Now Boardwalk Empire is back for its third season. At the same point Deadwood was about to embark on one of the greatest seasons of any show, and it didn't get a fourth, The Wire was building up to the epic exit of Stringer Bell and Dexter was to learn about friendship and betrayal at the hands of Jimmy Smits. What I'm getting at, in my own convoluted way, is that Boardwalk Empire really needs to up its game conciderably; but I think we all know it will never hit the heights of a true classic. Quite why, is a mystery because all the elements are there, sadly none of them seem to have been utilised properly. One of the main reasons I think it will never sit with The Sopranos or Six feet Under is that we do not fear for the fate of any of the characters. Most of the interesting ones are historical figures, so we know what happened to Al Capone, Lucky Luciano, and Mayer Lanski, so where is the tension? The only real sympathetic character is the deformed WW1 veteran and assassin Richard, and you can bet he will be killed off without a second thought. The murder of Jimmy, and his wife Angela, at the end of the last season didn't so much fill me with shock as it seemed like a waste. So much screen time had been invested in those characters that it felt like they were just being jettisoned because the writers had got bored of them. I think a lot of us would rather have seen Nucky bumped off. And probably there is the main problem Nucky is just so unlikable andunsympathetic that the who cares-o-meter goes through the roof. OK, Tony Soprano was much the same, but there was subtle layers to his character that just don't seem to be there with Nucky.
Now I hope I'm wrong, I hope this is a great season that wipes the previous two from our minds, but I just can't see it happening.
Over
No comments:
Post a Comment