to me. I don’t mind a nice semi complicated story with involved story lines and intersecting character paths. But any show that i basically have to rewatch just to understand what’s happening on a basic level doesn’t seem worth it to me. I’m 4 episodes into season 3 and have rewatched some of the episodes twice to understand they separate timelines and how people are sometimes related differently in each. Probably tapping out at this episode
shareI loved this show. That being said, when I started watching season 3 I realized that while I understood enough of the narrative to keep watching it, I was also pretty fucking lost on most of the details that kept cropping up and had a hard time keeping up with the various characters in different eras where they were not recognizable or played by other actors.
What kind of amazed me about this show is how excellent the acting was for what amounted to a science fiction/fantasy type show.
I keep waiting for the younger actors who played Jonas and Martha to turn up in Hollywood.
Do science fiction/fantasy type shows generally have lesser quality acting?
My take is yes. For better or for worse, science fiction is "genre fiction" and doesn't get a ton of respect from writers themselves and is often semi-cynically cranked out to satisfy fans, not as an art form.
Don't get me wrong, I think it's an unfair deal and that science fiction has real potential as an art form to explore very interesting subjects.
But rare is the television show that has both high quality dramatic content and also tells a compelling science fiction story.
Fantasy and scifi both depend on the happening of impossible things so I think that makes story logic difficult. Then you have to ask the actors to pretend that preposterous things are totally normal. It must be hard for them to keep a straight face.
At the same time, I think that fantasy and scifi are very suited to exploring themes and thinking about what is universal to human nature, precisely because they don't limit themselves to events that could really happen. I remember watching SpiderMan a few years ago and realising that one of the things that is in common with virtually every SpiderMan movie is that once he figures out how to work the webs, he goes for a joyride through the tall buildings of the city. This never made the same impact on me when I was young, but as a middle-aged mom, I was really struck by the realisation that SpiderMan's web-driven ride through the city is essentially an ode to the joy of being young, healthy, and strong.
I think that in terms of writers who write fantasy and scifi, there are basically two ways of doing it. One way is to essentially invent an entire system of magic that is as internally coherent as possible. Patrick Rothfuss and Brandon Sanderson (and probably a lot of other authors I don't know) have written books where a lot of effort is put into the internal coherence of their magical systems. Many fantasy readers really enjoy this kind of thing. Another way is to not really worry much about whether the magic is internally consistent, but to spend more effort on using it as a metaphor for what it tells us about morality or human relationships. To me, GRRMartin and Robert Jordan are more along this axis. This is the approach I prefer, personally, but I think both approaches are equally valid and it's really about what the writer enjoys.
I think for tv it is different again because tv is designed for capturing as many viewers as possible because it's more expensive to make a tv show than to write a book; also apparently tv shows (at least in the model standard until streaming, I don't know how things work now) are/were usually funded by spending money first and hoping you make it back via selling advertisements. So they go for broad-based appeal, are under time pressure (get things in on time and on budget) and so on.
shareHBO would like a word with you about the model for TV and how to make quality TV.
I'd say they did a decent job with scifi/fantasy with GOT and Westworld.
Hahahaha. Oh yeah, for sure. I mean "traditional" tv which was ad-supported and therefore depended on capturing as large an audience as possible, as opposed to something like HBO which is subscription based and therefore catering to an audience that is willing to pay up-front for higher quality (and possibly more esoteric) material.
shareI think that's part of it's charm, as a show it's more complex than your average TV serial and centers around more characters than just the two main leads.
I just finished it and it's SO worth it. Best series I've seen on Netflix.
shareMaybe in some part we're supposed to feel lost, like most of the characters.
That said, I'll admit to having tuned out quite a bit over the last season. It was well worth the wait, since everything finally made sense. But getting there is a bit of a slog.
It is kinda funny how many of the characters take it upon themselves to "fix" things. I'm also not clear on how Adam, Claudia, etc. get to be so "wise" about time travel. I have tapped out and no longer care to bend my brain. I just let it run in the background while I surf the net. LOL!
shareI got through two seasons but I lost my way in the first twenty minutes of the first episode of season 3. Also, it was quite a dark story, in its tone (at least the first two seasons, I don't know how 3 turns out), and it's been hard to slog through that with so much depressing stuff going on in the world these days.
shareThe ending is satisfying and appropriate.
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