Lonelygirl15

DreamerM · Last edited by DreamerM on Sun Dec 03, 2006 5:04 pm; edited 1 time in total

Enough is enough.

When I first found this site I was interested. This new method of storytelling had so much potential. The cryptic hints of a larger conspiracy were fascinating and the video format made it feel like we were watching it all unfold in real time. I was excited. I became a regular viewer.

But this has gone too far. I can't take it anymore. I registered here just so I could vent. Creators, fire your writing staff and get some guys worth the air they breathe because this drivel is not gonna fly.

This show is awful at introducing new characters. They get no heralds. They get no build-up. We have endless people speculating about the mysterious phantom "cassia" yet we are expected to care about these two who come out of nowhere? Jonas doesn't even have any ties to the canon of the series, he's supposedly a fan like us. Are we supposed to like him? Why does he need to exist? Were the Creators just out of ideas?

All the character's vids in LG15 are exactly the same. Whatever is going on, you can count on everyone to personify stuffed animals and talk about unrelated stuff like it's important. This format was fun and fine. However, it does not fit anymore! Now that the much more serious plot-line has kicked in, the whimsical style of the videos (with their quick editing and careful music choice) is no longer appropriate, in fact it de-emphasizes the gravity of the character's situation. Gonna have heros in peril? there should be something at stake. We need some sort of visual acknowledgment of sense of the danger they are in. Less editing. WAY less Bree-being-cute.

We know Bree can be cute. Her childish antics in the early videos charmed thier way into all of our hearts. However, her situation has since changed drastically and yet the writers are still forcing CUTE BREE down our throats.

The reason why we like Daniel is he's a fully developed character. We've seen his tender side. We've seen his gruff, late-teenage self reliant psudo-apathy. We've seen him whiney and annoyed. We've seen him scared. We've seen he's physically strong AND we've seen how intelligent, resourceful, and brave he can be in a pinch.

Bree has yet to show anything more then her childish side. She has two settings: nervous-panicky and "cute." I can't even begin to imagine she is holding her own in her fights with Daniel. We are told she is, but we don't see it.

Let's see Bree be willful. Lets SEE her put her foot down about something and stick to her guns. Let's see some of that random intellect at work as she thinks up some way to crack the case. Let's get a sense of what she's capible of physically. Lets see her get ANGRY, and not tearful angry, ANGRY angry. Lets see her actually adressing and confronting the issues that have been piled on her, sorting through them and deciding on a course of action.

She's a young person. In the traditional comming-of-age tale, this is where the child in destress finds then strength inside them to confront thier fears and defeat them.

Writers, we already know she's an adorable kitten, but your plot has moved beyond that. It's time to let her be an actual PERSON.

This brings me to The Watchers. A poorly implemented gimmick if ever there was one. We knew before they ran away they were going to be followed, and I am sick to death of waiting for the Watcher to actually DO something besides just stand around. If he's supposed to be the Lurking Evil, then he needs to actually, you know...do some evil. Creators, please please please have him do something to establish that he is an actual threat. Is he supposed to retrieve Bree? He could have done it by now. If Watching is all this Watcher is gonna do then he's a waste of screen-time and the air he breathes.

Forget that pointless new character. Ax Jonas. He's Bree in male form and Bree in his house would just be cutesy antics all day long, while the actual plot grows more and more stale.

The new characters we need to hear from are some of the Adults in the Breeverse. We need Lucy, a Deacon (even if it's not immediately clear he's a deacon), or her Parents. We need someone with story significance WHO's fresh perspective can jump start the action again.

Also, the fact bree and Daniel continue to ignore the way too obvious fact that the tracking devices are inside her stuffed animals, despite the fact that they SUPPOSEDLY check this site and every third comment is "check the stuffed animals" is suspension of disbelief at it's worst.

We need something to HAPPEN. It can be the Watcher actually DOING SOMETHING, preferably something evil. It can be some sort of breakthrough Gemma has about what the nature of the ceremony is. It can be Bree finally being forthcoming about her community and laying out some key information she's been withholding. It can be a call from her parents, telling her to come home (when it's a trap) and Bree vanishes, forcing Daniel to break into Lucy's house again and learn something new. It could even be an accident, prompting Bree to make a trip to the emergency room, where a medical examination provides some information about what the shots and pills were.

Something. Anything.

I am ready to give up on this series. I had such high hopes and they are being dashed by sluggish pacing, predictable plot-twists and wasted potential.

We need some ACTION, STAT.

Pi · Casual Observer Joined: 04 Nov 2006 Posts: 111

Dee · Suspiciously Absent Joined: 28 Nov 2006 Posts: 7

I agree 100%. My family says I'm lame for continuing to watch but I keep saying I'm waiting for the good stuff.....maybe never????

khjq · Posted: Sun Dec 03, 2006 5:05 pm Post subject:

I'm a fan, but yeah I agree with everything that you said.

In my opinion though I think this new medium that the Creators brought to life is just gonna be the new form of advertisement, not about actual storytelling at all....soon we will see merchandise being advertised within each video, the Creators said so themselves.

Oh well...

DreamerM · Posted: Sun Dec 03, 2006 5:09 pm Post subject:

I believe they were refering to the ads that follow each video. I doubt it will be Mentos that give Daniel the drive to karate chop the entire order and that stuff.

I'm not gonna get up in thier business about the adds. They need to make money from this somehow.

EliCash · Lonely Fan Joined: 29 Nov 2006 Posts: 173

I don't agree with all of it, but I certainly thank you for urging SOMETHING to happen. Not to resort to thread-pimping, but as I suggest in another thread:

khjq · Posted: Sun Dec 03, 2006 5:16 pm Post subject:

Slainte · Casual Observer Joined: 25 Nov 2006 Posts: 68

Outstanding essay. I could not agree with you more, from the first paragraph to the last you reflected my opinions and- I think - that of many man, many others.

The "watchers" stand around watching, Bree falls rapidly into a schizoprenic state conversing with her puppets and sniping at the one character that can and is willing to provide some help and direction. You mentioned the need for some adult involvement, Daniel is the closest thing so far and his consideration of giving it all up and going back to school makes for the sanest monologue in the series so far.

The Nikki Bowers character is crass and just generally unlikable. Apparently she isa freelance "investigative reporter" becasue her investigative reporting skills are nil. The college that granted her a degree must have done so only to get her the hell off the campus.

And "Joanus"!? Don't get me started. Surely, his parents didn't simply dissappear. They were pobably hacked into tiny pieces long ago and their remains tossed off the side of the "Sloop John B". Free from their parental meddling he can now focus his efforts on preying on Lonely Girls. His character and the actor reek of hedonistic evil.

Bree, god bless her, she could open a Fosters with those choppers and that probably makes herquite popular down under but with advice like
"It's not your decision/It's your decision" (see episode 0059) she really isn't helping out to much.

[now that I think of it - how scary is it that they have started numbering their episodes with 4 spaces!!??? LEaving room for 9,910 more trips to the well boggles the mind]

How,with a story spread so very thin are we expected to follow the trails of OpAphid, Cassie, Terhcyon, King Tut, and Amelia Earhart as well?

It is way way past time to start providing answers rather piling on characters and complications and plot twists that go nowhere for no reason. Kill a character, Bring in the marines, engae them all in a 12 step program..do somethng PLEASE.

At this rate the Redskins will have a play-off season before anything really happens

DreamerM · Posted: Sun Dec 03, 2006 5:34 pm Post subject:

EliCash · Lonely Fan Joined: 29 Nov 2006 Posts: 173

I agree, DreamerM, with your reply. Very well said.

Edit: But personally, I'm more disappointed with Daniel. At least with him, it's in his character to go on the offense and do something. Yet he's failed to act. It's not the same Daniel who broke into Lucy's when important things were actually going on in the series. And I think that's because he can't so long as Bree is there weighing him down.

sidestep · Suspiciously Absent Joined: 11 Nov 2006 Posts: 19

I'm in total agreement. After watching a few films this weekend I've remembered just how bad the story structure, production values, and content transmission of Lonelygirl15 has become. I was very intrigued with the new media call to force, however it's stuck in churn and has failed on multiple points of this new media interface (confusing YT to Revver transfer, foiled chat, haphazard moderation of the forums). With the activity of the oncoming holiday season I know I'll be away from YT for a while and there needs to be something of a critical mass to make me want to come back.

omegawoman · Posted: Sun Dec 03, 2006 5:49 pm Post subject:

Total disagreement. This series is supposed to be real time. Her parents disappered a little under a month ago. You cannot expect a teenage girl to grow that much under stress in just a little under a month, especially one who has been sheltered as much as Bree has.

This isn't TV- we will not get answers at the end of a 30 minute sitcom. Of course it is slow, IT IS REAL TIME.

Part of the fun of this new form of entertainment is the anticipation of what is happening while we are waiting for a new video. Yes, I do get frustrated at times, but this is all part of the experience.
_________________
I'm already visualizing you with duct tape over your mouth

EliCash · Lonely Fan Joined: 29 Nov 2006 Posts: 173

DreamerM · Posted: Sun Dec 03, 2006 6:05 pm Post subject:

Omegawoman, you also forget this is fiction.

If fiction in any medium at all, book, movie, tv, whatever, lets it's plot languish aimlessly while the characters bicker and nothing happens, the audience will start getting bored and wander away.

EliCash · Lonely Fan Joined: 29 Nov 2006 Posts: 173

It's important not to just tell a story... but to tell a story that's worth telling. A story that's worth telling has characters in action, rather than allowing everything to happen TO them.