No. 6 – Episodes 8 & 9.

Wow, another double episode post? Yeah, I’ve been slacking off, but I do have my reasons. I wish I could have posted last week, but I’ve just been so busy. What with the 40 hour power cut I had, tests every day last week, and the release of Deus Ex: Human Revolution, (which is a masterpiece that everyone should play) I’ve barely had any time to watch these episodes, let alone write about them, but I’m devoted to you guys, so here are my thoughts on what No. 6 has been up to. I’m gonna try something different this time, instead of just summarising the episode with short thoughts at the end, I’ll be primarily communicating my thoughts and see how it goes, besides, if you’re reading this, you probably already know what’s been happening plot-wise. Enjoy.

I don’t know why exactly, but my enthusiasm for No. 6 really has dwindled, even though it’s been doing pretty much the same thing it has since the beginning. Hell, maybe that is the reason; I’m not exactly sure myself. You see, I do still like No. 6 quite a lot, I think the setting and plot are interesting, the production values are strong, the acting is solid all round, and it’s nice to see a sci-fi in the vein of Brave New World. While I haven’t had a lot of problems, the ones I do have are fairly big, and have seriously impacted my enjoyment of the series. It’s not as if I’ve just noticed them either, but nothing has been done about them, and that irritates me. I want No. 6 to do well, I really do, and episode 9 was a step in the right direction, so maybe my fears are unfounded.

The problems I’m talking about? First is the characterisation. No. 6 is a fairly character driven show, so to see that it isn’t doing a hell of a lot to develop its characters is a shame. Nezumi seems to be incredibly pissed off about everything all the time, and as I’ve said many times before, is generally just a dick to everyone for very little reason beyond his hatred of No. 6, which he seems to blame on absolutely everything. Dogkeeper also seems angry with everything, and she’s given even less reason than Nezumi, giving death threats over so much as having her “mother” insulted.(a similar thing happened to me last week actually, a guy I know was saying incredibly racist things on Facebook, I retaliated, not by insulting his mother or anyone else for that matter, he sent me a dozen messages describing how he would kill me. Nothing’s happened yet, I don’t think anything will. Anyway…) Shion’s incredibly nice about everything unless he’s arguing with someone, and makes occasionally ridiculous logical connections (“Oh my god! Is that a coat that looks like the one Safu wore months ago, which obviously no one else in the world owns? Something must have happened to her!).

The other problem it has is its pacing. Oh god, the pacing! If this were a 24 episode series, I’d understand the slow pace, but it’s not. It’s an 11-episode series which has two episodes left to go, and hardly anything is happening. Events move at a glacial pace, and traditionally all that’s been happening is Shion and Nezumi learning slightly more about No. 6 and its government, followed by the building of their relationship. Great, the relationship is important to the plot, I get it, but it doesn’t have to take up so much screen time. I find that it’s best to let the relationship develop naturally along with other events, rather than bringing everything to a grinding halt to let them talk about nothing in particular. We have two episodes left, and there are still many unanswered questions, which could lead to a massive info-dump if not dealt with relatively soon. As I said episode 9 did finally get things moving again (but that singing in the van to uplift the others, that was ridiculously pretentious), and 10 looks to continue this trend. I’m praying that this turns out to be the case.