Profiler - Season 4 thoughts
Aug. 5th, 2024 04:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
doranwenI'm finally working my way through Season 4 (in the middle of 4x09 currently). At this point I've decided Profiler was really three shows in one.
1) Profiler (S1/S2)
2) Profiler Lite (3x01 - 4x02)
and
3) Profiler: The Rachel Burke Show (4x03 onwards)
Actual Profiler was very good. They balanced some real life things going on with the characters (mainly Sam and Bailey - they *could* have done a bit more with the others but what there was was pretty good) with the team hunting for the criminal(s) responsible each episode, and the specter of Jack looming over the storyline. They didn't waste time showing us the criminals in question, or on silly subplots, and they treated the local LEOs in each case as competents who were occasionally cynical (think the local detective in 2x06 Old Acquaintances) but weren't idiots. The dark lighting made the coloring more intense and the actors looked good on-camera; it gave an intimate feel to everything. There wasn't a whole lot to improve on.
Profiler Lite started out pretty terrible (there was noticeable OOC behavior in 3x01, and the Fake Jack bit was just stupid) and got better as it went on, with a few duds (don't get me started on the Christmas ep, lol). It was still *somewhat* enjoyable (even with having Fake!Chloe instead of Real!Chloe, as I like to call them), particularly as they started getting the characterization closer to how Profiler had it. They had some major continuity issues with Profiler, and they took away some valuable time with the team to show us the criminals they were hunting, which unfortunately removed all element of surprise and treated the viewers as stupid. They also tried to "lighten up" the content by throwing in some sillier lines and behavior, which felt somewhat out of place, and literally lightened things up with the overall coloring (which had the effect of washing out everyone - Sam never looked as good in S3 as she did in S1/S2 as a result). By the end of it it wasn't too bad, but then it wrapped things up in a serious hurry that felt somewhat out of place. (Everything after they rescued Sam felt like it was thrown together and didn't generally fit.) On a side note, I noticed that Profiler Lite used pretty much the same exact hairstyle for Sam the entire time. I have no idea why - Profiler did a lot more with her hair! (and it looked a lot better that way)
Profiler: The Rachel Burke Show is exactly what it says - a show basically all about Rachel Burke. Who talks very fast (and a LOT), who lacks the very soft feminine touch that Sam had (a quality which Ally commented on in an interview/chat held just after S2), and whose gift appears weirder than Sam's (seriously, who came up with the visuals for how Rachel's intuition worked? it's just odd). The other characters do have storylines - there's a fair amount of Bailey, naturally, and George and Grace have things to do (but honestly, I couldn't help but compare how Sam would have reacted to Grace's sad revelation, to how Rachel did - Sam would have been so good there!), though John seems to be mostly the comic relief at the moment. They completely changed the location - they'll show the same front shot of the VCTF building but the indoor set isn't remotely the same anymore, more like a standard office building than the windowless bunker-like look that it had in Profiler (and to an extent, Profiler Lite). It also has a lot more strange local LEOs; it feels like every other ep, there's a local cop who's a groupie or acts stupid. You wonder how those people got their jobs in the first place, if they're that dumb. It's kind of insulting - like we won't believe the VCTF is good if they don't look amazing next to the local cops? And yes, part of why it's not as good is it just doesn't have Sam, whose relationship with Bailey made me adore Profiler as much as I did, and who was incredibly believable as a gifted profiler; Rachel is perfectly acceptable as a profiler but she doesn't have the magic touch to the role that Sam did. But even on its own, I can already see it had some major flaws, and I'm sure I'll discover more as time goes on. At this point, I can see why they had to cancel it. Nearly everything that made Profiler so exceptionally good was gone, except for having some excellent actors. I'll finish watching The Rachel Burke Show once… but then I'll probably never watch it again. It just isn't that interesting, and I want to return to Profiler proper which actually had Sam and had her done well.
Anyone else think similarly?
1) Profiler (S1/S2)
2) Profiler Lite (3x01 - 4x02)
and
3) Profiler: The Rachel Burke Show (4x03 onwards)
Actual Profiler was very good. They balanced some real life things going on with the characters (mainly Sam and Bailey - they *could* have done a bit more with the others but what there was was pretty good) with the team hunting for the criminal(s) responsible each episode, and the specter of Jack looming over the storyline. They didn't waste time showing us the criminals in question, or on silly subplots, and they treated the local LEOs in each case as competents who were occasionally cynical (think the local detective in 2x06 Old Acquaintances) but weren't idiots. The dark lighting made the coloring more intense and the actors looked good on-camera; it gave an intimate feel to everything. There wasn't a whole lot to improve on.
Profiler Lite started out pretty terrible (there was noticeable OOC behavior in 3x01, and the Fake Jack bit was just stupid) and got better as it went on, with a few duds (don't get me started on the Christmas ep, lol). It was still *somewhat* enjoyable (even with having Fake!Chloe instead of Real!Chloe, as I like to call them), particularly as they started getting the characterization closer to how Profiler had it. They had some major continuity issues with Profiler, and they took away some valuable time with the team to show us the criminals they were hunting, which unfortunately removed all element of surprise and treated the viewers as stupid. They also tried to "lighten up" the content by throwing in some sillier lines and behavior, which felt somewhat out of place, and literally lightened things up with the overall coloring (which had the effect of washing out everyone - Sam never looked as good in S3 as she did in S1/S2 as a result). By the end of it it wasn't too bad, but then it wrapped things up in a serious hurry that felt somewhat out of place. (Everything after they rescued Sam felt like it was thrown together and didn't generally fit.) On a side note, I noticed that Profiler Lite used pretty much the same exact hairstyle for Sam the entire time. I have no idea why - Profiler did a lot more with her hair! (and it looked a lot better that way)
Profiler: The Rachel Burke Show is exactly what it says - a show basically all about Rachel Burke. Who talks very fast (and a LOT), who lacks the very soft feminine touch that Sam had (a quality which Ally commented on in an interview/chat held just after S2), and whose gift appears weirder than Sam's (seriously, who came up with the visuals for how Rachel's intuition worked? it's just odd). The other characters do have storylines - there's a fair amount of Bailey, naturally, and George and Grace have things to do (but honestly, I couldn't help but compare how Sam would have reacted to Grace's sad revelation, to how Rachel did - Sam would have been so good there!), though John seems to be mostly the comic relief at the moment. They completely changed the location - they'll show the same front shot of the VCTF building but the indoor set isn't remotely the same anymore, more like a standard office building than the windowless bunker-like look that it had in Profiler (and to an extent, Profiler Lite). It also has a lot more strange local LEOs; it feels like every other ep, there's a local cop who's a groupie or acts stupid. You wonder how those people got their jobs in the first place, if they're that dumb. It's kind of insulting - like we won't believe the VCTF is good if they don't look amazing next to the local cops? And yes, part of why it's not as good is it just doesn't have Sam, whose relationship with Bailey made me adore Profiler as much as I did, and who was incredibly believable as a gifted profiler; Rachel is perfectly acceptable as a profiler but she doesn't have the magic touch to the role that Sam did. But even on its own, I can already see it had some major flaws, and I'm sure I'll discover more as time goes on. At this point, I can see why they had to cancel it. Nearly everything that made Profiler so exceptionally good was gone, except for having some excellent actors. I'll finish watching The Rachel Burke Show once… but then I'll probably never watch it again. It just isn't that interesting, and I want to return to Profiler proper which actually had Sam and had her done well.
Anyone else think similarly?
