The Shannara Chronicles s1
Aug. 22nd, 2018 12:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
schneefinkMaybe I would have the time to actually watch the many things recommended to me if I didn't constantly get distracted by other stuff for no good reason. DD and I watched the first season of "The Shannara Chronicles" because of vague nostalgia for the original Shannara book trilogy and that the scenery in the first episode is very pretty. There are worse reasons to watch a show, and it was only ten episodes.
I actually liked the beginning, the characters showed promise even though some were overly dramatic teenagers and not that smart, Gimly plays the elf king, and I especially loved the design of the first demon we saw, the Fury, kind of a mix between a moth and a pteranodon.
I really liked the potential for Amberle/Eretria (I would have guessed her name to be spelled Eritreia) from the start, yay constant one-upping each other and switching off threatening/rescuing each other, and I was thrilled to discover it is by far the most popular pairing for this fandom on AO3 (though I don't really feel fannish about the show.) They got a lot more great scenes and even obvious attraction between each other than I would have expected. Unfortunately they still tried to do the Amberle/Wil + Eretria/Wil love triangle at the same time and it got increasingly "high school." I liked Wil and Eretria, but unfortunately I thought Amberle was very inconsistent and I found it hard to get a good feel for her. I also wish she had been more competent and that her arms had actually looked like she was capable of swinging a sword. Wil was not always the smartest but well-meaning and earnest and a healer, I like healers as heroes, and Eretria is a survivor and a fighter and also yay openly bi main characters, and the scene where she slammed her hand down on the spike on the vine-like crystal to summon the bloodfire was badass. Twice.
In the second storyline in Arborlon I at first had trouble keeping the characters straight, and it took me until almost the very end to even learn Ander's name. Poor guy really has a terrible time, just recently his older brother died and now his other brother and his father died too and he becomes king except nobody trusts him least of all himself, and demons are attacking and then his undead brother kills his commander/love-interest and he has to kill his brother agein himself, oh and now the land is saved but his niece is dead too. Wow.
I hoped Bandon wouldn't end up evil (DD and I called him baby werewolf seer because for he reminded us of a werewolf and technically canon didn't say that he isn't one, so there) but Catania really shouldn't have trusted him as much and as long as she did.
There were so many plot holes. So many. One of my favorites was when Wil and Amberle, who are terrible at stealth, were seen "sneaking" into Utopia but managed to pretend that they were here for the party, so they dressed in ridiculous clothes, but were captured shortly afterwards and bound to stakes as sacrifices for the orcs. But conveniently before tying them to the poles their capturers dressed them in their original clothes again, without even searching them first so Wil still had his elfstones, and even better/worse Amberle still had her royal elven sword. Very considerate. *facepalm*
Or when Wil and Amberle raced back to Arborlon and the entire time I was convinced they would call for the dude with the flying creature who gave them a whistle to call him any time they needed him, but no that never came up again. And dozens of other smaller things.
ETA: Also, travel times. What are travel times, or timelines.
It was decently fun and pretty entertainment if one doesn't mind plot holes etc. and I liked the f/f potential, but we're probably not going to watch the second season.
We had plans for what to watch next, but instead DD showed me the first episode of season two of Gokusen, a Japanese drama about a high school teacher who happens to be the heir to a yakuza family, and it's terrible and earnest and hilarious and wonderful so we'll continue that tomorrow.
I actually liked the beginning, the characters showed promise even though some were overly dramatic teenagers and not that smart, Gimly plays the elf king, and I especially loved the design of the first demon we saw, the Fury, kind of a mix between a moth and a pteranodon.
I really liked the potential for Amberle/Eretria (I would have guessed her name to be spelled Eritreia) from the start, yay constant one-upping each other and switching off threatening/rescuing each other, and I was thrilled to discover it is by far the most popular pairing for this fandom on AO3 (though I don't really feel fannish about the show.) They got a lot more great scenes and even obvious attraction between each other than I would have expected. Unfortunately they still tried to do the Amberle/Wil + Eretria/Wil love triangle at the same time and it got increasingly "high school." I liked Wil and Eretria, but unfortunately I thought Amberle was very inconsistent and I found it hard to get a good feel for her. I also wish she had been more competent and that her arms had actually looked like she was capable of swinging a sword. Wil was not always the smartest but well-meaning and earnest and a healer, I like healers as heroes, and Eretria is a survivor and a fighter and also yay openly bi main characters, and the scene where she slammed her hand down on the spike on the vine-like crystal to summon the bloodfire was badass. Twice.
In the second storyline in Arborlon I at first had trouble keeping the characters straight, and it took me until almost the very end to even learn Ander's name. Poor guy really has a terrible time, just recently his older brother died and now his other brother and his father died too and he becomes king except nobody trusts him least of all himself, and demons are attacking and then his undead brother kills his commander/love-interest and he has to kill his brother agein himself, oh and now the land is saved but his niece is dead too. Wow.
I hoped Bandon wouldn't end up evil (DD and I called him baby werewolf seer because for he reminded us of a werewolf and technically canon didn't say that he isn't one, so there) but Catania really shouldn't have trusted him as much and as long as she did.
There were so many plot holes. So many. One of my favorites was when Wil and Amberle, who are terrible at stealth, were seen "sneaking" into Utopia but managed to pretend that they were here for the party, so they dressed in ridiculous clothes, but were captured shortly afterwards and bound to stakes as sacrifices for the orcs. But conveniently before tying them to the poles their capturers dressed them in their original clothes again, without even searching them first so Wil still had his elfstones, and even better/worse Amberle still had her royal elven sword. Very considerate. *facepalm*
Or when Wil and Amberle raced back to Arborlon and the entire time I was convinced they would call for the dude with the flying creature who gave them a whistle to call him any time they needed him, but no that never came up again. And dozens of other smaller things.
ETA: Also, travel times. What are travel times, or timelines.
It was decently fun and pretty entertainment if one doesn't mind plot holes etc. and I liked the f/f potential, but we're probably not going to watch the second season.
We had plans for what to watch next, but instead DD showed me the first episode of season two of Gokusen, a Japanese drama about a high school teacher who happens to be the heir to a yakuza family, and it's terrible and earnest and hilarious and wonderful so we'll continue that tomorrow.
no subject
Date: 2018-08-21 10:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-08-21 10:52 pm (UTC)I kind of figured that the fact that I hadn't really heard anything about the show in any of my usual fannish circles was a bad sign ^^ but I wanted to check it out just in case.
no subject
Date: 2018-08-22 05:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-08-22 08:44 pm (UTC)