In which I talk a lot.
So that poll from yesterday wasn't exactly random.
The Bones question was partly trying to see how popular the show was on my flist (or how much recruiting I needed to do), but also a good segue here for me to talk about why I love Bones, and you should give it a shot... or a second try. When I heard about Bones, a procedural with Angel... I was not really at all interested. The first few times I caught bits of season 1, I had a hard time remembering that Booth was not Angel and was in fact a "normal" human being, and FBI agent. The first time I watched a whole episode, I wasn't that in to the crazy case of the week (cannibalism) but I did enjoy the beginnings of UST between Booth/Bones. More than that though, I enjoyed the scenes back at the lab with the secondary characters. They are all totally smart science nerds, but the show didn't stick to that. They are really interesting, human, adorable, and compelling. They were funny, but not in that self deprecating way that makes me not enjoy most comedy. I'll admit though, that this wasn't enough to get me hooked on the show. I might have not started watching it at all, if it weren't for sophia_helix who showed me the pirate episode, and the more I started catching episodes at her house, the more I wanted to see the next one. I think it helped that the show was having more interpersonal plotline on the surface, including nerd love that didn't follow any of the customs for sidekick romance plotlines. But whatever it was, I became totally hooked. I was going to try and quantify things like interesting and intelligent characters and the balance between humor and drama and the mystery of the week and the character arcs (which exist and work!), but then I realized that the sense of balance and cohesion that makes good tv, can't be explained. So I'm just saying, it grew on me and maybe if you let it... it will grow on you too. It has become the highlight of my TV week and the one thing I really would be upset if got canceled.
The Song of Ice and Fire question was more about pimping and less about asking. I know who reads the series, have for a long time. But I think that all of you should be. I was shocked to find in my poll that someone I generally find to have much the same taste as myself, apparently is the one person not to like these books, who has been exposed. They have everything, from the elements of high fantasy (dragons, prophesies, magic), to the grittiness and psychology of high literature. Martin makes you root for both sides of opposing forces at the same time. He makes you hate a character for his monstrous behavior and then explains the other side and you find yourself respecting and emphasizing with that same character. He gives you strong willed women, some in body and some not, some valiant and some villainous. He gives you a spectrum of religions, some with frightening power and some seemingly inept. He gives you romance and anti-romance and friendship and backstabbing and kin and twisted secrets and a whole world that feels as if it really is three dimensional and has a history longer than our own and not just invented backwards in the shallow space between the book's bindings. It is a world as real as our own, and just as complex and subtle and brazen and crude and sophisticated. This is the series of our time, possibly all time. It is epic like Tolkien but insightful like Dostoyevsky and puzzling like Garcia Marquez and bleeding like Morrison and probably I am overselling it, but I know books are harder to persuade than TV shows. So I will end by telling you how I spent the YEARS between the release of the second and the third book actively thinking about the characters and world the entire time... without fandom or anyone else to feed me back enthusiasm or motivation... I just couldn't get it out of my head.
The Supernatural question was a trick question. Supernatural's very existence offends me. I deleted a lot of people off my flist for talking about it too much a while back. Nothing in it appeals to me. I don't like scary things, I don't like female-less shows, I don't like slash terribly much, and people who try and convince me to watch based on Denny being on it... clearly didn't pay attention to my hating Denny and wanting him to die and get off my show. Occasionally they have guest stars I sort of want to see, but that is not enough to change my distaste for the whole thing. Now, my poll (and common knowledge) shows that people I like and respect seem to be really into this show, but I just can't get over how much it represents everything I hate about TV and fandom. I like a good looking guy as much as the next girl but really... it's got to stop. When I say I dislike slash I belie myself. MY VM OTP is after all... slash. But what I really dislike is the slasher mentality. Cut the girls out because girls are yucky and we hate ourselves and let's have boylovin' probably boylovin' in which one or both of the boys act like girls and maybe we will even dress them up like girls but vaginas are scary and yucky and I hate gross disgusting het. I know... it's not like I'm saying anything new, but the whole thing just brings up all the old issues.
BSG's inclusion wasn't about pimping or bitching. I knew I was going to watch the rest of season 3 last night, so I figured it would be a good way to tie in my reaction/opinions and tie others reactions to my memory of it. So without further preamble
I actually didn't have much of a problem with the plot. It was more the execution that offended me, particularly that horrible, cheesy, looking like the 3rd rock from the sun credits, pan out in the end... and the horrible raping of Hendrix/Dylan. Seriously, I recall hobviously telling me about Ron D. Moore wanting to have Hendrix playing in the Six/Baltar finale scene in the Opera House on Kobol, but someone thankfully talking him out of it and clearly this was his revenge. And a horrible revenge it was. BSG has always maintained an image of classiness with it's classical style of soundtrack and usually the special effects are, if not perfect, at least not education science video quality.
Conceptually I sort of liked the trial, it was reminiscent of the Aaron Echolls trial but in a less horrible way. I didn't like seeing Lee betray Roslin. I did like that her cancer came back because I disliked the mystical cure ruining her Moses status. Also I was seriously afraid she'd be taking the drugs for the visions and I cannot deal with the breaking down of her character like that since she's the only character I really love on the show. This way she can die during the finale of the show, just as they are about to reach earth.
I also kind of love Gaeta. It was interesting to see him lie on the stand and also it brought home all the stuff about him and Baltar and his total hero worship for Baltar at the beginning of the show and his current rage and disgust and sense of betrayal. I wish that Zarek had been in the section because they really passed up golden opportunities to show the similarities and differences between him and Baltar and to investigate his past, plus he and Roslin have a really great dynamic.
I was sort of iffy about the trial and Lee's earlier shit, but I loved when Baltar was like "but what about MEEEEE" and I am sad that his followers found him and he isn't going to have to fend for himself next season for a while... which I think would be fascinating. Also, Baltar is clearly going to show up with hexagonal tablets next season, to go with his Jesus look, either that or he can be nailed to one.
The cylon reveals worked for me. I like that they are finally moving forward. The only thing is that Tigh clearly can't have been a cylon the whole time, unless the cylons have perfected the art of time travel since they didn't look like people yet when Tigh was fighting the first war with Adama. So he has to have been replaced at some point or they are with the non-sense making.
I am glad next season is supposed to be the last. Recently it's been dragging and I feel like maybe the end in sight with reignite some of that sense of purpose that season 1 had. I am glad about the cylon reveal but want to know what is up with the final five and what have they been doing and why are they not with the first seven and I really hope they start delivering answers. Since the chief is actually a cylon does that make his baby also a halfbreed like Hera? Also will he be reunited with original Sharon now?
The HBO poll was largely just a poll. I wanted to see who was watching the things I've been watching and I wanted recommendations for other HBO shows because, while they are too expensive to get any way other than netflix, they seem to make good tv... and concise. I'm thinking some time in the next few weeks I will be marathoning season 2 of Rome, and as soon as the boy finishes watching Veronica Mars I'll probably be watching Big Love again, and be caught up in time to not be able to see season 2 in real time since I don't have access to HBO. Rome is shiny bloody porn, and I am excited and kind of glad I saved most of the season till now. Big Love is interesting and kind of ridiculously sexy.
So I picked up the first issue of the Buffy comic last week and I enjoyed it, but I am almost tempted to wait and not read until the whole thing is done because it's seriously so little! I want MORE and feel dissatisfied by the limitedness of what fits in one issue. I feel like I only got the teaser that goes before the credits.
At first glance the two seem very similar: Heroine breaks up with boyfriend who she's been holding on to for too long and is finally ready to date exciting guy who has had a crush on her very obviously for quite a while only to find he is now dating someone else... someone very likable.
As I was thinking about it though... I realized that Betty/Henry/Charlie is really more like season 1 and 2 Jim/Pam/Roy. Henry and Charlie are the established relationship with the long history that probably goes back to high school and Betty is the new interesting person.
And I guess that's part of why I prefer the Ugly Betty triangle. There's a reason why Henry wouldn't just break up with Charlie and go out with Betty. In the office it's clear that Jim wants Pam more and they have a longer history and really there is no real reason Jim should still be dating Karen, but Charlie came to New York for Henry and they have a past.
Not to mention that so much more happens in Ugly Betty... every episode has progress or digression, but at least some movement.
So the spin off question... other than being a chance for me to be snide and give overly specific answers? Well it's been on everyone's mind.
I am the opposite of most of fandom, in that, if I could redesign the VM cast Logan would definitely not be in it any more. He's Spiko(fandom cliches of Spike and Draco) and he's taken that role in the show. He takes too much screen time and basically just wallows in emo. He was a good character in season 1 because he was antagonistic but someone Veronica had a connection to. In season 2 he was off with Weevil, again being ally and antagonist... now he's just lame boyfriend or not boyfriend. You can't please the fangirls... if he's domesticated he's a drag and if he's back to being an asshole you are vilifying their precious.
While I'd be perfectly happy to see Veronica Mars canceled and put out of it's misery like it deserves and probably will be, part of me does want some sort of redemption for something so fallen... and probably it wouldn't work out that way but a little part of me hopes.
I am somewhat jaded about the Addison spin-off. Grey's has too many characters and instead of using the spin off to lessen the burden they are just adding more people. Still, the cast for the show looks pretty good and I can easily go for more shiny crack. If it was me though... I'd move Sara Ramirez over and then she and Taye Diggs would eventually SING.
Angel, however, probably set the bar too high for any other spin-off to meet it. It took a beloved show and made something even better... keeping the trademark Joss style and at the same time having a completely different ideology than the original and a whole new flavor.
The Bones question was partly trying to see how popular the show was on my flist (or how much recruiting I needed to do), but also a good segue here for me to talk about why I love Bones, and you should give it a shot... or a second try. When I heard about Bones, a procedural with Angel... I was not really at all interested. The first few times I caught bits of season 1, I had a hard time remembering that Booth was not Angel and was in fact a "normal" human being, and FBI agent. The first time I watched a whole episode, I wasn't that in to the crazy case of the week (cannibalism) but I did enjoy the beginnings of UST between Booth/Bones. More than that though, I enjoyed the scenes back at the lab with the secondary characters. They are all totally smart science nerds, but the show didn't stick to that. They are really interesting, human, adorable, and compelling. They were funny, but not in that self deprecating way that makes me not enjoy most comedy. I'll admit though, that this wasn't enough to get me hooked on the show. I might have not started watching it at all, if it weren't for sophia_helix who showed me the pirate episode, and the more I started catching episodes at her house, the more I wanted to see the next one. I think it helped that the show was having more interpersonal plotline on the surface, including nerd love that didn't follow any of the customs for sidekick romance plotlines. But whatever it was, I became totally hooked. I was going to try and quantify things like interesting and intelligent characters and the balance between humor and drama and the mystery of the week and the character arcs (which exist and work!), but then I realized that the sense of balance and cohesion that makes good tv, can't be explained. So I'm just saying, it grew on me and maybe if you let it... it will grow on you too. It has become the highlight of my TV week and the one thing I really would be upset if got canceled.
The Song of Ice and Fire question was more about pimping and less about asking. I know who reads the series, have for a long time. But I think that all of you should be. I was shocked to find in my poll that someone I generally find to have much the same taste as myself, apparently is the one person not to like these books, who has been exposed. They have everything, from the elements of high fantasy (dragons, prophesies, magic), to the grittiness and psychology of high literature. Martin makes you root for both sides of opposing forces at the same time. He makes you hate a character for his monstrous behavior and then explains the other side and you find yourself respecting and emphasizing with that same character. He gives you strong willed women, some in body and some not, some valiant and some villainous. He gives you a spectrum of religions, some with frightening power and some seemingly inept. He gives you romance and anti-romance and friendship and backstabbing and kin and twisted secrets and a whole world that feels as if it really is three dimensional and has a history longer than our own and not just invented backwards in the shallow space between the book's bindings. It is a world as real as our own, and just as complex and subtle and brazen and crude and sophisticated. This is the series of our time, possibly all time. It is epic like Tolkien but insightful like Dostoyevsky and puzzling like Garcia Marquez and bleeding like Morrison and probably I am overselling it, but I know books are harder to persuade than TV shows. So I will end by telling you how I spent the YEARS between the release of the second and the third book actively thinking about the characters and world the entire time... without fandom or anyone else to feed me back enthusiasm or motivation... I just couldn't get it out of my head.
The Supernatural question was a trick question. Supernatural's very existence offends me. I deleted a lot of people off my flist for talking about it too much a while back. Nothing in it appeals to me. I don't like scary things, I don't like female-less shows, I don't like slash terribly much, and people who try and convince me to watch based on Denny being on it... clearly didn't pay attention to my hating Denny and wanting him to die and get off my show. Occasionally they have guest stars I sort of want to see, but that is not enough to change my distaste for the whole thing. Now, my poll (and common knowledge) shows that people I like and respect seem to be really into this show, but I just can't get over how much it represents everything I hate about TV and fandom. I like a good looking guy as much as the next girl but really... it's got to stop. When I say I dislike slash I belie myself. MY VM OTP is after all... slash. But what I really dislike is the slasher mentality. Cut the girls out because girls are yucky and we hate ourselves and let's have boylovin' probably boylovin' in which one or both of the boys act like girls and maybe we will even dress them up like girls but vaginas are scary and yucky and I hate gross disgusting het. I know... it's not like I'm saying anything new, but the whole thing just brings up all the old issues.
BSG's inclusion wasn't about pimping or bitching. I knew I was going to watch the rest of season 3 last night, so I figured it would be a good way to tie in my reaction/opinions and tie others reactions to my memory of it. So without further preamble
I actually didn't have much of a problem with the plot. It was more the execution that offended me, particularly that horrible, cheesy, looking like the 3rd rock from the sun credits, pan out in the end... and the horrible raping of Hendrix/Dylan. Seriously, I recall hobviously telling me about Ron D. Moore wanting to have Hendrix playing in the Six/Baltar finale scene in the Opera House on Kobol, but someone thankfully talking him out of it and clearly this was his revenge. And a horrible revenge it was. BSG has always maintained an image of classiness with it's classical style of soundtrack and usually the special effects are, if not perfect, at least not education science video quality.
Conceptually I sort of liked the trial, it was reminiscent of the Aaron Echolls trial but in a less horrible way. I didn't like seeing Lee betray Roslin. I did like that her cancer came back because I disliked the mystical cure ruining her Moses status. Also I was seriously afraid she'd be taking the drugs for the visions and I cannot deal with the breaking down of her character like that since she's the only character I really love on the show. This way she can die during the finale of the show, just as they are about to reach earth.
I also kind of love Gaeta. It was interesting to see him lie on the stand and also it brought home all the stuff about him and Baltar and his total hero worship for Baltar at the beginning of the show and his current rage and disgust and sense of betrayal. I wish that Zarek had been in the section because they really passed up golden opportunities to show the similarities and differences between him and Baltar and to investigate his past, plus he and Roslin have a really great dynamic.
I was sort of iffy about the trial and Lee's earlier shit, but I loved when Baltar was like "but what about MEEEEE" and I am sad that his followers found him and he isn't going to have to fend for himself next season for a while... which I think would be fascinating. Also, Baltar is clearly going to show up with hexagonal tablets next season, to go with his Jesus look, either that or he can be nailed to one.
The cylon reveals worked for me. I like that they are finally moving forward. The only thing is that Tigh clearly can't have been a cylon the whole time, unless the cylons have perfected the art of time travel since they didn't look like people yet when Tigh was fighting the first war with Adama. So he has to have been replaced at some point or they are with the non-sense making.
I am glad next season is supposed to be the last. Recently it's been dragging and I feel like maybe the end in sight with reignite some of that sense of purpose that season 1 had. I am glad about the cylon reveal but want to know what is up with the final five and what have they been doing and why are they not with the first seven and I really hope they start delivering answers. Since the chief is actually a cylon does that make his baby also a halfbreed like Hera? Also will he be reunited with original Sharon now?
The HBO poll was largely just a poll. I wanted to see who was watching the things I've been watching and I wanted recommendations for other HBO shows because, while they are too expensive to get any way other than netflix, they seem to make good tv... and concise. I'm thinking some time in the next few weeks I will be marathoning season 2 of Rome, and as soon as the boy finishes watching Veronica Mars I'll probably be watching Big Love again, and be caught up in time to not be able to see season 2 in real time since I don't have access to HBO. Rome is shiny bloody porn, and I am excited and kind of glad I saved most of the season till now. Big Love is interesting and kind of ridiculously sexy.
So I picked up the first issue of the Buffy comic last week and I enjoyed it, but I am almost tempted to wait and not read until the whole thing is done because it's seriously so little! I want MORE and feel dissatisfied by the limitedness of what fits in one issue. I feel like I only got the teaser that goes before the credits.
At first glance the two seem very similar: Heroine breaks up with boyfriend who she's been holding on to for too long and is finally ready to date exciting guy who has had a crush on her very obviously for quite a while only to find he is now dating someone else... someone very likable.
As I was thinking about it though... I realized that Betty/Henry/Charlie is really more like season 1 and 2 Jim/Pam/Roy. Henry and Charlie are the established relationship with the long history that probably goes back to high school and Betty is the new interesting person.
And I guess that's part of why I prefer the Ugly Betty triangle. There's a reason why Henry wouldn't just break up with Charlie and go out with Betty. In the office it's clear that Jim wants Pam more and they have a longer history and really there is no real reason Jim should still be dating Karen, but Charlie came to New York for Henry and they have a past.
Not to mention that so much more happens in Ugly Betty... every episode has progress or digression, but at least some movement.
So the spin off question... other than being a chance for me to be snide and give overly specific answers? Well it's been on everyone's mind.
I am the opposite of most of fandom, in that, if I could redesign the VM cast Logan would definitely not be in it any more. He's Spiko(fandom cliches of Spike and Draco) and he's taken that role in the show. He takes too much screen time and basically just wallows in emo. He was a good character in season 1 because he was antagonistic but someone Veronica had a connection to. In season 2 he was off with Weevil, again being ally and antagonist... now he's just lame boyfriend or not boyfriend. You can't please the fangirls... if he's domesticated he's a drag and if he's back to being an asshole you are vilifying their precious.
While I'd be perfectly happy to see Veronica Mars canceled and put out of it's misery like it deserves and probably will be, part of me does want some sort of redemption for something so fallen... and probably it wouldn't work out that way but a little part of me hopes.
I am somewhat jaded about the Addison spin-off. Grey's has too many characters and instead of using the spin off to lessen the burden they are just adding more people. Still, the cast for the show looks pretty good and I can easily go for more shiny crack. If it was me though... I'd move Sara Ramirez over and then she and Taye Diggs would eventually SING.
Angel, however, probably set the bar too high for any other spin-off to meet it. It took a beloved show and made something even better... keeping the trademark Joss style and at the same time having a completely different ideology than the original and a whole new flavor.