Bosch — the series
Looking back, the pandemic opened new vistas within the inner realms of the mind, mine anyway, and made me look deeper for new stuff. Thinking deep cuts.
I recall watching the intro and paying little attention to the first few episodes of the series, Bosch on Amazon’s Prime because the material, sort of neo-noir style, just didn’t grab me. For that matter, having read a great number of that author’s canon, the Harry Bosch books weren’t engaging for me. Apparently, though I’ve really enjoyed other works.
Taste, preferences,
phase of the moon?
Never can tell what it is, but sometime in the last months, I binged pretty heavy watching — or watching for a second time — seasons 1-6 of Prime’s Bosch series. What was lacking before came full cycle for me. The laconic pacing, and the narrative threads that are loosely tied into over-arching themes, that worked better the second time around.
Then, too, there’s the main character, and the actor who portrays him, with his intense yet nonchalant air. Supporting characters etched with a novelist’s eye for critical details that make it all that much more enjoyable?
Pandemic Protocols helped my slow down long enough to savor the series. There was pacing that I didn’t get, not at first, but there’s a way the material is threaded together, and it makes for extra layers just not present in conventional hour-long serials, usually court-room drama or the more commonplace police procedurals — which is what Bosch is, I guess.
This also points to how streaming changes everything. There’s no limit on offensive language or graphic violence, and the time constraints of 42 minutes is less of an issue.
I was reflecting back, less on the content itself, and more about the sentiments that came packaged, and the old trope: an outsider in the confines of the system, that outsider is the lone wolf, with a sense of justice, but not quite a vigilante. Almost, though, huh.
Bosch — the series
The other element is the styling, it has a soft focus around the edges, sort of fades to black, but the images and the inner turmoil, the characters themselves drive some of the narrative forward.
The other notion, I like so much, in retrospect, it’s one of the few series that stuck with me. In part, while I have no quarrel with LA, it’s also not high my list of places I would like to visit, so there is that, but I admire the way the city itself plays a role in the series.
The final season is coming soon, but if it’s like the previous only a handful of episodes, not like what TV used to be.
Remember when a regular TV season was 24 or more episodes? At either 23 minutes or 42 minutes? Five-act plot? Problem, quick fix, complication, twist, resolution.
Streaming — combined with a lockdown — gives new meaning to old forms. More than a movie, less than a full season of “regular” TV.
