Saturday, January 31, 2009

Merely boring

Huge improvement in Demons this week. No massive plot holes nobody acting out of character for the sake of the plot ... it just lacked any tension and was very boring. At least I wasn't shouting at the screen.

Again there was so much that could have been done with it but it just failed to use any of the massive character options. And the supposed main character, Luke, remains a whiny unsympathetic teenager.



What's on the turntable? "When the Night's on Fire" by Mike Oldfield from "Islands"

6 comments:

laurence timms said...

Heh. Seems that Rob Jones at my fave indie publisher's blog feels much the same about the whole thing.

Tom Murphy said...

I thought that last week's vampire episode was the most enjoyable so far, making better use of the mythology and being a lot sexier and more dangerous.

Luke seemed considerably more annoying tonight than he has done in previous episodes - and we were really hoping that they'd confound our expectations a little bit by not having the mysterious blonde be the monster.

While I'm here - do you fancy swapping links with my blog? Have a look and let me know.

Thanks
Tom

missread said...

Another good review of the show - essentially sums up my feelings too. Last weeks was definitely the most interesting, despite its logic flaws.
I was really hoping she wasn't going to be the monster either! Oh well.
At least he used his "kung fu" this week.

DAVID BISHOP said...

After the flawed but promising Mina-focuses effort last week, this was a bad relapse. Some absolutely non-gripping cliffhangers. A lengthy sequence where everybody gets ready for the final confront - and just leaves. So many flabby scenes without beats, characters without anything to do, unmotivated dullness.

What did Mina do last night? Revert into Basil Exposition mode.

What did Glavin do? Bugger all, only perking up once to have a leer at a tarty middle-aged librarian.

Ruby actually did something.

The climatic action sequence at the end... sheesh. The harpy can breath fire - so why does it keep flying at Luke but not torching him?

Worst of all was the complete lack of any element of surprise. There's a new demon in town, hunting Luke. Enter new girl who's a bit intense. Could she be the demon? Yes. And that's it, folks.

I kept thinking that librarian, she'll be back. Intense new girl is just a ruse to throw us off the scent, she can't be the demon, that's too bloody obvious, isn't it? Isn't it?

Apparently not.

Final question: if the stacks is the best demon library in the world, why did Galvin have to go to another library to discover what the cryptic symbol meant? What purpose did the saucy librarian sequence serve, aside from going somewhere else to collect exposition?

Arrrrrrrrrrrrgh.

This could be so much better.

Adaddinsane said...

Laurence: yes he does, doesn't he?

Tom: Yes the vampire episode was the best - even despite the glaring plot holes (e.g. How did Luke know where they all were at the end? He'd been sent to the wrong place by Mina.) Sure thang on the blog.

Laura: Yes, he did use his kung-fu, in a kind of "blink or you'll miss it" kind of way. The daughter is quietly foaming at the lips - she really is 2nd Dan Jujitsu, she wants to be the UK Buffy. (Plus she's a good actress - but I'm biased.)

David: I must be getting complacent, I did comment to the family about the exposition but missed the library thing.

Your "Arrrrrrrrrrrrgh" is echoed here. It really should be so much better.

Adaddinsane said...

I just realised I contradicted myself, I said the latest episode was the best in the blog, and then agreed the vampire one was the best.

I am, of course, correct on both counts - I couldn't possibly be wrong.

The vampire episode was the best dramatically but the latest one was the "least flawed" overall.

I think.