In retrospect, if we'd actually been given an emotional scene, it would have been a huge disappointment. It simply wouldn't have felt believable. But that doesn't mean in the abstract that its lack left us feelin like something was missing.
I wonder if this is the great difference between American and British TV. I can imagine American programs trying to offer just something like that because it was expected. I've sat through those teary scenes, and they are almost always awful - but almost mandatory, like the scraping sound of pulling a sword out from a scabbard. British shows on the other hand seem to mercifully skip the trope. Mercifully. But I still miss it, just like if a sword-and-sorcery movie gave me nothing but the usual squelch of a sword being pulled out of leather, something simply wouldn't seem right.
But, good God. That handshake. Now that I see what's going on there and have moved past my expectations to how things really ought to be, that handshake is brutal. And I mean that in the best of possible ways.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2014-01-16 03:22 am (UTC)I wonder if this is the great difference between American and British TV. I can imagine American programs trying to offer just something like that because it was expected. I've sat through those teary scenes, and they are almost always awful - but almost mandatory, like the scraping sound of pulling a sword out from a scabbard. British shows on the other hand seem to mercifully skip the trope. Mercifully. But I still miss it, just like if a sword-and-sorcery movie gave me nothing but the usual squelch of a sword being pulled out of leather, something simply wouldn't seem right.
But, good God. That handshake. Now that I see what's going on there and have moved past my expectations to how things really ought to be, that handshake is brutal. And I mean that in the best of possible ways.