02-28-2006, 10:49 AM | #1 | |
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Interesting review of S4
I came across this review by SARS of the Television Without Pity bb.
http://www.tomatonation.com/planb.shtml Here's an excerpt: Quote:
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02-28-2006, 11:33 AM | #2 |
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I agree with that, more I quoted part of it (about CC's trying to make sense and not going so literally with what the scripts said) at the Bones thread as an example about what an actor can do or chose to do when the scripts contradict the part he/she got before causing an almost schizophrenic characterization.
CC, until Cordy killed Lilah, gave me the sensation of someone testing the ground all the time, trying to act the part without going too deep because it has no sense what she was getting from the scripts, trying to play the part in a "safe way" so any thing the writers had planned could fit. If CC would have played the part literally, remarking the regreting parts and all the incongruences (a literal performance), the incoherent plot of season 4 would have been way more obvious. And after she got the news that Cordelia was evil , she had to deal with a another problem: what kind of big Bad she was. Because EvilCordy was going from terrible powerful to be beated by Willow "I can make appear a bunny wihtout going dark again" Rosemberg because Connor was calling her (?!); from making a Rain of Fire, being the Master of the Beast and erase all information about her to not having any sidekick and having to do all the killing... She was all terrible but the next episode was almost the fourth member of the Trio of Sunndale and the final result was a comic villian. That was probably one of the best review of ATS 4 Last edited by v120176; 02-28-2006 at 11:49 AM. |
02-28-2006, 12:02 PM | #3 |
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I could not agree more with what the reviewer said. I do feel like S4 was hastily thrown together from the getgo. Making Cordy the big bad made no sense at all and was really just repeating stories on Buffy. No respect for the show so let's just recycle a storyline cause ITS THE LAST SEASON OF BUFFY! OMFG! Whatever.
But thanks for sending that our way. I really enjoyed it and I passed it around to some of my other friends.
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02-28-2006, 12:17 PM | #4 |
It's all about Cordy.
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Good review; I like that she places the blame for the half-assed Cordy of season four where it belongs.
But I still think it could all have been avoided if, after Joss had gone on and on about Cordy ascending into heaven, someone had said, "Then what?"
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02-28-2006, 09:58 PM | #5 | |
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02-28-2006, 10:19 PM | #6 |
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When I first read that Cordelia was going to end up being the BB for S4, I was really excited. I thought it would be a great chance for CC to spread her wings and really take off with it, as well as offering Angel and the group a fantastic opportunity to help her through the aftermath and pull everyone even closer together. To make them into a real family. It's the way they chose to execute it that I had a problem with. I think that after CC became pregnant they should have toned down the camp a bit, (can anyone say gawd awful Stevie Knicks descending the staircase outfit?) and definitely worked around the bump. It's not like they haven't used a double in the long shots before, and I think we're all smart enough to know that Cordelia the character and Charisma the person are two different people, so if one was having a kid and the other wasn't, our brains wouldn't have exploded from the confusion.
Last edited by Lovin' Lorne; 02-28-2006 at 10:27 PM. |
02-28-2006, 10:28 PM | #7 | ||
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Good review. Thanks for the link, JoJo.
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03-01-2006, 01:18 PM | #8 |
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I like the review. It hit on a lot of great points. Whether you liked the episodes of the first three seasons or not, under David Greenwalt, Angel, most of the time, had a natural flow from one episode to the next. Season four was a jumbled mess. I agree with the reviewer that even if CC did not get pregnant, they still should have had a back up plan.
The reviewer also has a good point about Connor not moving forward. Rather than character progression, he seemed to see-saw back and forth. One episode, he would seem to start figuring out that Angel isn't such a bad guy. Then the next week, he'd be back to 100% hating him again. It got old really fast. There were also too many subplots in season four. I like how the reviewer put it. "And in fact, it's an issue with the whole season -- the sense that entire subplots got paused while we dealt with other things. Prior seasons seemed to weave everything together much more deftly, but S4 just dropped some of its threads for long stretches of time, to the point where I noticed it and would say out loud, "Um, Cordelia? Anyone remember her? Comatose somewhere?" Fred is on her out-of-town jaunt, fleeing Jasmine's followers, and we got a bunch of scenes that repeated themselves; no Cordelia, Connor filler scenes. Gunn is off with Electric Gwen, and it turns into a standalone episode while Angel is setting Cordy up, but then that all happens in the last minute of the ep. It came off as…not thrown together, but just sort of disorganized, like the writers themselves kept smacking their foreheads all, "Ohhhhh yeah, that guy. Shit." |
03-02-2006, 08:00 AM | #9 | ||
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03-02-2006, 08:42 AM | #10 | ||||
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Great article, and I agree with every point. I don't think the viewing audience was stupid enough to think that just because the actress was preggers, the character had to be too (although after the way some people acted...).
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Then again, these are the same people who fired CC and VK without a second thought. Come to think of it, they didn't deserve VK on the show either, especially after he continued to heavily praise CC and the rest of the crew and so on. Too much class for this show, clearly. Quote:
Whatever. I'm not a writer for this show, but them writers didn't do it right. ETA: On Connor...the one thing I thought they should've kept, and they didn't, damn them, was the religious fervor. The kid was raised by a religious zealot, for crap's sake! Have him hate Angel because he's a product of pure evil, NOT because he's a sucky father who didn't give him a gameboy. Have Connor do things because he honestly believes that they are the right thing to do. You throw him in a room with a bunch of atheists, shit is going to happen! It would've been far more believable, to me, to have Connor and Angel butt heads over moral codes, rather than Connor stomping his feet and slamming doors every time something didn't go his way. Also, VK played cool self-righteousness far better than bratty kid. But that's just me. ETA2: Quote:
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03-02-2006, 11:47 AM | #11 | |
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03-02-2006, 12:04 PM | #12 |
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Or no explanation about who's the father, kinda Scully at X-files... meaning she comes back pregnant, for timeline it's not Groo and she doesn't remember anything from her time as a HB, so she doesn't know how she got pregnant. The writers could choose between the baby being good or bad. You'll have there a jealous Angel because the woman he l... is pregnant and not from him and Connor over-protective of Cordy (like the baby is his brother/sister) with his family obsession thingy.
More, the gang can believe the baby is good until some weird things starts to happen and find the baby is evil. Like season 1, the baby is turning evil Cordy and and she starts to put Connor against Angel and the gang, when they start to say the baby it's evil. Or whatever,... they didn't even need a father on screen or known. The writers really choose the worst plotline to alienate fans. Because imagine that ConCord could cause a massive running away from the show doesn't require a high IQ... They already know how the fans reacted to dark-Buffy... Imagine the mother figure sleeping with the son. |
03-02-2006, 12:16 PM | #13 |
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a while back i read an interview with one of the producers, (Bell i think) that stated that they found out Charisma was pregnant 3 days after they started to break the storylines for the season, and in 3 days, your not going to lock the wkole season down so it's unchangeable.
they could have gone anywhere they wanted to at that time. they could have had Cordelia stay in the upper realm for the whole season, but be able to contact or influence the gang from there. she could have just had head shots, like they did for the first 3 episodes, and never show her pregnancy. maybe have Lilah get possessed and be the big bad for the season like CC was originally supposed to be (Jasmine was not thought of until CC became pregnant and couldn't do some of the stuff they wanted the big bad to do)
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