BJ's EWTBCD: Bubble Gum TV, by Time Traveller!

You've read Time Traveller before - she's told you how she finished a novel, and she's discussed some exciting science matters.  This time round, she's here to contribute to the Enough With The Bone Crunching Doom season - with some gentle thoughts on how she and her youngest son love to bed down on the sofa with some TV drama...

On watching Netflix with son

I really enjoy watching Netflix with my son, Teenage Time Traveller (TTT) who, luckily for me, doesn't yet care that teenage boys aren't supposed to hang out with their mothers.  Together, we've watched Grimm, Heroes, Misfits, The Returned, The Tomorrow People, Dead Like Me, Chuck...  Oh, and Daredevil, who has become my very favourite superhero.    I can't believe I had never heard of him before.  All those childhood hours I could have spent reading the comics, if only I had known.

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When we watch, it is just two of us - which is just as well, because we like to pause and talk all the way through.  We talk about what has happened, what it means, and what we think is going to happen next.  We do this a lot, and we argue about it a lot.  It used to drive me mad, all this pausing, until I started to notice how often TTT was right about what was about to unfold.  He is keenly observant, and has a good memory for what has already happened and who has said what, when.   

As everyone knows, guessing what is going to happen next is good sport, and not quite as easy as it sounds.  Recently, for example, on Daredevil, it seemed obvious that something very bad was about to happen.  And it did.  The cause of this bad thing had not been shared with the viewer, yet, so we couldn't work out how we knew.  There was no dramatic music, or anything.  In fact, there was no music at all.  Could that be it?  We paused it, rewound, and after watching the scene a few times, we were still none the wiser.  Perhaps it was about camera angles or something.   

He and I paused our way all the way through Grimm.  Sometimes it was to discuss the plot (“Hold on, I think they might be writing that character out,” or, “I think she might be one of them, too.”), or to comment on the actors (“Is he wearing stacked shoes?  He hauls his feet along behind him like he's wading through treacle.”  Rewind, “Hmm, yes.  Or maybe he's just trying to be really manly.”).  TTT thought it would be a good idea to watch the early episodes again, see if we could spot any continuity errors, but I really wouldn't recommend that.

We prefer the very long series - if we could find another as long as Lost, we'd be there, dude.  We're both interested in creative writing, in one way or another.  TTT is learning to write computer games, and wants to do better than the writers of many games, where the players' available options lack any kind of realism.  We both watch for signs of a story picking up, branching out.  We enjoy a good back story (which Lost excelled in, to a ridiculous degree), because it gives added depth to the characters, adding a bit of extra interest.  It also provides the groundwork for character development - if we can see how 'bad' they used to be, we can see how far they have come, as well as how far they have yet to go.  Monroe, perhaps, is an example of that.  He has come from a slightly shady past as a flesh-eating Blutbad, to a vegetarian loner, to a lynchpin in Grimm's fight – a part of the family.   

We have mixed feelings about the introduction of new cast members.  They can take a bit of time to bed in.  Sometimes they provide some much-needed variety, and give the story somewhere else to go, but sometimes they just throw a brick into the action stream. 

When they start to introduce cliff-hangers between episodes early on, where they haven't been before, we know they're getting confident, and there will probably be another series in the offing.  When they introduce them late in the game, we know they're getting desperate, and there might not.

We enjoy spotting the actors who jump between these shows, too:  Haywire becomes Monroe, T-Bag becomes Sullivan, and the man who ran around without any clothes on in Lost turns up in Dead Like Me.  As for Jacob... well, he just keeps on popping up everywhere. 

TTT prefers the baddies, because they tend to be more complex, more interesting.  He was especially impressed by the King Pin in Daredevil, who is a gentle, sensitive guy - just so long as his inner sanctum is not threatened in any way.  Or, as TTT put it, he's really nice... until he isn't.  Characters who keep secrets from us become potential baddies, although that can be a bit hit and miss.  The bad guys also provide the perfect opportunity to explore ethics and lifestyle choices in a way that is easy, comfortable and sometimes funny. 

Our esteemed blog host once mentioned to me that a lot of these shows have a religious message.  I told TTT about that, and now we play 'spot the religiosity.'  Sometimes you can't miss it, like a great hammer spinning over and over in the air towards you - whoomp, whoomp, whoomp - until it finally hits you right between the eyes.  Other times, not so much.  Recently, TTT paused Daredevil to say that he had spotted one coming, but I was sure he was wrong.  We un-paused, and the very next scene started with a long-shot of a confessional box, taken from behind the bloodied hand of a crucifix.  Ah well, you win some, you lose some.  It was the beginning of an internal struggle between doing the wrong thing for the right reason, or doing nothing, and letting wrong prevail.  I should have seen it coming, too - the central character is Roman Catholic, after all. 

Grimm manages to sidestep the issue of religion completely (unless we've missed something?), choosing instead to focus on the mythical and supernatural.  Orphan Black, on the other hand, dives straight in with a truly scary religious sect, but this is balanced out by the equally scary scientists.  The unscrupulous behaviour of the scientists, including murder, surveillance, and manipulation is more than equalled by the truly shocking sight of a young girl having had her lips sewn together by the sect leaders – who are also not above murder and manipulation.  So far, at least (and we haven't finished watching the second series, yet), Orphan Black has these two paths woven through with questions of pure ethics.  Should scientists do something just to see if it's possible?  What would life actually like for a human clone?  Would they, should they, be seen as not quite fully human?  As an aside, an ongoing discussion is whether the clones are a metaphor for a multiple-personality disorder, or an illustration of nature vs nurture in action.

TTT will sometimes consider an element to be indicative of a clumpingly religious theme, when it I might view it as purely incidental.  For example, a family might pray before eating a meal.  We have to pause at that scene to discuss whether that is simply a sketch to illustrate the way of life in that region, or whether it is likely to become the driving force for overcoming evil. 

In The Returned, the very fact that people have come back from the dead (like Lazarus, and they are occasionally referred to as such), makes TTT suspicious of a strong religious underpinning.  We haven't finished watching it, yet, so I don't know if he's right (the  Daredevil example has made me think twice before dismissing his views), or whether it is just a fascinating, eerie ghost story.  We shall see.  

A couple of our favourites are now dished out to us on a weekly basis, putting an end to our binge-viewing (of these, at least).  That's fun, too, in its own way.  It gives us something to look forward to.  It is reminiscent of my childhood viewing, when they would say, “Tune in next week, folks!  Same time, same channel.”  The prospect of those seven days would stretch endlessly ahead of me, and I would have to go upstairs to re-read my superhero comics to help fill the chasm.

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Doesn't that make you want to go and dive into a boxset? Till next time...