Emerald City

[meganbmoore]

 I watched the first 2 episodes of Emerald City earlier and while I want to see what happens before I comment much on the plot, and disliked certain things, I mostly enjoyed it.  Can given trigger warnings if needed.  The trailers played it as fantasy with a bit of mystery and darkness but it's a horror-fantasy and occasionally played up the horror more than the fantasy. It's possibly even more diverse than the trailer made it look, we have a latina lead with curly hair who speaks Spanish with her adopted family in Kansas, another WOC with natural hair, and several other POC as well.  Some things have been flipped around from the books, while other elements that don't don't normally make it into adaptations are in it.

It's directed by Tarsem Singh which means it's the most incredibly lush and visually stunning TV show you will ever see on American network TV.  And that I really hope it's either a miniseries or intended for each season to be self-contained because there's no way NBC can afford a second season unless the ratings are amazing.  (Not to mention that I'm pretty sure the supporting cast is very costly.)

The internent is annoying me with it's inability to let me have a fantasy show (or historical drama with swords that's produced by the US or UK, though I've started seeing this crop up in sageuk and cdrama tags on tumblr) without comparing it to Game of Thrones, but that's another matter.

Comments

[aphrodite_mine]

Thank you SO much for writing all of this out! I really hadn't seen much in the way of the promotional material because we don't actually have television, but this gives me a good feel for the vibe of the show. I'm definitely curious. I think the wife and I will start watching in a few weeks, once more of the episodes are out.

[meganbmoore]

Now having slept on it: While it's been several year since we talked about them, based on my recollections of your opinions of Tin Man, 10th Kingdom and some other fairy tale properties (not that it's really very like those 2, though it's certainly closer to a darker version of Tin Man than to the Franco movie) I do think it has things that you'll like. There's also a potential F/F ship with two of the witches.

I wouldn't say it's grimdark or grim and gritty because it lacks certain things I associate with those, and I associate both with a feeling of eternal struggle and lack of hope that the hero(ine) will succeed and be OK in the end, and EC gives me that feeling.


I've seen some people on tumblr for whom the things I mentioned might be considered dealbreakers under most cases, but for most, the result was along the lines of "I didn't like that but there's enough good to make up for it."