Southland and Lewis (and other telly)

[innocent_lex]

Yesterday I watched the first episode of Southland. It's been touted as a cop show that's different from other cop shows, and I'm at a loss as to see why. It was loaded up with a bunch of interchangeable white men of varying ages and levels of assholishness, one representative white woman and one representative black woman. And the plot (such as there was one) was mostly incoherent. It's a shame, because for some reason I had hopes that this might be worth watching.

Anyone seen it? Does it improve?

And on entirely the other end of the scale, I've been watching Lewis. I wasn't a fan of Morse, but Lewis seems better. I've ended up watching a variety of the episodes, clearly in completely the wrong order as they're shown on at least two different channels (and randomly at that). It's much slower moving, still full of (supporting) characters I'd never want to meet in real life, but the two main characters are excellent. Some of the stories are still entirely unbelievable, but that's telly for you.

In other telly, White Collar is getting better again but it's never given me the same thrill of fascination that the very first episode did. Doctor Who is over for another series - I liked the last two-parter, but I'm still not fond of the new bloke and suspect I never will be. Drop Dead Diva and The Good Wife are both over for the moment, but I'll definitely be coming back for more: strong women, FTW.

Coming up this week on ITV something called 'Identity' about identity theft, and something called The Silence starting in a week on BBC1 for five nights (with Douglas Henshall and Dervla Kerwin) which I'm hoping will be a good summer miniseries. And towards the end of July Medium is back for a new series. I think it'll be the last series, but I still like watching it so I'll keep with it as long as it's around.

Comments

[graculus.livejournal.com]

Re: Identity, is there some TV law in this country that says every damn show I might want to see has have Keeley Hawes cast in it? Grrr.

[innocent-lex.livejournal.com]

Not sure who she is. Is it a bad thing?

[graculus.livejournal.com]

For me it is, as she is (in my opinion) about as talented as a stick and seems to be everywhere! :(

[innocent-lex.livejournal.com]

Oh her. Ew. I see your point. I'll try it out, but I suspect that'll be a short-lived effort.

I never get why some people are beloved of television-makers. There are so many talented actors out there, and we seem to get stuck with the shit ones as leads in so many programmes. It's peculiar.

[superbadgirl]

I love Southland, myself, though I can't disagree about the interchangeable white men thing. I do like that the gay character just is and it isn't made into a big thing - it's a facet of his character, not everything about him.

And I adore Lydia SO MUCH. So, so much.

Chickie frustrated me a lot, but in a realistic way and she absolutely ended up doing something that made me pump my fist in the air and cheer.

[innocent-lex.livejournal.com]

See, after watching the first episode I have no clue who the people are you're talking about. But if you *do* have some idea, then does that mean it will be worth sticking with it?

[superbadgirl]

I've found Southland is very love it or hate it. It does have kind of a disjointed storytelling style, and you do have to be faithful or you'll be wtfing all over the place. And it is absolutely not perfect.

I dunno. I'd recommend it, but I'm biased. ;)

(btw, Lydia's the one in my icon, Chickie's the female uniformed and the gay guy is the new guy's vet/mentor/trainer)

[innocent-lex.livejournal.com]

Thank you! It's on again on Thursday so I'll give it another try.