I finally watched the pilot. Although I kind of liked it, laughed out loud a couple of times, and the girl was very cute in her nihilistic way, I don't think I'll bother more with it. The main problem with the show as I see it is the total lack of subplot. Let me explain however that I?m not talking about the kind of ?subplot? which Spud mentioned that is easiest to spot in shows like ?Sex and the City? (admit it, you?ve all seen at least one ep, if not only for the fact that it has the word ?SEX? in it?s title) or ?Seinfeld? where each ep has a very clear theme (or moral even) which all characters dabble about in their own way.

What I mean by subplot and sourly miss is character ?drive?. The ?why? and ?how? of their actions. What does he feel/think. Why does he feel so? What has made him do the things he do. This is usually what separates good writers from bad ones. A viewer should know (or want to find out) everything about a character. Every action a character makes should only be a logical outcome from past experience. This is how it is in real life, and if it is not so in fiction the characters will appear limp and lifeless.

How successfully this is put forth on film very often depends solely on the actor. A screenwriter might use lots of adjectives in his script (example: Man stares ?longingly? out the window) but it is the actor who has to portray those adjectives (ie. How do you stare ?longingly??). It is up to the director to get the actors to do this offcource, but he can?t make rocks fly by themselves?. =)

This is one of the reasons to why I worship Takeshi Kitano so much. In spite of (or probably because of) his minimalistic methods he still manages to portray so much subplot. We understand what a character feels, thinks and acts, all without saying a word. Very often also even without moving a muscle or making any facial expression. Pure genius.

For a series to be really good this ?character drive? subplot and the ?episode theme? subplot should fall together. Ie. the actions of a character should be understood, because of what has happened in earlier eps.

Sometimes a glimpse shot through in ?Dead like Me? too, but it is not enough to hold the whole show running. A hint of interest is show from the lead towards the character Mason, and I?m guessing she?ll probably fall in love. Problem is I don't care. And I?ve got no aspiring interest to learn more about the characters. I?d probably enjoyed this more were I still a insecure teenager, but I?m kind of over all that and can?t really relate anymore.

There?s also the problem that the whole show basically revolves around one character, her ?special abilities?, how so uses them and gets by day by day. A genre that has gotten very popular.

Compare all this to Carnivale and you find that each character is an unexplored maze. A nearly bursting box full of Pandora?s secrets. There are so many delicious dishes to indulge in here I can?t wait to see the next ep! Every character has a background. An intriguing story. A secret.

Yet, the writers know not to give out too much and spoil the suspense. This is only fundamental for a show like this to succeed. 'X-Files' is the perfect example of how this should be done and also much more comparable to 'Carnivale' than what 'Dead Like Me' is IMO.


I realize that a pilot is usually not representative of a show as it has too many introductions of characters, establishing setting and sometimes lame explanations. Especially unrealistic introduction of characters can be painful to watch. Often attempted concealed with the use of Voice-over to tell their story (as done in ?Dead Like Me?). Most silly examples of this are scenes opening with the line 'Okay, so tell me this one more time?' or other unrealistic conversation obviously put there because they lack the ways of enlightening otherwise.

The creators of Carnivale seam to be aware of this however and used it to their advantage. Little is told in terms of previous affairs, but the fact that we don't know much is why we want to see more.


Boy, I was just gonna say a few words...

@John_Doe
Theoretically I'd agree with you. However, I think for a that deep analysis it is much too early. In how many series do you recognise a subplot in the very first episode? When you watch the second one, you might see that there possibly is one: the little sister starts to behave strangely.

Nevertheless, I became a little more careful in judgeing new series, when I did not like Star Trek, Next Gen., Babylon 5, Deep Sleep 9 at all from the first eps. Very often I didn't like even the whole first season. But all the above series turned out great.

DlM probably does not have this potential, but I hope it can fill in my free Buffy slot

John, you should become a movie critic.

Yeah I agree with you, but still I feel that a pilot should be most stirring and be able to rouse so much interest that I crave to continue watching the show. After all, that is partially the point of creating a pilot in the first place.

I could very well be missing out as you say, but there is simply way too many things to watch? I have to be selective as I still have more than 500 films I haven?t watched yet. Most of them probably suck?


@Polityk: Tnx, I guess. =)

Ok, I see the interest to this series is not that high. Nevertheless, I like it and try to dl all. Of course, though I like the series, I think the way it is published on SR is absolute overkill. Each episode about 700 - 800 mb big. Bad waste of storage space. So I reencode all to approx. 400 mb. Basically only for me to get more on a DVD, but if there is at least some interest here I would release them.

However, that's not how it's released on BuckTV.

I have the whole first season eps if anyone wants me to share them?







Kat

Thanks. At least one persone who likes the series.
But I don't think you need to share them, you usually have better stuff
The ones in SR have very good quality. Unfortunatley their encoding is not very good. It is easy to almost cut their size in half without much quality loss.

I love the series
go to bucktv to d/l the eps they quality is much better

Better than the SR rips? Sorry, this is hard to believe. The SR rips are ~ 700mb for a 45 min mpg. The one link I checked on bucktv had 461 mb for the same mpg file. The bucktv was labeled 'ftv' which often means some logo on the stream. The SR version is a HDTV rip with perfect DVD quality. I watch the episodes on my 19'' LCD-Monitor and see not a single compression artefact. So tell me how could the bucktv files even better?

Nevertheless, thanks for the bucktv hint. Did not know this site. And it seems to have great stuff

Well, certainly they aren't worse. The SR rips are clearly oversized. Believe me, BuckTV rips are perfect, and have very reasonable sizes.

Hey Katya this is the Cat I dream of at night



Craftee