Late, late
Catching up!! (But hey, how 'bout that World Cup, huh?)
Day 19 - Best TV show cast
I could say a lot of things here about some of my favorite shows, because I discovered long ago that what often cements my feelings about a series is the cast, and how they interact. So you got your Buffys, your Fireflys (which is probably the first time I have ever loved every single character in a show with an ensemble with equal devotion), your Deadwoods (which was so expertly cast that I sometimes felt like I was in a time machine -- I mean, I have one word for the incredible verisimilitude of that cast: Richardson), your Treks... but I'm not sure I've ever seen such a sprawling cast handled as well as The Wire did.
The cast was also constantly changing, and made up frequently of nonactors, and yet it was one of the most well-oiled machines ever, and all of them, newbies and old pros alike, brought such life and depth to the scripts that you felt like you were in the middle of their lives each episode. Like most people, I expected to hate S4, with its focus on kids in an inner city, crumbling school, and yet that is still one of the most powerful and affecting stretch of episodes on TV ever. Maybe THE most powerful.
Even though this video is about the 100 greatest quotes on the show, I think it's a great example of the incredible range of the cast, and how brilliant this show is. And the fact that it starts with Omar, maybe the greatest character ever created for TV, whistling Farmer in the Dell, is bonus points.
Day 20 - Favorite kiss
Oh wow. I have a lot of these. But it's pretty hard to decide if the Buffy -Spike kiss in Tabula Rasa wins, or the kiss Omar gave Brandon in the "dirty language" scene in S1. Don't ask me to choose! The former left me pretty much breathless when it happened, and the latter just surprised me so much, because it came in the middle of a scene when two drug thieves are preparing for a raid, in a culture that is hugely homophobic... just so surprising, and I thought showed what kind of guy Omar really was.
I can't find a Buffy clip with the original music by Michelle Branch, and a lot of the power of that kiss was the way the music was building up, and the camera came sneaking around the stairway to find Buffy and Spike kissing so passionately. It was all so cinematic. I assume that every clip a fan has put up with music has been taken down by the evil powers that be.
I can, at least, show the Wire clip.
And a recent one I might consider adding to the kiss pantheon (I love a good kiss, I really do) is Nate kissing Sophie at the end of the S2 Leverage episode. That was just hot. It's been a long time since I saw a kiss on TV that didn't feel rote or forced or actorly, and that one succeeded on all levels.
Day 19 - Best TV show cast
I could say a lot of things here about some of my favorite shows, because I discovered long ago that what often cements my feelings about a series is the cast, and how they interact. So you got your Buffys, your Fireflys (which is probably the first time I have ever loved every single character in a show with an ensemble with equal devotion), your Deadwoods (which was so expertly cast that I sometimes felt like I was in a time machine -- I mean, I have one word for the incredible verisimilitude of that cast: Richardson), your Treks... but I'm not sure I've ever seen such a sprawling cast handled as well as The Wire did.
The cast was also constantly changing, and made up frequently of nonactors, and yet it was one of the most well-oiled machines ever, and all of them, newbies and old pros alike, brought such life and depth to the scripts that you felt like you were in the middle of their lives each episode. Like most people, I expected to hate S4, with its focus on kids in an inner city, crumbling school, and yet that is still one of the most powerful and affecting stretch of episodes on TV ever. Maybe THE most powerful.
Even though this video is about the 100 greatest quotes on the show, I think it's a great example of the incredible range of the cast, and how brilliant this show is. And the fact that it starts with Omar, maybe the greatest character ever created for TV, whistling Farmer in the Dell, is bonus points.
Click to viewDay 20 - Favorite kiss
Oh wow. I have a lot of these. But it's pretty hard to decide if the Buffy -Spike kiss in Tabula Rasa wins, or the kiss Omar gave Brandon in the "dirty language" scene in S1. Don't ask me to choose! The former left me pretty much breathless when it happened, and the latter just surprised me so much, because it came in the middle of a scene when two drug thieves are preparing for a raid, in a culture that is hugely homophobic... just so surprising, and I thought showed what kind of guy Omar really was.
I can't find a Buffy clip with the original music by Michelle Branch, and a lot of the power of that kiss was the way the music was building up, and the camera came sneaking around the stairway to find Buffy and Spike kissing so passionately. It was all so cinematic. I assume that every clip a fan has put up with music has been taken down by the evil powers that be.
I can, at least, show the Wire clip.
And a recent one I might consider adding to the kiss pantheon (I love a good kiss, I really do) is Nate kissing Sophie at the end of the S2 Leverage episode. That was just hot. It's been a long time since I saw a kiss on TV that didn't feel rote or forced or actorly, and that one succeeded on all levels.