Five thoughts after watching The Batman episodes 201 and 202
1) Okay, well, this disc is not playing properly, despite the fact that it is brand new and does not appear to be scratched. I'm very annoyed, but also super glad that I only spent about $5 for the season, because I apparently need to get these episodes on Amazon Instant Video, now. ::sigh::
I'm also half-deaf at the moment, thanks to my wonderful allergies swelling my left ear closed. I'm trying really hard not to let these viewing conditions affect my opinion about the episodes, but it seems to be a bit of a losing battle.
2) I'm also trying not to let my dislike of Penguin completely ruin this first episode for me, but he's just so obnoxious, you know? I do quite like Catwoman, and I like Penguins henchwomen things, even though I don't at all understand what they have to do with his bird obsession. These characters have style, and I appreciate that.
3) How does everyone in Gotham have blue eyes? Okay, Yin doesn't, but all of the other characters, up to and including the African American and Latino characters, have blue eyes. Are there no dominant alleles in the whole city?
4) That...is a rather Jokerier Riddler than I am used to. I think of Riddler as a kind of...not bumbling, or mousy but...well, like Trickster in JLU. Like someone who acts out of boredom rather than any true interest in the criminal aspect of the job. This Robert Englund-voiced bishonen take on the character is very much not what I expected. But not in a bad way? I kinda like it? It's definitely better than the Jim Carrey version...
5) This Riddler episode went out of its way to drive home the fact that this show's target audience is still in elementary school, and that's a shame. I mean, I know writing Holmesean mysteries or anything as complicated as Hush isn't going to work for a Saturday morning cartoon, but they didn't even bother to present the audience with the majority of the riddles, and the two or three they did show in full were painfully simple. I think if they hadn't been so quick to show how vapid Chief Rojas is, I wouldn't have found it all so frustratingly puerile. There really is, as I said before, a huge difference between the good episodes of this show and all the others.
On the Buffyverse rewatch front, I almost skipped "Spin the Bottle" because I have watched it roughly ninety-five times, but I decided in the end to pop it in anyway and was immediately reminded that the reason I have watched it so many times is it is one of the funniest episodes of any show ever (which doesn't negate the fact that it's also one of the more depressing episodes of an already pretty depressing show... That's just how Joss rolls). Between that episode and "Apocalypse, Nowish," I was rather forcibly reminded of how amazing a character Lorne is and how hard I friend-ship Wes and Gunn. They're such an odd pair, and I love it.
And then there's "Conversations with Dead People." OH, "Conversations with Dead People"... That is absolutely the most heartbreaking episode of that show, even taking into consideration how many episodes feature the death of a main character when this one doesn't. I can't think of any other single episode with five different largely-unrelated scenes of just utter, utter sadness. It is a beautifully executed collection of heartbreaking short stories, though. and it absolutely deserved the Hugo it won.
I'm also half-deaf at the moment, thanks to my wonderful allergies swelling my left ear closed. I'm trying really hard not to let these viewing conditions affect my opinion about the episodes, but it seems to be a bit of a losing battle.
2) I'm also trying not to let my dislike of Penguin completely ruin this first episode for me, but he's just so obnoxious, you know? I do quite like Catwoman, and I like Penguins henchwomen things, even though I don't at all understand what they have to do with his bird obsession. These characters have style, and I appreciate that.
3) How does everyone in Gotham have blue eyes? Okay, Yin doesn't, but all of the other characters, up to and including the African American and Latino characters, have blue eyes. Are there no dominant alleles in the whole city?
4) That...is a rather Jokerier Riddler than I am used to. I think of Riddler as a kind of...not bumbling, or mousy but...well, like Trickster in JLU. Like someone who acts out of boredom rather than any true interest in the criminal aspect of the job. This Robert Englund-voiced bishonen take on the character is very much not what I expected. But not in a bad way? I kinda like it? It's definitely better than the Jim Carrey version...
5) This Riddler episode went out of its way to drive home the fact that this show's target audience is still in elementary school, and that's a shame. I mean, I know writing Holmesean mysteries or anything as complicated as Hush isn't going to work for a Saturday morning cartoon, but they didn't even bother to present the audience with the majority of the riddles, and the two or three they did show in full were painfully simple. I think if they hadn't been so quick to show how vapid Chief Rojas is, I wouldn't have found it all so frustratingly puerile. There really is, as I said before, a huge difference between the good episodes of this show and all the others.
On the Buffyverse rewatch front, I almost skipped "Spin the Bottle" because I have watched it roughly ninety-five times, but I decided in the end to pop it in anyway and was immediately reminded that the reason I have watched it so many times is it is one of the funniest episodes of any show ever (which doesn't negate the fact that it's also one of the more depressing episodes of an already pretty depressing show... That's just how Joss rolls). Between that episode and "Apocalypse, Nowish," I was rather forcibly reminded of how amazing a character Lorne is and how hard I friend-ship Wes and Gunn. They're such an odd pair, and I love it.
And then there's "Conversations with Dead People." OH, "Conversations with Dead People"... That is absolutely the most heartbreaking episode of that show, even taking into consideration how many episodes feature the death of a main character when this one doesn't. I can't think of any other single episode with five different largely-unrelated scenes of just utter, utter sadness. It is a beautifully executed collection of heartbreaking short stories, though. and it absolutely deserved the Hugo it won.