TMA s5 lookback
Sep. 27th, 2021 09:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yuuagoI had plans to make an ~-in-depth~ post about what I thought about the end The Magnus Archives, as well as season 5 in general, but that ain't happening, so I'll just put down some brief scattered thoughts instead.
About the end: I was kind of meh on the whole "throwing the fears into another universe" idea, but it is one way to solve the apocalypse problem.
Annabelle was an underused character, I think. So much potential! But somehow I found her underwhelming! Possibly a casualty of things having to be changed for the pandemic?
I'm kind of disappointed that the tape recorders turned out to be related to the Web. I don't hate that they're Web, but the idea of them as Eye-related surveillance was more interesting to me.
I feel underwhelmed about Jon and Martin's dramatic death, but at the same time, I also feel like it works for where the story was going. Which kind of sums up how I feel about Jon and Martin and Jon/Martin in season 5 in general.
Overall... Season 5 was my least favourite. Partly because it has so much plot; partly because of the format shift from read-statements to Jon's spontaneous monologuing.
What drew me to TMA originally was the statement format. It reminded me of an old Canadian anthology show I used to love, Freaky Stories. The general premise was urban legend type horror, along the lines of "This is a true story - it happened to a friend of a friend of mine". The statements in TMA reminded me a lot of that. I was hooked from the very first episode, and it's partly because "Anglerfish" was something that would fit right into Freaky Stories.
So, the format shift for the statements - it's a small change, but that, combined with the amount of plot in the frame narrative + the horrorpocalypse changing the background radiation significantly... it meant that the thing that I'd come for wasn't there any more.
Stuff I did like about Season 5:
+ Mikaele Salesa! He was absolutely perfect. The reveal that he was alive was just WHAT. What a cliffhanger! And then his statement itself was perfect. Excellent, love him. Love his magical oasis in the middle of all the chaos, just chillin'. The bit with the piano and everything, it's just so over the top, I love it, I love him. ...Kind of ship him with Annabelle to be honest.
+ We got a lot of Helen and I Enjoyed That. Her creepy hotel was pretty cool.
+ I appreciate that we got so much Basira and that she made it to the end etc. I just like her as a character. (And her voice actor has a very soothing voice, I like hearing it. Eh, bias.)
+ Apparently I ship Melanie/Georgie now? It took me a while to warm up to them, but the moment we got of them alone together - it really worked for me. Also, the thing where they could go through the horrorpocalypse hellscape unnoticed was cool.
+ That one episode with Oliver Banks was good. Or - well, I don't like the 'statement' so much (it was... a little too real, which also could be said about several other s5 episodes) but the "coroner report" format of it was cool, and I thought the worldbuilding around the idea that the End will slowly consume everything was really interesting.
There's probably a whole bunch of things I'm forgetting, but yeah. Anyway. Not my favourite season! Still enjoyed several things about it!
I've listened to the 'Making Of' extra, and it's clear that while there were some changes, the basic concept of how things were going to go is pretty much what it was always going to be. So overall, I think I would have felt roughly the same even without the pandemic. And - well, apparently without the pandemic, we wouldn't have had Salesa! Or at least, not that particular actor, who was so so good.
Aaaand now The Magnus Archives is over and I don't know what to do with myself!
About the end: I was kind of meh on the whole "throwing the fears into another universe" idea, but it is one way to solve the apocalypse problem.
Annabelle was an underused character, I think. So much potential! But somehow I found her underwhelming! Possibly a casualty of things having to be changed for the pandemic?
I'm kind of disappointed that the tape recorders turned out to be related to the Web. I don't hate that they're Web, but the idea of them as Eye-related surveillance was more interesting to me.
I feel underwhelmed about Jon and Martin's dramatic death, but at the same time, I also feel like it works for where the story was going. Which kind of sums up how I feel about Jon and Martin and Jon/Martin in season 5 in general.
Overall... Season 5 was my least favourite. Partly because it has so much plot; partly because of the format shift from read-statements to Jon's spontaneous monologuing.
What drew me to TMA originally was the statement format. It reminded me of an old Canadian anthology show I used to love, Freaky Stories. The general premise was urban legend type horror, along the lines of "This is a true story - it happened to a friend of a friend of mine". The statements in TMA reminded me a lot of that. I was hooked from the very first episode, and it's partly because "Anglerfish" was something that would fit right into Freaky Stories.
So, the format shift for the statements - it's a small change, but that, combined with the amount of plot in the frame narrative + the horrorpocalypse changing the background radiation significantly... it meant that the thing that I'd come for wasn't there any more.
Stuff I did like about Season 5:
+ Mikaele Salesa! He was absolutely perfect. The reveal that he was alive was just WHAT. What a cliffhanger! And then his statement itself was perfect. Excellent, love him. Love his magical oasis in the middle of all the chaos, just chillin'. The bit with the piano and everything, it's just so over the top, I love it, I love him. ...Kind of ship him with Annabelle to be honest.
+ We got a lot of Helen and I Enjoyed That. Her creepy hotel was pretty cool.
+ I appreciate that we got so much Basira and that she made it to the end etc. I just like her as a character. (And her voice actor has a very soothing voice, I like hearing it. Eh, bias.)
+ Apparently I ship Melanie/Georgie now? It took me a while to warm up to them, but the moment we got of them alone together - it really worked for me. Also, the thing where they could go through the horrorpocalypse hellscape unnoticed was cool.
+ That one episode with Oliver Banks was good. Or - well, I don't like the 'statement' so much (it was... a little too real, which also could be said about several other s5 episodes) but the "coroner report" format of it was cool, and I thought the worldbuilding around the idea that the End will slowly consume everything was really interesting.
There's probably a whole bunch of things I'm forgetting, but yeah. Anyway. Not my favourite season! Still enjoyed several things about it!
I've listened to the 'Making Of' extra, and it's clear that while there were some changes, the basic concept of how things were going to go is pretty much what it was always going to be. So overall, I think I would have felt roughly the same even without the pandemic. And - well, apparently without the pandemic, we wouldn't have had Salesa! Or at least, not that particular actor, who was so so good.
Aaaand now The Magnus Archives is over and I don't know what to do with myself!
Yuu. Fic writer & book lover. M/Canada.
no subject
Date: 2021-09-30 06:26 pm (UTC)I find it hard to compare season 5 to the other seasons because it was the only one I listened to as it came out and it made for a very different listening experience. I suspect that if I had binged it like I did the others I might have liked it less, but I really enjoyed following it live.
no subject
Date: 2021-10-01 02:02 am (UTC)