Third (and final! I promise!) linkspam this week

[jae]

The official reviews of season two are starting to roll in from various U.S. publications: from the San Francisco Chronicle, from the Tampa Bay Times, from Indiewire, from the Los Angeles Daily News, from the San Jose Mercury-News, from Slant Magazine, and finally, from the Huffington Post (this one is really a negative review of season two of House of Cards, but there's a positive comparison with The Americans in the final bit).

The full Wall Street Journal Live at Bryant Park "How The Americans Recreates the Cold War" panel has been posted (30-min video).

An interview with Keri Russell (Elizabeth) from the LA Daily News (with some season two spoilers).

And an interview with Matthew Rhys (Philip) from the New York Daily News (also with some season two spoilers).

And an interview with Noah Emmerich (Stan) from Paste Magazine (also with some season two spoilers).

And an interview with Peg Schierholz and Lori Hicks from the Hair and Makeup Department, from the Washington Post.

A couple of things from Twitter: according to script supervisor Molly Nussbaum, The Americans made the very top of this coming week's "must list" in Entertainment Weekly. And it looks like actor Gillian Alexy is going to be back playing Anneliese toward the end of the season!

And the comm's own quantumreality with the third part of the essay on symmetries in The Americans.

The Americans is going to be the subject of canada.com's TV Chat critics' panel on Monday at 2pm eastern time.

The TV Ate My Wardrobe blog sent someone to cover the season one DVD/Blu-Ray launch event.

The Staten Island Advance on the use of a local location as a backdrop to an episode of The Americans.

And finally, here's a little clip of Keri Russell on Late Night With David Letterman (on channelling her inner Elizabeth when her apartment was broken into).

Comments

Re: Too much

[jae]

Okay, I see where you're coming from. I actually am pretty sure expectations have nothing at all to do with the chance of renewal (it's about viewer numbers only), so you can breathe easy on that. The worst thing that could happen if there's a mismatch between what the critics like and what the viewers like in this case is that the viewers will watch it, be disappointed, and stop watching. To my mind, though, even that's still better than if they never watched it at all, so I have a hard time seeing any positive critical reception as a bad thing. :)

If you're worried about getting your own hopes up too high, though, maybe the solution is to just not read the reviews? Do you think that would help? (I'm not worried about that in my case because I read enough TV and film criticism to be familiar with which critics I feel I can trust the opinions of and which ones I can disregard.)

-J

Re: Too much

[katiac]

I mean, I can't help but be excited that so many people have seen the first episodes and are excited too. If we were getting basically mixed reviews, or only a few voices singing the praises of the show, I would be more worried... but to me it seems like the show is doing a GREAT job of getting their name out there this time around, is getting the word out that they're telling a good story, and it's starting to pay off.

Re: Too much

[cerveny]

Well, I mostly do not read reviews so there is that. Usually short bottom lines is enough.

Yeah, I know that expectations does not matter for renewal, but if people would be disappointed then they could just stop watching and that could means cancellation.

But there is one another small tidbit from reviews: In many of them authors took stance of us versus them, or America vs. Jennings. And they are content. So I am little worried if they did not push the political lever little too much. Because many of the negative reactions for first season were about not fitting American perspective enough. Maybe they just get used to it. But as first season was not completely fair to both sides (defecation. rape etc) I hope they did not deepen it.

Well, lets hope they just started to like the characters and do not think much about political background. (As there is no need, everybody knows how it ends. The creators are in very favorable position because they can afford to adventurous in that regard where creators for example of Homeland cannot, because the conflict is not over yet in minds of viewers).

Re: Too much

[katiac]

I think the show always kind of walks a fine line with the American versus Russian perspective. They do the same with Philip and Elizabeth with trying to keep the story true to spying and the conflict of having to do or doing horrible things while still being human, and not making the characters hated because they're unforgivable. But the good thing is, I think they're highly aware of the fact that they walk that line, and are trying very hard to do so in a careful way.

Re: Too much

[jae]

Yeah, that's definitely how I feel about it, too. I have a real thing for television and film criticism, so when I see these people I respect (not all of them, but many of them) saying such good things about this show I love, it makes me really happy. I can totally see how you might feel differently if your views don't tend to align with what the critics tend to like.

-J