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AnnabellaWilliam
Reviews
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999)
Has really gone downhill
SVU used to be one of my favourite shows. There's been some incredible, edge-of-your-seat episodes like "911", but now it's mostly he-said she-said's and statutory rapes between two willing participants (i.e. 15 year old girl and 16 year old guy). Yes, it's more realistic and true to life, but that's not why I watch TV like this. If I wanted realistic crime shows I'd watch Highway Cops or something - not Law & Order.
The political agenda pushing that's become central to the show is beyond aggravating. As the most liberal, feminist, pro-immigration, anti-racist, anti-fascist person around, having the views I already believe in forced down my throat every time I'm trying to chill out and watch TV is frustrating. It's also even more frustrating knowing how pointless it is - SVU is a crime show, it's not going to make anyone reconsider their politics, and it's dumb to isolate people from a show they've enjoyed for decades just because their politics differ to yours. The way it's all approached feels really patronising and tacky too - and the "my way is the right way" attitude is unhelpful in creating any positive political discussion.
Season 19 has been better than the past few seasons - there's been a few more engaging plot lines. It's still not even close to how it used to be though, where virtually every episode was an 8/10 with 9's being a common occurrence. Now it's more like every episode is a 5/10, and we're lucky if we get a 7.
I don't watch the show regularly anymore; I just resort to it when there's literally nothing else I can think of to watch. It sucks because it was so good, and I don't even think the new cast is too bad (yeah, they're not the OG's, but I can deal with it if the plots are good). It seemed to get a lot worse when Mariska Hargitay took over as Executive Producer.
Bring back engaging plots please and stop the political tripe. :(
Dexter: Remember the Monsters? (2013)
Remember When Dexter Was Good?
CONTAINS SPOILERS!
Let me start by saying that I loved this show. Seasons 2 and 4 were my personal favourites. Unfortunately Season 8 did not live up to the show's legacy at all, and to be honest, I don't think this was a bad finale as much as I thought this was a bad season. I don't think changing the finale would have fixed what was comparatively, a wholly dull and uninspired season. But this review is about the finale only.
This finale failed to ignite any real emotion because of everything happening too fast. It consistently felt like a string of attempts to tie up plot holes that never should have developed in the first place, and in doing this they created a whole bunch more. For example, Hannah being a wanted fugitive but making no efforts to conceal her identity, the US Marshal being completely unaware of a highly dangerous serial killer on-the-run despite his face plastered everywhere and Dexter stealing Deb's body and throwing it in the ocean with no one noticing she was missing, but somehow noticing Dexter was missing - given her vegetative state, it's pretty safe to say she didn't walk out of the hospital herself. I highly doubt Quinn - who the writers made consistently clear was madly in love with her - would let that slide. The same goes for Batista, who was very close friends with Deb. On top of this, no one saw him carrying her lifeless body to his boat, no one found his fingerprints on the life support switch despite him making the peculiar decision not to wear gloves that day, and there were zero cameras anywhere in the hospital (and apparently this extends to every hospital in Miami, given the incident with Hannah taking Harrison to another hospital earlier in the season).
The whole narrative arc of Season 8 was Dexter realising his humanity and realising he is more than the serial killer Harry created him to be. But in the finale, his humanity doesn't extend to Deb - a person he truly loves and deeply cares for - and he gives her only a mere day to show improvement before turning off her life support and throwing her in the ocean where he disposed of countless "people who deserved it". Deb never deserved it, and him discarding her this way after not only coming to terms with his humanity but reeling from the guilt of his fault that resulted in her condition, is just totally unbelievable. Part of the reason Dexter threw his victims in the ocean was because he felt they didn't deserve to be found, that they didn't deserve a proper burial; for him to deprive his beloved sister of that and treat her this way when he always saw her as innocent and merely a victim of his issues is absurd. Not only this, but she was a strong character who always fought for herself; she deserved a better ending than dying of a "complication". Even where this was the case, it would likely be assumed that someone accidentally turned off her life support when trying to move her during the storm. There was zero need for Dexter to dispose of her.
The Argentina plan was made unbearably unrealistic by the couple's stupidity. Dexter has a speedboat - why not use it to travel to somewhere like Cuba, then from there to Mexico, then to Argentina from there, to face less chance of being spotted? Given Hannah's fugitive status - and it's not like she skipped bail on a DUI, she's a manipulative serial killer who kills anyone in her way, more than one US marshal and a money-hungry private investigator would be trying to find her - the idea of getting on multiple planes and through multiple airport checks is crazy. What's more crazy though, is that not a single person in any airport identified this woman who looks identical to the picture of a wanted serial killer plastered on the news.
In a similar vein, no one noticed another wanted serial killer knocking out a stranger in a busy car park while bleeding all over the floor, nor walking into a vet, driving to the hospital, cutting out a guy's tongue in public in broad daylight and entering the hospital. To even imply Dexter would let him live and face justice at the hands of Miami Metro in the first place knowing how little evidence he leaves behind is an insult to the character the writers spent seven seasons creating. While Dexter realising he didn't NEED nor want to kill Saxon was an important and vital moment, his character would still have done it through self-preservation, protecting his family and avenging Vogel's death. That's the character we watched this show for and grew to love, and that's not the character we saw in this finale.
Summarising, this finale fell flat on its face and failed to grip its viewers or leave a lasting impression. For a show that brought some real shocks, compelling story lines and stunning cinematography (the shot with Harrison in Rita's blood springs to mind), all of which moved its audience and hooked us until this point, to end this way is really disappointing. Like others, I hope one day we'll get an alternate ending - or alternate final season, for that matter.