Hello all...
Not that I'm the best indicator anyway, but I did like this episode a lot. There was some levity to it, some peace, it was "fresh", it didn't seem as tight as other episodes, and I really did enjoy that. Maybe it was the lighting because they were on location, but this ep seemed a lot less bleak than many other eps of Season 7.
The story was interesting, twisty and turny, it seemed to be interwoven quite well. A story where at the end I'm like "Jeez, I should've seen it coming!" For example, I like how the pregnancy was brought up, it wasn't a kind of "last minute" thing that his wife was pregnant. And while it was a plot device, I congratulate CI on a mixed-racial couple. It's still something VERY rare on TV. I chuckled at Goren's Baby-comment, even more so after reading DonnaJo's comment on page one, because of course I never realized that VDO himself was looking down that road at the time of filming.
CI has become more of a whodunit than a whydunit, but then this ep had something I really liked, a perp loosing it when confronted with the why, but not in this "I'm exploding Leslie way", but slowly slipping - what a pun that he fell of the boat at the end! Also, there was a Goren-Dance, verbally and physically. He was circeling his prey...!
And my TV connection broke when the perp fell off the boat, so I can't really comment *darn*, but it would be Goren-like to at least not prevent the dive...
The only thing that really bugged me in this ep was the music opening and the necessary tittilation of Dana. Usually I'm not the one to complain and usually I don't mind much. But I thought it was unecessary in this ep, more so than in other episodes. The terrorist angle scared me at first, but I'm glad they didn't take that road.
I chuckled at the Ross/Rodgers connection and ever more so because of the G/E look that came along with it.
Now the much discussed scruff. I really don't understand why this poses such a continuity problem. It's not like he was sporting a full beard, and this scruff you get really quickly - I'd say within a week or ten days. Or is facial hair different? (I wouldn't know, my experience is with different body parts ;D )
I really liked the scruff and I thought it looked nice on him, on a whole I thought he looked rested and well. I think if this had been aired as the first episode, then I'd been bummed because Goren seemed way too well inspite of just having lost his mother. And while I know that "Depths" was shot before "Amends", was it really intended to be the first ep or was it just shot out of sequence? There are many reasons for shooting eps out of sequence, location availability, weather concerns, a guest star not being available or whatever...
The scruff becomes even less of a problem since we lost the timecards. I think in Seasons 6 & 7 the eps are supposed to take place in sequence, not the parallel storylines that we used to have (though never explicitly, only if you paid attention). So there shouldn't be a problem with having some scruff in one episode and none in the next. Has anyone ever bothered to check out older eps? I did some basic looking into Season 1 for fanfiction purposes, and who else ever realized that "Smothered" and "Phantom" take place around the same time? Or that "One" would actually take place after both of them? (Assuming that CI Seasons run from September to May like when they're aired on TV). Or that "Seizure", "Yesterday" and "Badge" are like a sequence of three-four weeks, but "Maledicuts" acutally takes place later, more in the timeframe of "Tuxedo Hill"? And the conclusion to "The Good Doctor" and "Crazy" would take place even after that?
And I havn't at all bothered to check weekdays & dates (don't need THAT for the FF I'm writing), but a single check with Baggage and Suite sorrow revealed that someone "goofed" there too, because in one ep it says "Tuesday, Nov. 20th" (Baggage, when they find the golfball in the car) and then in the next it says "Thursday, Nov. 21st" (Suite Sorrow, when they are at the beauty palor).
Sorry, I know I have a serious case of CI fever, but still, I'd advise not to kill the show with continuity stuff... and scruff :LOL
Also, there was a comment that Goren had no scruff with the coin guy. Now if that is clean shaven, I don't know...
s70.photobucket.com/albums/i100/TheVelocityOfVincent/LOCI%20S7/Depths/?action=view¤t=Depths28.jpgIs that true?
I liked how Eames "covered" for Goren at the end. I got the sense that she herself was quite angry at Harper.
Of course there's this question about continuity to "Smile", but if you look at that thread, so many people tried to put a positive note on it - so why wouldn't Eames cover for him?? If she really intended to say "It's to late to think about whether my reputation is tainted", then everything is just fine. I begin to wonder what "third episode ending" KE was talking about in the famous interview. I generally liked though that in that ep they got along fairly well, a little teasing, working together really well...
I caught onto that in the interrogation room, and I had a big smile from that one. Very subtle, but neat.
The whole interrogation was fun anyway, Dana trying to flirt with Bobby while making Alex a friend, I had to laugh. Classic CI and lots of fun. And they didn't buy it. In general, Alex and Bobby seemed to do fine this ep, and they get to smile...
The VDO dress didn't bother me either. Usally I'm the one who would like to see Bobby back in his suits, but it seemed to fit the feel of the ep to dress him a little lighter and more casual. And I've commented already that I thought he looked nice...
I also liked the way he acted, especially when Harper confronted him with the "lonely people aren't worth anything"-comment. I could see Bobby getting hurt, but he remained in control. I saw pain, but no over-emoting. I liked it. Another reason why I have trouble seeing this as Season premiere, because he seemed more volatile in "Amends" and "Smile". The one could argue, that that's just the road he takes to Purgatory, I see that too... oh well, many sides to that story, huh?
As a historian, I really, really cuckled at the library scene. I liked it a lot, nicely edited, great to see them working together and great to see them doing some detective work. But then some creative license, huh?
First off, I've had younger documents in my hand, and never mind the dust on those... then, I'm surprised at their reading abilities. I know it's probably less prominent in the English language, but the writing changes over time - not just the words, but also the letters and how/what they look like. Older documents are hard to read, very hard to read because of that, I can only do the basics from my classes and it's a seperate discipline to learn as a Historian. And then there's content in older documents, which very rarely as straight forward as we like it to be. 3 years back, I had a seminar in which he had the specific task of reconstructing the life of an unkown, regular person (born around 1859, died 1891) based on his inheritance and estate files that are kept in the archives (and made public 100 years after the person has died). We started from there and looked for other sources and then gradually filled in the blanks of their lives with historical information on their profession for example. Ok, now I only got a poor train worker, so I had a hard task anyway. But even those that had more info in the inheritance files really, really struggled...
It didn't kill the show for me, I just chuckled. I guess it's "my labcoat" that was mentioned elsewhere...!