Best TV Shows of 2019
Jan 3, 2020 13:38:13 GMT -8
Post by otherscott on Jan 3, 2020 13:38:13 GMT -8
If I take out all the HBO shows you didn't watch, Undone moves up to 6th and Russian Doll would then become 8th. Plus I'd probably have a network show (not sure yet if I overall like Emergence or Evil better) in my top 10. Maybe that would make you feel better.
That being said, that would make Watchmen my number 1 show of the year, which would feel very strange considering compared to my expectations I was actually very slightly disappointed. My expectations were a little too sky high to be reasonable, but it would still feel a little weird. Watchmen is terrific, so it really shouldn't feel that weird, but it would. Part of the reason it turned out so high is I care more about episode by episode quality for TV shows than the cohesiveness and how satisfying the ending is.
I'm actually going to post a bit more on the problems I had with the end here, because I'm interested in what Jeremy thinks of this.
SPOILER
Let me be clear. It was a very good ending to a very good show. It did such a good job tying off the loose ends of the main story while still leaving enough in question that it doesn't suffer from the "too neat" syndrome that we can sometimes see with finales. It does an excellent job with the love story between Dr. Manhattan and Angela, as well as tying off the generational aspect of Hooded Justice and policing and mask wearing that was the main theme throughout the show.
Further, with how sprawling and difficult the show was, that was not an easy ending to execute. There were so many threads all over the place, and to tie them all together in a satisfying way is a feat worth applauding.
All that being said, the ending was very satisfying. The white supremacists got what was coming to them, the Big Bad was defeated, Veidt's arrogance got the best of him, Angela got a tearful goodbye with Jon and got to resolve things with her grandfather, etc. And that amount of satisfaction in the ending cements the show's place as a very good, and notable show.
But to me, it also prevents the show from being an all time great. The satisfying nature of the ending was due to having clear sides to cheer for, the good was very good, and clearly good, and clearly in the right. The bad were white supremacists, and that was all they are, and were never humanized really in any way, shape or form. The big bad was a clear narcissist who killed the main hero's love interest and was clearly power hungry. Might she have done good things with the powers? Sure, but Veidt was ultimately right, the cost is that she would want to be acknowledged as the Trieu god of the world and people would grovel at her feet.
I'm not one of the biggest Watchmen comic fans. I like it a lot, but to me it has some clear flaws. I never really thought the character of Ozymandias was all that well done, or interesting, and the show did 20x better with Laurie's character than the comic ever did. That being said, one of the major notable things about the comic that makes it a great is how intentionally unsatisfying and alienating the ending is. And when you're adapting that comic, or remixing it, to drop that aspect of it is an odd choice. For a show that had stuck so close to the essence of the comic for most of its run, to abandon that essence in the last episode can't help but feel disappointing. The original Watchmen spirit would have been to see the white supremacists as the lesser of the evils and support them in the end game out of no better options, or to let Lady Trieu's plan be enacted and have the world in both a better and worse place at the same time. To enact some sort of moral checkmate where the option that our heroes have to choose is bad, but avoids something worse. Instead, this ending is satisfying in a way that cakes got to be eaten as well as kept.
I'm a huge fan of Damon Lindelof, but his strength has always been love stories, he's never really put together a piece that you would say is brimming with moral complexity. And he did a tremendous job with the love story here. Is the romance between Jon and Angela as impactful as Penny and Desmond or Kevin and Nora? No, but it also had the highest degree of difficulty. Making the romance between a human and god like being work at all, much less work as well as it did here is astounding. But this is an adaptive work. And while I appreciate this show for what it is, a love story set in this weird, alternate universe, Watchmen is not a love story.
Maybe I'm criticizing the show too much for what it's not instead of appreciating it for what it is. Maybe setting my expectations for a level of moral complexity was too much to ask for. But in some ways the show was setting this up itself in the early episodes. The reparations is what led to white supremacy, the liberal authoritarian government was a different spin on what we've seen or expected in America. When Angela said the world is "black and white" rather than rainbows, I expected that worldview to be proven wrong over the course of the show. But it never was explored. Racists are bad, power ambition is bad, and the generational harm that racism is caused is significant and damaging seemed to be the main themes of the show. That's very black and white. And maybe the reason that Lindelof has never executed a true morally complex show is because that's how he sees the world.
That being said, that would make Watchmen my number 1 show of the year, which would feel very strange considering compared to my expectations I was actually very slightly disappointed. My expectations were a little too sky high to be reasonable, but it would still feel a little weird. Watchmen is terrific, so it really shouldn't feel that weird, but it would. Part of the reason it turned out so high is I care more about episode by episode quality for TV shows than the cohesiveness and how satisfying the ending is.
I'm actually going to post a bit more on the problems I had with the end here, because I'm interested in what Jeremy thinks of this.
SPOILER
Let me be clear. It was a very good ending to a very good show. It did such a good job tying off the loose ends of the main story while still leaving enough in question that it doesn't suffer from the "too neat" syndrome that we can sometimes see with finales. It does an excellent job with the love story between Dr. Manhattan and Angela, as well as tying off the generational aspect of Hooded Justice and policing and mask wearing that was the main theme throughout the show.
Further, with how sprawling and difficult the show was, that was not an easy ending to execute. There were so many threads all over the place, and to tie them all together in a satisfying way is a feat worth applauding.
All that being said, the ending was very satisfying. The white supremacists got what was coming to them, the Big Bad was defeated, Veidt's arrogance got the best of him, Angela got a tearful goodbye with Jon and got to resolve things with her grandfather, etc. And that amount of satisfaction in the ending cements the show's place as a very good, and notable show.
But to me, it also prevents the show from being an all time great. The satisfying nature of the ending was due to having clear sides to cheer for, the good was very good, and clearly good, and clearly in the right. The bad were white supremacists, and that was all they are, and were never humanized really in any way, shape or form. The big bad was a clear narcissist who killed the main hero's love interest and was clearly power hungry. Might she have done good things with the powers? Sure, but Veidt was ultimately right, the cost is that she would want to be acknowledged as the Trieu god of the world and people would grovel at her feet.
I'm not one of the biggest Watchmen comic fans. I like it a lot, but to me it has some clear flaws. I never really thought the character of Ozymandias was all that well done, or interesting, and the show did 20x better with Laurie's character than the comic ever did. That being said, one of the major notable things about the comic that makes it a great is how intentionally unsatisfying and alienating the ending is. And when you're adapting that comic, or remixing it, to drop that aspect of it is an odd choice. For a show that had stuck so close to the essence of the comic for most of its run, to abandon that essence in the last episode can't help but feel disappointing. The original Watchmen spirit would have been to see the white supremacists as the lesser of the evils and support them in the end game out of no better options, or to let Lady Trieu's plan be enacted and have the world in both a better and worse place at the same time. To enact some sort of moral checkmate where the option that our heroes have to choose is bad, but avoids something worse. Instead, this ending is satisfying in a way that cakes got to be eaten as well as kept.
I'm a huge fan of Damon Lindelof, but his strength has always been love stories, he's never really put together a piece that you would say is brimming with moral complexity. And he did a tremendous job with the love story here. Is the romance between Jon and Angela as impactful as Penny and Desmond or Kevin and Nora? No, but it also had the highest degree of difficulty. Making the romance between a human and god like being work at all, much less work as well as it did here is astounding. But this is an adaptive work. And while I appreciate this show for what it is, a love story set in this weird, alternate universe, Watchmen is not a love story.
Maybe I'm criticizing the show too much for what it's not instead of appreciating it for what it is. Maybe setting my expectations for a level of moral complexity was too much to ask for. But in some ways the show was setting this up itself in the early episodes. The reparations is what led to white supremacy, the liberal authoritarian government was a different spin on what we've seen or expected in America. When Angela said the world is "black and white" rather than rainbows, I expected that worldview to be proven wrong over the course of the show. But it never was explored. Racists are bad, power ambition is bad, and the generational harm that racism is caused is significant and damaging seemed to be the main themes of the show. That's very black and white. And maybe the reason that Lindelof has never executed a true morally complex show is because that's how he sees the world.