My name is Victoria Winters...Oh wait wrong soap. This time we are looking at Vicki Burke, and her trip to Ragged Isle on a new SFN TV series that feels like a mix between Dark Shadows and Harpers Island, so without any further delay let's get started!
In an homage to Dark Shadows - Ragged Isle opens up with lead Vicki Burke getting onto a boat, headed to a strange land, full of mystery.
Vicki soon bumps into Rachel Moody (A nosy woman if i do say so myself)- Rachel asks if it's her first time on the Isle, to which Vicki replies yes, and then introduces herself, Rachel then ask if she's related to Eric Burke? Vicki replies yea that's her brother. Vicki then explains how she got a job working for the isle newspaper, and Rachel wishes her the best of luck.
After arriving Vicki looks around and is disappointing that Eric isnt there, as she goes to call he arrives with a friend (Paul) that offers to take his luggage. Eric than breaks the 4th wall and says to camera "This oughta be an interesting summer."
Eric drops Vicki off and says he and Paul have to run an errand and will be back late.
The next scene we see Eric on a boat with some friends, they are poking at something in the water, and one of them get's pulled over. They panic because they can't see him, finally he is let go and floats to the top, they pull him aboard. He is acting weird, and dripping wet.
Another boat see's them, and they discuss what happened and how they were not supposed to be there (and neither was the other boat). The camera then cuts back to the guy that was tossed overboard and he has a weird look to him like something has changed his life forever, and not for the best.
ROLL CREDITS!
So there we go from a recap perspective the first episode of Ragged Isle. Now review.
I really do appreciate what Ragged Isle was trying to do, I think it was amazingly well shot and provided a great eery setting for a series to be expanded upon and develop. With that said, I really believe that is where the positives for this series end and the negatives begin. The acting, came off to me as very wooden and one note. The entire cast reminded me of Andrew Trichette of One Life to Live because you could see them 'running lines' and acting as if this is a school play, when I am not supposed to notice the acting at all just feel the emotions. The dialog for the series was equally as bad. I can get over the whole nod to Dark Shadows because it is a nod to Dark Shadows, but I cannot get past the awful discussion that was had between Vicki and Rachel on the boat. It was just a lot of information and exposition that was trying to be crammed into a tiny scene with dialog that no one would ever say to complete strangers with poor delivery.
Lastly we have the story and the length of the pilot rolled into one- The pilot tried to do way to much for being an 11 minute long adventure with 3 minutes taken up by music and credits. Within the span of those 11 minutes we had an introduction to 6-8 characters, a new location, a big splash and a cliffhanger, and all without allowing me to give a crap about ANY of these people. Woohoo Vicki has a twin brother, and I am supposed to care at all why???? If the pilot would have had the same beginning and same end but had expanded the middle portion by about 30 minutes so much more could have been done.
Ragged Isle didn't allow any connection to be made within the relationships of these characters and thus when the guy was taken overboard it was a big "so what?" factor more than a "Oh my gosh they got him!" moment that they were going for. There wasn't anyone that I could relate to or care about because there was zero character development and, like previously stated, relationship building scenes to make me want to root for Vicki and Eric's relationship to be rebuilt, or why the town of Ragged Isle is full of mystery.
And then we have the breaking the fourth wall foolishness. YOU DO NOT talk to my camera dang it! I didn't like it when Erica Kane did it, and I am certainly not going to like it when your fool behind Eric Burke does it either! So cut that out this instant! LOL! Yea that's minor and honestly didn't bother me that much but hey I had to point it out or I'd get torn a new one!
Overall I am thankful for what Ragged Isle attempted, but I think its a long way from being where it needs to be for mass consumption. I do think that the series has some stunning visuals and I will definitely be tuning in for future episodes if it's just to see the local shoots. Hopefully things will improve in the future, but for now I guess we will just wait and see.
What did you think of the season premiere of Ragged Isle? Was I to harsh on the series? Why or Why not? What was it that you liked or disliked? Let me know it all in the comments below or on twitter @soapwikijohn
Ouchie. That smarted a little. :) But thank you for your honest opinion.
ReplyDeleteI'm truly glad you watched the show and thanks for noticing and appreciating our love of Dark Shadows. I hope that you do continue watching and hopefully our mystery web series might grow on you. We're an acquired taste for sure.
Barry Dodd
Director - Ragged Isle
Pilots are tough. Webseries are usually only 10-15 minutes in length so that makes it tougher in terms of having the time to develop characters and build drama, etc, etc. It's a good start and I'm intrigued to learn more, though you do make some thoughtful points. And LOL, Rachel is pretty nosy. I'll be watching again, for sure.
ReplyDeleteI'll give you that the acting was a bit off in places in that first episode (particularly Rachel, though she became one of my favorites later in the season), but your other complaints are a bit off.
ReplyDeleteFirst, it's going to take more than 10 minutes of anything to get to know the characters. That doesn't mean they can't get introduced in the first 10 minutes.
Second, you seem particularly upset about Eric talking to the camera. I ask you to watch that scene again. He's making a comment to himself, and is not looking at the camera or talking to the viewer. He's looking away from Vicki and Paul and commenting on the reaction they just had to each other.
I'll add that "Anonymous" #2 is correct in saying that Eric is not talking to the audience at home. He's talking to himself and watching them walk away. This is the first time anyone has ever mentioned that it looked that way. Sorry if it didn't come across that way to you.
ReplyDeleteHi Guys!
ReplyDeleteOkay first THANK YOU for reading and commenting!
(Barry I will talk about your in a second)
1st Anonymous 1 - the 10 to 15 minute format I completely understand is normal for web series- but I do really hate that LOL! 10 minutes a week I find really hard to get invest into, and its not Ragged Isle's fault at all! But just the way things currently are. I do completely understand that this is the way things were in early television as well and that it will only expand over time, its just that inital hurdle that is killing me trying to get into the web soap genera because I expect more. I watch ALL of my tv online - and have for years. Thank god for Hulu, and sites putting their content officially out so I can watch TV! But because of that I am used to content on my computer being longer, so it is hard for my mind to distinguish between say the two hour premiere of ABC's "The River" and "Ragged Isle" from a 'where I consume it' point of view and that also distorts how I look at things a lot...
The acting I think I would totally not notice as the series goes on- Main point in view is Andrew Trichetta that I mention in the post - A LOT of people give that poor boy a hard time, yet honestly I didn't really pay attention to his acting anymore because I got involved in the story of Jack Manning and just wanted to see what would happen next - It was a combination of having all the exposition (YES Pilots are for that but just hang with me a second), the short amount of time we had, and the acting that just didn't allow me to connect with the short period I had with these characters.
A prime example for this is Devanity - I Marathoned the first 5-6 episodes after watching Ragged Isle - and the ONLY person I really liked was Jason Devanity, I thought that actor knocked it OUT OF THE PARK, while the rest...... but by episode 5 I wasn't paying attention to that really because I was watching the story and seeing things develop. Do I have issues with Devanity? OH HECK YES, but I am watching the entire first season as a whole, and then writing about it and looking at what changed within the second season.
As for the whole "talking to the camera" thing - LOL! Yea I probably should have cut that part of the review out! It was more or less an inside joke with people that have read the blog for years or anything I have posted over the years because it did seem so jarring - Examples of times I ranted : Passions (I SWEAR they talked more to the camera than anyone!), and AMC are the two that really come to mind, but I know I saw it on a few other things and it just bugged me, and when I saw that I just thought "hey that's odd".
(Continued)
ReplyDelete@Barry -
Thank you for clarifying that he wasn't talking to the audience- I think it was a combination of the way the camera was angled, his placement, and the way the line was delivered that made me think it, and I am glad that it isn't something that was intentional or that will continue on LOL.
I TRULY want the web genera to evolve and flourish, it is one I have been actively watching and wanting to be a part of for years, pre-writers strike, and as I have said a few times I am in total awe of what you guys have done, yes I have my gripes, but at the end of the day you guys created a product and got it out the door! That is something I dream of doing and I hope it could be 1/10000th the quality of your program (THIS IS not me trying to kiss up or care because I am talking to the 'creator' but more an honest opinion), and I tip my hat off to all of you guys.
I will continue to watch and I do look forward to seeing the entire first season, and once I have done that I will probably look back over at the pilot and see if my opinion has changed.
Once again thank you guys for taking the time to come and comment! I am happy that Ragged Isle is the first web soap to be added to our 'official' coverage here on Denial Island (Because we don't have enough to cover and try and keep up with -.-) and we hope you guys stick around and continue to check us out as the season goes on!
John, thanks for taking the time to reply. Ragged Isle has been my life for over a year now and it's hard some times to look at it objectively so I do appreciate your honest assessment even if I don't necessarily agree with all of it. For example, I love the acting in our show and they gave me exactly the quirky melodrama I was looking for and I am so proud of our "Best ensemble cast" nomination from WeLoveSoaps.net in this years Indie Soap Awards. We received 8 separate nominations for our show but that's the one I'm most proud of. Hopefully if and when you finish season one you'll have a different perspective on what we were trying to accomplish with our tiny ragged family.
DeleteSome folks have a hard time waiting an entire week to watch a 10 minute episode. You might be one of those people who would rather watch an entire season instead of week to week. I hope that most of our viewers enjoy the slow burn and appreciate the attempt at developing atmosphere in a short format. At the time that we built season one, Youtube would only allow up to 15 minutes per video so that kind of dictated the way we wrote our episodes. I actually enjoyed the process of trying to break our complex mythology into bite size chunks. It's a fun experiment in story telling. I'll leave it to the fans to decide whether or not we succeeded.
Lastly, I hope that you do follow your dream and create a series. That's one of the core goals I had for Ragged. I wanted someone who had an idea and the passion to bring it to life to be able to look at what we did with practically nothing but faith and lunch money and be inspired to try it too.
Thanks again for taking the time to watch our stuff and for sharing it with your readers.
B