Week three linkspam

[jae]

Keri Russell (Elizabeth) did an interview with Collider about the second season.

Matthew Rhys (Philip) did an interview with Esquire about the second season and especially "Cardinal" (202).

The Americans gets a mention in this piece by Think Progress's Alyssa Rosenberg about why we keep having the same debates about prestige television dramas. (Rosenberg is one of the show's unapologetic critic cheerleaders.)

Bad news about the season two ratings: they slid between 201 and 202. But on the other hand, FX executive John Solberg tweeted that the show is up a ridiculous 94% in "time-shifted viewing" (that's up from an already very high 81% for the season premiere).

Another piece about the "spy training day" to which the show invited journalists has come out, this time by the UK's This Is Fakediy.

U.S. magazine Mother Jones has a piece about the Middle Eastern and Central American politics that form the backdrop for some of the plotlines for season two.

The critic at the Salt Lake Tribune who likes the show argues that Putin makes it harder to root for the two Soviet leads.

Some fans did some research into whether Raiders of the Lost Ark was actually still playing in early 1982, and apparently the writers did their homework.

Attention icon makers! screencapped.net has a treasure trove of high-quality images for you to work with, and here's another at grande-caps.net.

And finally, Keri Russell made a brief appearance on Jimmy Kimmel along with the infamous "Felicity wig" (video, just over 3 minutes).

Comments

Why people might dislike the show

[jae]

There are a lot of reasons that people might hate the show, actually. Katia named a few above. And as we know from the podcast we talked about in my journal, some people just can't get past the "they're Russian spies who do bad things" part.

The "hate" half of the one couple I personally know is of the "it's not escapist fantasy" sort--he tried the show for me but personally doesn't particularly enjoy shows that take place in our world. The hater half of the other couple (you and I have talked about this one) got as far as "COMINT" and quit watching because she loathed Philip so much. It's a hard show to sell to people on any generic level because there are so many different things that can push different kinds of people's buttons.

-J

Re: Why people might dislike the show

[sistermagpie]

She loathed Philip? Oh, was this the idea that Philip was sexist? Right.

I think I was confused about somebody hating something because I was thinking I could understand not being interested in the show, but I wondered what somebody watching it would be being furious about. But it sounds like in that case it's just a case of "this show isn't for me" sort of thing rather than ranting. As opposed to the sexist thing, which to me, honestly, seems like kind of projecting something onto it because it accidentally looked similar to a second.

Re: Why people might dislike the show

[katiac]

Oh okay, I was reading all these response and trying to figure out how someone could loathe Philip, but I guess if you took that episode as sexist rather than Philip has a strong need to protect his family members that doesn't always manifest in reasonable ways, it would be possible. I actually read a lot more extreme dislike towards Elizabeth (like reading other people's responses on other sites) and can't really recall having found one that targeted Philip before. I think both characters are the sort that if you don't dig in and try to understand what's not being said overtly about what they're doing and what's driving it below the surface, they're easy to misunderstand and then to dislike.