Finished
Defiance season 1. The penultimate episode (
Past Is Prologue) was really striking; very good. Not sure why. It felt like it was setting up a lot of stuff, expanding the backstory. I hate to trot out the Empire Strikes Back comparison too much, but I think it’s one of my favorite things when a series allows the audience to begin filling in backstory in their minds, doesn’t let the characters off the hook easily, and gives them new challenges to face -- and that’s what happened in the second-to-last episode.
Then in the season finale, the appropriately named
Everything is Broken, everything kind of turns to crap. There are a lot of challenges for the characters to face, but the setup is a little too clear, too many telegraphed deliveries and happenstances, several interesting new characters are casually disposed of, and the artifacts which have been the focus of s1’s arc are exposed to be the most embarrassingly trite bit of deus ex machina.
Is the 2nd season any better, or should I just buy
Almost Human season 1 instead?
Cat-assed the last two seasons of 30 Rock. I’d seen s1~5, but had not bit on 6 and 7. I’d seen the series finale, and felt like I’d missed a bunch -- but most of the big stuff is really only set up one or two episodes before the finale. Anyway, TINA FEY IS AWESOME. I really love this show.
30 Rock got more positive as the show went on, the last season is almost cloyingly so except that it's done so well and includes the context of the previous six seasons. And they did some nice "wrapping up" the characters without making it seem like their life ends when the show does.
spoiler (click to show/hide)
BLIMPIE
spoiler (click to show/hide)
BLIMPIE...
I wouldn’t call it “cloying” -- I think if you re-watch it, you’ll see that Jenna still has zero redeeming qualities at the end of the show, Jack has maintained his position as a control freak who finally has another good idea (which is entirely unrelated to TV, and in fact finds him sliding back to his original job; it’s a career regression), Liz will spend the rest of her life looking after versions of Tracy and Jenna. However, to support your assertion, Liz appears happier, Jack seems satisfied, and the nicest guy on the show wins the most coveted position on the network.
Hm.