Still watching

[gwyn]

There were two shows I've checked out that a couple of friends mentioned I didn't include in my list yesterday. It's true, I did check them out, but in the case of Bones, it's up against Gilmore Girls, and so I've only seen the pilot, because they repeated it on a Friday. (I wish all TV broadcast channels did this, or repurposed their shows on cable channels later.) And like I said, I like to watch at least a couple eps, unless the show is so heinous I can't stand it again, before I decide what I think. I liked Bones more than others on my flist did, but not so much that I'd give up GG for it (I've lost my ability to record on one channel and watch on another). Though the way GG is going, that may be possible. The worst thing about Bones was its desperation in trying to create a cool chick heroine who's more a corpse person than people person -- they were working so hard on it that the seams were frayed and the pilot severely suffered for it. But David Boreanaz can win my heart at pretty much anything, and I identified with the misanthropic lead character a lot -- I just didn't like how they'd overplayed everything in regard to setting her up. I hope it's settled down by now, but I won't know till I get a chance to catch the other eps. I'm sick unto death of procedurals, though, so I hope they don't rely on that for the formula.

The other show was Night Stalker, which I hadn't seen enough of yet to form an opinion much. I didn't like most of what I saw in the pilot; I felt the plot was just recycled X-Files and everything else, and the other characters around Kolchak were simply grating and/or boring. It didn't even have a cool visual style, like Threshold, to make up the difference. It could be, though, that I'm prejudiced -- I was a huge fan of the TV movies in the '70s and the short-lived series, and to me, it just seemed like they could have either stuck with the basic premise or just done their own new show, and not tried to somehow tangentially connect it to a couple of great movies with a wonderful, eccentric lead character. I couldn't tell what the point of the series was, or in keeping Kolchak's name in name only, but I have last night's on the TiVo and will give it another shot, since maybe the second ep is better.

Comments

[mlyn.livejournal.com]

I watched Night Stalker and thought they were having an attempt at a visual style at one point, but in retrospect I'm not sure what it was. A lighting director trying to have a fit of creativity, and then giving up for the rest of the show?

The scene was Perri and Kolchak walking through an office with the lights low. They were almost completely silhouetted against the windows. Even when they turned toward the camera, it was hard to see their features. I thought, "Shit, if anyone is capping this show, they're going to be PISSED."

Really, having your stars in the dark for no good reason is not edgy or creative, imo. Granted X-Files did a lot of that, but at least they were consistent.

[cy-girl.livejournal.com]

I LOVED the original Night Stalker. The new one is not even a pale imitation because they didn't try to duplicate anything that was great about the original - the grumpy editor, quippy Darren McGavin, the creepy bad special effects, etc.

[zandra-x.livejournal.com]

I was pretty sure they weren't going to do anything good with Night Stalker when I saw it was going to be remade. The original one is one of my all time favorite shows. Kolchak's ridiculous straw hat, the grumpy cops and scientists he was always running into, the funny dialogue. It was more like Monk than X-Files

[merricatk.livejournal.com]

Reading this, I suddenly thought, "Kolchak was partially based on Gene Kelly playing E. K. Hornbeck in Inherit the Wind--that's why the straw hat!!!"

Proving once again that I'm completely delusional.

[zandra-x.livejournal.com]

Well, delusional or able to think laterally.