To anyone on that side: we have our differences. It’s natural, it comes with the profession. Whoever writes about television, in principle, watches more television than the reader. Because you see more, you also see many things that you don’t like, many bad things (two different things) and when the day comes when you have to write about one of these two universes, what you don’t like. Like / what is clearly bad: a lot of accumulated things will be summed up in words and sentences. When opinions meet, the reader has a friend (and so does the critic). When they are not found, the reader thinks that the critic is a frustrated guy, a supporter of the system (whatever that is), or incompetent (he could also be that).
Here is something that is rarely talked about in this relationship but that is common to both those who criticize and those who read (and who also criticize, although in a different way): the experience, the number of hours in front of the television, which generate a kind of instinct. Sometimes, we know that “there is something there” and this leads us to continue watching series that, sometimes, have weak first episodes. The industry wants to capture the viewer’s attention in minutes, even seconds. If it doesn’t work, it is disposable, moving on to the next product. The viewer has other things to do, they cannot afford to get bored watching television and then be surprised. But the critic does. The critic must do it. And it is this line that separates the two. Boring is also a job, one that sometimes sounds like privilege. And to substantiate an idea it is often necessary to cross the desert of boredom.
This much is certain: “Wolf” (which premieres this Thursday, September 14 on HBO Max) will not be a cause for boredom. But it is very possible that the first episode will taste like deception and that this will be demotivating. I am here to assure you otherwise. “Wolf” is a suspense seriously and does something unusual in current television fiction: it answers all the questions it raises. And it makes this happen simultaneously with a bunch of turns, many of them unexpected, all of them making sense. Even the one that appears in the last moments of the series.
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Source: Observadora
