bhutocracy

A. I don't really turn on my TV unless I have acquired something specifically to watch and B. It's the context. I wouldn't be tearing it apart if it didn't stand in stark relief with the rest of the series. It's coming to expect a high bar which then isn't met. Like going to your favorite resturant expecting confit duck in a sticky cherry sauce with a smear of parsnip and thyme puree and side of duck baklava and being served up a lukewarm grilled sandwich. If all they ever did was serve grilled sandwiches I wouldn't complain that much, I probably wouldn't ever go there in the first place, but I wouldn't be expecting much more if I did. BB is/was easily a top 5 TV show of all time, up with the usual suspects like The Wire , Sopranos, Mad Men etc etc. But these last episodes are threatening that status with shitty writing. Currently I'm watching Boardwalk Empire and BB, Treme will start soon and that should continue to be decent. In a lower tier of shows that I keep up with but don't rate highly - Dexter, Trueblood, Walking Dead and Homeland. However with those shows I know I'm just getting a grilled sandwich.. and with Trueblood it's basically a hollow brain dead sandwich. I don't expect that much from them so I'm not disappointed. Walking Dead in particular is cursed with the kind of bad writing I'm talking about. Characters that do one thing one episode and do a complete irrational U turn the next.. Where zombies teleport right behind people, where a bad guy can chase someone and magically find them like they are a homing needle in a haystack, where one guy can kill 30 zombies but another guy can't fight off 1, where people randomly decide not to kill people they really, really should. It took them 2 entire seasons of fighting zombies with guns that drew in more zombies before they realised maybe, just maybe silencers were a good idea. I literally thanked the TV screen the first scene they used one and said a silent thank you to the writer for having half a brain. I probably would have given up after season two if the writing didn't IMMEDIATELY get better in season 3 after some writers were laid off and new smarter people came on. It's still pretty lame but watchable.
Anyways because BB has proven to be so epically great in the past, when it is just average with the kind of writing you expect in far shittier shows it REALLY STANDS OUT.. like a turd in caviar. Having your suspension of disbelief splattered all over the floor from bad writing really does ruin it.. I don't want to be thinking about the writers.. I want to be engrossed in the characters, which means they have to behave in vaguely realistic ways. You'll notice I never said the characters SHOULDN'T be on the arcs they're on, just that they needed better writing and/or more time to make these actions believable and not seemingly entirely arbitrary. I'm more like a tiger mom than a hater. I only want the best out of the show and don't feel I need to uncritically praise it no matter what just because it's generally better than whatever other stupid shit is on TV.