| 14/6/2011 Well I'm bummed! Why am I so upset do you ask? I've watched entire seasons of 2 awesome sci-fi shows and it turns out they've been cancelled! THE TRAGEDY! I'll start off with the show I've just seen the second season of. That'll be V. I did a comparison between this series and the original last year, you can read that here. The second season was way better than the first, it was so tense and nerve-wracking I was nervous with the characters. We find out what it is the Visitors want and while it has nothing to do with resources...my God how selfish. However, there is a threat to their species that is never properly explained, but apparently embracing the human soul is the only way to survive. Speaking of the soul, there is deliberation on its importance and role in humanity. There are some hard questions discussed, I like that. Unfortunately, with the TV show now axed, I finished off V season two the exact same way I finished 'V: The Final Battle': dissatisfied and grumpy. The reason being they both had bullsh** endings. There are differing reasons as to why they were such let downs, but in the case of the final episode that aired this last spring, one character was blatantly killed off because the writers had run out of ideas of what to do with him, even though the audience had been led to believe he was relied on for leverage; an assassination was carried out to the shock of hundreds of people despite the fact that the perpetrators should have been seen and heard a whole minute before it happened; Lisa became conveniently stupid (though that is debatable) and something that should not have worked...did. I wish I could provide more details, but I really don't want to spoil anything. Admittedly I can't forgive ABC for the way V ended, mainly because it ended on the mother of all cliffhangers and it'll now never be resolved, while the original miniseries had at least resolved everything. There's an online fan petition but since when has any of those ever been effective? The other show is 'No Ordinary Family'. It was produced brand new for the Autumn 2010 lineup and when I saw its premiere, I was hooked. It's about a family that survived a plane crash and later discover they have superpowers. This was genuinely entertaining and charming. 'Heroes' had started out as being an exploration of ordinary people getting abilities, but whatever normalcy it had faded away very quickly. 'No Ordinary Family', on the other hand, actually showed people struggling to learn how to use their own abilities, keep them secret and continue going to work/school while also having social lives and other community obligations. The characters are genuinely engaging, most of them weaving through shades of grey instead of being absolutely black or white. The fact that its network forced the producers to cut back on 2 episodes part way through its run does hurt it, but the conclusion of the season is so satisfying, with such an exciting segue into the next season, that I honestly felt betrayed! How dare this show get cancelled? What idiots didn't watch this? The problem is that there is so much good TV that it's difficult for enough of the audience to see it all. I never thought I'd say that. But it's true. I suppose us, the television audience, should be glad that TV networks are constantly pushing for creative ideas, meaning that TV shows are continuously hitting the quality benchmark. But it does mean so many good ones will never survive beyond the first season. :( |