Pitch (episodes 1 and 2)
Non-spoilery verdict: I loved this series!
Spoilery verdict:
A couple of my co-workers talked to me about this show before I'd managed to see it (family visits are so inconvenient) and explained that they'd watched "maybe 10 minutes" before giving up and turning it off. It was too unrealistic. Too fantastical. A girl pitching for a major league baseball team? And her fastball is only 87 mph - how does that even work? And they totally made up the leagues for the show - how ridiculous is that!
They told me I'd probably hate it for the same reasons they did, so it's probably not one I should bother with.
*sigh*
Here's the thing. That "slow" fastball? If they'd stuck it out for more than 10 minutes, they would have seen it discussed, explained, and used as a minor plot point in the second episode. They would have seen a discussion of the fact that she was picked for a nasty screwball she throws (I have no idea what this is, except it's something hard to hit?) and for the ticket sales she'd generate. It was one of the elements I really enjoyed - the commentary on the fickleness of sports management, putting money ahead of results. Although I was very happy to see Ginny be awesome at the end of the first episode and justify her pick :-)
The made-up leagues...I would have been more surprised if they'd used real teams and leagues. It's the way TV works. ETA:
musesfool corrected this in comments - it's all using real leagues and so forth. My coworkers were reeeeally talking out of their asses :-)
I should probably note that my co-workers are men, and I'm pretty confident that coloured the way they saw those first ten minutes. We tend to like a lot of the same shows, but I've found we differ a lot on shows that are written from a more feminist angle. They aren't wild about Supergirl, either, so I'm not surprised they didn't like Pitch (although I did think that only giving it ten minutes as a bit ridiculous).
The show made me happy. It gave me an imperfect but wonderful lead character, a woman I really wanted to succeed by the midway point in the episode. It gave me interesting side-characters. It made me care about the outcome of a sports game I know very little about. It made eager for more episodes.
It stuck a flag in what it's doing with the subplot in episode two around whether Ginny should or shouldn't comment publicly about certain issues, including a rape case involving athletes. Ginny's speech about why we spend so much time educating women about how not to be raped instead of educating men about not raping women made me cheer her, and it gave me some real hope for what the show can talk about and do.
By the end of the second episode, I even liked Lawson. Fleshing out his character made him a lot more sympathetic and interesting to me. I'm hoping they'll give Amelia a chance for similar growth, beyond the brief flashback we got at the end of episode two, because I love her relationship with Ginny and I want to know more about her.
I'd also love to see more about Blip and Evelyn, and how their friendship with Ginny became as strong as it is.
Really, what I want is many more episodes of Pitch, because I adored the hell out of the first two :-D
I wonder whether it's a Yuletide fandom...
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Spoilery verdict:
A couple of my co-workers talked to me about this show before I'd managed to see it (family visits are so inconvenient) and explained that they'd watched "maybe 10 minutes" before giving up and turning it off. It was too unrealistic. Too fantastical. A girl pitching for a major league baseball team? And her fastball is only 87 mph - how does that even work? And they totally made up the leagues for the show - how ridiculous is that!
They told me I'd probably hate it for the same reasons they did, so it's probably not one I should bother with.
*sigh*
Here's the thing. That "slow" fastball? If they'd stuck it out for more than 10 minutes, they would have seen it discussed, explained, and used as a minor plot point in the second episode. They would have seen a discussion of the fact that she was picked for a nasty screwball she throws (I have no idea what this is, except it's something hard to hit?) and for the ticket sales she'd generate. It was one of the elements I really enjoyed - the commentary on the fickleness of sports management, putting money ahead of results. Although I was very happy to see Ginny be awesome at the end of the first episode and justify her pick :-)
The made-up leagues...I would have been more surprised if they'd used real teams and leagues. It's the way TV works. ETA:
musesfool corrected this in comments - it's all using real leagues and so forth. My coworkers were reeeeally talking out of their asses :-)
I should probably note that my co-workers are men, and I'm pretty confident that coloured the way they saw those first ten minutes. We tend to like a lot of the same shows, but I've found we differ a lot on shows that are written from a more feminist angle. They aren't wild about Supergirl, either, so I'm not surprised they didn't like Pitch (although I did think that only giving it ten minutes as a bit ridiculous).
The show made me happy. It gave me an imperfect but wonderful lead character, a woman I really wanted to succeed by the midway point in the episode. It gave me interesting side-characters. It made me care about the outcome of a sports game I know very little about. It made eager for more episodes.
It stuck a flag in what it's doing with the subplot in episode two around whether Ginny should or shouldn't comment publicly about certain issues, including a rape case involving athletes. Ginny's speech about why we spend so much time educating women about how not to be raped instead of educating men about not raping women made me cheer her, and it gave me some real hope for what the show can talk about and do.
By the end of the second episode, I even liked Lawson. Fleshing out his character made him a lot more sympathetic and interesting to me. I'm hoping they'll give Amelia a chance for similar growth, beyond the brief flashback we got at the end of episode two, because I love her relationship with Ginny and I want to know more about her.
I'd also love to see more about Blip and Evelyn, and how their friendship with Ginny became as strong as it is.
Really, what I want is many more episodes of Pitch, because I adored the hell out of the first two :-D
I wonder whether it's a Yuletide fandom...
This entry was originally posted at http://selenay.dreamwidth.org/538882.html. There are currently
babbles on the entry on Dreamwidth. Leave comments at http://selenay.dreamwidth.org/538882.html?mode=reply