{ as is }

[delga]

I have no discipline. I'm just going to write this damn thing.

So, a couple of weeks a go, a lot of you lovely people out there answered a few questions for me and confirmed what I knew all along: I'm a somewhat bizarre fangirl who doesn't love her characters all that much.

Well, that's a lie. I do love characterisation. It's just... I watch procedural dramas! It's not supposed to be about the characters! And even when it is, why do the character interactions have to play out like poor soaps? Because they do; they really, really do.

I guess my point of fact is CSI and when I was originally thinking of writing about characters, the only one I was really thinking about was Sara Sidle. More to the point, I was thinking about how in S1, Sara was the Geek that didn't care she was a Geek with something of a boss complex. Hit S4 and she's an alcoholic. The hell? No, seriously, THE HELL? In what world were the writers living that they could match that up to the character's specs? In what world are Sara fans living that this is an acceptable evolution? Sara, the perfectionist succumbs to the bottle. You know what, if she'd had a food disorder or a compulsive disorder, I would have understood. If she'd had a mental breakdown, that would have made so much more sense. But for her to turn to the bottle is unprecedented, especially given the character's history. I miss S1 Sara desperately.

By the sound of things, most people saw the Spike evolution to be a good one. I didn't think it much of an evolution, to be honest. His character was a constant, through and through. I had no issues with him. Even when he was teh Big Bad, he was still a muppet. "Ooh, it's a big rock. I can't wait to show all my friends. I'll bet they don't have a rock this big(!)" There was a change in ethos, I suppose, but it was very natural, as far as I'm concerned. it made sense in the run of the show, however much I detested his very final scene in BtVS. Also in that fandom, as noorie pointed out, is Wesley. Dude, Wesley's evolution as a character was the best thing I've ever seen. No, seriously. I used to hate the character but the way he changed was superb. And kudos to Joss Whedon for having the guts to do that, more than once, in fact. Look at Willow, look how she changed over the course of the series. That was characterisation at its best.

I know that characters have to change with the circumstance. I know that, I accept that, I demand it, even. But I still expect them to stay true to their fundaments and Sara's development negates that on teh basic principle that I don't believe that a person with her disposition would turn to alcoholism. My main contention with shows like CSI and WaT (oh, I haven't even started on that one) is that they focus too much on the characters in the team and not enough on the facts, the tighter details. Does anyone remember when CSI's TMI cam wasn't just following a bullet through it's trajectory? Do you remember when the Doc would explain the difference between Type A and Type B diabetes? And what ketamines had to do with that? Anyone? Let's look at one of the spin-offs. Not Miami because that's a train wreck of a different kind. OK, let's look at New York. Now, NY is supposed to be character oriented so I can pass the science by a little because we're supposed to. But we're still so early in the episode run that even the writers don't know what their characters are supposed to be doing. I guess I'm more annoyed with CSI writers because they plan their characters before the show even begins to air. Have you seen how detailed the character plans are on the CBS website? And why don't writers build up on characterisation episode after episode? At around 118-121, whoever was writing teh scripts for NY was blatantly disregarding the preset foundations of the protagonists' voices. Stella was coming out with dialogue that the first half of the season had blatantly shown she would never ever say. This frustrates me endlessly when I'm watching.

I'm not going to talk about Without a Trace. I give up on it, I really do. It doesn't help that I didn't see it from day one; I don't care enough about the characters. Well, that's a lie. I care about the two characters who barely get any attention. Im glad that people do like it and that it's doing well. I've nothing against people who don't watch it; hell, I'm still watching CSI and a load of people hat ethat these days. I've just moved on.

At the end of the day, I'm basing all my opinions on L&O which has always been fantastic, I think, at combining procedure with characterisation. It's so subtle and it dosn't stray at all from the genre. Characters certainly aren't static in any sense of the phrase; they're 3D and they're consistent. Details are fed to you so slowly. It's a fandom dream, I think, because of that. There's always more you want to know. And these characters are real. It's as though they're real people, with real-people problems. And as someone who tunes in for the complexity of the cases, the characters shouldn't impede on that.

That being said, if I fall for a character, damn do I fall hard.

OK. More on another day. I'm out of steam now.

Edit: I was so going to watch L&O tonight but it's not on, bloody hell. *sulks* Guess I'll just have to go and read more Sense and Sensibility. Oh dear. (Austen is about the only thing on my readling list that I can't stomach. Out of 17 books, that's pretty good going, though).