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Post by feezya on Dec 2, 2013 5:01:36 GMT -5
I hope TPTB want the "epic love" that we all want too. I'm concerned because of all this talk about the mythological connection between Vincat that we will find out about. If there is another reason e.g. Murifield or Cat's mom, or whatever for them to be drawn to each other, then where is the love? Maybe I just don't understand the myology talk, but if they were programmed for each other, it kind of takes away the romantic love. I hope I'm just missing something; if anyone has any different ideas let us know! I am hoping that the mythological connection will add to the romance and the epic love; I'm not sure how, but I am hoping. Perhaps they had met before with some tie to Murfield and/or Cat's mom and both their memories were wiped at some point. Perhaps Cat is the reason why Vincent got cold feet and called off his wedding to Alex before enlisting....I don't know, but it better be really good. I'm just hoping, because I don't know what else to do. i'm curious about this too. they confirmed about there's more too vincat's connection that what we already know in S1, but they hardly mentioned more on this. kinda hard to speculate what it is
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Post by yfaruqi on Dec 2, 2013 13:48:40 GMT -5
Exactly how I feel...the characters are almost unrecognizable. In all fairness, we do get a "glimpse" of the Catherine we knew and loved on occasion as well as Vincent. Tess and JT are rare. Gabe's excuse is that he was given a "second chance" at life; was he always meant to be a "sap" (albeit an adorable one -- killer smile that man has!)? Each and every one of us changes and grows throughout our lives. Our life experiences make us "who we are." This is what we are seeing with Catherine and Vincent. The circumstances and situations they have been confronted with have created and dictated the people they have become. It is so painful to watch. The situation with Catherine and Vincent is based in/on reality; the changes in them, their personal growth, caused by issues they have faced. To that end, I cannot doubt that the writers have succeeded. However....I watch BATB because I want to escape from reality; I want to enjoy the fairy tale "epic love" and "romance." We are being asked to accept and love our characters as they progress and grow. I am sticking with them; but I admit, I really do not like the people they have become. VinCat will be back together again, we all know that. What we need to be prepared for, though, is that the "VinCat" we know and love is GONE. We will never see our beloved characters the way they were in Season 1. The writers have made sure that Vincent and Catherine BOTH have made decisions with far-reaching consequences regarding each other and themselves. They are different people now. Reality-check -- we need to start referring to them as "VinCat 2.0." Hey, if we are lucky, maybe they will be "supercharged" too! I think that's the realization I came to after this episode. I loved these characters and that has been diminishing these past few weeks. The moment when Vincent caused the car crash and didn't even care what happened to Cat may have been a small insignificant one in the grand scheme of things but for me it just didn't sit well no matter how much I try to justify it. After that when Cat was going to shoot Vincent I didn't feel anything, what should have been a touching moment felt empty to me and it had nothing to do with the actors cause they were good as usual. I had to ask myself if I really want them to be together and if that's what the writer's vision was I would say they have definitely succeeded. I understand they had to create drama and make the show last as many seasons as possible so I can't blame them for the changes but for me I would rather have short and sweet rather than long and..well let's just say not sweet. If the only way to create drama is to take away epic love and add other love interests there are plenty of shows out there that have and are doing that, what made this show so lovable for me was the fact that it was different. I will also add my usual disclaimer that these are just my feelings and views at the moment, obviously things can change based on how the rest of season plays out. I'm an optimist so will hope for the best and I do understand that the creator's have to worry about making the show appeal to wider audiences and not everyone likes epic love and would rather have the love triangles since it's more realistic...
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Post by yfaruqi on Dec 2, 2013 14:06:43 GMT -5
I don't blame on Vincent, either. That's what I don't understand about this “brilliant” plan for this season. I don't recognize any of these characters. Any of them, not only VinCat, though, as the story is centered on them, it's more noticable on them.
Tess is a pale shadow of the smart detective she was on S1. I'm not particularly her fan, but I admit that she was a cop back then. JT is constantly MIA so there's nothing to recognize on him. Gabe has zero personality. People talk about she-beast being a plot device, but at least we have nothing to compare on her character. Gabe is a plot device that lost his brain when his beast died.
What happened to these people? Did Reynolds manage to reprogram them at distance through Vincent?
I admit is unfair to blame Vincent for Catherine's change, but 2/3 of it is because of him, the same way that Vincent's change is 100% Reynold's fault. That's my main issue with Cat trusting him the way she did. It's like the writers didn't know their own character. Catherine's a cop. She should know how to smell a lie from 1 mile yet Bio-Dad played her like a piano.
I think that, in her desperation about losing her love the way she did, she also lost herself and that's why people blame on Vincent, despite not being his fault at all. She was so lost that she kept pushing and lying to herself so much that she forced Vincent to the point of explosion. In a way, part of what made him give in so easily to his beast was that he could clearly see in her eyes that he wasn't the man she loved anymore. If he doesn't have his safe harbor, why try to bring his ship to land?
None of these characters are recognizable. That's what is making me so lost and I think some other beasties, too. There's nothing on this season that leads me to believe that I'll ever see the characters I enjoyed so much on the last one. Actually I think I do understand the plan as I said in another post although I wouldn't call it brilliant. This is me speculating but season 1 barely got renewed and the creators knew they had to do something different otherwise they will face the same problem for renewing the show another season. So they brought in some folks to help who have had experience in long running shows in hopes that they can make BATB be more commercially successful. The result of that is what we have now for better or worse so from the commercial perspective I can see the plan was to add more drama in the shape of other love interests and bigger stakes (I have heard this term a lot in season 2 of most other shows). I would imagine VinCat 1.0 were just the unfortunate casualties in that and in terms of plan maybe the vision is that we will get back to those two somehow although I'm not sure how that's ever going to work. More likely we will have the 2.0 version for the rest of the series...
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condor
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Post by condor on Dec 2, 2013 15:17:36 GMT -5
Actually I think I do understand the plan as I said in another post although I wouldn't call it brilliant. This is me speculating but season 1 barely got renewed and the creators knew they had to do something different otherwise they will face the same problem for renewing the show another season. So they brought in some folks to help who have had experience in long running shows in hopes that they can make BATB be more commercially successful. The result of that is what we have now for better or worse so from the commercial perspective I can see the plan was to add more drama in the shape of other love interests and bigger stakes (I have heard this term a lot in season 2 of most other shows). I would imagine VinCat 1.0 were just the unfortunate casualties in that and in terms of plan maybe the vision is that we will get back to those two somehow although I'm not sure how that's ever going to work. More likely we will have the 2.0 version for the rest of the series... That's exactly what this is. They're going for a kind of "reboot" of the series. Everything that happened in Season 2 so far has been undoing the things that happened in Season 1. - VinCat is pretty much dead
- Muirfield is no more, so Vincent isn't being actively hunted anymore (still has to live in hiding but it's not as bad as it was halfway through S1)
- Cat's family members are all either dead or irrelevant
- Tess and Cat are back to where they were at the beginning of S1 (both of them are partners again and also single - JT&T is irrelevant)
- Vincent can only remember glimpses of his past - including, but not limited to, S1 stuff - and his character has changed to reflect that
- Gabe has gone back to being a normal, 100% human ADA.
- Presumably, Vincent will move back in with JT once the Tori arc is done.
- The only missing element is Evan (and they can't exactly raise him from the dead). Gabe is the new Evan.
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Post by yfaruqi on Dec 2, 2013 16:15:57 GMT -5
That's exactly what this is. They're going for a kind of "reboot" of the series. Everything that happened in Season 2 so far has been undoing the things that happened in Season 1. - VinCat is pretty much dead
- Muirfield is no more, so Vincent isn't being actively hunted anymore (still has to live in hiding but it's not as bad as it was halfway through S1)
- Cat's family members are all either dead or irrelevant
- Tess and Cat are back to where they were at the beginning of S1 (both of them are partners again and also single - JT&T is irrelevant)
- Vincent can only remember glimpses of his past - including, but not limited to, S1 stuff - and his character has changed to reflect that
- Gabe has gone back to being a normal, 100% human ADA.
- Presumably, Vincent will move back in with JT once the Tori arc is done.
- The only missing element is Evan (and they can't exactly raise him from the dead). Gabe is the new Evan.
You know I never thought I would say that after last season but I do miss Evan a little, basically he was a good guy and ultimately did the right thing (which we all know Vincent 2.0 doesn't). You are absolutely right and just to focus on Gabe a bit I can understand him changing to be a better person but that doesn't erase the fact that regardless of how he seems in season 2, for me he is not a good person. It's easy to be good when you are not challenged but the real test of anyone is when circumstances force them to be in situations where they had to make tough decisions, Evan made one in sacrificing his life and Gabe made one in sacrificing Vincent and possibly Catherine to save his. Yes of course we can blame it all on his beast side but what's to say he won't make the same decision again in similar circumstances. Even if we consider he has feelings for Cat didn't he have some of those for his girlfriend who did everything she could to save his life. How has he gone from being what he was in season 1 to being the best catch in town, I'm not saying he can't change but if anyone has done what he did it would take a lot more than helping Cat look for Vincent for a few months to even make up let alone intentionally try to get in the middle of Vincent and Catherine..but of course they aren't the same anymore so guess that gives him the right..
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condor
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Post by condor on Dec 2, 2013 18:59:20 GMT -5
You know I never thought I would say that after last season but I do miss Evan a little, basically he was a good guy and ultimately did the right thing (which we all know Vincent 2.0 doesn't). You are absolutely right and just to focus on Gabe a bit I can understand him changing to be a better person but that doesn't erase the fact that regardless of how he seems in season 2, for me he is not a good person. It's easy to be good when you are not challenged but the real test of anyone is when circumstances force them to be in situations where they had to make tough decisions, Evan made one in sacrificing his life and Gabe made one in sacrificing Vincent and possibly Catherine to save his. Yes of course we can blame it all on his beast side but what's to say he won't make the same decision again in similar circumstances. Even if we consider he has feelings for Cat didn't he have some of those for his girlfriend who did everything she could to save his life. How has he gone from being what he was in season 1 to being the best catch in town, I'm not saying he can't change but if anyone has done what he did it would take a lot more than helping Cat look for Vincent for a few months to even make up let alone intentionally try to get in the middle of Vincent and Catherine..but of course they aren't the same anymore so guess that gives him the right.. Look at it from the writers' perspective: Cat needs to be with someone, but at the same time the relationship has to be less than perfect because you want to give her an easy way out of it once Vincent (3.0?) comes back into the picture in (presumably) the next season. It's like in SPN where Dean was paired with Benny for most of S8 but the writers set it up in a way that they could easily drop the relationship once Sam was back in the picture. And because of the reasons you mentioned, Gabe is the perfect man for the role. Also, reading Brad Kern's interview and his comments on the new, deeper mythology makes me think of Heroes Season 3 - which Sendhil Ramamurthy (Gabe) played a big part in [interesting fact: He temporarily becomes a beast in that show as well]. The first two seasons were full of action but there weren't many connections to a larger underlying storyline, but S3 introduced a whole lot of mythology and the show became much more interesting. It seems that BatB is going for a similar strategy and I, for one, love it.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Dec 2, 2013 21:08:07 GMT -5
Yeah, I have some sympathy for Brad Kern actually. He's in a tough spot and is taking a lot of flack he doesn't deserve. They hire him to revamp a show that performed poorly in season 1.....and he's doing that.....unsuccessfully to this point since the direction of the show is completely different and not acceptable to many fans. However, they didn't hire him to maintain the status-quo! I don't think any judgements can be made about his performance/job until the season has ended.
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Post by lilbit-XO-VinCat on Dec 2, 2013 21:54:48 GMT -5
Yeah, I have some sympathy for Brad Kern actually. He's in a tough spot and is taking a lot of flack he doesn't deserve. They hire him to revamp a show that performed poorly in season 1.....and he's doing that.....unsuccessfully to this point since the direction of the show is completely different and not acceptable to many fans. However, they didn't hire him to maintain the status-quo! I don't think any judgements can be made about his performance/job until the season has ended. Mr. Kern is in a "no win" situation. The BATB "re-boot" was planned to gain more viewers. The problem is that not enough promotion was done by the network to let potential viewers know that BATB was no longer an "epic romance" series. Therefore, very few, if any, new viewers tune in. In the meantime, the "re-boot" is causing the loss of the die-hard fans who loved the show and worked so hard to win a Season 2 for BATB. I don't feel sorry for Mr. Kern. I feel sorry for the fans/viewers. The Season 2 "re-boot" has caused much controversy, the characters are unrecognizable, and the romance and "magic" are gone. Ratings are lower than they were last year (partly because of the change to Monday night), and although many Beasties (like myself) are loyal no matter what, BATB no longer has a strong, unwavering fan base (who gained them a PCA which also helped win a Season 2). Bottom line is that Season 2 is lacking in the "epic love" and "romance" that the show was built on, thus losing fans rather than gaining them, and making a Season 3 very unlikely. My fear is that the fans/viewers who worked so hard for a Season 2 will never get to see VinCat reunite as BATB will be cancelled before the writers "long range re-boot" ever comes to fruition.
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riv
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Post by riv on Dec 2, 2013 22:46:09 GMT -5
I have the same fear as the last person that posted here. They totally destroyed the epic romance in this series. What a major disappointment. Stories just aren't written the way they used too, when I was growing up. I missed the 70's and 80's tv shows and movies. I remember stories back then were completed without plot holes, inconsistencies and forgotten loose ends, and the love between the characters were still there no matter what was thrown at them. I don't remember stories written back then with drama or obstacles changing their character so drastically that they lost their love for one another and started acting immoral.
If this isn't a clone storyline added in, (and I am not a fan of clones either) then I am have no idea how the characters in this story will recover from this.
Every day I keep reading the forum hoping for some encouraging news, of where this is heading and Kern's latest report isn't very encouraging.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Dec 2, 2013 23:23:44 GMT -5
Drifting well off discussion of the "Man or Beast" episode, so probably should start a separate thread.
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Post by lilbit-XO-VinCat on Dec 2, 2013 23:40:21 GMT -5
Drifting well off discussion of the "Man or Beast" episode, so probably should start a separate thread. LOL!!! Agreed!
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Post by Deleted on Dec 3, 2013 6:38:22 GMT -5
Drifting well off discussion of the "Man or Beast" episode, so probably should start a separate thread. LOL!!! Agreed! ...so see you in Spoilers and Speculations thread #13, LOL!!!
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Dec 3, 2013 7:12:02 GMT -5
I don't blame on Vincent, either. That's what I don't understand about this “brilliant” plan for this season. I don't recognize any of these characters. Any of them, not only VinCat, though, as the story is centered on them, it's more noticable on them.
Tess is a pale shadow of the smart detective she was on S1. I'm not particularly her fan, but I admit that she was a cop back then. JT is constantly MIA so there's nothing to recognize on him. Gabe has zero personality. People talk about she-beast being a plot device, but at least we have nothing to compare on her character. Gabe is a plot device that lost his brain when his beast died.
What happened to these people? Did Reynolds manage to reprogram them at distance through Vincent?
I admit is unfair to blame Vincent for Catherine's change, but 2/3 of it is because of him, the same way that Vincent's change is 100% Reynold's fault. That's my main issue with Cat trusting him the way she did. It's like the writers didn't know their own character. Catherine's a cop. She should know how to smell a lie from 1 mile yet Bio-Dad played her like a piano.
I think that, in her desperation about losing her love the way she did, she also lost herself and that's why people blame on Vincent, despite not being his fault at all. She was so lost that she kept pushing and lying to herself so much that she forced Vincent to the point of explosion. In a way, part of what made him give in so easily to his beast was that he could clearly see in her eyes that he wasn't the man she loved anymore. If he doesn't have his safe harbor, why try to bring his ship to land?
None of these characters are recognizable. That's what is making me so lost and I think some other beasties, too. There's nothing on this season that leads me to believe that I'll ever see the characters I enjoyed so much on the last one. Actually I think I do understand the plan as I said in another post although I wouldn't call it brilliant. This is me speculating but season 1 barely got renewed and the creators knew they had to do something different otherwise they will face the same problem for renewing the show another season. So they brought in some folks to help who have had experience in long running shows in hopes that they can make BATB be more commercially successful. The result of that is what we have now for better or worse so from the commercial perspective I can see the plan was to add more drama in the shape of other love interests and bigger stakes (I have heard this term a lot in season 2 of most other shows). I would imagine VinCat 1.0 were just the unfortunate casualties in that and in terms of plan maybe the vision is that we will get back to those two somehow although I'm not sure how that's ever going to work. More likely we will have the 2.0 version for the rest of the series... Yes, that I did understand. My question here is this is good because...?
I don't think the ratings agree with this master plan.
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condor
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Post by condor on Dec 3, 2013 9:45:43 GMT -5
Yes, that I did understand. My question here is this is good because...?
I don't think the ratings agree with this master plan. As far as Kern's S2 plan goes, the ratings were bad to begin with. The move to Monday only made it worse. Maintaining the status quo was getting them them nowhere, so they had to do something drastic. S1 was pretty much a modern retelling of the story from the 1987 series, and didn't turn out to be be a commercial success. So they are now going for a show that focuses a lot more on the Scifi/Fantasy/Action-adventure elements and less on the Romance and Drama, i.e changing the show to be much more like the CW's current and previous commercial successes - SPN, Smallville, TVD, Arrow - possibly in the hope that it will draw in some of the audience and fans of those shows.
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Post by yfaruqi on Dec 3, 2013 9:52:42 GMT -5
Yes, that I did understand. My question here is this is good because...?
I don't think the ratings agree with this master plan. I understand the logic behind the decisions made for season 2, as for them being good..well that's a different story. There are a lot of shows out there which I don't think are necessarily good but they seem to have a large audience, unfortunately being a good show and having good ratings are not synonymous with each other. We did have a good show in season 1 even with the not so good ratings and now it seems we are getting to the point where we may have neither. I dislike some shows, like others but there are very few shows that I love and want to join the fan base of, BATB being one of those. Ever since I watched the first season I have gone back to view it many times and enjoy it every time at least the selected scenes I like. There were a lot of them almost in every episode. There were some in this episode that should have been among them but I just didn't feel it. It doesn't mean I will stop watching as there are worse shows out there and regardless of what happens in season 2 we will always have the first season to go back to. The only thing that gets me a bit is good old fashioned fairy tales and love stories are not what the general audience wants these days and they would rather have realistic drama. To each his own but I think there are already plenty of those out there and here we had one which was different, not so sure what differentiates season 2 from other tv shows now. Maybe that's exactly what the idea was but you are right that the ratings don't show that it has worked so far...
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