9/15/13
View Logs: Low Winter Sun S1 Episode 5
Episode Title: Cake on the WayI've come to the point where I'm struggling to remember what happened in Low Winter Sun. I actually consume more TV fiction than what's listed on my blogs (I just don't always have to time to log everything down. I need sleep you know. I overheat easily...) So usually, when I don't blog immediately after watching the episode, I always get a few eps of something else in. I've gradually got to stop doing that because I'm realizing that the more I do that the more my memory of Low Winter Sun becomes a hazy. I still remember the good moments of the show (such as most of episode 3 and maybe a few bits of episode 2). But it's all just surrounded by mediocre listless writing that it's hard for me to get invested while I'm watching something and that results in poor memory of the show.
I must admit I'm not writing this log very fresh (because I forgot to write one for last week). That said, I think my poor memory of the show (specifically this episode) is an indicator of how standard this show is. Really cop crime shows are a little hard to be noticeable. Since The Shield, many depressing shady cop dramas just kinda seem the same. While each show's settings and details are different, they all just seem to go down such similar paths in terms of tone and execution that I usually can almost guess the story arc beforehand for most of them. Low Winter Sun just reminds me too much of a combination between The Shield and The Killing. It honestly doesn't have strong enough characters to handle a very slow pace like The Wire and the procedure isn't as interesting as The Shield. So you get a very mediocre experience when really each episode should be almost a constant nail biter.
Honestly, it's ok to have a derivative premise and tone. I'm ok seeing more gritty dark cop crime shows. After all, one of the best Law & Orders is a spinoff (the UK one). There's absolutely nothing new about Law & Order: UK but it's one of the best procedural crime shows I've seen in recent years. But it's not ok to have derivative stories. Honestly this is why I've been hesitating on checking out some of the UK's more recent crime shows like Good Cop and Red Riding. Dark gritty corrupt cop dramas are just a little too common now. I hoped AMC could pull something different out of that overcrowded genre but it's hasn't been consistent with that so far.
