Sorry for the delay, I know I’m intruding on Raven’s space, but my internet decided to take the day off inexplicably, so I’m stuck posting today.
Every night, me and my family gather around the TV for a long surviving family tradition – watching crime shows. I am well aware of the fact that my fellow blogger has already talked about TV shows, but this is a totally different genre. Whether it’s Star World or Fox Crime or AXN or Big CBS Prime, there’s always a show on at primetime that deals with people murdering each other and other people finding out whodunnit. It is always intriguing to see the horrors humans are capable of, and then evaluate for yourself whether their means were justified. One of the reasons I love crime shows is the way they realistically portray unrealistic events and then realistically work us through the processes that go into catching a criminal as tedious or disgusting they may be. The humour they employ in the presence of such disheartening situations also lifts my spirits a lot more than everyday humour – especially when they go for the irony. And though my mom cribs about how these shows systematically desensitize us to violence, she is the most avid viewer – in fact, it is she who wields the remote control that selects which genre of television we shall watch for the evening.
Our family favorite has got to be Criminal Minds. Amazing actors with great complementing personalities and brilliant direction, not to forget, an intriguing plot that ALWAYS ends with them stopping the ‘UnSub’ just before he/she kills someone else and if you were the ‘UnSub’, you’d have almost no chance of surviving this show. Subplots, back stories, romantic entanglements and heartwarming endings make every episode an experience. This show has many a time left me with tears in my eyes or deeply impacted by the portrayal of psychological pathologies.
Castle, Castle, Castle, Castle. And Castle. And Kate Beckett. And his mom. And Alexis. And Detectives Ryan and Esposito. And the antagonistic boss. Yup, I love them all. Castle and Beckett have so much unbelievably good luck that it’s taken for granted that they are immortal. I will not say that it’s realistic, but Castle is arguably the most lovable crime show in existence, with what is probably the longest period of sustained sexual tension in crime show history. Basically, the whole show revolves around them not having sex, which the viewers desperately want them to do. The guy has already expressed his innermost fantasies about her through best-selling fiction, all she has to do is live them out, which she won’t, because she’s too emotionally messed up to handle it (or in other words, she’s badass). Intercourse aside, his daughter, Alexis is so amazingly well-adjusted and supranormal that she was probably zapped down by space aliens, and his mom is probably one of them in disguise. I love the witty dialogues, the intricate puzzles, the resourcefulness that is a prerequisite for all characters and the zany sub plots and random coincindences that leave Castle and Beckett alone together for hours in hair-raising situations, where they come up with new ways not to have sex. This is my personal favorite.
Bones is probably the mommy show which gave birth to Castle, because Temperance Brennan’s eerie likeness to a frigid is sooooo sexy… not. I honestly don’t see what Boothes sees in her, but they are both great characters nonetheless. The show has an interesting approach to crime, and the tension between the two of them also does help ease the plot along, but they mess it up by going and doing the nasty instead of chastely refusing to acknowledge any feelings either may have for the other. However, the plots never fail to intrigue and impress – there is always an interesting crime wherever the bones are concerned.
I absolutely detest Dexter. I mean, who kills that many people and gets away with it? It’s so unrealistic, they’re not even pretending to make an effort when it comes to sub plots and other details to pull in the viewer. And seriously, what’s with the boss dressed like he’s vacationing on a beach? I mean, there’s just no dignity given to the police profession (even if they have none, let’s at least pretend for welfare’s sake). Let’s not forget his sister who walks in on him killing someone and then believes it was just a set up. No one is THAT dumb! Now that I’m done with Dexter, I’d better disparage White Collar – Neal Caffrey is such a flat personality, he should be an extra, not have an entire TV series revolving around him. And the cop in charge of him acts more like his father whom he’s fallen in love with, it’s not even funny, it’s creepy.
Taking a dump in public and still being unnecessarily dramatic about it.
Why is everyone covering their crotches? :O
Then there’s the never-ending stream of CSI and NCIS shows. I can’t differentiate between them, so I’ll speak heartwarmingly of NCIS I think, which has got the quirky Abby who acts like a little girl yet has a deeper character that usually comes through as well as Ziva who is like the life of the show. Then the various CSIs that I can’t keep track of nearly always have a great storyline with some good humour, and they’re committed to showing crime – they almost never bring in the personal lives of the investigators. The bottomline is, I like these shows a lot.
Finally, Body of Proof is another show I wish they’d bring back to television for ten more seasons. A woman who takes her job far too seriously and ends up doing everyone else’s work for them, rather obsessively, is VERY entertaining. I admire the way she gets whatever she wants and gets away with it. Her attention to detail and ability to reconstruct entire crimes by looking at a body is marvellous. It’s an innovative idea for a show, very original, and her methods of solving crimes may be far from conventional, but she can get away with it because she’s that badass.
All this murder and crime is probably influencing me in a bad way and increasing my tendencies to violence or my threshold of tolerance towards violence. Or it could be giving me analytical and evaluative skills that in no way benefit me. Oh yeah. Either way, I’m still enjoying my evenings watching the same old plots get recycled in creative ways, so as long as I’m fooled, I’m happy 😀
Mango Mustache 