(no subject)

[frelling_tralk]

Give me a fandom and I'll give you, either in the comments or in a separate post, five unpopular opinions for that particular fandom.

Comments

[ditzyfish.livejournal.com]

Well from me it has to be Smallville :)

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

1. I prefer the first season in a lot of ways to the ~technically better~ second season. The FotW episodes were generally stronger in season 2, but I felt like the show lost its heart in that season. The Lex and Helen relationship was dire for starters in how poorly developed it was, it was supposed be be a major relationship for Lex that ended in a proposal and marriage and yet, even with the terrible actress, I felt that in comparison more thought went into his season 1 relationship with Victoria when they both playing one another and fighting to get the upper hand. I was never sure how I was supposed to feel about Helen, and if I was supposed to buy Lex as sincere with the 'the wall around my heart' speech. The Henry Small introduction was also a pointless detour that never really went anywhere, the Clana relationship started feeling forced as to why they weren't together (as opposed to season 1 introducing a legit obstacle with Whitney), and Chloe's character was very one-note that year

2. I was a big fan of Lexana, I thought that there was potential there for a really interesting team-up when Lex first tells Lana about Level 33.1 and she agrees with him that protecting themselves from the meteor infected is a good idea. I would have preferred if season 6 had separated Lex and Lana by having Lana then suffer from conflicted loyalty after finding out about Clark, and Lex feeling betrayed when she tells Clark about his secret projects, instead of simply having her pregnant and torn as to which man she wants to be with. There were so many more interesting routes to take that triangle :(

3. Lois Lane only worked for me in her early introduction in season 4, and then from season 8 onwards once she was actually at the DP and feeling a little more revelant. If it were up to me then I would have written her out after Devoted and let her find her path off-screen at college, and waited for season 8 for Clark to see her again when he joins the DP. They did use her better in early season 6 with Oliver I will admit, but most of the comic relief with Lois in seasons 4, 5, 6, and 7 was just painful to me, and they clearly had no idea how to write her path into journalism in a way that made sense

4. I wasn't a fan of Clark and Lois, I thought that the show was trying way too hard with other characters like Jimmy hammering it into our heads that Lois and Clark sound/look good together, and the writers got lazy with actually developing their attraction and relationship organically

5. I really disliked the pairing of Jimmy/Chloe and the way that Jimmy would take out his insecurities on Chloe and make everything her fault, the low point was when he tried to stop Chloe from even answering the lie detector on whether or not Jimmy was the one that she loved. That was a healthy relationship right there! It baffled me how a lot of the fandom seemed to just view them as sweet and cutesy and want that relationship to continue for Jimmy's sake, all while complaining about how terribly Chloe supposedly treated him by being friends with Clark and having to keep secrets from Jimmy


(I was going to talk about the Clex friendship and how that should have been handled, but I suspect that my opinions there aren't so unpopular :P )

[sunclouds33.livejournal.com]

Angel?

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

1. Cordelia's character was not destroyed because of the pregnancy, season 3 already lost their handle on her when they decided to make her Angel's love interest. Episodes like Billy still had that old Cordelia spark, but by midway into season 3 Cordelia was being written terribly when she was completely hung up on Angel and would make comments about Angel being the only person that she cares about. It was also contrived how they suddenly tried turning her into a saint with the power to heal, it was later retconned with Skip joking about Cordelia being a pure and radiant Saint, please, but I'm still not sure if we were supposed to take the season 3 cliffhanger on face value or not at the time (I suspect yes based on the earlier writing from that season)

2. I don't really get why fandom was so stuck on Gunn/Fred being such a terrible couple with no chemistry. Yeah they were a bit too cutesy at times, but it seemed like everyone agreed on them having zero chemistry, and I always thought that they had just as many chemistry as any other couple and were hardly a Buffy/Riley situation? Actually I thought that they made a pretty sweet couple and much preferred them to Wesley/Fred

3. Eh I wasn't a big fan of Fred, she was okay, but I felt like at times the behind the scenes love for Amy Ackler came across a little too blatantly with how much they kept pushing how loveable Fred was and how much the other characters adored her. I much preferred when Fred turned into Illyria, she become one of my favourite Ats characters ever

4. Intellectually I could appreciate Wesley's character and the good intentions behind what he was doing, but I could never emotionally connect to darker Wesley or like him very much. I usually like the darker characters, but I was just never feeling it with Wesley, if anything I thought that at times he came across as downright creepy and disturbed (how he handled what he thought was his father, his attitude towards Fred and Lilah)

5. Honestly Ats isn't my favourite show because I never liked any of the characters much, including Angel lol, so my opinions might seem a little overtly negative XD Gunn was probably the least problematic character for me, and I would have loved to see him and Cordelia become an item in season 2, but I had a hard time connecting with most of the characters and the writing of their relationships

[bm-shipper.livejournal.com]

Maybe Pretty Little Liars? :D

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

Hmm I'm not sure what the unpopular opinions are there, but I'll do my best!

1. One opinion that I know isn't popular in fandom is that I felt really bad for Allison in season 5 after she came back, I was disappointed in how quickly her friends turned against her. Yeah maybe they needed to break away from her domineering influence on them from when they were younger, but I thought that the show jumped a little too quickly into Aria blowing a rape whistle around Allison, or the girls deciding that all of their problems with A should be solved now that Allison is in jail. I also thought it was skeezy how they discussed planting evidence to make it look like Allison killed Mona, even though they had no proof of that, and I was uncomfortable with the shot of them all ganging up against Allison just before she was arrested. Allison has made a lot of mistakes in how she treated people, but it doesn't seem like the other four girls are doing that much better right now in how they're acting towards their former friend IMO

2. Toby is okay, but I think that Spencer and Wren would have made for a much hotter couple. I was kind of disappointed that they dropped them so completely, yeah there was the age gap and the dodgy past history, but still Wren was pretty sexy :P

3. This is possibly popular or unpopular, I'm not sure how many fans they have, but Ezra and Aria have been really gross to me ever since season 4 revealed how he deliberately manipulated 16 year old Aria in order to write a book on Alison's disappearance. It didn't seem so bad at first when we were led to believe that he had been unaware of Aria's real age, but now we know that he had a trap laying in wait for her from their first meeting in that bar, which shines a really sinister light on their relationship. It's ridiculous how the show now wants to have them publically dating and fine with one another, just because Ezra got shot (and is apparently no longer teaching?) That doesn't wipe away the beginnings of their relationship!

4 I don't believe that Aria is A

5. I find Emily kind of boring :( She's sweet enough, but I don't think that I've got into any of plot lines that much. At the beginning her coming out was handled very well, but ever since all of the stuff with swimming and college she's been the dullest of the main four to me

[velvetwhip.livejournal.com]

Buffy, of course.


Gabrielle

:D

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

1. I liked Dawn's character, I really didn't get the excessive hate from her from the very beginning. Yes I can see that she became a little too much at times in season 6, but I thought that her intro was handled really well as she was immediately an important part of the main arc, and her relationship with Buffy added a lot to the show. The first cliffhanger from BvD was really cleverly done, and then Real Me was a fabulous intro imo, so quite honestly I'm baffled that Dawn ends up on so many most annoying character ever lists with people saying that they could never stand her

2. I really hated the resolution to Willow's arc in season 6. I know that many people dislike Wrecked, or season 6 in general, but it does seem like most viewers still look back fondly on Dark Willow? And I just really hated those three episodes, well Villains was probably the best of the three as Alyson did a fabulous job being creepy while Willow was torturing Warren. But the last two episodes were a mess imo, Willow was turned into a ridiculous cartoon, and it lost all emotional reasonance for me until the moment where Xander brought Willow back to herself. I was especially disappointed because the show had spend so long on subtly building up Willow's lust for power, but I couldn't get engaged in those episodes when I felt like Racks magic had corrupted Willow so much that I wasn't even watching the same character. I would have preferred if Willow at least had an understandable goal, maybe being so griefstricken that she was prepared to kill Buffy and justify it as Buffy hates being here anyway (say if she found out that would undo the consequences of her spell in Bargaining and bring Tara back), instead Willow was just randomly throwing fireballs around and threatening to kill Dawn

3. I loved the parts of The Body that dealt with Buffy and Dawn's grief, but I thought that the scoobies crying and punching walls was WAY overdone. It seemed forced to present them all eating at Joyce's for Thanksgiving, even though we'd never see any of them share all that many scenes with Joyce before, Giles was the adult whom they usually based their meet-ups around if anything. I appreciated that Anya's character was confronting the permenance of death for the first time, or Tara worrying about how Buffy and Dawn were doing, but Willow and Xander grieving as much as they did rung false to me, like Joss was using their characters to show the different stages of grief that he wanted to cover

4. Season 4 was awesome! Okay the Iniative wasn't the best seasonal arc, but there was some great character work as the characters transitioned to college, and some of the best standalones come from that season too

5. Season 1 is also really fun, I'm tired of people acting like it's barely a part of the show and advising newbies to skip it because it's 'painful to watch'. Yeah the villains were cheesy and took themselves too seriously, but the character work with the main cast was so fun and well-done

[hanorganaas.livejournal.com]

Doctor Who!

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

1. I could never get into David Tennent's portrayal of the Doctor :ducks from the wrath of DW fans: I just always felt like he was a bit too over the top and excitable, like he was playing a performance of the Doctor, as opposed to fully being the character

2. I like both RTD and Moffat's time on DW

3. I really loved the Ninth Doctor, and I actually found his relationship with Rose a lot more obviously romantic than Ten/Rose, even though the rest of fandom seem to ship Ten/Rose far more! Yeah David and Billie were obviously closer off-set, but that just added to my feeling that Rose and the Tenth Doctor were more giggly best friend's, whereas I got a much stronger vibe from the Ninth Doctor of being romantically interested in Rose in moments like him noticing how beautiful she looks in The Unquiet Dead, or him getting nervous and looking down when they're dancing together in The Doctor Dances. Honestly I didn't really feel particularly intense feelings from the Tenth Doctor until series 3 when he was missing Rose so much, and then I started shipping them as a pairing as well, only a year after everyone else :P Rose had a more obvious crush in series 2 maybe, but I just never got an UST vibe from them in most of their scenes, more that they seemed to be having great fun together most of the time as BFF's

4. I don't know if this is still unpopular or not, but I've always loved Clara, she's one of my favourite companions so far.

5. I'm not a big fan of Rory or Danny

[ghyste.livejournal.com]

Life on Mars

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

I can't really think of any unpopular opinions for that fandom! :D Erm maybe that I never cared all that much about Chris or Ray, either in LoM or in A2A. They were both very much just kind of there for me, I was always watching LoM for Sam and Gene, and Annie to a lesser extent. But yeah, I can't really think of any unpopular issues that I have with the show, sorry!

[lynzie914.livejournal.com]

Since a lot of my fandoms are taken, I'm going to follow your icon.

Veronica Mars. :D

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

1. I could have shipped Veronica with Weevil, I thought that they had a great dynamic

2. I was fine with Logan and Logan/Veronica, but I also think that the character and the relationship are VERY overrated. There's so many other aspects of VM that I'm more invested in, and personally I never found their first kiss particularly special, for all the hype that it gets. First time watching I didn't get into L/V much at all, on rewatch I did appreciate their chemostry more and I enjoyed them reuniting in the movie, but at the same time they're not even close to being one of my favourite couples

3. I think that Duncan's character had potential early on when they were exploring how he was on antidepressants and messed-up over losing his sister. I was disappointed in how they tried to turn his character into a boring generic male lead in season 2, still he did have a good exit and I would have liked to have seen him in the movie, or if any future versions of VM want to follow up on his story

4. I don't get the dislike for season 3, I don't think I've ever seen such an extreme reaction to a television series before! I came at it from the perspective of hearing that you should save yourself the pain of watching it, that it's not just bad for VM, that it's terrible television full-stop, so I was taken-aback at how much I enjoyed it. There were obviously a lot more missteps that season, and some of the arcs worked better than others, but it was still reasonably enjoyable television IMHO and still recognisably VM

5. I don't get how Veronica was supposed to be a terrible person in season 3, she seemed the same as ever to me? And I dont mean that in a bad way lol, I really liked her character always

[liliaeth]

Teen Wolf?

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen that show yet, sorry! (It is on my to-watch list for when I have more time though)

[tellshannon815.livejournal.com]

The Vampire Diaries.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

1. Season 1 was really cheesy early on, but I never thought that it was as terrible as everyone else apparently did lol. There were certain aspects that they could have done without, like the fog and the crow, but overall the episodes still worked for me as an intro to the show

2. I liked Caroline in season 1 before she became a vampire, I always thought that her character was interesting with her being shallow and popular on the surface with snarky comebacks, but riddled with insecurities underneath. It was really towards the end of season 1 when the character got bogged down in the relationship with Matt, but early on she was already shaping up to be one of my favourites, and Candice did a great job of making me feel for Caroline when Damon was feeding off her. Even towards the end of season 1 she still had her moments, in the Mystic Falls episode for example when she overcomes her jealousy and encourages Elena to compete. In fact I remember her being pretty popular at the time and most viewers already preferring her over Bonnie, so I don't really understands all of the dismissal for season 1 Caroline and how she only became a worthwhile character after becoming a vampire

3. I like Stefan's character more than Damon, at times I've actively disliked Damon and really struggled with the character (particularly in season 2 when his treatment of Andie made me very uncomfortable, even more so when other characters seemed to take it in stride and Alaric would just make comments on don't kill her because that would really get me into trouble with Jenna???)

4. Erm lets see, I'm not a big fan of Matt, I think that the actor who plays him is terrible and comes across as constipated and clenched jawed most of the time. Matt is supposedly the human heart of the show, but most of the time I just find him really self-righteous

5. Oh and I don't know if this is unpopular or not, but the morality of the show bothers me a lot at times. Elena was distraught when she killed Connor, even though that was in defense of Jeremy and Connor was a pretty murderous and ruthless guy, but then she will plot to kill all of Kol's vampire line as a great strategy. If we go along with Elena always having treated vampires as sentiments beings, then isn't that mass murder of a bunch of people that she's never even met or given a chance too? Yet it only seems to be an ethical dilemma if a human dies, even though most of the main cast are vampires themselves now!

[rogueslayer452.livejournal.com]

Gilmore Girls and/or Gossip Girl?

Gilmore Girls

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

1. I wasn't much of a fan of Luke, I found him really grumpy and miserable, nor do I think that him and Lorelei worked as more than friends. I thought that Lorelei had much better chemistry with Christopher

2. Ditto for Jess actually. He did have better chemistry with Rory than L/L ever did, but I found his character really surly and grating. I couldn't believe the way that he spoke to Lorelei when she was trying to welcome him to Stars Hollow! I actually liked Luke and Jess in scenes with one another the most, I thought that they developed a very touching father/son dynamic, but I didn't really like either of them as characters that much most of the time

3. Logan was so hot and charming, I even loved his smirk lol. He was definitely my favourites of Rory's boyfriends <3

4. I was never really a part of the fandom, so I've no idea if this is unpopular or not, but often I found myself sympathising with Emily more than Lorelai in their relationship. Lorelei was my fav and I always loved her character, but in her interactions with Emily I often just wished she would show some tact and calm her personality down a little. Don't get me wrong, often Emily was deliberately hurtful and I would side with Lorelei, but I felt like there was an assumption that the show expected the viewers to always side with Lorelei and to laugh at her jokes and how she wound up her mother, but sometimes I wished that Lorelei would be a little less hyper and ON around Emily. She was fun to watch, but I can definitely see Lorelei becoming a little much if you had to sit through a dinner with her

5. I found Kirk intensely irritating, he was just never funny to me, and I hated how he got bigger and bigger subplots as the seasons went on and the writers clearly found him hilarious. He should have remained a supporting character with Miss Patty, Babette, Gypsy, and the rest of the townsfolk. All fun in small doses, but too much of them and you would start to get sick of their quirks. And plus sometimes Kirk was just too much of a creepy man child and it really stretched the realism of the show. In general I was not a fan of the show getting a bit too silly with how quaint Stars Hollow was in later seasons, the town meetings were fine and worked well,but did we really need to see Luke and Kirk naked in a bathhouse to discuss their living situation with the town elders?

Gossip Girl

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

1. I really liked Jenny (or little J *g* ) in the first season, and how the show portrayed her scrambling for popularity

2. Erm Dan did get a little too judgy in season 2 after him and Serena had broken up, but I thought that he was really dorky and charming in the first season, I don't get why he was immediately written off by fandom as being a terrible protagonist. Yeah he had a couple of terrible moments (walking out on Serena over her past sleeping with Nate for one!), but overall I felt like the show did a good job of portraying his PoV, and Penn carried off Dan's awkward rambles well, but fandom just seemed deadset against him from the beginning

3. Serena and Carter should have ended up together, they made for such a hot couple!

4. Blair was my fav, but I also liked Serena, whereas it seemed like fandom started really pitting them against one another later on and writing Serena off :(

5. Blair's relationship with Dorota was only touching in the first season, the power unbalance made their dynamic too creepy when the show kept trying to turn them into a double act of some sort later on, at the same time as Blair making bets with Chuck where he would get Dorota if she lost. You don't actually own her, Blair, she just works for you!

[tasabian.livejournal.com]

No one asked for SPN yet? Supernatural!

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

1. Castiel worked really well in season 4, but they never needed to make him a regular, he would have been much more powerful if his appearances had remained at reoccurring

2. I really liked Bela and wished that we got more backstory on the deal that she made, and that we saw her again after Hell. Also she and Dean would have made a super hot couple!

3. Bobby is okay, but I find him overrated. His death episode was very well done, but I never considered him to be an essential part of the shows success, and I got kind of tired of his 'balls' and 'idjits' catchphrases.

4. I was disappointed in the execution of season 5. I know they didn't have a high budget, but I was really expecting more than the poor pacing and filler episodes that we did get. It had its high points, but overall it was a disappointing follow-up to the season 4 cliffhanger to me. All that build-up to the breaking of the seals meaning that Lucifer would create hell on earth, and then the world was basically the same?! I never cared much for the portrayal of Lucifer either, I liked the version that Sam played in The End more

5. Season 7 flopped pretty hard by the end, but I think that the first half of that season is underrated, there were a lot of strong episodes

[vyperdd.livejournal.com]

Darn, SPN is taken, so (judging by your username) I'll suggest Farscape.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

1. Zhann was really superior and grating, I could never warm to her character

2. I loved Sikozu, she was one of my favourite characters and I was disappointed in how the miniseries ended her story

3. I appreciated the note of tragedy that the miniseries ended D'Argo and Chiana's love story on, but they didn't really work for me as a couple overall, I found D'Argo quite Misognostic and unpleasant in relationships

4. Jeremiah Crichton wasn't THAT bad. Yeah it was pretty bad, but it was funny bad! I wouldn't call it the worst Farscape episode of all, I've sat through way more boring episodes than that one for starters

5. Coup By Clam was hilarious and one of the best season 4 episodes

[endeni]

How about Torchwood? ;)

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

1. One opinion that I guess is unpopular is that I never really cared about Owen much. I know that no one was that keen on him at first, but by the end of series 2 it seems like he had grown on a lot of people and they were mourning his death, but I just never warmed to him

2. In retrospect the Janto relationship was more fanon than canon. The show did make them more intense in Children Of Earth, but for most of series 1 and 2 they happened off-screen and I felt like the writers cared way more about getting the audience invested in Jack and Gwen. I believe that Ianto had deep feelings for Jack, but I'm not sure if Jack was ever in romantic love with him in the same way

3. I think that Children Of Earth is a little bit overhyped, it seemed like it became the popular viewpoint to treat COE as the time when TW got serious and dismiss the earlier show completely as complete crack? Don't get me wrong, COE was very powerful drama, but no less so than episodes like Fracture or Sleeper were from series 2 IMO, but it just seemed like people forgot all that after COE and remember the entire series as being nothing but jokes about blowfish driving a sports car?


And I have more opinions, but I don't think that they go against popular fandom opinion, so I'll have to leave it at three XD

[stolenglimpse.livejournal.com]

How's about a little Dollhouse? :)

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

1. It's one of my favourite Joss shows (after Buffy of course!), and it's disappointing how many people dismiss Dollhouse as not being his best work. I thought the show had some really fascinating things to say about identity through Echo refusing to believe that she's broken, and having to build her own personality from scractch, the show had so many interesting things to say if only people would dig a little deeper

2. I didn't really have a problem with Echo, I don't agree that Sierra or Whisky should have been the lead instead. Eliza wasn't always a strong enough actress to pull off certain scenes, but overall I liked what she did with the role. Okay maybe Whiskey could have been a stronger lead, but I was always pretty meh on the raves over the Sierra actress. She was decent enough, and I did love the 204 episode focusing on her, but I never thought that the character was that much of a standout as everyone else apparently did

3. It seemed like Paul/Mellie became the more popular couple over Paul and Echo, but I thought that Paul and Mellie were a total mess together and I could never root for them as a couple

4. I shipped Echo with Alpha a litle bit :blushes:, I wish that the show had more time to explore his character and what caused him to reform in the end and work with Echo

5. Okay I'm not sure that this is actually unpopular at all lol, but Echo >>>> Caroline, I was so glad that the show ultimately had Echo keep control of her body, after establishing that she had become self-aware and had just as much right to exit