![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
NCIS: LA
This show is RIDICULOUS. It is LIKE FANFIC.
Seriously, NCIS:LA is like every foster care AU I've ever read (Callen had 37 foster homes, doesn't even know his first name, has epic manpain, etc.) combined with the slash checklist for buddy cops shows.
Odd couple partners? CHECK.
Banter? CHECK.
Banter that reads like flirting? ALSO CHECK.
Prolonged eye contact/eyesex? CHECK.
Constantly saving each other's life? CHECK.
Total trust in each other? CHECK.
Dramatic scene where one partner is shot and the other enacts a Pieta and begs him not to die? CHECK.
Professions of love in a manly, almost-joking-but-not-really fashion? CHECK.
Jokes about dating men? CHECK.
Jokes about dating each other? CHECK (cut from episode, alas, but shown in promo)
Insanely risky actions taken by one partner to save the other's life? CHECK.
Other characters observing how married they are? CHECK. EXPLICITLY.
AND WE ARE ONLY ON EPISODE EIGHT. Any second now, we're going to have some buddy breathing or a gay-undercover job or an episode where one of them thinks the other is dead or gets addicted to drugs while undercover, and it will be played TOTALLY STRAIGHT because the writers appear to be both genre blind and h/c addicts.
Alas, the things I love about fanfic are not conducive to making a good TV show, and the writers seem to have picked up a bunch of the common fanfic issues. Their plots are thin and/or nonsensical vehicles for Sam and Callen being adorable together. Their pacing is dreadful. LL Cool J and Chris O'Donnell are largely carrying the show with their excellent chemistry, though Linda Hunt is pure awesome as Hetty and Daniela Rua is doing a fabulous job making me adore Kensi even without backstory. Their cast is bloated, and *feels* like it due to the poor development, yet they brought Renko back for this week's ep? (Are they planning to replace Dom? Because I'd be okay with that. *g*)
I've also been noticing some weird technical and film-making hiccups. Several times, the sound has been shitty in a way that seems recording-related, and why didn't they fix that? ADR is not a new technique, you know. And there's been some sloppy visual stuff, like that sunset thing last night? Wow, super jarring - tonally and visually inconsistent with the adjacent scenes, and obviously just stuck in there to bridge an awkward time gap.
I have hopes that the show will get its act together and start making decent television in addition to the awesome fanservice, but I ain't gonna hold my breath.
All of which, of course, only makes me want tons of fanfic. Because there is nothing we can do that is more ridiculous than the show itself. With this much free-floating slash and vague angsty backstory, it's practically our fannish imperative.
Seriously, NCIS:LA is like every foster care AU I've ever read (Callen had 37 foster homes, doesn't even know his first name, has epic manpain, etc.) combined with the slash checklist for buddy cops shows.
Odd couple partners? CHECK.
Banter? CHECK.
Banter that reads like flirting? ALSO CHECK.
Prolonged eye contact/eyesex? CHECK.
Constantly saving each other's life? CHECK.
Total trust in each other? CHECK.
Dramatic scene where one partner is shot and the other enacts a Pieta and begs him not to die? CHECK.
Professions of love in a manly, almost-joking-but-not-really fashion? CHECK.
Jokes about dating men? CHECK.
Jokes about dating each other? CHECK (cut from episode, alas, but shown in promo)
Insanely risky actions taken by one partner to save the other's life? CHECK.
Other characters observing how married they are? CHECK. EXPLICITLY.
AND WE ARE ONLY ON EPISODE EIGHT. Any second now, we're going to have some buddy breathing or a gay-undercover job or an episode where one of them thinks the other is dead or gets addicted to drugs while undercover, and it will be played TOTALLY STRAIGHT because the writers appear to be both genre blind and h/c addicts.
Alas, the things I love about fanfic are not conducive to making a good TV show, and the writers seem to have picked up a bunch of the common fanfic issues. Their plots are thin and/or nonsensical vehicles for Sam and Callen being adorable together. Their pacing is dreadful. LL Cool J and Chris O'Donnell are largely carrying the show with their excellent chemistry, though Linda Hunt is pure awesome as Hetty and Daniela Rua is doing a fabulous job making me adore Kensi even without backstory. Their cast is bloated, and *feels* like it due to the poor development, yet they brought Renko back for this week's ep? (Are they planning to replace Dom? Because I'd be okay with that. *g*)
I've also been noticing some weird technical and film-making hiccups. Several times, the sound has been shitty in a way that seems recording-related, and why didn't they fix that? ADR is not a new technique, you know. And there's been some sloppy visual stuff, like that sunset thing last night? Wow, super jarring - tonally and visually inconsistent with the adjacent scenes, and obviously just stuck in there to bridge an awkward time gap.
I have hopes that the show will get its act together and start making decent television in addition to the awesome fanservice, but I ain't gonna hold my breath.
All of which, of course, only makes me want tons of fanfic. Because there is nothing we can do that is more ridiculous than the show itself. With this much free-floating slash and vague angsty backstory, it's practically our fannish imperative.
no subject
And yeah, Kenzi's awesome.
no subject
no subject
Although I would also accept Kenzi having to go under as a lesbian because that would also be kind of awesome. (Extra special bonus points if she's fake-girlfriends with Abby).
no subject
There was a show with canonical gay-undercover and I didn't hear about it?!?! What is fandom coming to?
Extra special bonus points if she's fake-girlfriends with Abby.
Uhh.... Yes. I'll be in my bunk?
no subject
Hey, Abby's supposed to be doing another crossover where she gets kidnapped by a serial killer she's been secretly tracking, so she's going to *need* some comfort after that. And Kenzi/Abby would be cool as all get-out. (Maybe the reason Kenzi isn't a great *second* date girl is that she's been dating guys instead of finding a nice girlfriend?)
Have some small-fandom babble and apologies for the length of it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fastlane_(TV_series) (Fastlane's wiki entry)
The show got canceled after one season (2002) and a finale that left *a lot* of loose ends, but it was pretty awesome while it lasted. I think that was before LJ got huge, which is probably why you've never heard of it. It's on DVD and also showing on TV One (according to Wikipedia, anyway).
Deaq (Bill Bellamy) and Van (Peter Facinelli) were a couple of deep-undercover cops with a really nice slashy vibe and line of banter, and their boss Billie (Tiffani Thiessen, who's being really cool on USA's White Collar as Elizabeth Burke lately) has canonical femslash with a thief named Sara (and is a recovering addict, which comes into play in the finale). Overall, it comes off like the LA version of "Miami Vice".
And yeah, Deaq and Van go under as boyfriends during some ep, but they fake that they're fighting to get out of having to kiss for it, which completely annoyed me, especially since IIRC it was *after* the canon Billie/Sara.
Pimp time!
I'm rooting *hard* that TNT's Dark Blue a) gets another season and b) has canon gay-undercover Dean/Carter for an ep if it does, because I ship (and fic) them like whoa and there's been canon undercover Dean/Jaimie and Carter/Jaimie already so I think there really *should* be canon undercover slash. (The season finale coming up this Wednesday at 10PM and midnight Central isn't *quite* NCIS:LA-level gay, but it's really slashy and definitely worth watching as an ep imo. Dylan McDermott and Logan Marshall-Green are both pretty damn hot, and they've got excellent chemistry besides.)