Body of Proof: "Helping Hand"
Apr. 5th, 2011 10:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
icepixieShow! You have finally crossed over the line from "promising" to "good," and I am rejoicing! I wish they'd shown this as the first episode rather than the pilot, because I think more people would've stuck around.
There were so many little character nuggets in here to give me food for thought that I forgot to pay attention to the case. Well, okay, I never pay attention to the case, but this time I paid even less attention. Bar none, the best part was Megan attempting to take an interest in her co-workers as people, with predictably hilarious results, and an unexpectedly touching moment at the end. She is definitely showing shades of Temperance Brennan, though a Brennan with a keener self-awareness. I think a key difference is that Brennan's awkwardness around people comes from her assorted deep psychic wounds, which cover someone who seems to have actually wanted to be a people person once upon a time, while Megan's is much more a product of workaholism, and she doesn't seem to have wanted to connect to people until her career was taken away. I find it much easier to relate to the latter.
In addition to a better balance of character and plot, with just about everyone getting something personal revealed about themselves, they finally seemed to correctly balance the workload among their characters. The detectives got a lot more to do, and it was so much more credible. The scene where Bud, Sam, and Peter all worked together to figure out the bullet trajectory and then Bud pinpointed the casing from that was very well-done, and it made them all look competent, as opposed to the previous two episodes where Megan was doing all the heavy lifting and they looked kinda dumb in comparison. This time, her contributions were actually medicine-related as opposed to polymathic.
Speaking of Bud, he got some good stuff this time, with the whole troubled marriage going on in the background. He was sort of this one-note annoying blustery figure in the past, but this humanizes him, IMO. Megan's attempt to take an interest in him ranged from the hilarious (Megan: "Is it about his wife?" / Peter and Sam: *facepalm*) to the really rather sweet, as at the end when she offered to sew up his jacket because neurosurgery is a lot like sewing. Aww. I really liked that he asked her when she knew it was time to get a divorce from her husband (and she replied that she'd had no idea until he served her the papers, aw), because that's just not a conversation you're going to get unless you have characters who are older than the standard TV drama late 20s age range, and that's interesting to me. (I highly approve of how old this cast skews. Life experience FTW!)
Apparently the writers really were taking lessons from Bones, since they shoveled Brennan's foster kid past onto Peter. Though apparently his ended much more happily than her experience, thank god, because I'm not sure I could take that angst again. I can see where this might make for some interesting interactions with Megan later on down the line, since she's just getting to know her kid again after five years of basically not seeing her.
Speaking of Peter...oh, yeah, I totally ship it. Totally. Oh, they could be so fun together. I hope that happens. (I liked his little "Earth to Megan...come back to me..." Especially the "to me." Yeah, I'm reaching. Hush, I like them.) Also speaking of Peter, Nicholas Bishop's accent was slipping pretty badly in this episode. Oops. Maybe they should've just made the character Australian.
Curtis getting back at Megan by telling tall tales about Ethan was hilarious. You go, Curtis. And poor, befuddled Ethan. Aw.
Kate didn't get a lot to do, sadly, though at least she has a date! That's excellent. Sam didn't get much in the way of character development, but at least she had more lines--and got to despair with Peter about Megan's inability to deal with living people--and Sonja Sohn is definitely one of the more convincing actresses to play a cop I've seen. She has a very good "do not fuck with me" demeanor.
In sum: they've found the good show hiding under the bad of the past two episodes! We have crossed the desert of suck and made it to the valley of yay!
There were so many little character nuggets in here to give me food for thought that I forgot to pay attention to the case. Well, okay, I never pay attention to the case, but this time I paid even less attention. Bar none, the best part was Megan attempting to take an interest in her co-workers as people, with predictably hilarious results, and an unexpectedly touching moment at the end. She is definitely showing shades of Temperance Brennan, though a Brennan with a keener self-awareness. I think a key difference is that Brennan's awkwardness around people comes from her assorted deep psychic wounds, which cover someone who seems to have actually wanted to be a people person once upon a time, while Megan's is much more a product of workaholism, and she doesn't seem to have wanted to connect to people until her career was taken away. I find it much easier to relate to the latter.
In addition to a better balance of character and plot, with just about everyone getting something personal revealed about themselves, they finally seemed to correctly balance the workload among their characters. The detectives got a lot more to do, and it was so much more credible. The scene where Bud, Sam, and Peter all worked together to figure out the bullet trajectory and then Bud pinpointed the casing from that was very well-done, and it made them all look competent, as opposed to the previous two episodes where Megan was doing all the heavy lifting and they looked kinda dumb in comparison. This time, her contributions were actually medicine-related as opposed to polymathic.
Speaking of Bud, he got some good stuff this time, with the whole troubled marriage going on in the background. He was sort of this one-note annoying blustery figure in the past, but this humanizes him, IMO. Megan's attempt to take an interest in him ranged from the hilarious (Megan: "Is it about his wife?" / Peter and Sam: *facepalm*) to the really rather sweet, as at the end when she offered to sew up his jacket because neurosurgery is a lot like sewing. Aww. I really liked that he asked her when she knew it was time to get a divorce from her husband (and she replied that she'd had no idea until he served her the papers, aw), because that's just not a conversation you're going to get unless you have characters who are older than the standard TV drama late 20s age range, and that's interesting to me. (I highly approve of how old this cast skews. Life experience FTW!)
Apparently the writers really were taking lessons from Bones, since they shoveled Brennan's foster kid past onto Peter. Though apparently his ended much more happily than her experience, thank god, because I'm not sure I could take that angst again. I can see where this might make for some interesting interactions with Megan later on down the line, since she's just getting to know her kid again after five years of basically not seeing her.
Speaking of Peter...oh, yeah, I totally ship it. Totally. Oh, they could be so fun together. I hope that happens. (I liked his little "Earth to Megan...come back to me..." Especially the "to me." Yeah, I'm reaching. Hush, I like them.) Also speaking of Peter, Nicholas Bishop's accent was slipping pretty badly in this episode. Oops. Maybe they should've just made the character Australian.
Curtis getting back at Megan by telling tall tales about Ethan was hilarious. You go, Curtis. And poor, befuddled Ethan. Aw.
Kate didn't get a lot to do, sadly, though at least she has a date! That's excellent. Sam didn't get much in the way of character development, but at least she had more lines--and got to despair with Peter about Megan's inability to deal with living people--and Sonja Sohn is definitely one of the more convincing actresses to play a cop I've seen. She has a very good "do not fuck with me" demeanor.
In sum: they've found the good show hiding under the bad of the past two episodes! We have crossed the desert of suck and made it to the valley of yay!
