Random posting… 'The company'

If you have been watching a lot of the ‘conspiracy among us’ shows out there you might have started to notice a couple of re-occuring developments. There is always one big bad shady business with an even shadier past which keeps getting more and more intricate until even the story tellers mix things up. This firm is most often represented by a middleaged/older character with common attributes that we would not normally think twice about, but in this case these attributes become almost notoriously well known (like, say, the horn rimmed glasses). And of course our heroes, they all have gray scales and dark sides, they are targeted by what initially appears to be random badness but turns out to be closely connected with their backgrounds.

My personal favourite among these has for the past three years been Prison Break (starring Wentworth Miller and Dominic Prucell amidst others). Season one had little brother Michael Scofield put himself in a prison in order to be able to break out big brother Lincoln Burrows who, as it happened, was sitting on death row convicted of the murder of the vice president’s brother.

Tough…

Of course, Lincoln was innocent as overly focused and smart (but slightly damaged and with a shitty background) Michael soon figured out. The engineer aka little brother put blue print tattoes all over his upper body and cleverly begun forming a plan to bust his brother out. Love is in the air fellas… And really, who could resist that concept?

Slowly but surely the conspiracy became clear, and well into season two the audience was already familiar with that vague but oh so meaningful term: ‘the company’. The shady firm had a name, a quite general and, well, gray name but nonetheless.

While logic and reason spiralled away rapidly towards the end of season two this show survived into a third season where the consiracy as well as the prison busting has reached new heights (or lows… depending on the perspective), but the audience is not as devoted any more. The angsty cliffhangers at the end of each episode just don’t hold the same desperate ‘I need to know what happens next’ sensation as they did throughout season one.

Still though, back to the red thread of the evil mysterious company. And onto another recent hit, Heroes.

The ensamble casts of both these shows has also been part of the success ingredients. Personally I think the brotherly aspect was what really pulled viewers in during season one, but the ensamble development was what kept them around during season two (when the brotherly connection begun loosening up). Heroes on the other hand has since day one been all about the group and the very different characters.

Season one held mystery and suspence as a scientists son came to New York to find answers regarding the truth in his father’s theories about evolution, Hiro from Japan travelled through time and space to be a hero and save a city from blasting to smitherins, Jessica/Niki battled multiple personalities (one of them murderous) and tried to keep the family together, and brothers Petrelli approached the un known from different perspectives. Yes, the brother factor again. Seems to be quite the re occuring success ingredient huh, and I must admit it draws in a crowd.

Ok ok, getting off topic again. So onto it then. There was something a bit off here, people with these special abilities (paint the future, hear thoughts, fly, bend the space continum), these future heroes, kept getting targeted both by a maniacal superpower collector who killed them and some big organization who appeared to enjoy treating them like occasionally dangerous lab rats a bit too much. And of course this organization soon became represented by one man (remember that in prison break we had several, the vice president, the asian man, the silent man), the man with the horn rimmed glasses. Also nown as cheerleder Claire’s (Hayden Panettiere) father.

Now, I didn’t think much of it as a conspiracy of crazies trying to keep these heroes under control, or some of them maybe even wanting the random blowing up of the city to occur, as it was another re occuring recipe that seemed to work alright. Then they started referring to it as ‘The company’.

Really? Guys? Imagination? Or is it some kind of internal thing I’m just not supposed to get. Or is it on purpose, a sorta general gray zone name that rings ‘evil’ and ‘danger’ so deeply it just has to be used, again and again in different scenarios.

Even though the storylines are still holding together (occasionally… somewhat) I’d say that ‘the company’ is loosing it’s impressive meaning. Everytime I hear it nowadays I feel a giggle coming on. I don’t do giggling. But it’s there, threatening, everytime. It just seemes so blatant, and maybe I’m wrong and way off here, but I wish they’d have had a few more names. Hey, maybe ‘evil empire of crazies’, or ‘big bad organization’, or ‘the horn rimmed glasses inc.’ Now that last one, that’d have scared me. Imagine their promotional campaign? *shudder*

/Desideria

Mood: randomly expressing thoughts in responce to having just finished watching Prison Breaks’ latest eppi… I miss the brooding Michael. I miss the desperation. I even miss Bagwell’s nasty comments. I miss that damned edge… Get them on the run again, or get some serious twists and actions that can’t be foreseen two hours ahead. I’ll just shut up now, cause we all know I’ll keep watching…