = oh that was an alternate time line or universe.
This means that whatever is happening to Mohindre can easily be undone, making it difficult to care that much about it. It also means that whatever happened in the future to Sylar or Daphne or to Nathan, most likely won't in real time.

The problem with science-fiction and fantasy stories is that often characters get lost in all the fun hijinks, geekery, gadgets, and special effects that writers often get distracted by. They forget about their character's journeys. I had more than one creative writing professor tell me not to write sci-fi unless I had a handle on my character's first - that the problem with most science fiction and fantasy and why it is not taken seriously - is that the writer focuses more on (if you are lucky) a social political theme or (unfortunately) on the aforementioned hijinks than on actually telling us a story about a character, letting the theme and action come from that character, inform it, and as a result resonate with the reader.

Battle Star Galatica - is an example of a science-fiction television series that allows the focus to remain mostly on the characters and their actions. While it has the geekery, it is mostly in the background, at the forefront are the characters.

Same deal with Doctor Who - say what you will about this show, I have, but it does keep as its central focus the character of Doctor Who and his companion. It's their actions and their relationship that drives the series.

Good science-fiction and fantasy series do this, the ones that give into the hijinks often falter and die. X-Files focused on its characters until the latter seasons in which it got convoluted and focused on hijinks. Buffy, oddly, is one of the few series that was able to do hinjinks yet not lose complete sight of its characters - you may not like where they went, but it still made sense logically more or less.
[Examples of potential hijink episodes that could have lead to confusion and have in other series but became art in this instance are: Restless, Hush, Once More With Feeling, Superstar, and the Body.]

It's a shame this is happening with Heroes, because I find the theme and psychological examination rather intriguing and was sort of looking forward to the exploration of how a heroe can become a villian and vice-versa. There's a great deal of potential in this storyline. But I fear that it has become unnecessarily bogged down by trips to the future, people back from the dead, and illogical twists and turns.

From what I've seen online and off, I think this may well be it's last season. We'll be lucky if we get another one.

Project Runway surprised me. Up until this episode, I was convinced that the winner would either be Jerroll or Koto. I wanted Koto. Why? Simple - they'd won most of the other challenges and were consistently the best designers up to this point.
Now? I think it will either be Kenley or Leanne, whose lines as Tim Gunn even pointed out, were quite good. Koto's dresses looked a bit too much alike and I don't see wowing the judges. Jerrell's looked like costumes.

Their bridal dresses were...sigh, bad. Leanne and Kenley's were quite lovely. Kenley's was unfortunately the same as a designer who just did his own show...and I've even seen it before, as in last year, in vogue. It also reminds me a bit of stuff Christian did. Sure it was beautiful and perfectly done, but hardly innovative.
Leanne's on the other hand was original and innovative and had a modern Audrey Hepburn feel to it. I like the waves idea. There's a simple elegance to her designs that distinguish her from the others. She and Kenley are opposits - Kenley is somewhat garish in her designs, lots of prints, lots of extraneous stuff, while Leanne is more tailored and classic. I'm biased of course - I like tailored and classic and would not be caught dead in a dress with big painted flowers or something made of feathers. Kenley's designs match her garish personality. While Leanne's subtle ones match hers.

Was afraid for a bit that Koto would be kicked to the curb, but she thankfully survived with Jerrol being out. Don't worry both got to go to the runway. Actually six did to avoid spoilers. Only three get to be seen on live television - that's the catch. (Reality shows lie to us.)

Will agree both Koto and Jerrol's bridal gowns and bridesmaid dresses were atrocious.
Too much going on. Part of the reason we ended up with the bridal challenge is all the designers screwed up royally on the evening dress competition - making me wonder about their abilities. Even the winner of that challenge's dress was bad - Jerroll's.

That said? Bridal dresses are hard to do well. So are bridesmaid gowns. You've got to be into the whole thing to pull it off.

Right now - I think the winner of this thing will either be Leanne or Kenley - if they stick with what they've done past seasons, it'll be Kenley - the most obnoxious, nastiest designer in the room - wins. That's my problem with reality tv - nasty people keep winning these things. People I can't stand and can barely watch. Which again, makes me wonder about people. Because in reality? Kenley would have been out for her behaviour ages ago. All they've done is encourage it - because you know, ratings.