television (your story's not congruent)
I was worried that with all the new TV last night, I would run out of time to LJ about Grey's (I totally almost used the verb "blog" there, but somehow that feels pretentious, whereas "LJ" feels appropriately self-deprecating), but thank godfully that didn't happen.
Brothers & Sisters is totally my happy show. Man, that show has everything. I am sad that, now that it's up against BSG, I do not have a chance in hell of recruiting people to write me Crazy Republican Love fic. (But Calista Flockhart and Rob Lowe have SO MUCH CHEMISTRY!) Also, I love that in some universe Sloane and Sheriff Brock are in-laws, and I love basically every one of the members of the family, and every single closet and shoe-related joke this week made me BWEEEEEEE.
I mean, seriously.
"Is your boyfriend in there?" "Have you always been a closet drinker?"
And "Grandma, I'm gay." "Oh, you're not gay. Justin, maybe, but not you." Heh.
Oh, and ALSO.
"Justin!"
"Wow. And I'm the one in rehab."
"Where have you been?"
"Not drinking, unlike you drunk bastards. It's like a speakeasy in here."
Just imagine me drawing sparkly hearts and flowers around that whole thing.
I also really like that they're Jewish. I mean, it's in name only and everything, but just... little details. It's nice to feel reflected on TV, even when it's not wholly accurate, even when it's just...
It's nice. And it's something I didn't realize I wanted until I got it. So, yay. I like this show a lot.
HIMYM I thought was kind of lackluster, although I still adore all of my favorite characters. (Hi Robin! Hi Barney! And, speaking of, everyone's seen Swarley.com, right? This is what one finds when trying to decide what one would name a new website if she decided to get one.) This had a bunch of great quotes, but... that's it. I didn't feel the two storylines hung together particularly well, and no one was a teen rock star or Patrick Swayze and nobody got slapped.
...My standards are different for this show than for others.
I watched The Class, because I figured now that I knew the chick from Mean Girls was on this I'd enjoy it more. Still not. It feels like a show of potential, rather than a show of actual. But, well, I felt that way about HIMYM last season, so. Here's hoping!
Heroes is my show of nothing but squee. It's also a show where I feel very, very aware that as much as it causes blind squee and joy watching it as I do weekly, it will be a DVD show for me, when (as I watch all the episodes in order) I will be the person yelling "Oh! I GET IT NOW!" and whoever's with me (possibly including stuffed animals or, like, my couch) will remind me that I've seen the episodes before, many of them multiple times, and I will be like "Yes, but I DIDN'T GET IT, OKAY?"
That said, my favorite moment (which I haven't seen discussed much on my flist) is when DL reached through the glass dividing panel thing and held Niki's hand. Oh my god, guys, seriously, that was SO AWESOME and I know I am one of like five DL/Niki shippers but I love them individually and I love Micah and I love the three of them interacting. That family drama is one of my two favorite parts of the show. (The other is Claire's storyline, which continues to be SO AWESOME. ilu show!)
I feel like Heroes is a show about the little moments, rather than the bigger arcs, so the fact that I realize I'm not entirely following the minute details of the larger arc doesn't matter to me and doesn't take away from my joy of watching the show. Micah and DL discussed peanut butter and Hiro and Ando are totally sweet and I have not heard a single bad thing about the cast and that's what I love.
Also, shallowly? Damn, Ali Larter is hot.
Studio 60... okay, generally I like the show, in that I like the cast and the rhythms and the highly-stylized Sorkin way about the show. But I don't know how much longer I can watch the show while feeling like Sorkin doesn't want someone like me watching. I mean, plenty of shows make me feel like I am not their ideal audience, but. I don't need to be insulted not just once or twice, but CONSTANTLY, for the entire hour.
And for everything I loved- Dolphin Laugh!- there were just all these little things that made me feel like Sorkin dislikes me.
I mean, any time he approaches the internet, I step away. I get that. I set up the mental barriers because otherwise I will feel hurt, and I know that this is largely his thing against TWoP and his belief in his own magical powers and etc. But there are other things, too. Things where I didn't even know I needed to be doing my Willful Blind Eye thing, that becomes harder in context.
I feel like, as someone female and as someone who, you know, IS VIOLENTLY OPPOSED TO STALKING, I am not "getting" Sorkin's vision of Danny/Jordan. Like, seriously, right now it's making me actively uncomfortable, and I can't help but come away with the feeling that I wish I hadn't watched, because at the end of the day she said no three times and he ignored that no all three times. Sexual harrassment isn't hot, people. Like, this is making me miss the Dating Plan. The dating plan, people!
And, dude. Where Jordan had once been my favorite character? I... okay, I will quote from a conversation I had last night while watching!
pirateygoodness: Wow.
pirateygoodness: Sorkin is filled with hate.
fox1013: srsly
fox1013: *curled up around my poor, wounded, beloved reality tv*
pirateygoodness: I think "illiterate" is a bit much.
pirateygoodness: You read a ton.
Look. Sorkin. I get that you think your show is art. I would agree that your show has the potential to be art, as does everything, including these things you are so disdainful of. I think your shows are art a lot more than most media is. And I think that every time you try to raise your show by putting down my shows, your show becomes a lot less like art, and a lot more like a soap box. And you become less and less like an artist, and more and more like a crazy person raving on a street corner.
Also, I have more of an emotional attachment to characters from reality TV (be them Will and Janelle, or Adrianne and Elyse, or the Beauty Queens whose names I can't even remember, or Team Yul on Survivor) than I do to any character on your show right now. Maybe because the editors of those shows focused on making them appealing characters, as opposed to you, because you think you're above that, because you seem to be forgetting that the reason everyone loved Sports Night (and, I'd assume, TWW) is not that they loved sports(/politics) and more that they loved your characters and the love of what they did (no, this one stays the same in both), and the fact is, when everyone's so angry I don't see the joy of this show, even though this should be a show about joy and about loving media and wanting media to be good. Instead, it seems to me that it's become a show about hating media, and hating what media is.
And, you know, there are tons of other issues raised! I could complain about the way the show handles race, or the way the show handles Christianity, or the myrid other ways which this show, more than anything else, makes me think that the audience that it wants is really an audience that agrees with the show's manifesto, rather than an audience that could be persuaded to listen to the show's manifesto.
I'm not un-season-passing it, but I may have to start waiting to make sure someone else has approved it for my viewing.
My blood pressure is high enough without having to watch an episode which seems to be telling me, explicitly, that if I love things I love, I'm not good enough to be watching this too.
Brothers & Sisters is totally my happy show. Man, that show has everything. I am sad that, now that it's up against BSG, I do not have a chance in hell of recruiting people to write me Crazy Republican Love fic. (But Calista Flockhart and Rob Lowe have SO MUCH CHEMISTRY!) Also, I love that in some universe Sloane and Sheriff Brock are in-laws, and I love basically every one of the members of the family, and every single closet and shoe-related joke this week made me BWEEEEEEE.
I mean, seriously.
"Is your boyfriend in there?" "Have you always been a closet drinker?"
And "Grandma, I'm gay." "Oh, you're not gay. Justin, maybe, but not you." Heh.
Oh, and ALSO.
"Justin!"
"Wow. And I'm the one in rehab."
"Where have you been?"
"Not drinking, unlike you drunk bastards. It's like a speakeasy in here."
Just imagine me drawing sparkly hearts and flowers around that whole thing.
I also really like that they're Jewish. I mean, it's in name only and everything, but just... little details. It's nice to feel reflected on TV, even when it's not wholly accurate, even when it's just...
It's nice. And it's something I didn't realize I wanted until I got it. So, yay. I like this show a lot.
HIMYM I thought was kind of lackluster, although I still adore all of my favorite characters. (Hi Robin! Hi Barney! And, speaking of, everyone's seen Swarley.com, right? This is what one finds when trying to decide what one would name a new website if she decided to get one.) This had a bunch of great quotes, but... that's it. I didn't feel the two storylines hung together particularly well, and no one was a teen rock star or Patrick Swayze and nobody got slapped.
...My standards are different for this show than for others.
I watched The Class, because I figured now that I knew the chick from Mean Girls was on this I'd enjoy it more. Still not. It feels like a show of potential, rather than a show of actual. But, well, I felt that way about HIMYM last season, so. Here's hoping!
Heroes is my show of nothing but squee. It's also a show where I feel very, very aware that as much as it causes blind squee and joy watching it as I do weekly, it will be a DVD show for me, when (as I watch all the episodes in order) I will be the person yelling "Oh! I GET IT NOW!" and whoever's with me (possibly including stuffed animals or, like, my couch) will remind me that I've seen the episodes before, many of them multiple times, and I will be like "Yes, but I DIDN'T GET IT, OKAY?"
That said, my favorite moment (which I haven't seen discussed much on my flist) is when DL reached through the glass dividing panel thing and held Niki's hand. Oh my god, guys, seriously, that was SO AWESOME and I know I am one of like five DL/Niki shippers but I love them individually and I love Micah and I love the three of them interacting. That family drama is one of my two favorite parts of the show. (The other is Claire's storyline, which continues to be SO AWESOME. ilu show!)
I feel like Heroes is a show about the little moments, rather than the bigger arcs, so the fact that I realize I'm not entirely following the minute details of the larger arc doesn't matter to me and doesn't take away from my joy of watching the show. Micah and DL discussed peanut butter and Hiro and Ando are totally sweet and I have not heard a single bad thing about the cast and that's what I love.
Also, shallowly? Damn, Ali Larter is hot.
Studio 60... okay, generally I like the show, in that I like the cast and the rhythms and the highly-stylized Sorkin way about the show. But I don't know how much longer I can watch the show while feeling like Sorkin doesn't want someone like me watching. I mean, plenty of shows make me feel like I am not their ideal audience, but. I don't need to be insulted not just once or twice, but CONSTANTLY, for the entire hour.
And for everything I loved- Dolphin Laugh!- there were just all these little things that made me feel like Sorkin dislikes me.
I mean, any time he approaches the internet, I step away. I get that. I set up the mental barriers because otherwise I will feel hurt, and I know that this is largely his thing against TWoP and his belief in his own magical powers and etc. But there are other things, too. Things where I didn't even know I needed to be doing my Willful Blind Eye thing, that becomes harder in context.
I feel like, as someone female and as someone who, you know, IS VIOLENTLY OPPOSED TO STALKING, I am not "getting" Sorkin's vision of Danny/Jordan. Like, seriously, right now it's making me actively uncomfortable, and I can't help but come away with the feeling that I wish I hadn't watched, because at the end of the day she said no three times and he ignored that no all three times. Sexual harrassment isn't hot, people. Like, this is making me miss the Dating Plan. The dating plan, people!
And, dude. Where Jordan had once been my favorite character? I... okay, I will quote from a conversation I had last night while watching!
pirateygoodness: Wow.
pirateygoodness: Sorkin is filled with hate.
fox1013: srsly
fox1013: *curled up around my poor, wounded, beloved reality tv*
pirateygoodness: I think "illiterate" is a bit much.
pirateygoodness: You read a ton.
Look. Sorkin. I get that you think your show is art. I would agree that your show has the potential to be art, as does everything, including these things you are so disdainful of. I think your shows are art a lot more than most media is. And I think that every time you try to raise your show by putting down my shows, your show becomes a lot less like art, and a lot more like a soap box. And you become less and less like an artist, and more and more like a crazy person raving on a street corner.
Also, I have more of an emotional attachment to characters from reality TV (be them Will and Janelle, or Adrianne and Elyse, or the Beauty Queens whose names I can't even remember, or Team Yul on Survivor) than I do to any character on your show right now. Maybe because the editors of those shows focused on making them appealing characters, as opposed to you, because you think you're above that, because you seem to be forgetting that the reason everyone loved Sports Night (and, I'd assume, TWW) is not that they loved sports(/politics) and more that they loved your characters and the love of what they did (no, this one stays the same in both), and the fact is, when everyone's so angry I don't see the joy of this show, even though this should be a show about joy and about loving media and wanting media to be good. Instead, it seems to me that it's become a show about hating media, and hating what media is.
And, you know, there are tons of other issues raised! I could complain about the way the show handles race, or the way the show handles Christianity, or the myrid other ways which this show, more than anything else, makes me think that the audience that it wants is really an audience that agrees with the show's manifesto, rather than an audience that could be persuaded to listen to the show's manifesto.
I'm not un-season-passing it, but I may have to start waiting to make sure someone else has approved it for my viewing.
My blood pressure is high enough without having to watch an episode which seems to be telling me, explicitly, that if I love things I love, I'm not good enough to be watching this too.