I should caveat my title by saying, though, that I don’t think I could watch more than a few episodes of it. Maybe the one-season, short run nature of it is actually perfect. Because all that singing would get old, real fast.<\/p>\n
But I enjoyed it for what it was. As I said in class, I think that the quirkiness of the show and its characters made the idea of them bursting into song palatable. From the beginning, Blackpool<\/em>\u00a0set itself up as something surreal, in a way, and so the narrative universe it created seemed to mesh well with an Elvis-wannabe singing “Viva Las Vegas.”<\/p>\n In the first episode, though, I found myself being carried along more by the novelty of the show’s premise and less by the narrative. I wonder, then, how many episodes I could stomach before it turned into something much more like Viva Laughlin<\/em>. Blackpool <\/em>was fun, but I’m not sure I actually feel so because of the show’s plot of characters.<\/p>\n However, I should add that I do want to know who killed the blonde guy, and I think I’ll end up giving the rest of the series a try \u2013 six episodes isn’t that big of a commitment.<\/p>\n I’m fairly certain Blackpool<\/em>\u00a0would never work in America (did it really even work <\/em>in England?), even amongst a spate of other musical series that we have today. Blackpool <\/em>is fun, but it isn’t joyous, and the musical numbers make even less sense than when people start singing outside of the Marilyn musical on Smash<\/em>. What I don’t get, though, is why the folks at CBS thought the changes they were making for Viva Laughlin <\/em>would make it better <\/em>for an American audience.<\/p>\n Yeah, Blackpool <\/em>might not work in America, but Viva Laughlin <\/em>takes all the fun out of the show and leaves, what? A show where even Hugh Jackman looks awkward singing.\u00a0Blackpool <\/em>is fun because it knows what it is and doesn’t take itself too seriously, but still tries to do something interesting with its storytelling tools. Viva Laughlin<\/em>, for the few minutes we watched, was just painful. And the lead actor wasn’t even compelling. At least David Morrissey wins you over a little, as does David Tennant.<\/p>\n Blackpool <\/em>is weird, but it is quirky and unique and, I thought, enjoyable. And its bizarre premise seemed like it served a certain storytelling purpose \u2013 the songs were fitting and actually contributed something to the narrative. But that doesn’t seem like a format that should be just adapted on a whim. The singing should serve a purpose, and it seems like in Viva Laughlin<\/em>, it was just trying to make something out of a cool concept, not the other way around.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I should caveat my title by saying, though, that I don’t think I could watch more than a few episodes of it. Maybe the one-season, short run nature of it is actually perfect. Because all that singing would get old, … Continue reading