As 2013 draws to a close and the media are filled with retrospectives on the best of, the worst of, and those between, I find myself reflecting on the television I gave up on in 2013 due to complete lack of imagination on the part of the showrunners, pure terribleness, and other factors. Two new entries for fall particularly stand out for me on this list, illustrations of what does…and doesn’t…work in television.
The first is NBC’s Dracula, for which I had high hopes, as at first glance, it seemed to hit all of my pop culture soft spots. A show about vampires? I’m totally there. Set in 19th century London? So much the better. Sinister plotting? Oh, yes, please.
I love costume dramas, I love ridiculous plots, and I love cheesy shows that do not take themselves too seriously, instead embracing absurdity and rolling with it, and I hoped that this would be the case with Dracula, given the absurdity of the previes. Thus, I was thrilled to the core when I sat down to watch the pilot, which left me rather nonplussed. I was, in fact, so nonplussed that I might have become negativeplussed at some points; how could such a fantastically cheesy and delicious premise be done so badly, and so self-consciously? My perplexed expression lingered for several days, leading friends to ask after my gastrointestinal health on several occasions.
However, I am not one to judge a book by its cover, or a television show by its pilot, for I am well aware that a pilot doesn’t necessarily set the tone for the rest of a series. Thus, I bravely sallied forth for the second episode, eagerly anticipating that Dracula would have sorted itself out for my viewing pleasure, and that I was soon to enjoy television as it was meant to be enjoyed, a delightful and frothy substance much like egg nog (oh, egg nog).
Alas, I was betrayed by NBC, and by Jonathan Rhys Meyers’ absolutely dreadful US accent. If this is what we sound like to the rest of the world, no matter a fair chunk of the world absolutely hates us, as such grating tones could be enough to drive anyone to consider breaking treaties and terminating trade agreements. I believe Meyers is attempting to imitate the distinctive accent of 19th century US new money, but the result is rather closer to the sound of a donkey balefully braying in distress after consuming too much green fruit.
After about three minutes, I decided that I simply couldn’t take it any more, and I hastily turned it off. I am still haunted in my dreams upon occasion by the horrors of what I saw and heard—those are three minutes of my life I shall never recover.
I was also eager for ABC’s Once Upon A Time in Wonderland, a spinoff of Once Upon A Time that features one of my favourite fantasy worlds (all creepiness of Lewis Carroll aside). My general (and, I realise, heretical) dislike for Once Upon A Time notwithstanding, I thought this would be an ideal world to explore in television form and I convinced myself that it could be a phantasmagoria of fun, especially if the show took the absurdist and dadaist elements of the original text to their full extension.
Alas, this was not to be. While I was able to get through three episodes in an attempt to force myself to like it, Once Upon A Time in Wonderland simply wasn’t able to gel with me. It wasn’t just the racist caricatures or the absolutely terrible special effects (charmingly reminiscent of The Princess Bride in their unabashed awfulness), nor was it the wooden acting. It just wasn’t…good. I wanted to engage with the characters and the stories and I found myself generally abstracted, as I couldn’t connect with anything that was going on.
While the concept was thoroughly delightful, and I was particularly interested in the implications the show offered for media depictions of mental illness (as Alice is cast as mad when she initially goes to Wonderland and returns to report about it), I ultimately didn’t find the show gripping. It seemed to vacillate between taking itself entirely too seriously, turning it into a stiff, awkward programme that wasn’t enjoyable to watch in the slightest, and attempting to poke fun at itself, but in a jerky, nervous sort of way, much like a parent attempting to be hip in order to impress the kids. The result was a show with a wildly uneven texture and tone that managed to fail to delight on multiple levels, which is in itself an accomplishment not to be understated, to be fair.
As with my dislike for the original series that spawned this one, I may be in a minority. Many people seem to be enjoying this, following the characters and the world with eagerness. Am I too impatient? Too picky? Seeing the divergence between my response to both Onces reminds me yet again that the old saying about accountability for taste never goes out of fashion, for, truth be told, I wouldn’t be particularly sad if either one went off the air and was replaced by something much more excellent, like, for example, an engaging competitive knitting programme, or perhaps a series on shorebirds of the world.
The awkwardness of both shows is especially striking when contrasted with the top-notch drama currently coming out of Britain. It’s attracting large US audiences, clearly showing that we’re ready and able to handle good television…but perhaps not so good at producing it.