So...

[hmpf]

German viewers love the Life on Mars finale too, because it is so heartwarming and happy (albeit a tiny little bit melancholic) that you just have to grin:

http://www.mariakaefer.de/2008/02/03/life-on-mars/

***

Dear Ceiling Cat,

please, could you check my emotional wiring? Something must be wrong there. I seem to have a hardwired inability to be happy about something that is making very nearly everyone else very happy indeed. Instead, I have the exact opposite reaction: it makes me angry and bitter, and it actually sort of hurts. Surely, that can't be right?

In hope,

Hmpf

Comments

[mikes-grrl.livejournal.com]

heh. hmpf = snark

I totally respect people who find hope and happiness in the finale, but eh, I don't get them. I would rather think that THEY are the bizarro faction who somehow don't quite grasp the idea that suicide is a tragedy. q.e.d.

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

I think it's the same reason that the love of 'edgy amorality' because it's so 'grey' is actuall a love of moral reprehensibility presented in a prettyboy angsting package so it's still okay to cheer for the bad guy because he's so darn cool.

(Which isn't to say I don't love edgy, complex morality because I do, deeply, it's just harder to find than most people think.)

As in, it's fiction, and I think we're aberrations for taking fiction so seriously and actually considering it in the context of the real world rather than just accepting what it's acting like its saying on the surface. The people who don't think it's a tragedy Sam died don't think so because they are focusing on the escapist 1970s and he's not a real character anyway so why not have wish fulfillment. They basically gloss over the dodgy parts of the message in order to find wish fulfillment because I think that's how a lot of people interact with television?

"Clearly they weren't trying to send that message so why are you looking for it? Can you just accept what the show was trying to say? Why make trouble for yourself?"

I feel I'm not explaining myself very well but basically I think that us non-mundanes, (which I think we are even within the wider and more popular-now-than-ever spectrum of fandom) have a very different relationship with fiction sometimes.

Obviously it's the relationship I think is more rewarding, but I would, being on this side of the fence. :/

[loz]

I don't mind people who are happy about it, but I totally don't get the people who can't recognise that as an episode of television it actually really sucks; the pacing's off, there's too much plot, some of the acting (by actors who are so much better than that) is atrocious; and it makes no sense within the context of the show.

You're not the only one. We're a minority, but we're vocal, dammit.

[mikes-grrl.livejournal.com]

...as an episode of television it actually really sucks;

Ah, good point. It is one thing to enjoy something with marginal production values (we all have our weaknesses) but to claim it is GREAT cinema/television/literature just because you like it? Not excusable.

I've always argued that there was a whole season's worth of plot crammed into 2.08. Very frustrating.

[loz]

Yeah, I said that from the beginning, even when I was happy about the episode (because Sam/Gene forever, yo.)