Hodge-podge
1. DRAMA/TV SHOW MEME
Day 01 - A drama that should have never been made.
This one is really hard - even the most abysmal drama usually has a few moments of fun and keeps hard-working actors employed. But I am going to go with Vampire Gigolo - a low-budget jdrama about a vampire who solves crimes and his schoolgirl assistant that doesn't even manage to be deliciously campy but is just dull. Alternatively (and I am going to get flack for this) but Liar Game - the characters are paper-thin, the plots idiotic, and the whole thing is useless. And it's two whole seasons of this - two seasons in which Matsuda Shota and Toda Erika, both of whom I adore and who could do much better, wasted their time instead of being in something awesome.
Day 01 - A show that should have never been canceled
Oh, this one is easy. Farscape. It's the best show I've ever seen and they had a promise from scifi through season 5 - so they set up basically a 2 season arc only for scifi to cancel it at the end of s4 for masterpieces like Tremors the Series. Luckily later they got a chance to wrap their story in a miniseries but when I think of how amazing that arc would have been over 22 eps I get a bit crazy. My husband still teases me about the screaming and rampage around our apartment I went on when s4 ended on that insane cliffhanger.
2. I have been slowly continuing with my watch of Easy Fortune Happy Life - am on ep 6. This drama makes me laugh like a maniac and I do believe this is the one should have been titled "Devil Beside You" instead of the Mike He vehicle. Da Feng (played by Lan Chen Long who does funny things to my insides) is a lot more of a devil than the poorly-socilized sweetie of DBY. Da Feng is a few steps away from a sociopath, unsurprisingly with his upbringing. But he is so entertaining and I love how the heroine basically awakens his conscience without trying, just by being her smart/naive, kind/practical combo. Heeeee.
First there two (separate) scenes for the win:
Anyway, the scene in question, Fu An, our heroine, gets trashed on liquor chocolates in Da Feng's room (she has never even had alcohol before) and sort of passes out on his bed. Da Feng's bona-fide-sociopath Grandpa has promised all his ginormous fortune to the man who married Fu An (long story). So we get this (after we *shock* see Da Feng actually struggle with his conscience and apologize to her).
Next morning this ensues. I laughed myself sick (because I am betting no sex happened though, he is totally leading her on for nefarious purposes - I know this is a cracky drama but seeing she was so drunk as to be not capable of any meaningful consent, this would totally be rape and I can't imagine a drama making its hero a rapist, no matter how dark he is supposed to be).
My fave thing? Fu An's ultimate attitude to this whole thing is "hey, the chocolates weren't good enough for THAT. Oh well, whatever, gotta make a presentation." She is awesome.
Btw, I simply CANNOT WAIT for the scene where she finds out he is only wooing her for her money (with the encouragement of his real gf, no less). Please please let this happen AFTER he's really fallen for her (by now, he does like her a lot, unconsciously, but I mean the whole starry-eyed-cannot-live-without-you in love).
3. I made a crack about Summer Desire being my Twilight but I got to thinking - while both drove the girls in their respective countries into a hormonal frenzy, there is a reason why, while I find SD a cheesy/trashy/delightful combo and not great art, it does not bother me the way Twilight does:
a. Neither Luo Xi nor Ou Chen have any desire to make a meal out of Xiamo. Whatever they may or may not do, they don't have any murderous urges around her, unlike Bella's supposed soulmate.
b. Bella is someone who needs to be saved from everything including walking, she spends all her time describing Edward's amazing beauty and lurve is everything to her - when Edward leaves her, she becomes suicidal. She has no purpose or personality outside of worshipping the guy of her dreams. Now take Xiamo - tough as nails survivor - love is second to family and independence, to her. As to suicide over a dude - hah! It's the guys who get suicidal when she leaves them, Xiamo just moves on.
c. Edward being possessive = awesomeness of supreme degree. Everyone should want a guy like that. But in SD, Ou Chen's possessiveness is viewed as a bad and unreasonable thing - and that is what leads to Xiamo dumping him in high school and to her family tragedy. When they hook up again as adults, the author goes out of her way to portray that his possessiveness is way tamped down and under control - that he has changed.
Anyway, SD is no modern masterpiece, but it does not give me heebie-jeebies, hooray.
Day 01 - A drama that should have never been made.
This one is really hard - even the most abysmal drama usually has a few moments of fun and keeps hard-working actors employed. But I am going to go with Vampire Gigolo - a low-budget jdrama about a vampire who solves crimes and his schoolgirl assistant that doesn't even manage to be deliciously campy but is just dull. Alternatively (and I am going to get flack for this) but Liar Game - the characters are paper-thin, the plots idiotic, and the whole thing is useless. And it's two whole seasons of this - two seasons in which Matsuda Shota and Toda Erika, both of whom I adore and who could do much better, wasted their time instead of being in something awesome.
Day 01 - A show that should have never been canceled
Oh, this one is easy. Farscape. It's the best show I've ever seen and they had a promise from scifi through season 5 - so they set up basically a 2 season arc only for scifi to cancel it at the end of s4 for masterpieces like Tremors the Series. Luckily later they got a chance to wrap their story in a miniseries but when I think of how amazing that arc would have been over 22 eps I get a bit crazy. My husband still teases me about the screaming and rampage around our apartment I went on when s4 ended on that insane cliffhanger.
2. I have been slowly continuing with my watch of Easy Fortune Happy Life - am on ep 6. This drama makes me laugh like a maniac and I do believe this is the one should have been titled "Devil Beside You" instead of the Mike He vehicle. Da Feng (played by Lan Chen Long who does funny things to my insides) is a lot more of a devil than the poorly-socilized sweetie of DBY. Da Feng is a few steps away from a sociopath, unsurprisingly with his upbringing. But he is so entertaining and I love how the heroine basically awakens his conscience without trying, just by being her smart/naive, kind/practical combo. Heeeee.
First there two (separate) scenes for the win:
Anyway, the scene in question, Fu An, our heroine, gets trashed on liquor chocolates in Da Feng's room (she has never even had alcohol before) and sort of passes out on his bed. Da Feng's bona-fide-sociopath Grandpa has promised all his ginormous fortune to the man who married Fu An (long story). So we get this (after we *shock* see Da Feng actually struggle with his conscience and apologize to her).
Next morning this ensues. I laughed myself sick (because I am betting no sex happened though, he is totally leading her on for nefarious purposes - I know this is a cracky drama but seeing she was so drunk as to be not capable of any meaningful consent, this would totally be rape and I can't imagine a drama making its hero a rapist, no matter how dark he is supposed to be).
My fave thing? Fu An's ultimate attitude to this whole thing is "hey, the chocolates weren't good enough for THAT. Oh well, whatever, gotta make a presentation." She is awesome.
Btw, I simply CANNOT WAIT for the scene where she finds out he is only wooing her for her money (with the encouragement of his real gf, no less). Please please let this happen AFTER he's really fallen for her (by now, he does like her a lot, unconsciously, but I mean the whole starry-eyed-cannot-live-without-you in love).
3. I made a crack about Summer Desire being my Twilight but I got to thinking - while both drove the girls in their respective countries into a hormonal frenzy, there is a reason why, while I find SD a cheesy/trashy/delightful combo and not great art, it does not bother me the way Twilight does:
a. Neither Luo Xi nor Ou Chen have any desire to make a meal out of Xiamo. Whatever they may or may not do, they don't have any murderous urges around her, unlike Bella's supposed soulmate.
b. Bella is someone who needs to be saved from everything including walking, she spends all her time describing Edward's amazing beauty and lurve is everything to her - when Edward leaves her, she becomes suicidal. She has no purpose or personality outside of worshipping the guy of her dreams. Now take Xiamo - tough as nails survivor - love is second to family and independence, to her. As to suicide over a dude - hah! It's the guys who get suicidal when she leaves them, Xiamo just moves on.
c. Edward being possessive = awesomeness of supreme degree. Everyone should want a guy like that. But in SD, Ou Chen's possessiveness is viewed as a bad and unreasonable thing - and that is what leads to Xiamo dumping him in high school and to her family tragedy. When they hook up again as adults, the author goes out of her way to portray that his possessiveness is way tamped down and under control - that he has changed.
Anyway, SD is no modern masterpiece, but it does not give me heebie-jeebies, hooray.