H5-0 2.04

[azziria]

OK, so this was a much, much better episode for me. Still not back to where it needs to be, but at least on par with some of the less strong episodes from S1.

First the negatives (because that way I get to end on a positive note):

- Yes, we had lots more Steve and Danny, and we had a cargument, which was good, but where was the *fire* between them? Have Alex and Scott been ordered to tone down the bromance? Because I wasn't feeling that spark between them, and the show needs to sort that out. This was like two people acting Steve and Danny, instead of actually *being* Steve and Danny.

- Nobody mentioning Kono or asking after her. It wouldn't take much, so sort it, Show. And they're taking too long with this Kono storyline - the length of time would be fine if they were giving us substantial advancement every week, but they're not. It's as though they've parked Kono (no pun intended) so that they can give screen time to Lori to get us used to her being the girl on the team.

- And of course, Lori. What is the point of her, exactly? In 2.02 she was Danny, in 2.03 Chin, and this week she was Kono, all roles that are played better by other people. And when she was talking about how Danny should ask the museum girl out – sorry, no way would Steve have had that convo about Danny with her. And no way was it her place to offer that sort of personal advice to someone she's known for what, 3 weeks at the most? And storming the boat at the end with Steve? That's Danny's place, he's Steve's partner, and anyway she just looked wrong with a gun. Even though there was less of her this week, I'm still finding Barbie Girl and her perfectly-painted-on eyebrows superfluous to requirement. She needs to go.

What I did like:

- Lots more Steve and Danny :)

- Slightly less Joe, and what there was had a point. I didn't feel he was replacing Danny this week. At the start he's at the shrimp truck because Steve wants to ask him something, and then he's on the dive boat because he's a trained diver. Plus, I like this bit of moral ambiguity we've got coming in – is he trying to protect Steve, protect Steve's Dad's reputation, or protect himself?

- The way Steve is questioning Joe's actions. This week we didn't have Steve doing the unquestioning hero-worship of a father figure thing, and I preferred it.

- Shirtless Steve. Because that will never get old :)

- The museum girl, who showed more character in her acting in the, what, 3 minutes she was on screen than Lauren German has managed to show in three episodes.

- Max, who was a believable geek this week rather than a caricatured figure-of-fun like he was last week.

- Chin being supportive of Kono. And I like Fong, too, I could stand to see more of him.

- And finally, Steve and Catherine. I nearly cried when they said goodbye, I thought they knocked it out of the park, especially Alex. Both of them uptight, show-no-emotion military types who *clearly* wanted to say more to each other than they did. I got the feeling that they mean more to each other than we've seen (or that they would admit), even if it is in an 'old friends with benefits' way rather than a hearts-and-flowers romance way. I know Michelle Borth has another show to go to, so they had to move her out of the way somehow, but if they've done it this way to leave room for some sort of attempt at Steve and Lori flirting… well, just NO.

Those are my thoughts after the first watch, I'm sure I'll have more in due course.

Comments

[alamo-girl80.livejournal.com]

WORD on all of this. It's like this season has lost it's spark between Steve and Danny entirely and I want to know why. Even if I suspect I know why, I want to see it utilized in the show.

And Lori. Christ. She needs to go. Now. I was actually saying "Get off my screen if you can't do any better than that" last night.

Catherin - okay so I think her TV show got canceled so she MIGHT be back, but no confirmation on that yet. But god, weren't they wonderful together? The halting way Steve so very much wanted to say more and Cat just standing there and ...can't...say... anything...either. GAH!God I hope they didn't ship her off in favor of Lori, that's just going to blow up in everyone's faces.

And OMFG Gabrielle just WON in 2 scenes where Lori has been failing for 3 eps. There is something wrong here, Show. As I said in my post, there are better actresses out there, Show. Get one.

[kitmerlot1213.livejournal.com]

The Steve/Catherine scene was just lovely and it seemed to me that the show was leaving their relationship open to "more". I was totally expecting a "It's been great but we need to end it" and instead we get them both wanting to meet up and continue their pseudo-romance.

To me, th way hasn't been cleared for Lori but it's actually showing Steve with a deeper commitment then once was thought.

And I don't think we were supposed to think that Lori and Steve spoke about Danny but rather we were supposed to be amazed at Lori's super-profiling abilities. And I actually liked her in the action/adventure moments but her scenes with Patty Duke just highlighted how unemotional she's actually coming across.

And we need more Steve/Danny moments and less Joe/Steve--hopefully, Steve will start to pull away from him now that Joe's lied to him.

[redfish-123.livejournal.com]

My sister just asked, "where's the fire?" after watching the show...definately tepid as far as the interpersonal dynamic is concerned. Lovely bits with missing diver's mum and treasure is always fun. I used to run the pirate programme at the maritime Museum of bc so it was good to think about gold again as that was the only thing that stood out in this episode.

[portraitofafool.livejournal.com]

Yes. Yes. Yes. Go away, Bitchy Faced Girl.

Agree on all +1 points except for the one, which totally had me curling my lip. You know my feelings though and I'm just gonna shhh about all that from now on.

MAX MAX MAX. I want MORE Max because right now he is my favorite character--sad, but true--and I thought the Inspector Gadget thing was really silly, but I couldn't keep from smiling and finding it cute, too. Inspector Gadget was one of my favorite cartoons as a kid, so I got this weird dose of nostalgia when he did that. *hangs head*

[azziria.livejournal.com]

Nah, you don't have to shut up about it, I totally see where you're coming from with that, even if I'm choosing not to see it that way (and let's face it, I've allowed this show to cause me enough heartache since the finale, right now I'll take the love wherever I can find it).

I'm really hoping that they continue to handle Max the way they did this week, as a character to inject humour without making him completely ridiculous - he is scarily bright, after all, so his geekery is eccentricity rather than stupidity.

[imkalena.livejournal.com]

Bizarrely enough, I have nothing against Lori, except that she's a little blah. I'm still stuck on hating that (in essence) three weeks ago Danny agreed to run away with his still-married ex-wife that he was apparently screwing without birth control, and last night he was goofy-faced by Cute Random Woman.

OTOH, I didn't realize how very well Scott can do goofy-faced.

At least there was a jealous-sounding Steve telling him to get back in the saddle. The way Steve utterly ignores women besides Catherine is amazing to me. It's like Alex himself doesn't even notice them.

I was still surprised that, even as absorbed in his own problems as he was, he failed to come up with the expected dinner invitation without a reminder. That left me thinking that their parting wasn't all that fraught with things they couldn't say . . . except possibly, "Steve, I love you," and "Cath, I'm interested in somebody else." I actually expected him to say that, seeing TPTB filmed Lori in the background behind them.

Steve doesn't seem like he's all that interested in Lori, but it sure looks like the show is headed that way.

[azziria.livejournal.com]

In a backpedal Lenkov has said very firmly that Lori is not being written as a love interest for Steve, despite what the network suggested over the summer. I do actually believe him, although I think that the first few episodes were written before it became clear how much the fans *didn't* want her as love interest.

Personally I don't *want* to dislike Lori, I want to love everything about my show, but I'm not being given anything to work with here. The way the character is being written, I'm not seeing what is different and unique about her, what new thing she brings to the team, who she really is character-wise. And unfortunately from what I've seen so far the actress just isn't really that good at acting, even within the confines of what she's been given by the script so far.

I know that a lot of people are very unhappy about the Lori character, me included, but I really hope it doesn't end up turning into a witch hunt against the actress (because you know what fans can be like).

As for Danny, yes, I find it difficult to accept that he's asking someone else out so soon after finding out that the baby isn't his and Rachel dumping him *again*. However this is TPTB trying to distance themselves from the cock up they made with Danny and Rachel in the finale. It's hugely clumsy, but I think we're stuck with it.

[stellarmeadow.livejournal.com]

My problem with Lori is that I want so badly to like her...but Lauren is just not a good actress. She had so much more life and spark as herself in person at SotB, but they point that camera at her and she's like a 12-year-old in a school play, reciting her lines, going from mark to mark almost like a robot, and otherwise looking like she's checked out when she's not speaking.

[azziria.livejournal.com]

I've heard that Lauren is a very sweet girl, which is why I really don't want this degenerating into a witch hunt against her. However, it matters not how sweet she is if she can't act.

If you're going to shove somebody straight into the middle of an established and much-loved team, at least choose someone who's a really good actor.

I still think it would have been much, much better if they'd eased her in. This wham-bam-thank-you-m'am approach was always going to be high-risk, even with an absolutely stellar actor/actress. And giving her scenes that belong to other members of the team (such as the cargument) or popular lines from last season ("How long have you two been married?") to try and fast-track her to popularity has made things worse, not better.

[stellarmeadow.livejournal.com]

I felt bad for her at SotB. When she was introduced the first time, for the red carpet, she got no cheers, just a combo of silence and boos. And she was very poised and sweet and energetic as she went down the red carpet and then came over to those of us standing against the railing (in some shoes that I would have never thought anyone could walk in on sand, too). The crowd warmed up before she was introed on stage and actually applauded her then. Between that and a few of her actions in ep 2.01, I wanted so badly to like her.

But there's really no getting around the fact that she's a bad actor. I've tried, but...she's just not up to the job, apparently. And seriously, whoever thought that giving her a cargument and shoving her between Steve and Danny like a shoehorn was a good idea needs to be smacked upside the head until they come to their senses.

I'm just about ready to start going on the theory that she was forced on them by the network and they're doing everything they can to make sure she fails and they can let her go. Kind of like the way the governor forced her on 5-0...hm...maybe they wrote it that way intentionally... *G*

[imkalena.livejournal.com]

When she was introduced the first time, for the red carpet, she got no cheers, just a combo of silence and boos.

I'm a little shocked, no kidding! That's kind of . . . awful.

So, you were there, LUCKY YOU, I can't believe the whole crowd was made up of slash fangirls?? Or do other fans also genuinely care whether they stuff a random female in between Steve and Danny?

My best friend, who has no interest in slash, nonetheless watches NCIS:LA "for the bromance." Are there are a lot more bromantics out there than I thought?

[imkalena.livejournal.com]

Darn, sorry. Apparently can't learn how to close my html . . .

[azziria.livejournal.com]

That sort of behaviour makes me ashamed to share a fandom with these people. And at that point we hadn't even met Lauren's character, so we didn't know how bad Lori was or how poor Lauren's acting. And even so, being rude to her face like that is unforgivable.

The sad thing is that it's all the network's fault for the 'female McGarrett' and 'potential love interest for Steve' thing (and Lauren herself has said that she auditioned as 'love interest', apparently). They set her up for a fall.

I'm pretty sure it's not just us slashers who don't want a love interest on the team for Steve. It would interfere with the Steve/Danny dynamic which even guys like. A romantic interest 'on the side' doesn't hurt it; someone in the team would. I've seen enough male posters complaining about Lori to be sure it's not just us perverted fangirls who want Lori gone.

[stellarmeadow.livejournal.com]

I was there! It was awesome! :) And yeah, it was kind of awful. I mean, I didn't cheer her, because I didn't know her, but I certainly didn't boo her. I just applauded politely, and I was very nice to her when she came over to us, because it's not her fault. IDK if it was slash fangirls, or just slash fangirls/bromance fans/Kono fans all worried. Rightfully so, as it seems.

I think there may be more bromantics than you thought...

[stellarmeadow.livejournal.com]

It's been about five weeks, I think, in show time since Danny and Rachel blew up in their own faces, but that's still not a lot of time. I'm choosing to see it as he only did it to show Steve, see, look, I do have balls. Now would you like to suck on them? ;-)

The whole thing with Cath was very...interesting. How she put the flower behind her right ear, after some hesitation, indicating she was available, and kind of looked to see his reaction, and there was none. And then she had to remind him to ask her to dinner. I got the feeling that the scene in his office, that their words may have said, "We need to meet up," but they were really saying "Goodbye" more or less.

[imkalena.livejournal.com]

The whole thing with Cath was very...interesting.

Yes, I couldn't agree more. Even if she were "just a friend" instead of a sometime bedmate, he hardly ever gets a chance to see her. I'd think he'd treat her with more interest and courtesy than he did.

[gothikmaus.livejournal.com]

I loved Steve and Catherine. I had tears in my eyes when they said goodbye and that doesn't happen often. I agree with you, there's more between them than what we've seen so far and I hope she comes back at some point.

I also loved Danny awkwardy flirting with the museum lady and asking her out, he was adorable. :3