Catching up on eps again. Hard to get on here these days. Wanted to comment on this one before moving on to the most recent 
.
Not an impressive episode.
There were a few things I liked. They only stood out because they seemed relatively rare in this one.
Meh to Lolz to Exasperating elements:
- gratuitous party scene to open the ep in the teaser. Cos we've never seen the likes of that in a bait n' switch before. And, apparently, the network feels like it never gets old. Dear NY: Teh Glitz and teh shiny? ...it is old. Conversely, some old school grit would be very welcome. There was opportunity here to have some of that as well as the Glitz, and it wasn't taken.
- the amazing balance of all the people dancing inside a careening trailer
- !Montages, including flashbacks. Just once, they should play the TEAM America song along with it. Some are actually very pretty, and some are actually useful. Some are not. This relates also to teh Glitz and Shiny. I would love for these elements to feel like they complement stories more, instead of occasionally feeling like they are taking the place of them, and killing airtime for lack of other content.
- Lindsay. With answers to dang near everything. Not quite to the level she's often used at, in perpetually being one holding some unique nugget that will turn a case, but still brow-pinch worthy in this one.
- overmuch Exposition in a very ponderously played out plot, which was curious, given how thin the overall content was. Exactly how much laborious illustration does a thin ep require before NY think viewers will catch on?. F*cksakes.
- a mix of meh on the water tank shots. Tricky, yes. Impressive, yes. But ...looked like a tank, is what I'm getting at.
- not enough Sid. Not nearly enough Sid.
- !Twizts not very twisty, not even that the stalker dude was not the killer, and especially not that Mr. Enzo killed Neil, the socially slighted misogynist who was. I'll come back to Enzo.
I almost couldn't be arsed to comment atall on this one. It just seemed that there was very, very little to comment on. It felt essentially a variant on a locked room mystery, with a wait-it-out / process-of-elimination aspect unaffected by the pressure a character like Mr. Enzo should have brought to bear.
This script felt like it shouldn't have gone into production, that it wasn't ready yet. Like NY hasn't caught up yet, or is still pressed, and tossed this one in, where in other circumstances it might not have been. It felt utterly laden with cliches in dialogue and story, underdeveloped around one idea, and sparse of content. It was far prettier in form than engaging as a story. There were no characters I cared about beyond the team, little sense of pace or pressure in unraveling the mystery.
An aside. Dear Mr. Sudduth. I'm glad you've returned to direct another ep of NY. I'm sorry to say that for this viewer, it felt like the script you got was a waste of your time and mine. Some very nice shots all the same though.
Things I did actually like:
- I enjoyed being grudgingly and ever so slightly appeased during the course of the teaser. It started out very, very typical for NY, with the Kewl, teh Skin, ze Glitz etc factors, and got better. The first two minutes were actually jam packed of content, establishing what happened, even managing to include a few skirmishing cabbies, construction workers, etc. Some life on the street, basically.
The scale of some of the shots was also very impressive, especially the location ones with the surfacing of the trailor, with the Coast Guard et al. I went from rolling my eyes at the dancing bit that suggested it would be another prototypical NY ep (and not in a good way) to actually being curious by the time they opened the back of the truck.
...Then the ep progressed, and I was unimpressed. But. The teaser as a unit was actually sorta fun and well done. Even if the party motif aspect is way overused.
- the Mac/Flack/Jo scenes
- seeing Sid. Ever. So. Briefly.
- the cutting together of the interrogation sequences of each Mac/Flack/Jo/Danny. I was part frustrated and part Hmm. Rather a lot conveyed in a fashion a bit different for NY, and upped the pace momentarily. So, not fabulous, but different. And in an ep like this, where so much felt like generic prime time retread, it stood out.
- Jo's binder. A fun, see-if-anyone-notices type prop and character nudge. I like. What can I say. Small things that made me happy in this ep stood out :lol:
- Jo tugging Flack away from the supermodels. If only the whole ep had that kind of fun and spirit kicking it along.
- surprisingly, some of the lab-work close ups. Very pretty. Blood in the ink, for example. Nice shot.
Back to Mister Enzo.
I could see NY trying to up the ante by having one of the victims be the daughter of a mobtser. In that sense it could be said that yes, the victims and perps seemed to run simultaneously along both sides of being relatively well to do, and yet also on the grittier side, where I'd like NY to live more. But. It really didn't turn out that way. That was disappointing in itself, in that NY could have pushed that aspect to heighten a New York flavor, and didn't.
I could see NY trying to up the ante by having some outside party with a personal stake in the investigation, and being a wild card and general thorn in how it might move forward. But. A) it was such a cardboard set up, B) was not an ongoing presence that capitalized on that ominous threat, and C) Enzo was used in such an overdone and cliche ending as to wonder why anyone bothered to write him in at all.
Twitch-inducing. Dear NY:
You script two supposedly strong-willed and uncompromising men, Enzo and Mac, to be at odds with each other, but, using the most cliche lines imaginable, and without, apparently, choosing to let performance augment it nor subtext to color it. It was asked to be played so straight as to be painful, instead of the first hint of what could have been a really good and engaging duel. Wasted. The conflict also felt played to at the expense of the characters. They were sides, not people. Serve and return.
How much more interesting may it have been to have Mac play some irony in the Schpiel of "I'm sorry for your loss," and "we're doing everything we can to bring the perpetrators to justice" knowingly faced with a mobster who plays by his own rules. I think it would have been far more interesting.
But you seem to think we're not capable of reading anything but comic books, and so the worst cliche of lines were spoken with the utmost earnestness, just to enable Enzo to throw them back in Mac's face, displaying what a cavalier, unpredictable and dangerous individual Enzo was meant to be, and yet who was not maintained as such as the ep went on. So wtf was the point.
That first wee little duel could have been far more intricate and interesting than it was, the possibility of a mob related plot point could have been played out more, and I was disappointed that the presence of Enzo's interest was not felt more thru the whole ep. Enzo could have been used to give this ep an undercurrent that was hugely lacking. A curbside chat as the only real follow up prior to the shooting had me also shaking my head. That first butting of heads led to very little, and in itself was a rather atrocious scene that had me wincing on behalf of both actors. I hate feeling the duality of a script so heavily, when I want to be drawn into an ep.
Mebbe having the case be mob-related may have made the episode more interesting. Or mebbe that woulda been just another cliche. Dunno. I suppose it was interesting to not have the stalker dude wind up being the killer. Rather, that the red herring-stalker dude wasn't the killer. Instead, the waiting game revealed a different cliche, essentially another stalker dude, Neil, bent on veangance. Complete with a big-time problems with women, illustrated in a painfully long sequence with Mac, a uniform cop, and a glass of water; further illustrated, in case we hadn't caught on, and in an effort to aid self-incrimination, by Jo running the next part of his questioning. Someone even decided to give the little bugger a stutter, even. I think both SW and Gary did what they could, but I think this ep really exemplified SW's interview comment on story/dialogue redundancy :lol:.
I dunno if NY was trying to be deep in having Chris, the other last, possible suspect, be a guy who disliked being in the spotlight, contrasting with Neil being a guy who felt perpetually relegated to social peripheries. Dunno if they were trying to be deep in having Neil exit the station into a media scrum chock full o' spotlights, only to lose that too, being shot by Mr. I'm Not Ominous I'm Just Obvious Episodic Punctuation Enzo.
I was reminded not just of NY's Zoo York where the mob pressure came in, but also a CM ep, (I think Brothers In Arms?), where a gang member shot a serial killer in vengeance to end the episode. I'm sure that Type of twist has been used in other shows as well
I keep coming back to everything that was packed into the teaser. The rest of the ep felt thin, stretched out, doled out, with Enzo outside the whole of it, whereas he should have been a driving factor in the middle of it all.
Dear NY. The first handful of episodes for S7 started off so well. Flying by the seat of your pants did y'all some good, and the first eight or so seemed to reflect that spirit. The past handful of eps feel like they might be showing the toll of production, with some old coasting habits creeping in, complete not just to re-treading territory that so many prime time dramas have visited, but that you yourself have visited within your own show's history.
I'm hoping that y'all managed to re-charge halfway, and that what we'll see in the latter half will pick up again. That we'll get more layers, more content, more good character moments, more New York as a presence, more pace, more interesting dialogue and challenging interaction. Less formula and fewer cliches, especially with dialogue and character usage/templates, less filler in content, fewer mallets in storytelling, less overt and redundant exposition.
Less entertaining and more frustrating than I'd have liked.
Call this one a C.
.Not an impressive episode.
There were a few things I liked. They only stood out because they seemed relatively rare in this one
.Meh to Lolz to Exasperating elements:
- gratuitous party scene to open the ep in the teaser. Cos we've never seen the likes of that in a bait n' switch before. And, apparently, the network feels like it never gets old. Dear NY: Teh Glitz and teh shiny? ...it is old. Conversely, some old school grit would be very welcome. There was opportunity here to have some of that as well as the Glitz, and it wasn't taken.
- the amazing balance of all the people dancing inside a careening trailer
- !Montages, including flashbacks. Just once, they should play the TEAM America song along with it. Some are actually very pretty, and some are actually useful. Some are not. This relates also to teh Glitz and Shiny. I would love for these elements to feel like they complement stories more, instead of occasionally feeling like they are taking the place of them, and killing airtime for lack of other content.
- Lindsay. With answers to dang near everything. Not quite to the level she's often used at, in perpetually being one holding some unique nugget that will turn a case, but still brow-pinch worthy in this one.
- overmuch Exposition in a very ponderously played out plot, which was curious, given how thin the overall content was. Exactly how much laborious illustration does a thin ep require before NY think viewers will catch on?
. F*cksakes.- a mix of meh on the water tank shots. Tricky, yes. Impressive, yes. But ...looked like a tank, is what I'm getting at.
- not enough Sid. Not nearly enough Sid.
- !Twizts not very twisty, not even that the stalker dude was not the killer, and especially not that Mr. Enzo killed Neil, the socially slighted misogynist who was. I'll come back to Enzo.
I almost couldn't be arsed to comment atall on this one. It just seemed that there was very, very little to comment on. It felt essentially a variant on a locked room mystery, with a wait-it-out / process-of-elimination aspect unaffected by the pressure a character like Mr. Enzo should have brought to bear.
This script felt like it shouldn't have gone into production, that it wasn't ready yet. Like NY hasn't caught up yet, or is still pressed, and tossed this one in, where in other circumstances it might not have been. It felt utterly laden with cliches in dialogue and story, underdeveloped around one idea, and sparse of content. It was far prettier in form than engaging as a story. There were no characters I cared about beyond the team, little sense of pace or pressure in unraveling the mystery.
An aside. Dear Mr. Sudduth. I'm glad you've returned to direct another ep of NY. I'm sorry to say that for this viewer, it felt like the script you got was a waste of your time and mine. Some very nice shots all the same though.
Things I did actually like:
- I enjoyed being grudgingly and ever so slightly appeased during the course of the teaser. It started out very, very typical for NY, with the Kewl, teh Skin, ze Glitz etc factors, and got better. The first two minutes were actually jam packed of content, establishing what happened, even managing to include a few skirmishing cabbies, construction workers, etc. Some life on the street, basically.
The scale of some of the shots was also very impressive, especially the location ones with the surfacing of the trailor, with the Coast Guard et al. I went from rolling my eyes at the dancing bit that suggested it would be another prototypical NY ep (and not in a good way) to actually being curious by the time they opened the back of the truck.
...Then the ep progressed, and I was unimpressed. But. The teaser as a unit was actually sorta fun and well done. Even if the party motif aspect is way overused.
- the Mac/Flack/Jo scenes
- seeing Sid. Ever. So. Briefly.
- the cutting together of the interrogation sequences of each Mac/Flack/Jo/Danny. I was part frustrated and part Hmm. Rather a lot conveyed in a fashion a bit different for NY, and upped the pace momentarily. So, not fabulous, but different. And in an ep like this, where so much felt like generic prime time retread, it stood out.
- Jo's binder
. A fun, see-if-anyone-notices type prop and character nudge. I like. What can I say. Small things that made me happy in this ep stood out :lol:- Jo tugging Flack away from the supermodels. If only the whole ep had that kind of fun and spirit kicking it along.
- surprisingly, some of the lab-work close ups. Very pretty. Blood in the ink, for example. Nice shot.
Back to Mister Enzo.
I could see NY trying to up the ante by having one of the victims be the daughter of a mobtser. In that sense it could be said that yes, the victims and perps seemed to run simultaneously along both sides of being relatively well to do, and yet also on the grittier side, where I'd like NY to live more. But. It really didn't turn out that way. That was disappointing in itself, in that NY could have pushed that aspect to heighten a New York flavor, and didn't.
I could see NY trying to up the ante by having some outside party with a personal stake in the investigation, and being a wild card and general thorn in how it might move forward. But. A) it was such a cardboard set up, B) was not an ongoing presence that capitalized on that ominous threat, and C) Enzo was used in such an overdone and cliche ending as to wonder why anyone bothered to write him in at all.
Twitch-inducing. Dear NY:
You script two supposedly strong-willed and uncompromising men, Enzo and Mac, to be at odds with each other, but, using the most cliche lines imaginable, and without, apparently, choosing to let performance augment it nor subtext to color it. It was asked to be played so straight as to be painful, instead of the first hint of what could have been a really good and engaging duel. Wasted. The conflict also felt played to at the expense of the characters. They were sides, not people. Serve and return.
How much more interesting may it have been to have Mac play some irony in the Schpiel of "I'm sorry for your loss," and "we're doing everything we can to bring the perpetrators to justice" knowingly faced with a mobster who plays by his own rules. I think it would have been far more interesting.
But you seem to think we're not capable of reading anything but comic books, and so the worst cliche of lines were spoken with the utmost earnestness, just to enable Enzo to throw them back in Mac's face, displaying what a cavalier, unpredictable and dangerous individual Enzo was meant to be, and yet who was not maintained as such as the ep went on. So wtf was the point.
That first wee little duel could have been far more intricate and interesting than it was, the possibility of a mob related plot point could have been played out more, and I was disappointed that the presence of Enzo's interest was not felt more thru the whole ep. Enzo could have been used to give this ep an undercurrent that was hugely lacking. A curbside chat as the only real follow up prior to the shooting had me also shaking my head. That first butting of heads led to very little, and in itself was a rather atrocious scene that had me wincing on behalf of both actors. I hate feeling the duality of a script so heavily, when I want to be drawn into an ep.
Mebbe having the case be mob-related may have made the episode more interesting. Or mebbe that woulda been just another cliche. Dunno. I suppose it was interesting to not have the stalker dude wind up being the killer. Rather, that the red herring-stalker dude wasn't the killer. Instead, the waiting game revealed a different cliche, essentially another stalker dude, Neil, bent on veangance. Complete with a big-time problems with women, illustrated in a painfully long sequence with Mac, a uniform cop, and a glass of water; further illustrated, in case we hadn't caught on, and in an effort to aid self-incrimination, by Jo running the next part of his questioning. Someone even decided to give the little bugger a stutter, even. I think both SW and Gary did what they could, but I think this ep really exemplified SW's interview comment on story/dialogue redundancy :lol:.
I dunno if NY was trying to be deep in having Chris, the other last, possible suspect, be a guy who disliked being in the spotlight, contrasting with Neil being a guy who felt perpetually relegated to social peripheries. Dunno if they were trying to be deep in having Neil exit the station into a media scrum chock full o' spotlights, only to lose that too, being shot by Mr. I'm Not Ominous I'm Just Obvious Episodic Punctuation Enzo.
I was reminded not just of NY's Zoo York where the mob pressure came in, but also a CM ep, (I think Brothers In Arms?), where a gang member shot a serial killer in vengeance to end the episode. I'm sure that Type of twist has been used in other shows as well
I keep coming back to everything that was packed into the teaser. The rest of the ep felt thin, stretched out, doled out, with Enzo outside the whole of it, whereas he should have been a driving factor in the middle of it all.
Dear NY. The first handful of episodes for S7 started off so well. Flying by the seat of your pants did y'all some good, and the first eight or so seemed to reflect that spirit. The past handful of eps feel like they might be showing the toll of production, with some old coasting habits creeping in, complete not just to re-treading territory that so many prime time dramas have visited, but that you yourself have visited within your own show's history.
I'm hoping that y'all managed to re-charge halfway, and that what we'll see in the latter half will pick up again. That we'll get more layers, more content, more good character moments, more New York as a presence, more pace, more interesting dialogue and challenging interaction. Less formula and fewer cliches, especially with dialogue and character usage/templates, less filler in content, fewer mallets in storytelling, less overt and redundant exposition.
Less entertaining and more frustrating than I'd have liked.
Call this one a C.
