Do you ever want to like a show, but just can’t? That’s me and Boardwalk Empire. Season three began this week, and I barely cared. I didn’t even watch until Tuesday – I was all set to watch on Sunday night, and then I found out Downton Abbey was available for download and immediately rushed off to watch that.
There have always been aspects to Boardwalk Empire that I liked, or characters I was interested in. But it has always felt like the show is trying to take on too much. Too many storylines, too many characters, too much jumping from here to there. I get bored, or distracted, and then I get lost.
I was hoping things might be different this season, but they’re not. I won’t continue to write about Boardwalk Empire, because it’s a complex show (and therefore more time-consuming to cover) and I don’t like it enough to offer up a good review. There are so many places on The Interwebs to find TV reviews, so there’s no sense in my trying to cover them all.
There were definitely aspects of the show that still had me intrigued. The balance of power and tension between Nucky and Margaret was great – her budding feminism, his cutting remark about the aviatrix (female pilot) that only thinly veiled his anger over Margaret signing away his wealth. I had chills when Gillian told Jimmy’s orphaned son “I’m your mother now” when he mentioned his mother being a painter.
I love the 1920s, and so I suppose that’s what I want to watch a show about. Women’s health issues! King Tut themed parties! Margaret Schroeder is the star of my show. Every time we cut to mobsters in a city that’s not Atlantic City, I sigh. I want to focus on Nucky and Margaret, Richard Harrow and the Jimmy’s orphaned son, on and the other players right in Atlantic City. That’s not really the show Boardwalk is making, and that’s fine. I have other things to watch.
A lot of people think Boardwalk Empire is the best show on TV, which is a totally valid opinion. But I’m not really connecting with it. I like Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Sherlock, Downton Abbey and many other dramas much more. So I’m done for now.
What about you guys? Any of you giving up Boardwalk Empire this season? Or do you still love it?
NOOOOOOO! I feel completely vice versa about Downton and BE. I refuse to get tricked into taking Downton back after I’ve finally broken up with her after last year’s dreadful season.
Empire has always been a slow burn and I love that it’s like a chess game….a lot of pawns have to be put in place in order to get to the thick of the action.
I liked last season! To each his/her own I guess! It’s not like I think Boardwalk is terrible, I just watch so much TV that I don’t have time for something that feels like work to watch.
Jill, I feel much of the same way you do and we’ve talked before about too many characters. I think the thing about BE is that each scene is perfect in every sense, the acting is great (even from characters I don’t give a crap about), the costumes and sets are magnificent as is the cinematography. It has everything which makes ‘the best show on tv’ but somehow it fails. I thought about this a lot after watching the premiere about why it is that I am not magnetized by this show.
Too many characters indeed, and now they introduced a new guy who I guess will become Nucky’s rival in this season. The characters I care about are the same as yours: Nucky, Margaret, Chalky, John Harrow, Gillian. They need to reduce the rest to a manageable amount so they can be serviced and adequately placed in the narrative. Yes, we know he is in bed with politicians, smugglers, gangsters, but do they all need to be developed and given so much screen time?
I think Terrence Winter, the creator of BE and who was a writer on the Sopranos is following the same formula for the Sopranos which worked so well. Loads of characters, loads of storylines which elapse over long periods of time. It was a formula which worked great on the Sopranos but I think that there are some fundamental differences in particular is that they cannot take all these beautiful, perfect scenes and weave a cohesive narrative with them the way they do on shows like Mad Men, Breaking Bad, The Wire. The Sopranos had a lot of characters but some were very well developed and others less so, some only present for one episode or on the fringes, you knew they were there but they would kind shift in and out of focus depending on the main arc of the season, same with The Wire. Plus, nearly each semi regular character had a sympathetic side to him, even if he was a murderous bastard. Second, I think David Chase did a much better job than Terrence Winter at weaving all those loose threads into something, on BE they just feel loose and hanging in the wind. Third, I think Tony Soprano was just a more likable character, you rooted for him, you empathized with his terrible upbringing, you saw the softer side of him which always seemed to mitigate his anti social, homicidal personality. Even with Breaking Bad and Walter, he did start off as a good man and Jesse slowly morphed into being the sympathetic character. BE doesn’t really have any sympathetic characters especially now that Angela and Jimmy are dead.
BE has all the ingredients for greatness but the recipe just doesn’t turn out. It’s a pity. I will keep watching because I do love Steve Buscemi. But I get why you don’t want to review it.
I’m so glad you watched Sopranos and can compare, since I’ve never seen it. Great points.
Nope, I’m still loving it and season 3 was some of the best the show has had on tap since it started. I didn’t like Downton Abbey though, so different strokes, I suppose.
BE is boring and hard to watch it too. The only story that interests me…which needs development is Chalky White’s. Rossetti has captured my attention of late. But when they are not on, I find it hard to watch.