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So I've been watching The Listener reccently, and for those who don't know it it's basically about a guy named Toby who can read minds and goes around helping authorities solve crimes using his telepathy. It's an enjoyable show, but being a "case of the week" show it does have it's stale moments, and has a bad habit of being a bit cliche at times (and by that I mean many of their stories are stories I've seen a dozen times aready in other shows. For example, going under cover by taking part in a poker game to find out what "bad guy" is up to.)
But despite the show doing what a lot of shows have done already, I like the show, I do. But sometimes...
Spoilers ahead for those who haven't seen this show and want to, or who have just started watching.
So there was this one episode in which people are killing themselves for no apparent reason, and the cuplrit turns out to be this young woman who has the ability to manipulate people's minds by using their own emotions against them. She's doing this to get revenge for the death of her family, and she's not going to stop until the people responsible are dead. At one point one of her victims survives shooting himself in the head. He's at the hospital, a nurse is checking him over, then that nurse goes into a sort of daze and pulls out the man's breathing tube.
Because the authorities that Toby works with are used to weird stuff like telepathy, they believe the nurse when she says that she wasn't sure what came over her, she just felt that the man would be better off dead. They check security footage, see the woman, bring her in to question her only for the woman to use her powers to walk out.
So then Toby tracks her down to talk to her. She uses her powers on him. At first he seems to resist but she eventually gets into his head by using his lonliness against him.
They start making out.
So it's at this point that I'm like, "No, show. No. Do not go where I think you're going. Please, for the love of everything, don't go there."
The show goes there. Toby and the woman sleep together. I mentally face-palm.
This woman:
1. As the ability to manipulate peoples minds and emotions. To the point that she can get people to kills themselves and kill others.
2. She will do whatever it takes to get her revenge, and uses whoever she has to.
3. The people she manipulates don't realize anything is wrong until someone points it out. And even then it takes the person a moment to realize that, hey, that decision I made doesn't make any sense, did I really decide that? In other words, they have no idea they were manipulated.
4. She's not a mind reader herself. This is revealed when Toby reveals his own gift to her by repeating everything she's thinking. My guess is that she was empathic rather than telepathic. She knew Toby was lonely but not how or why he was lonely. Nor did she care. She saw an opportunity to get him off her back and used it, but not in the same way she was using it on others.
This woman went inside Toby's head, twisted his emotions, and then slept with him. With no indication whatsoever that at this point she'd stopped manipulating him and it was all consensual. Then comes her sob story about her family being killed and her almost being killed and so on and so forth. But I didn't care. I had no sympathy for her, because this woman creeped me out. We can't that anything Toby is doing and feeling is his own decision. We have no idea if his sympathy for her isn't the result of her messing in his head. We have no idea if their sex was consensual. And whether it would have been consensual had she not tampered with his head doesn't matter. What matters is that she tampered with his head and it resulted in them sleeping together.
This is something that drives me crazy with shows like the Listener or any show that deals with some kind of strange ability or power. Power is used to do something morally questionable but the ramifications are never explored or the person called to task. And the thing about the Listener is that it usually brings up issues with having a unique ability, such as privacy and right to privacy. For example, Toby usually never reads anyone's mind without their permission, but that's only people who know about his powers. If they don't know about his powers, he does read their mind, but not always on purpose. This, in turn, tends to cause him a lot of relationship problems especially when he tries to tell someone about his abilities.
This is also a pretty mellow show, in that any sex involved is either tame or off-screen. The scene between Toby and the girl actually had them in bed together, sans clothes (but covered) and writhing, and that was a bit of a shocker considering how the show has been up to this point.
Which brings up another point. During this episode, Toby's been having physical issues with his powers. He's recently come to discover that using his telepathy may kill him. But rather than explore that or have the woman exploit it in some way, they instead focus on Toby's lonliness as a person with a unique gift. And it's just such a red herring what with everything else going on. I swear it's like this whole episode was written just for the sake of a sex scene and to heck with everything else. It's one of those episodes that you have no issue with saying, "Yeah, that never happened." Because otherwise it's that episode in which Toby may or may not have been raped. And it makes me wonder what the writers were thinking when writing this, if they found a way to justify it or what. Because... yeah, if you want to create a sympathetic character for the hero to fall for, giving that person the ability to manipulate minds and then have them manipulate said hero is not the way to go. At all.
Then the woman gets herself killed in order to get the final guy who killed her family arrested since she couldn't get him to kill himself (since he hadn't felt guilty about what he did, she couldn't use that against him). Toby, of course, is all angsty about it. I'm contemplating writing fanfic in which Toby begins to question his feelings for this girl, whether they were his own, and going a little mad wondering what was real and what wasn't.
The Listener is a good show, I promise. Just not this episode.
But despite the show doing what a lot of shows have done already, I like the show, I do. But sometimes...
Spoilers ahead for those who haven't seen this show and want to, or who have just started watching.
So there was this one episode in which people are killing themselves for no apparent reason, and the cuplrit turns out to be this young woman who has the ability to manipulate people's minds by using their own emotions against them. She's doing this to get revenge for the death of her family, and she's not going to stop until the people responsible are dead. At one point one of her victims survives shooting himself in the head. He's at the hospital, a nurse is checking him over, then that nurse goes into a sort of daze and pulls out the man's breathing tube.
Because the authorities that Toby works with are used to weird stuff like telepathy, they believe the nurse when she says that she wasn't sure what came over her, she just felt that the man would be better off dead. They check security footage, see the woman, bring her in to question her only for the woman to use her powers to walk out.
So then Toby tracks her down to talk to her. She uses her powers on him. At first he seems to resist but she eventually gets into his head by using his lonliness against him.
They start making out.
So it's at this point that I'm like, "No, show. No. Do not go where I think you're going. Please, for the love of everything, don't go there."
The show goes there. Toby and the woman sleep together. I mentally face-palm.
This woman:
1. As the ability to manipulate peoples minds and emotions. To the point that she can get people to kills themselves and kill others.
2. She will do whatever it takes to get her revenge, and uses whoever she has to.
3. The people she manipulates don't realize anything is wrong until someone points it out. And even then it takes the person a moment to realize that, hey, that decision I made doesn't make any sense, did I really decide that? In other words, they have no idea they were manipulated.
4. She's not a mind reader herself. This is revealed when Toby reveals his own gift to her by repeating everything she's thinking. My guess is that she was empathic rather than telepathic. She knew Toby was lonely but not how or why he was lonely. Nor did she care. She saw an opportunity to get him off her back and used it, but not in the same way she was using it on others.
This woman went inside Toby's head, twisted his emotions, and then slept with him. With no indication whatsoever that at this point she'd stopped manipulating him and it was all consensual. Then comes her sob story about her family being killed and her almost being killed and so on and so forth. But I didn't care. I had no sympathy for her, because this woman creeped me out. We can't that anything Toby is doing and feeling is his own decision. We have no idea if his sympathy for her isn't the result of her messing in his head. We have no idea if their sex was consensual. And whether it would have been consensual had she not tampered with his head doesn't matter. What matters is that she tampered with his head and it resulted in them sleeping together.
This is something that drives me crazy with shows like the Listener or any show that deals with some kind of strange ability or power. Power is used to do something morally questionable but the ramifications are never explored or the person called to task. And the thing about the Listener is that it usually brings up issues with having a unique ability, such as privacy and right to privacy. For example, Toby usually never reads anyone's mind without their permission, but that's only people who know about his powers. If they don't know about his powers, he does read their mind, but not always on purpose. This, in turn, tends to cause him a lot of relationship problems especially when he tries to tell someone about his abilities.
This is also a pretty mellow show, in that any sex involved is either tame or off-screen. The scene between Toby and the girl actually had them in bed together, sans clothes (but covered) and writhing, and that was a bit of a shocker considering how the show has been up to this point.
Which brings up another point. During this episode, Toby's been having physical issues with his powers. He's recently come to discover that using his telepathy may kill him. But rather than explore that or have the woman exploit it in some way, they instead focus on Toby's lonliness as a person with a unique gift. And it's just such a red herring what with everything else going on. I swear it's like this whole episode was written just for the sake of a sex scene and to heck with everything else. It's one of those episodes that you have no issue with saying, "Yeah, that never happened." Because otherwise it's that episode in which Toby may or may not have been raped. And it makes me wonder what the writers were thinking when writing this, if they found a way to justify it or what. Because... yeah, if you want to create a sympathetic character for the hero to fall for, giving that person the ability to manipulate minds and then have them manipulate said hero is not the way to go. At all.
Then the woman gets herself killed in order to get the final guy who killed her family arrested since she couldn't get him to kill himself (since he hadn't felt guilty about what he did, she couldn't use that against him). Toby, of course, is all angsty about it. I'm contemplating writing fanfic in which Toby begins to question his feelings for this girl, whether they were his own, and going a little mad wondering what was real and what wasn't.
The Listener is a good show, I promise. Just not this episode.
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no subject
Date: 2015-03-24 07:26 pm (UTC)From:Have you seen Alphas? It deals a bit with being able to trust one's choices with a manipulator around.
I tried Listener a few years ago, but it mostly just made me wish it was Thoughtcrimes.
no subject
Date: 2015-03-24 09:35 pm (UTC)From:The first time I tried the Listener I'd thought it was boring. It really isn't an edge-of-your-seat show and I do wish they'd explore Toby's abilities more, but it is a good show to watch if you just want something to watch that you don't end up getting invested in. A popcorn show.
(But, yes, Thoughtcrimes would have made a better series, I think).
no subject
Date: 2015-03-24 07:30 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2015-03-24 10:31 pm (UTC)From:I enjoy the show but it often frustrates me how Toby's ability is mostly just a plot device. I mean, we do occasionally get some good stories around his ability, but they tend to be few, far between and either quickly resolved or barely explore anything. I don't expect every episode to revolve around his ability, of course. But if they are going to explore it then I wish they would really explore it, instead of give us episodes like the one I talked about.