kingstoken

Heated Rivalry S1: I feel somewhat ambiguous about this. On the one hand, I totally get the hype – it's live action gay romance that's both smutty, mildly kinky and also emotional, which is a combination that mainstream TV rarely offers. And, regardless of whether it's actually fanfic with its serial numbers filed off or not, it feels very fanfic-cy, so naturally it appeals to the fandom audience. And I'm very much part of that, so I did enjoy it. The sex scenes were super hot, and I liked the feels!

Having said that, for something that's supposedly enemies/rivals-to-lovers, the rivals part feels very unsatisfying to me. We don't see them being at each other's throats (even figuratively speaking) for any significant amount of time before they hook up, which is what I need for the trope to actually feel rewarding. And I don't enjoy established relationship stories, so my interest peaked in episode one and two and then dramatically dropped. It was revived briefly at the very end of the season because I like 'people find out' stories, but I don't really see the show holding my attention through further seasons.

On a shallow note, I find the protagonists painfully unattractive, Ilya in particular, and not interesting enough to make up for it. My favorite episode was Scott's episode because François Arnaud has more sex appeal in a single lock of his hair than the other male cast combined (serious, how has he got even hotter since The Borgias?! it's extremely unfair!), and also because Scott just appeals more to me as a character. I could take or leave Kip, but the coffee shop romance was very cute.

Overall, this sounds more negative than I felt watching the show. I had fun, I was entertained, but I wasn't as into it or fannish about it as I would have liked to be.

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Mozart/Mozart S1: This got terrible reviews – a big magazine dubbed it the worst TV show ever, which made me think the reviewer hasn't watched many TV shows. Mozart/Mozart is… fine. It's the typical faux-history drama that prioritizes drama over historical accuracy. It doesn't pretend otherwise – it even says so in the opening credits – and IMO if that's not your thing, you should probably steer clear of it, rather than say "oh no, this show does what it's set out to do, but I don't like that genre, so it's bad" – that's like watching splatter horror and complaining about gore.

It was fun, the acting was good, Maria Anna is a likable protagonist, her brother is a troubled genius who annoyed me at times but ultimately got his shit mostly together, and the show is doing a good job as showing them both as victims of their circumstances. I really liked the ambiguity of both Leopold's portrayal, who loves his kids but in his attempt to do what's best alienates them, as well as Marie Antoinette's – she's wasteful and decadent and scheming, but also vulnerable and trying to escape a terrible situation. And I was very very much into Maria Anna's and Salieri's storyline – now that's an enemies-to-lovers romance for me to sink my teeth in with them genuinely working against each other despite their attraction, and so much betrayal and misunderstandings. Salieri is super hot too, and blorbo material! I really felt for him, because everyone was pulling him in different directions. And he did come through for Maria Anna at the end! I have lots of feelings about him and them as a ship. ♥

The one thing I didn't like was the weird infusion of modern electro-pop during some (but not all? and there was no pattern for when it would happen?) of the performances, which seemed really unnecessary and felt jarring.

Considering its negative reception, I highly doubt that we'll get a second season, which I'm somewhat sad about, but at least it ended in a mostly good place.