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The Magicians - SyFy [SHOW SPOILERS ONLY]


RedEyedGhost

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13 minutes ago, MisterOJ said:

One other thing I meant to mention that I found sorta odd about the show... several of the characters smoked on screen. It's been so long since I'd seen television characters smoking like it was no big deal that I found the visual of it jarring.

I don't know what your lineup consists of, but plenty of shows I watch have characters smoking. House of Cards, Mr. Robot, American Horror Story to name just a few.

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5 hours ago, MisterOJ said:

One other thing I meant to mention that I found sorta odd about the show... several of the characters smoked on screen. It's been so long since I'd seen television characters smoking like it was no big deal that I found the visual of it jarring.

I agree.  It's very jarring.  It's not that there is never smoking on tv, it's just that it's usually associated with something negative.  Negative emotion like anger or some sort of sinister or just bad character, or something of that nature.  It's very strange and unusual for a seemingly upbeat character to be smoking just to smoke, just very casually and as though it were no big deal.  It's really a turn off, to be honest, and it serves to date the show.  

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Was smoking prevalent in the novels? I ask because the author is in his mid 40s, so smoking was probably prevalent when he attended college or was that age.  And the drinking still is prevalent. One usually doesn't see smoking very often on television anymore unless its for a certain period, for example, Mad Men. Or has been stated in previous posts, as a character trait. As an ex-smoker, I have no problem with it. In all honesty, I kind of prefer seeing it as opposed to the sanitized version of life we get now where everyone is healthy and beautiful. The characters in the show aren't perfect and are all dealing with, at the very least, angst. Seeing them smoke strikes me as realistic.

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23 minutes ago, Astromech said:

Was smoking prevalent in the novels? I ask because the author is in his mid 40s, so smoking was probably prevalent when he attended college or was that age.

No.  A quick search of the first book turns up 23 references to smoke/smoking but the number quickly decreases when you look at the actual sentences as many of them are not that kind of smoking but other kinds of smoking...such as things burning.  So only a handful of references to Eliot smoking and one scene where Julia is seen smoking and a professor puffing on a pipe.  Hardly noticeable.

As for the prevalence of smoking for the author when he was in college...as someone in college the same years he was, it was not necessarily any more prevalent than it is today.  Our generation, at least in America, grew up from a very early age being informed about the dangers of smoking and cancer.  Obviously people in our generation smoked in college despite this - as they do now.  But in my experience in college in those years, it was more of a minority smoking than majority.

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28 minutes ago, lady narcissa said:

No.  A quick search of the first book turns up 23 references to smoke/smoking but the number quickly decreases when you look at the actual sentences as many of them are not that kind of smoking but other kinds of smoking...such as things burning.  So only a handful of references to Eliot smoking and one scene where Julia is seen smoking and a professor puffing on a pipe.  Hardly noticeable.

As for the prevalence of smoking for the author when he was in college...as someone in college the same years he was, it was not necessarily any more prevalent than it is today.  Our generation, at least in America, grew up from a very early age being informed about the dangers of smoking and cancer.  Obviously people in our generation smoked in college despite this - as they do now.  But in my experience in college in those years, it was more of a minority smoking than majority.

It must be the show's writers including it then. I'm roughly in the same age group and my recollection from college was that smoking was more prevalent then than now. Of course, anecdotal evidence being anecdotal.

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1 hour ago, Astromech said:

Was smoking prevalent in the novels? I ask because the author is in his mid 40s, so smoking was probably prevalent when he attended college or was that age.  And the drinking still is prevalent. One usually doesn't see smoking very often on television anymore unless its for a certain period, for example, Mad Men. Or has been stated in previous posts, as a character trait. As an ex-smoker, I have no problem with it. In all honesty, I kind of prefer seeing it as opposed to the sanitized version of life we get now where everyone is healthy and beautiful. The characters in the show aren't perfect and are all dealing with, at the very least, angst. Seeing them smoke strikes me as realistic.

As an ex smoker myself, I do have a problem with it and I had a problem with it when I was still smoking.  Cigarettes are props so their inclusion on screen should mean something, whether they are painting a picture of a time period or helping to define a trait or state of mind for a character. They are bad things so they should be used to represent negatives.  This casual smoking for no reason looks lazy.  

To be fair, I feel the same way about alcohol.  I'm so over this casual rampant drinking on screen.  It should be a meaningful prop and it instead looks like a useless crutch when characters are shown drinking just to have something to do with their hands or something.  

To me, not having alcohol or cigarettes doesn't make something sanitized.  It just means that their use as props isn't necessary.  It would be like a scene in a classroom on Random Show and the teacher is standing at the chalkboard happily teaching a lesson but holding a gun and she's always holding this gun even though several episodes in and the show has provided no reason for this peppy, sweet teacher to be holding this sinister dangerous killing device.  It's just a random gun holding for no reason because maybe the writers like guns or something even though guns being held by nice happy characters on screen have fallen out of favor.  

I think I'll probably give this show one more episode.  Nothing is truly catching me so far and I'm finding myself more annoyed than entertained. 

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I would just add that people wear clothes.  It doesn't mean that you can put the characters in any old thing and still tell an effective story.  The clothes are still a tool that need to be properly considered.  A black shirt on someone will convey something different than a red shirt or a white shirt.  A ballgown tells a different story than jeans and converses.  A cigarette and a beer tells a story than a book and a bottle of water don't.  Everything is very intentional when telling a story, or at least it should be.

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Again, we simply disagree. Some college kids smoke and drink, whether casually or rampantly. I just see the characters as average college students, besides the magic. I have no issue with the smoking, and drinking, and don't feel they have to say anything more about the characters than they smoke and/or drink.

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On 2/2/2016 at 4:04 PM, Jack Bauer 24 said:

Is Penny annoying in the books because I'm really not digging him in the show.

He is...kind of supposed to be annoying in an endearing way, I guess? And mostly to Quentin. The others are mostly indifferent to him, and only seems to grind Quentin's gears. 

The best way I can describe it is that he's the Toby Flenderson to Quentin's Michael Scott. Or the Flanders to Quentin's Homer. At some point they're even described as "frenemies", if that helps. 

But I'm with you. I'm 100% not digging this version of Penny that is 100% not Penny. 

Also, they burned through the Emily-Charlie stuff WAY, WAY too fast, like damn, what's the rush?

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Regarding smoking, I agree I was briefly and pleasantly surprised to see cigarettes in the show, but I'm French, and almost everyone of that age here smokes, so it wasnt like a huge deal to me ! ^^

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26 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

Jesus, this Quentin dude is one selfish, whiny asshole. Are we really supposed to be rooting for this guy?

It's one of the reasons I never got around reading the book. He's supposedly worse in the book.

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6 minutes ago, Mexal said:

It's one of the reasons I never got around reading the book. He's supposedly worse in the book.

In the show he's just one of an entire ensemble of insufferable assholes. Unfortunately, the story's just not interesting enough to make up for it.

 

 

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Just now, Spockydog said:

In the show he's just one of an entire ensemble of insufferable assholes. Unfortunately, the story's just not interesting enough to make up for it.

Interesting enough for me, at least right now. The production values help and I enjoy Julia's story.

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Just now, Mexal said:

Interesting enough for me, at least right now. The production values help and I enjoy Julia's story.

Yes, I like Julia. She's the only character I have any real sympathy for.

I thought the pilot was really good. But subsequent episodes have failed to live up to that promise. I'll stick with it.

 

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On 2/5/2016 at 11:59 AM, White Walker Texas Ranger said:

Is it just me, or did Quentin get a lot more jittery and nervous after the pilot?

Yeah, in between episodes he went to the Jesse Eisenberg Center for Scrawny Actors Who Can't Stammer Good And Wanna Learn To Do Other Twitchy Stuff Good Too. 

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