Bill Hagen (billha@ionet.net)
Mon, 19 Jul 1999 12:07:11 -0500 (CDT)
I'll join the chorus on the quality of the acting, including
Parker's cameo. But as someone who has not read much of the
Spenser series, I too found the sequencing of scenes a bit
predictable. Spenser and Susan are just not interesting
enough as a couple to deserve so much screen time. The rush
of confessions in the climactic scene was almost as formulaic
(and unrealistic) as any court trial confession used to bring
a tv whodunit to its conclusion within the slotted
time.
The basic investigation and the pace of the scenes struck me
as very like the Spensers I've read. So too, the dialogue.
But didn't the terse dialogue that goes down so well in the
novels seem a bit artificial when compressed and dramatized
in scenes? (In the novels, dialogue alternates with
description, to give one more "breathing space.") Part of the
problem with the Spenser-Susan scenes, it seemed to me.
Will check some of the tv critics on what they
thought about the dramatic aspects of "Small Vices."
Bill Hagen
<billha@ionet.net>
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