2015 Fandom Meme

[frelling_tralk]

Which TV shows did you start watching in 2015?

I really need to get into more new shows, I don't think that I did pick up any new shows this year other than Daredevil! I'm currently watching The Vampire Diaries, The Good Wife, The Big Bang Theory, Pretty Little Liars, Doctor Who (all pretty old now), and the only newish shows that I'm following are iZombie, Daredevil, and From Dusk Till Dawn. Otherwise most of my tv time goes to re-watching my DVDs of older shows

Oh and I am currently watching early seasons of How I Met Your Mother on Netflix! I watched season 1 a while ago and always meant to catch up with some more, then I subscribed to Netflix for Jessica Jones and found that HIMYM was on there as well, so I've just caught up with seasons 2 and 3.


Which TV shows did you mean to get into but didn't in 2015? Why?

I hate to say this because my flist has been so enthusiastic about this show and I really wanted to join in the squee, but...Jessica Jones :( It's not that I didn't like it at all, it was nice seeing so many different female characters on-screen for a start, but I just found that the episodes were really feeling like a misery slog after a bit. I was the most invested after the first episode actually, I really liked how that whole Noir vibe with the voice-overs reminded me a bit of Veronica Mars, and then the ending with Hope certainly left an impression, but as it went on I found myself struggling to get invested. I read this interesting article which I think that sums up a lot of what I was struggling with? 13 episodes of trying and failing to catch Kilgrave just doesn't appeal to me as much as shows that have individual episode cases, as well as the serialised element. The pacing was really dragging for me when it was all so serialised, I couldn't get through an episode without it starting to feel like a chore :( And David Tennant still doesn't do a lot for me

And I talked more about The 100 at the time, but I'm still not sure whether I will watch any more of that show or not


Which TV shows do you intend on checking out in 2016?

Amazon's "Man in the High Castle" is on my watch list at the moment, and The Originals, Luther, and Prison Break are all on my maybe list if I can find the time


Which TV show impressed you least in 2015?

The Good Wife I suppose. I already talked about my feelings on season 6 in a previous entry, and so far I'm not all that swept away by season 7 either. As ever the material for Alicia isn't bad, but I'm tired of the supporting cast feeling like a spare part. If they can't be bothered to use Diane and Cary properly then just write them out for goodness sake, there currently feels like very little point in A&L (is that the name now, I've lost track lol?) hanging around on the outskirts when Alicia doesn't even work at that firm any more, and the attempt at a personal rivalry between Diane and Alicia over Howard Lyman of all people felt very forced. None of it has been bad as such, but it feels very unfocused and aimless IMO, and the show has lost a lot of its heart in keeping Alicia so separated from the rest of the main cast that she barely has a relationship with Diane or Cary any more

I'm also not loving this season of The Vampire Diaries. The flash-forwards were an intriguing idea, but honestly there's no real hook for me with the characters at the moment. I still enjoy the brother moments with Damon and Stefan, but otherwise the Steroline is falling flat for me this year (it seemed like they had a lot more chemistry in season 6?), Enzo/Bonnie needs more ground-work to completely hook me, and Matt as ever is just kind of there

The only storylines I've really been intrigued by this year were when Alaric was trying to bring Jo back to life, and Lily's scenes with Damon and Stefan. But it feels like otherwise a LOT of time has been wasted on the Heretics and we're suddenly supposed to be drawn in by their personal drama, even though we're only just met them? So yeah this season isn't really doing it for me, I wish they would drop Julian as a villain and concentrate on doing more with the flash-forwards instead


Which TV show do you think you might let go of in 2016 unless things significantly improve?

None at the moment. I did kind of lose interest with From Dusk Till Dawn halfway through season 2, but then the final two episodes grabbed me enough that I will be watching season 3


Which TV shows do you think you’ll never let go of no matter how crappy they get?

The Vampire Diaries and The Good Wife, they don't have that many seasons left at this point anyway, I've invested enough in them that I will have to see them through to the end


Your main fandom of the year?

I don't really have one main fandom any more I don't think


Your favourite film you watched this year?

Honestly nothing that swept me away particularly, I guess The Theory Of Everything is the one that stands out the most?


Your favourite book read this year?

The two books that left the most lasting impression were





Bird Box completely freaked me out and gave me nightmares LMAO, it was all about the human race dying out and going insane because of something they see whenever they open their eyes on the outside, and the book is focused on a small group of survivors struggling to survive and not turn on one another

And then Alice was a *much* darker and creepier re-telling of Alice In Wonderland, Alice escapes from the mental asylum that she's been locked up in for the past ten years for telling her story, and then it's all about her trying to find the rabbit again.

I think I got too bogged down with psychological thrillers for a while there after it seemed like those were the books that everyone was recommending, and while I still have a soft spot for "Gone Girl" and that was a book that met the hype for me, I'm not particularly enthusiastic about some of those other raved-about books like "Girl On The Train". I want to get more into fantasy books this year I think, and more focus on characters rather than plot twists. I'd love any recommendations :)


Your favourite TV show of the year?

I don't know that I have just one favourite show, but iZombie really impressed me this year after I was a bit on the fence/more of a casual watcher at the end of season 1, they seem to have really hit their stride in season 2. I really enjoyed Daredevil and am looking forward to season 2 next year. And Doctor Who had a great run at the end of series 9, especially the last episode with the Doctor and Clara's final meeting *sobs*


Your biggest fandom disappointment of the year?

"Everyone will freak out because it's so clearly in every episode. When it's finally revealed, you could literally go back to season 1 and knowing who it is, you can be like, 'Oh, wow. Whoa. This has been here all along, and I never noticed it,' which is, I think, brilliant." Lies!



Your biggest squee moment of the year?



Also recent developments on The Big Theory with Shamy were another squee moment for me, but probably the spoilers are too recent to use gifs for those moments quite yet :P


The most missed of your old fandoms?

I dunno really, Hannibal I guess? It's sad that we're not getting a fourth season


The fandom you haven't tried yet, but want to?

Erm I've no idea. Most of the biggest fandoms lately seem to be comic-book focused, and I find that most of the time I just can't get into those shows unfortunately :( Daredevil has been the only one that's grabbed me so far, otherwise I gave up on my attempts with Gotham, Supergirl, and Jessica Jones

Your biggest fan anticipations for the coming year?

The return of The X-Files and Gilmore Girls :D :D :D

Comments

[malicat.livejournal.com]

I liked Jessica Jones more than you I guess but I was still disappointed that it couldn't live up to my expectations. Daredevil was so much easier to get into. Like,I wouldn't really want to compare these shows in terms of which one is better but I personally enjoyed DD way more than JJ!

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

Yes, I really loved Daredevil! I wonder if part of it is because I'm often more drawn in by the villains and the ~morally ambiguous~ characters lol, and for me DD did a great job of drawing me in with Fisk, Wesley, and Vanessa as characters, so much so that I had a lot of divided loyalties in the finale when Vanessa was waiting in vain for Fisk. Well and of course I loved Matt, Foggy, Karen, and Claire as well! Whereas Kilgrave was just kind of meh to me and not all that compelling at all, which didn't help when the show was sooo focused on Jessica against Kilgrave

I find it interesting actually that David Tennant and other people involved with the show talk about Kilgrave in terms of him being charming and charismatic, when that was the very opposite of what I was getting from the show? It seemed to me like it was a deliberate choice to portray Kilgrave as really pathetic and self-deluded, because obviously he never really had to learn how to charm others, so he could just act like an impatient and spoilt baby all the time and still have his every wish granted. Which is a very valid choice too of course, but as a fictional character he just never drew me in or appealed to me at all

[12-12-12.livejournal.com]

Dude you are not alone with Jessica Jones, I couldn't even get through the 2nd episode, LOL. pocochina has given me a list of a selection of the later eps to try b/c I do want to get through the series, and I'm going to get going on that soon, but my immediate reaction was very "meh."

ETA: And oh yeah ITA about the balance of screentime being off with the Heretics on TVD. I think they maybe stumbled a bit with the writers feeling insecure/nervous about the show trying to find its footing after Nina left? But obvs I'm still engaged by the show and looking forward to seeing how everything shapes up in the back half of the season.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

I was really hyped for JJ because it seemed like a show I would love, but there was such a singular focus on Kilgrave that it didn't hook me the way that shows like Veronica Mars, Dollhouse etc did when there was a balance of 'cases of the week' as well, it felt like there wasn't much for viewers who weren't immediately hooked by the threat of Kilgrave. I did watch up to episode 9, but I actually found myself less engaged as the show went on for some reason lol. The pilot really did grab me, but by around the midway point of JJ I was starting to feel like I'm forcing myself to watch it just to say that I've completed the series. And that was around the time that I stopped and caught up on HIMYM instead :P

It didn't help that I had heard that episodes 8 and 9 were the best that the show had to offer, and while I was watching those episodes I could absolutely see why people were saying that, but at the same time I was just completely emotionally unengaged by it all :( Jessica and Trish's relationship was the most interesting part of the show for me actually and their past, but aside from those scenes I just wasn't feeling it. Even the much hyped scenes between Luke and Jessisia, obviously they're both very attractive people, but their sex scenes did nothing for me because the build was so lacking


And yeah I think that TVD started off strong this season actually, but these past few episodes have fallen a bit flat for me because it feels like they're relying waaaay too much on the Heretics instead of their main cast. Urgh when I think of all the fabulous vampire characters that Joss Whedon introduced (Spike! Drusilla! Sunday! Vamp Willow!), it just feels like such a waste that Mary-Louise and Nora's petty drama is the best they could manage for Lily's missing vampire family. Nora was actually better last episode when she had scenes with Bonnie, but so many scenes with the Heratics have just been with each other, and I really don't get why the writers assumed that we would care so much about brand-new characters to us

[sandrine]

I've heard a lot of good things about iZombie - it really makes me wish I had time for another show!

Thanks for that link to the article about serialised vs. episodic TV - that's indeed a good read. (It helps that they singled out one of my favourite Justified episodes and mentioned lots of things I found myself nodding alone with!) :D

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

Heh I feel like such a slacker when I read the number of new shows that everyone else seems to have picked up this year :P But I would definitely recommend iZombie if you have the time, it's a show with fun cases of the week, and it's got a lot of cool side plots that look to be headed somewhere interesting

And yeah in the past I've argued for more serialisation and considered ~case of the week~ type shows to be a bit of a bore, but lately I'm leaning towards it being more about how shows handle those episodic plots, and that it can feel a bit too heavy if a show is set up more as one long novel with no room for distractions and 'filler' at all. It depends on the show of course and how much its main arc hooks you, but yeah I definitely agree with that article talking about the value in making sure that every episode is individually strong and a stand-out in its own right, not just as part of the overall story. If Veronica Mars had been focused on the Lily Kane mystery alone in the first season for example then I'm sure it would still have had its fans, but a lot of fun side story's and character moments would have been lost along the way. Ditto with The X-Files to use another example, they could have created a much tighter show if they had focused more on the mythology each season perhaps, but then it's the 'filler' MotW shows that audiences really remember and care about

[livejournal.livejournal.com]

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[infinitewhale.livejournal.com]

I'm with you on Jessica Jones. I think if it was a movie or 5-8 eps I would have liked it more. Character-wise, it felt like a 13-hour pilot episode. I thought the storyline picked up a bit when Kilgrave and JJ were in her old house, but then it went flat again for me.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

Yeah I had to give up after those two episodes because I'd heard that they were the high point of the show, but I still wasn't really feeling it, so there was no point in going any further. So much of the show depended on the cat and mouse game between Jessica and Kilgrave that perhaps I would have gotten more hooked if I had enjoyed the dynamic between them, I can't help being drawn in by a charismatic villain and their story, even though I know it's considered "problematic" these days to like the villains. But honestly those often are the stories that interest me in my entertainment, whereas the set-up of JJ was so clearly all about Jessica working to get over her PTSD from Kilgrave that for me it just wasn't entertaining to spend 13 episodes on that message. I did think the show had a lot of very worthwhile and important messages actually, and I've read some really interesting discussion that the show has generated, but the episodes themselves just weren't grabbing me when it came to actually sitting down and watching them

It could definitely have worked better with just 8 episodes, but I got the feeling that all of those Marvel shows automatically get 13 episodes and they had to stretch it out to fit that, rather than originally having a plan that actually required that many episodes? There were way too many near-misses with Kilgrave that could have been cut down for a start

[infinitewhale.livejournal.com]

but I got the feeling that all of those Marvel shows automatically get 13 episodes and they had to stretch it out to fit that,

Maybe. It's on netflix though so...I'm not sure how that works. 8 eps, 13 eps, the person is still signed up for netflix. I don't see what how many eps has to do with their revenue.

I think it ended on an interesting note, but at the same time my issues with the general production never really were addressed. Like I get they probably don't have the money to do flying, but Jessica's power demonstrations were kinda lame. Like the scene where she's just throwing things and I don't know, I thought it cringy. I'll check out S2. Maybe with the notoriety it'll get a bigger budget and maybe attract better behind-the-scenes personnel. Other than the bus shot, there weren't many memorable scenes, IMO.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

I suspect part of the reason for that was maybe that they were trying to keep a more real-world feel by not emphasising the comic book side of it too much, but yeah they could have definitely spend a little more time on the fight sequences and demonstrations of her abilities, you could barely tell that Jessica was supposed to have super powers most of the time

[bm-shipper.livejournal.com]

I don't know that I have just one favourite show, but iZombie really impressed me this year

Me too, although I already loved Season 1 very much but I feel like this show is just getting better and better every episode. It really found it's footing and I hope it'll last a long time :D

Fandom disappointment: I think I know what this is about and yeah, totally agree... I was like "WTF?" in the end... -.- We didn't even "meet" her until very late in the show at all or knew of her existence...

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

I do still enjoy Pretty Little Liars, but the A reveal was such a let-down after all the build-up :(

[emeraldarrows.livejournal.com]

I disliked Jessica Jones, too. Slogged through a couple eps before giving up on it. Daredevil, though, I loved from the start and still adore.

What is your biggest fandom disappointment referring to?

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

Pretty Little Liars ;) The show finally revealed the identity of their stalker after four seasons of build-up, but for me it really didn't live up to the hype when I'd been hoping for it to be one of the regular characters, and for 'A' to have a really compelling reason for why they would target the four main characters. The reveal had its moments, but neither of those wishes were met sadly and the whole thing felt really half-assed. (The quote from one of the actors was lies because it wasn't someone who had been around since the pilot, it was a recurring character that first appeared in the third season and was always portrayed as very obviously shifty and not to be trusted from the beginning)

[emeraldarrows.livejournal.com]

Ah, okay. I never watched beyond the pilot.

[maybe.livejournal.com]

re; TVD: I really don't get their thinking with the Heretics either. The only one they have even attempted to flesh out is Valerie, the rest of them? I could honestly not care less about them or their silly squabbles. And I'm not feeling Steroline either, which is a shame after all this buildup.

I enjoyed Jessica Jones more than you (lol), but even then it was such a forgetful show for me. I haven't even thought about it once since I was done with the first season. IDK, I just think Daredevil was so much better all around, and it was a lot easier for me to get sucked into that world/the characters. Plus, Fisk was a much more fascinating (and likable!) villain, Kilgrave pails in comparison.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

Yep, I think that I might have enjoyed JJ more if I had found Kilgrave a more compelling villain (because it's not like he was an easily overlooked part of the story after all), but he just didn't have much of anything redeeming about him that made me want to keep watching.

I really liked Fisk's character too, especially his relationship with Vanessa, as well as Wesley's loyalty to him, there were some really touching scenes there that got me interested in their backstory and wanting to read fic. JJ just didn't spark any fannish interest in me in the same way quite honestly

[ladyoneill.livejournal.com]

Man in the High Castle was the best show on tv (well, not on tv...) You have to enjoy alt history, though.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

I thought it sounded pretty intriguing, I definely want to try and make time to watch it next month if I can

[silverusagi]

With you on the biggest squee moment of the year. :)

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

I'm still not over it :D And woot I'm getting Hannibal on Blu-Ray for Christmas, so I'm due for a re-watch soon!

[ever-neutral.livejournal.com]

How I Met Your Mother

lol, enjoy that while you can.

YESSSSS, DO LUTHER BEFORE THE MOVIE HAPPENS!

I'm actually still having a good time with The Good Wife. Mainly because I'm down with the new cast additions--the show is making a concerted effort to do away with its White Feminism and I appreciate that.

And then Alice was a *much* darker and creepier re-telling of Alice In Wonderland, Alice escapes from the mental asylum that she's been locked up in for the past ten years for telling her story, and then it's all about her trying to find the rabbit again.

THIS SOUNDS LIKE MY SHIT

Yes to Gone Girl, which I read after seeing the movie and it still rocked my world.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

Lol yes, I've already heard all about the endings spectacular failings :P

And Luther has been a possible watch for me for absolutely ages now, I really must make time to watch it next year

And I still enjoy the Alicia parts of TGW, I guess my main wish is that they could bring some of the relationships more into focus though, it feels so cold and impersonal since Alicia struck out on her own and there's no longer the L&G firm to pull the main characters together. I like Lucca's scenes with Alicia in that they work well together, but so far they don't seem to have much of a personal relationship :( It seemed to be going that way at first when they went for drinks at the bar, but at the moment it's pretty much all business with them

And Alice was so creepy and twisted, you must read it!

[bearshorty.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed Jessica Jones a lot more than you, probably because I liked Kilgrave as a villain more and really liked the focus on all the female characters. I loved the relationship between Jessica and Trish and most of the supporting characters. I saw the first episode of Daredevil but wasn't compelled to watch more because I don't particularly like mafia stuff. But I do think I will check it out more now because I did really like Claire. That said, I understand why you were underwhelmed by Jessica Jones. I liked reading your take on it.

Nice meme overall.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

Thanks :) The relationship between Jessica and Trish was definitely the most intriguing part of it for me

[wheatear.livejournal.com]

Aw, I'm sorry to hear that you didn't enjoy Jessica Jones. I loved it. Reading your comments, I agree that if you didn't like episodes 8 and 9 (definitely the stand-out episodes of the show) then it's probably not for you.

Personally, I thought Kilgrave was a great villain so I loved the fact that the series was all about Jessica hunting him down. The weakest episodes in my opinion (4 and 11) were the ones that didn't feature Kilgrave.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

Yeah I was disappointed after I was really hoping to be in step with a popular new fandom for once, but there was just something about the episodes that really dragged for me :(

[favoritexrecord.livejournal.com]

Totally agreed on Vampire Diaries. I'm just not feeling it this season and I was intrigued by the flash forwards but lately each one gets worse and worse, lol. I mean, Caroline & Alaric are together?! Nope, too weird.

And also totally agree with your biggest fandom disappointment!! How that show continues to get my hopes up I don't know, it always ends in anger for me.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

Yeah I'm disappointed because I really loved season 6 and I was hoping that season 7 would continue the uphill swing, but I'm just not feeling the Heretics as the main villains :( The season did start off promisingly with the flash-forwards, but then urgh all of the Heretics drama got to be too much

[stargazer60.livejournal.com]

I am still debating about watching Jessica Jones. I've all but lost interest in the Marvel universe... (but I LOVED Daredevil)

I quit on The Vampire Diaries some time ago. I completely lost interest in the silly plots.

I'm going to snag this..

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

It's probably worth trying it out as it does have a lot of fans, and I can't deny that it is a quality show, it just wasn't for me

[bigboobedcanuck.livejournal.com]

I thought S1 of The 100 was okay, but S2 was amazeballs. I got super obsessed and can't wait for S3. S2 was grittier and honestly shocked me more than once. I was really impressed! It's not a perfect show or anything, but S2 stepped it up a lot, IMO. And I have a huge crush on Bob Morley (Bellamy). He's so pretty, and a good actor!

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

Bellamy was my favourite character too from what I saw of the show :) I dunno, I might watch season 2 sometime as the show certainly had its moments, it's just I always have such a long list of shows to catch up on that I tend to push a show aside if I don't *really* love it and feel compelled to keep watching. I need more time in the day for tv!

[daybreak777.livejournal.com]

Watch Luther!

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

It's definitely a show that I plan to check out at some point :)

[giallarhorn.livejournal.com]

I read this interesting article which I think that sums up a lot of what I was struggling with? 13 episodes of trying and failing to catch Kilgrave just doesn't appeal to me as much as shows that have individual episode cases, as well as the serialised element.

See, that's what bothers me a lot about episodic and serialized shows. Having self contained episodes makes it harder for me to care much about the actual story being told, since in a majority of cases, it feels as if the impact from X is never carried over into the next to create a better, sequential story that goes from A->B->C. Which isn't to say that you can't have smaller arcs filling in larger ones, but then you end up with shows like Elementary and iZombie, which despite their relative strengths, suffer from the case of the week setup which while possibly good at generating specific moments, never feels like it has a strong finish. Fringe is one of my go to examples, since the show felt like it got a lot better once it began to make a conscious choice to drop the case of the weeks in favor for the larger focus on the overarching mythology of the show, and how everything fits into it. It does have pitfalls though- if you have too many episodes, you end up with messes like Sleepy Hollow, or if you plot out your arcs badly like Hannibal was fond of doing, then you end up with abrupt shifts.

(Which might be of no surprise that I'm relatively uninterested with this season of iZombie, since it just seems very...eh. It also doesn't help that I still think Major is about as interesting as a rock.)

There's also arguments that having an episodic setup forces you to have shorter story arcs that do resolve themselves neatly, and acts as an assumption that everything that happens is story shaped and has a nice progression from start>climax>descent, in which case of reality, life isn't story shaped all the time. I will say that JJ should've used the middling episodes more to explore other parts of the show that it never did get to looking at well (ie, Malcolm and the support group, Jessica's past more) but as a whole, the season as a single vehicle is a model I'm more interested in.

As a show though, JJ is not nearly as viewer friendly as Daredevil is. I mean, Daredevil is violent, yes, but violence is something that we're much more acclimated to as opposed to emotional violence and trauma, which makes for a harder to digest viewing. Which seems to be a reason for a lot of people stopping, since it is an upsetting subject matter.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

I'm not a big fan of Major either, but I must admit that we feel pretty differently otherwise. For a format like television I don't mind binge-watching, but I also don't necessarily want to watch with the expectation being that you need to watch the entire show to really get anything out of it, IMO the individual episodes should still be strong enough to stand alone and make an impact in their own way. With JJ for example, a lot of the time it felt like the focus was more on creating some memorable scenes in each episode as part of the overall story, rather than tightening the writing up and making the entire episode a real stand-out

I know what you mean about it feeling like a waste of time if some major development happens in one episode and is not then picked up in the next, but I'd argue most shows today do generally have an overall arc that carries over into the next episode, even when they're following the case of the week format otherwise

[giallarhorn.livejournal.com]

I mean, it is heavily dependent on the type of story you're telling or narrative you're constructing? The episodic style only works for specific types of shows, ie if you tried to do that with ASoIaF, or most any book to TV adaptations, then you end up forcing arcs to be more contained. On the other hand, it worked well for HIMYM, partly because it was a comedy and had nonrepeating episodes. But with JJ, I'm not sure if treating it as a more contained story would've been better? The entire season was focused on mostly two things (Jessica plus other people, to a lesser extent, dealing with their trauma, and coming to terms with Kilgrave). Which is a longer arc to tackle, so it wouldn't be better to fraction it off into neater portions when everything is bleeding into the other. Maybe if there had been something else going on parallel or alongside it, but almost everything circled back to those two points.

Even if you have a larger, overall arc I'm less than certain that it's any better from a narrative standpoint? Like yes, it is neater in that it goes 'here is the start, here is the middle, and here is the end'. It's very story shaped, and lets you get the resolution at the end. But even then, a lot of shows that do that risk being repetitive to the point of formulaic- it's not that they might be bad, but that they're so predictable that I might as well skip ahead to the relevant episodes. Obviously, you can have a middle ground where you have an episodic style show that all drive or tie back into the central story, which is sort of what Agent Carter or Hannibal ended up with, but that's much easier said than done.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

I'm not a big fan of Major either, but I must admit that we feel pretty differently otherwise. For a format like television I don't mind binge-watching, but I also don't necessarily want to watch with the expectation being that you need to watch the entire show to really get anything out of it, IMO the individual episodes should still be strong enough to stand alone and make an impact in their own way. With JJ for example, a lot of the time it felt like the focus was more on creating some memorable scenes in each episode as part of the overall story, rather than tightening the writing up and making the entire episode a real stand-out

I know what you mean about it feeling like a waste of time if some major development happens in one episode and is not then picked up in the next, but I'd argue that most shows today do generally have an overall arc that carries over into the next episode, even when they're following the case of the week format otherwise

[sunclouds33.livejournal.com]

Agreed on The Good Wife- both that it's really gone downhill but I'm in it for the long-haul at this point. I really wonder if this sporadic cast change of revolving love interests and law firm flips is because Juliana is so difficult to work with.

Sheldon/Amy FTW! I was watching TBB out of inertia lately- but my interests is sparked at actually giving Sheldon and Sheldon/Amy some development.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

Hmm yeah, that definitely seems possible actually. Surely the writers must know that audiences would like to see more personal connections being build up among the regulars, especially after the audience fuss at the Alicia/Kalinda friendship being written-off, and yet they still haven't bothered to continue Alicia's bonding with Cary or Diane from season 5. Also I believe that the King's actually acknowledged that nothing happened with Finn because Julianna didn't want to go there, and they made a point in interviews of Julianna approving of the casting of JDM as her love interest. It doesn't necessarily even have to be about her being awful to work with, but she does seem to have an awful lot of clout on set now that she's an executive producer, so I could see her having her own ideas on preferring to keep Alicia independent and working alone. I wouldn't even object to that necessarily, but there is so clearly no idea how to integrate Diane and Cary with Alicia's storylines :(

ETA I guess the risk of getting your main actress heavily involved in the decision making is that, from the second half of season 6 onwards, it felt like the focus was very much only on what was best for Alicia's character, and everyone else was being treated as afterthoughts. Diane for example is only getting an occasional showcase episode thrown her way as a bone, rather than being an important part of the narrative these days. But then, to be fair, actors are naturally going to be focused more on their character and what they'd be interested in doing, it's the people at the top that really failed to keep the focus on the supporting cast and the show as a whole as well

And the recent scenes with Sheldon and Amy were adorable, I can't wait to see where the show plans to go with them once they're back from hiatus :)