eric76 wrote:
I thought it was fine except for the apparent format. I thought that the acting and portrayals were fine.
It took me a few minutes to recognize the voice of her boss in the show -- the police captain from the series Monk.
I prefer a tv show to be self contained instead of dragging issues over to the next show. That the one woman went down into the cellar but no more is shown about what she found or what happened in that cellar leaving a mystery to be cleared up in a later episode is something that I find very off-putting. The reason is that I rarely watch shows in the same sequence. If for one reason or another I should miss the next two episodes, then I will likely be lost as to what is happening with them. I quickly lose interest in watching such series.
I'm not that fond of stories in series that take two weeks to show them, but at least those two shows are self contained within the two of them and don't bleed over the rest of the season. If you miss the first and then watch the second, you might be lost about that particular episode but the rest of the series is still not confused by the double episode.
I would likely enjoy the show far better if she solved one crime a week. If it takes the entire season to solve this crime, I will surely have lost interest completely by then. Any series that I have to watch in sequence to understand the series presents a problem for those of us who don't typically watch tv in sequence.
It seems to be a modern affliction that tv shows have season long or series long issues. Dr Who handles these better than any others I've seen. Monk was not real bad, either: there was the issue of who killed his wife, Trudy, but that wasn't really a major focus of the show -- I just ignored that them. In one of the Law and Order series, one character was seeing a psychologist for a while and each show would contain a few minutes of his discussions with the psychologist -- the fast forward control handled that okay but it was still a bit aggravating.
So what was in the cellar?
A lot of shows are telling serial rather than episodic stories these days. I wouldn't call it an affliction; in fact I think that a lot of the best shows on TV right now tell stories that take an entire season or more to tell, as it gives more room for character development, and it means that events that occur in an episode are more likely to have lasting repercussions down the line. But, I also think it's a matter of personal taste, and I can understand why you'd prefer a more episodic format with self-contained stories.
Unfortunately for you, I'm about 95% certain that the entire season will be devoted to the case introduced in the pilot. The show is based off of the Danish/Swedish show "Broen/Bron" and thus far the plot of "The Bridge" in general has paralleled that of the original, in which it took the entire season to solve the case. I actually think this is to the show's benefit, as the case involves a pretty unusual, difficult-to-solve crime, and I think it's more reasonable that it isn't solved in a single week, and I personally find more episodic crime dramas to be unrealistically contrived in the way that almost every episode there is a new bizarre, difficult to solve case which is wrapped up by the end of the week. But, to each his/her own, and all that; I totally understand why an episodic format can be more appealing.
By the way, if you're still interested in watching the show but can't always watch every episode the night it airs, you can watch it for free on Hulu (albeit on an 8-days-after-air-delay after the first 5 episodes, which I think can be streamed the day after air).
14 Jul 2013, 12:23 am
