Re: Season 8 Spoiler Discussion - There's Nothing You Can't Do In New
First off, why are you all saying it's going to be the final season??
I'm mulling, but not saying
.
It would be bold to declare that this will "definitely" be NY's final season, but it'd likely raise fewer eyebrows than stating it will definitely be back
. I think many are just taking into account that the whole franchise is aging, that all the CSI shows have been moved from long time slots in the schedule, and that CBS reserved the right to give full consideration to their development slate prior to indicating to at least NY any clue about it's future. I think a general pendulum shift is/has been underway with a variety of series that have been on for a long time.
There are shows on every network that are approaching similar territory, re aging, budgets, & impending transitions, but other networks don't seem to have he same breath of options as CBS does, on some levels. Until there are truly apparent successors, and while series continue to earn a return within the US and abroad, older shows may continue to stick around.
Call it odds & hedging bets
. No one knows. Not even the ppl who know :lol:. A lot can happen in the teevee landscape in a year. Ya never can tell.
Have you all no hope?? I think if the writers get back to their old ways, spin things right, maybe (MAYBE) kill off Jo at the end, and stop being pessimistic, they could possibly make this season their best yet, and they could push for a ninth season!
Lol. I'd love to have hope, but even my glass half full tendencies are colored by apparent trends of the business, not to mention a hard pragmatic streak :lol:.
And aww, noooo, JoooooOOoOo
. Talk about being pessimistic (or I suppose optimistic, depending; things do seem a tad polarized here at the moment, which is unfortunate. People will be hawking "team tee shirts" soon, I can bloody well feel it
. Meh. Ya can't plz all the ppl all the time :lol
.
As for a ninth, I'd be for it, if S8 goes well. Again, ya never know, but in playing those odds, the earlier hmms on network programming do take on increasing momentum the longer a show goes on.
I don't know. Maybe I'm being hopelessly optimistic. I just know that I'm officially giving Sela Ward a chance. One season is truly not enough time for her to show us what she's got. but in the meantime... how about some spoilers??? anyone got anything???
I'm just going to enjoy each season as best as what material they give us will allow :lol:.
I was happy to hear NY got an 8th season, because I think there was new energy and possibilities, and I think there is a lot the show could yet explore. As for SW, S7 showed me enough that I'm glad she'll be part of S8.
A general yay to folk willing to give Jo a fair go as a character in her own right, btw.
I wouldn't expect spoilers for a few weeks. I believe VegasLights mentioned a ways back that producers will only recently be back to work by now and filming won't start for a bit.
Erik, why do you keep referring to Jo as Jonah?
It's probably intended as an insult.
IIRC, Jonah was the biblical character on ship that was in a storm....
The implication to me is that Erik believes Jo to be responsible for all that is wrong with the show and won't be happy until she's chucked overboard. But I could be misinterpreting their posts and maybe they secretly love Jo.
Not misinterpreting. On da nose
. Precisely the implication Erik has made in earlier posts. Not an entirely seamless allusion, but eh :lol:. A pejorative intent is pretty clear.
Seems there's a not-so-secret love to hate for Jo, and perhaps also punctuation & formatting
. I shrug. To each their own.
Jo has breathed fresh life into "CSI:NY", IMO, Seasons 5 and 6 were terrible, Season 7 was one of the best.
Besides, I heard Sela signed for Seasons 7, 8 & 9 (working on getting a link for y'all now) so she's not going anywhere
Agree about life, & S7 vs the past few.
Haven't come across anything about 3 yrs. That said, a contract structured around the possibility of more than one season would not be unusual (but nor does it indicate the intent of a network regarding a show, I'd guess that's more typically about securing availability).
I do think that Gary and Melina had great chemistry which jumped off the screen and hit the viewer and I do think that the producers seem to have forgotton this in season 7, for example it would have been nice to have Mac look at a picture of the entire season one team (with both Stella and Aiden) at the end of season 7, especially as the producers thought it was the last one.
I think that Gary and Melina had a fun dynamic between their characters as long-time friends and partners, but I personally did not read their interaction as being layered over simmering romantic tension at all. Nothing jumped or hit me anyways :lol:
.
Their interaction is also not something I think the show missed. I think Jo's arrival and her impact on the team have been equally engaging.
The past roster was not forgotten. There
were nods made, both to Stella and Aiden. But why should that sort of thing be allotted scripted airtime on a regular basis, when the point is that the show, the characters, their realm, continue to evolve. I just don't want it to feel gratuitous.
I think the producers wrapped up S7 well, given it could have been the last. Each
present character got a moment, after those earlier small nods to the others. As it should've been.
I also agree that Sela Ward really did not bring any sparkle to the show and in fact made it that more boring and really did nothing to improve the ratings.
YMMV.
I'd be skeptical of someone telling me they'd managed to conclusively discern, from all the surrounding context of each broadcast, a singular correlation between ratings and one cast member.
[The following purely hypothetical caveats do spring to mind: were a show titled, for the sake of argument, House, Castle, or Bones, and were a hypothetically departing actor one playing a character named after a residential architectural dwelling, medieval feudal fortress, or osseous tissue, then yah, I could see there might be a few Issues
. Okay, well, perhaps House isn't so hypothetical. (A show like Grey's feels a little different).
As for 2.5 Men; Sheen undeniably made his mark :lol:, but it is the spectacle surrounding the show that will be an additional factor in the potential numbers Kutcher as a successor draws].
What, did people truly expect to lay on Sela Ward the pressure or responsibility of
elevating the ratings of a show moving from decent Wed prime time real estate to stereotypically hardscrabble Fridays? Really...?
...:lol:. Right. I'm sure that was in her contract
.
Did CM expect Joe Mantegna to elevate the ratings, or to help transition a new character into an established ensemble? Ditto NCIS with Cote de Pablo when Sasha Alexander departed? Mebbe she did; NCIS is flying these days; and that is of course singularly attributable to her alone
. Did Vegas expect LF to increase viewership or to help the show maintain an even keel when WP bid adieu? etc
It's a rather convenient tomato to lob :lol:.
It takes hundreds of people to make a show, be it a good one or bad one. The flip side might be to try and infer that MK didn't do enough to improve ratings on Wednesdays, so that she was a significant part of why NY moved to a Friday slot
.
SW had the stones to join a show three days before shooting on a doubled up two-fer of a production schedule after another actor left. Ya don't like SW and don't see a sparkle or interest in what she and NY did with Jo, dandy. But really. Ratings arguments often seem exceptionally fluid in all that they're used to try and substantiate in tv debates :lol:.
I do wonder if people preferred Sela because she was the same age as Gary and I know that some people do not like the older man and younger woman relationship (Grissom and Sara is one instance), but in this case the relationship between Mac and Stella was fantastic.
Curious, as this seems stated from a default romantic relationship standpoint. Not where I tend to stand. Not what I think NY is about.
(If it was a comment intended to be focused on professional hierarchical structures and typical gender and age divisions, then I've perhaps misunderstood).
Chemistry is one thing, and even !Tension is fine, but romantic possibilities are not the main structure or focus for me in a show like this, and age has little to do with how I regard the characters separate from any other attributes and traits, unless what I perceive contrasts grievously with what I'm told. (Eg. Lindsay is in her thirties and favors cardigans thieved from Danny's closet - wait she's rly in her twenties and has dreadlocks? I dunno, man... And Stella is not fortyish but only in her early thirties and favors a straight pixie? No I coulda sworn... You sure, ptb? Danny's from a family of cops, anyone of the rank of Deputy Chief Inspector or higher is never to be trusted, and Lucy is in pre-med? Whut? No, ...I guess that makes sense, If it's a cross-over with Fringe...
).
All I was hoping for was a solid character written and performed with enough individuality, weight, and depth to be a good counterpoint to Mac as co-leader of the team. Jo is that.
As for SW, CBS wanted her on cop teevee before NY, given that they wanted her for Miami. I guess timing is everything, and age somewhat incidental
.
In terms of hierarchy, I'm not surprised that all 3 shows had male characters at the top, but when Grissom left, with Catherine second in command, it would have been hard to convince me that she should not have been promoted to head the Vegas unit, unless being overlooked for such was going to be written as a deliberate arc. I think it's great that Stella was written off to head her own labs; NY didn't hafta give her even that much as a story.
I don't know why NY plied its quirky calculations to redetermine that Stella was younger than one might believe. (I recall one comment posted at the time wondering if perhaps it may have been in an effort to make her one-nite stand with Adam somehow more palatable. Dang :lol
. Age wasn't the issue for me with Stella/Adam; that it came largely out of left field and was really minimally addressed were puzzling aspects of bothering to go there in the first place.
I've had a tendency to view (most) characters as being of an age similar to whomever is portraying them. The casting is also such that most seem of reasonable experience and time-in to be at the respective professional stations they hold and fitting the backstories established. As for Mac's non-triangle; I had also read both Peyton & Aubrey as fortyish, and reasonable to their professional stations. Didn't have an issue with Mac seeing either one.
From what little I've read from Sela Ward in interviews and such, she's also quite forthright in speaking about age and expectations and social/cultural pressures, especially for women, and I'm glad NY didn't try to write Jo as younger in the way they retro-fit Stella :lol:
I don't see how character age and preference need necessarily be tied at all. Not even from a non-default romantic standpoint
.
The producers are going to have think long and hard about the future of the show.... and believe me they are not going to please everyone.
...because the producers didn't think hard about the show after MK left, while they were having to re-write half a dozen early scripts and devising a new direction for a new team?
As for discontent, I would hafta guess that they'd be well accustomed to that by now :lol:.
I wouldn't want Jo to leave even if it meant Stella coming back
Same here. I loved Stella but when Jo came in I just enjoyed the show a littke bit more, just like when I was new fan back in season 5. Sorry if some Melina/Stella can't see what I'm seeing but the show is still very much alive.
Agree. Mostly I liked that S7 was a change, and better for it.
I like Stella, and I like Jo. Stella's gone, Jo's here. Why should I not prefer for Jo or the others to get material, rather than look for ways for NY to mention or bring Stella back at the expense of those MK left behind, so to speak?
I don't mind a nod here or there, but I don't see the need to create a mentions or an appearance of Stella for the sake of it. Let it derive from a case where the team still gets focus, if at all. There are six seasons of dvds to partake of Stella's legacy. I'd prefer NY let the current roster have their time.
S7 introduced and integrated a new leading character pretty well. Why cut the legs out from under that by way of something I have to observe increasingly seems to have some sort of air of token and unnecessary appeasement. Had MK wanted to remain on the show as Stella, she could have. She didn't.
Perhaps an introduction of a new member of cast may bring a much needed sparkle to the show that it so badly lacks. Someone who brings tension into the happy CSINY family (which they failed to do with the Jo character - it was too cosy for comfort and very unrealistic and in some cases the interaction between Jo and some of the cast were very force).
Someone whom Mac would have an aversion to as opposed to someone he likes and gets along with?
I think SW qualifies as NY having successfully introduced some new cast member and sparkle and tension. I guess we'll just hafta agree to disagree
.
Some of Jo's early interaction was a bit laden, I agree, but not cozy. I also think that Jo is enough her own character not to be written soley as a device of conflict; should some issue arise, she will speak her mind, whether it results in conflict or not. They established a history of her doing so in the FBI, I believe, and she did with Mac on several occasions this season. I think Mac and Stella also butted heads, so I'm not wholly seeing what the aim or issue is here, beyond perhaps having Mac and Jo less close or friendly than Mac and Stella were.
Characters like Carver, Sinclair, Mac's old partner Hunt, Russ, Camille, etc., were ways to intro tension or conflict too. Mebbe just not the wedge between Mac and NY's new leading lady that some might prefer.
If we're going to speak of interaction that seems forced, I'd be far more inclined to speak of DL :lol:, and if speaking of things unrealistic, how about Flack's flying leap and parkour tendencies seen in an ep or three in S7
. Don't get me wrong on the latter, it's hard to go wrong with Flack and I did enjoy his new found talents muchly, but in part because they stood out as being a little absurd even for NY :lol:. Where such things are relative, Jo is rather grounded and believable :lol:.
Jo seems to have a more subtle way of getting Mac to open up , and she's more chilled than Stella ever was, which I think is good for Mac and which again makes their relationship/chemistry very different to his and Stella's.
I'm glad that the dynamic with Mac and Jo has a different vibe than what characterized Mac & Stella's interaction. I appreciate it seems to stem from the characters as well as ideas of how to use them, or at least doesn't feel like its wholly scripted, and I'm glad NY didn't go about trying to simply replace the one dynamic with some interchangeable successor.
I like that Jo is mellow, having a different pace, not to mention possessing a different kind of humor and a hint of chaos; she is a fun way to balance not just Mac but a whole team of very proficient and efficient people. In a way, Jo is in a realm similar to Adam and Sid, being folk who seem to operate with a half-degree slight twist despite or because of the bounds of the conventions they are expected to work within.
I think a lot of the SMACked/Stella fans who are bitter about Melina CHOSING to leave think that their anger needs to be reflected on screen and that is just not the case.
An interesting point.
I agree it seems that some fans and especially some shippers, really wanted something more, by way of acknowledging the transition from Stella to Jo, and by that I get the impression the wish was for more emphasis on Stella leaving and how the others felt.
Part of me would like to think that had NY done so that some viewers may have in turn been more welcoming of Jo, and part of me thinks Jo would have gotten a rough ride regardless. (There have of course also been many viewers who did welcome Jo, and some Stella fans who didn't necessarily maintain a predispostion to dislike Jo immediately).
The focus was kept on moving the show forward, and I don't really have a problem with that. I'm glad the early season didn't wallow, especially as they didn't kill Stella off, and they did write that five months had passed.
NY also had a helluvalot to juggle. They had to deal with an unexpected cast transition that negated weeks of prep, had to still accommodate and wrap up a previously set-up cliff hanger scenario, find a way to move things along to explain the absence of one character, while next establishing Jo as a new team member, moreover by way of a new case, giving her material and focus enough to do so while having the rest of the team get to know her and vice versa, and having an ep of a caliber that would launch the season, and also a new slot.
That's quite a bit to orchestrate, and stuff into one episode. I'm not surprised a few mallets were present in the early season :lol:. It's easy to pick on the mallets and perceived sleights while in turn perhaps not really recognizing just what they pulled off.
No, ya can't plz all the people all the time, but dang, that was a lot to sort out.
It's not TPTB's fault that Melina wouldn't return to the show. That decision is on Melina. TPTB are not obligated to keep bringing up her character after she left. In fact, I personally think it just detracts from the show to keep bringing up a character who is no longer there. The character and actress have moved on and the show needs to move on too.
Agree. Although if other characters like Sam, Peyton, Pino, etc. get to be revisited, I gotta say Stella is fair game to be revisited or mentioned too.
I just don't think there's some inherent obligation to look for ways to do so just because she was ~Stella.
MK seemed happy enough to let NY & Stella go, and move on. I'd like to think most of her fans are as willing.
--
I find it a bit disappointing that so much debate regarding the show and it's purported quality or lack thereof seems less to be about what the show put onscreen in S7 than an ongoing resistance to accept the character transition, especially as it was one that resulted ultimately from an actor's decision.
I think NY thru S7, in terms of content, cases, guests, team dynamics and interaction, production wise, is not necessarily better than its
ever been, but imo it certainly is better now than it has been in years.
I'm also very much looking forward to spoilers soon so that there's something new to chew on :lol:. (I'm pretty sure I'd ramble less too
)
