Fan Forum - View Single Post - It's 10pm. Do You Know Where Your WAT DVD/Tapes Are?

Meredith44 · 07-15-2005, 12:43 AM

OMG, there is so much I want to respond to! (Can I say how happy I am that there is discussion!

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In no particular order...
I used to love Jack. I love Jack in episodes such as "Bogie Man" in which he is smart, sarcastic, and just what I consider Jack-like. I hate it when he is (to quote Sawyer) a "no-fun, navel-gazing, mopey type". He needs an edge in my opinion. Regarding his past popping up randomly, I don't think it does. I don't think he showed as much of a reaction to the suicide thing in Clare de Lune for a couple of reasons. First, it happened so many years ago and it seems that Jack has done his best to suppress the memory of it. Second, Jack seems the type not to show his emotions all that much about anything. He seems to tend to repress it as best he can (which sometimes results in some spectacular blow-outs when he finally loses his control.) I mean, just look at his reactions to Spaulding. He puked in "Suspect", so he was obviously affected by the situation, but he didn't show all that much emotion (if I remember correctly) when Spaulding got off in "AYNOHYEB". And then in "Malone vs. Malone", yes, he lost it when he tossed the chair, but look at him before and after. Except for the actual incident, he seemed to be trying to stay as controlled as possible. I'm sure the team heard about the event through office gossip, but if it weren't for that factor, it wouldn't surprise me if they never found out about the whole procedings and Jack's feelings regarding them. As Jack told Lisa at the end of this season, he doesn't share his feelings/problems with his team. I would think that he would be even less likely to share his feelings/problems with the relative strangers that he encounters while working on cases. I think if they had him constantly bringing up emotions about the past, I would find that more inconsistant and jarring than what they are doing.

Regarding how Maria treated Jack, I can see it. In fact, I don't really blame her all that much for doing what she did. First, regarding the divorce. I agree that it would have been better for her just to flat out say, "I am leaving you, Jack and going to Chicago." However, given Jack's track record and attitude at that time, I could see why she would have thought that he would say that he couldn't move, and then she could have left him without having to tell him that she wasn't in love with him anymore. Sure, it would have been a bit of a cop-out, but I could see her rationalizing it as a way to spare his feelings. Regarding the custody issue, I can also understand (and forgive) her actions. Jack might love his daughters, but, honestly? From what we have seen, he is a terrible father. First of all, his job isn't condusive to being a single father. He can be called out at all hours of the day/night and stay out for extended periods of time. (We have seen him pull more than one all-nighter.) Also, his family has been threatened by perps before, so that isn't so ideal either. Then, you get into his past behavior with his kids. He has put his job ahead of his daughters' welfare and doesn't seem to have been there for most of the "little" moments (such as taking his daughters to school.) Now, we haven't seen much of Maria as a mother, but everything we have been shown seems to indicate that she was pretty involved. With all this in mind (plus the problems with joint custody when the parents reside in cities that are so far apart), I can't say that I wouldn't be like Maria and do whatever I could to keep full custody of my children. I think that she was trying to get Jack to face the facts rather than draw the whole process out into a messy trial. With as stubborn as Jack is, it seems that it really would take something like confronting him with all of his past emotional issues, problems to get him to acknowledge that maybe if he loves his girls as much as he says he does, that he might want to consider that the best place for them is with their mother. Wow, that was a long response!

Regarding "A Tree Falls"... I liked that episode a lot. It doesn't hurt that Martin got a lot of juicy emotional material! But, even without that, I thought the case was interesting and had some nice twists to it.

Regarding "Moving On"... I liked the episode. I thought that the main missing persons story was very poignant. I also liked the letter thing at the end. (That was in "Moving On", right?) While it was a little Samantha-centric, I don't have a problem with that because it was intertwined with the case rather than having the character stuff be the major focus of the episode.

I liked "Trip Box". It isn't one of my top-10 favorites, but I thought it was rather enjoyable. I seem to be different from a lot of you when it comes to judging episodes. My first criterion is that the missing person's case is interesting. I need to care about the missing person and the story needs to be complex enough to keep my interest without being overly convoluted or contrived. I don't particularly care if one agent or another is more prevalant in the solving of the case as long as personal issues don't overwhelm said case. Of course, if the personal stuff is handled well enough, then that can add another level to the case. My favorite episodes are the ones that have a great case with a perfect level of personal character emotions/actions/history. So, as I thought the missings persons case in "Trip Box" was emotional enough and compelling enough, I didn't particularly care what else happened and I enjoyed it. I hope that made sense!

I think I addressed everything. Even if I didn't, I think the post is long enough to stop anyway!

I am having the worst time with FF tonight! I keep getting a "Cannot find server" message, but when I refresth, I can usually end up getting where I need to go. Usually... *sigh* If I werent' so unsure of when I will next be able to get online, I would give up now. I still might, because this is so frustrating! (I think it might be a sign I should be doing other things. I really want to get this really long reply posted, though, as I spent a decent amount of time composing it. *double sigh*) I apologize in advance if all of this refreshing makes me inadvertently double (or even triple!) post.