partly

Ah, 80's television -- when main characters still smoked, no one wore seat belts and you could walk through airport security with a gun in your pocket. There's no such thing as airbags and the big bad guys are Soviet Agents. Back when armed raids on suspected criminal hideouts were done in street clothes and without tactical support. When high tech meant DOS 3.1, and information was displayed on a flickering green screen.

Despite all that, Stingray is an 80s show that actually holds up well. I wrote abut the show before, three years ago when I got bootleg copies of the show -- before it was released to DVD. Everything I said then still stands now. It even looks better now that I got the official, pretty version of the show.

Stingray is one of those shows that makes me wax philosophical. It makes me want to analyze the characters, expound on the themes it touches and explore the subtle nuances of character interaction and introspection. A lot of shows make me occasionally want to delve into show-based discussions, but every episode of Stingray provides numerous opportunities to discuss themes or characters or physiological truisms. In current television, only Burn Notice has the same effect on me.

I'm not sure if Myria likes the show. She doesn't dislike it, but the comments she keeps coming back to are that "It's a very quiet show" and "It's rather dark". They are both very accurate comments.

It is a very quiet show. Until she mentioned it, I never really gave it much thought, but the show really doesn't have a sound track. They do have music that plays over some scenes, especially over action sequences and they often use music that is present in the scene (ie from a jukebox). But for the majority of the show, when there is dialogue or even silent character interaction, it is often done without anything other than ambient sound. Interestingly enough, when they do have a montage of action with a musical overture, the music used is specially written for the scene. When there is a soundtrack it is very minimal. Ever since she mentioned it, it's so very obvious. It is very quiet.

It is also rather dark. It's hard to explain -- its not like 24 or other anti-hero shows. But the good guys don't always survive and winning doesn't guarantee that the winner gets what they wanted. Ray loses a good quarter of his clients. The situations he is put into are often dangerous and morally ambigious. Add to that the basic "Fugitive" drawback -- the hero always has to leave those he befriended -- and you get a show that is dark in tone. It's a tone that I really like -- I like the adult tone, where "necessary" and "right" aren't always the same and where doing everything right doesn't guarantee a "good" ending. Myr isn't so fond of it, but I like that she can recognize it.