Results of a lazy weekend pt. 2
Or Blondes just Wanna Have Voice-Overs
So, last night, I successfully caught the first episode ever of Dead Like Me. But as I had yet to write up my thoughts on the last Veronica Mars, I of course glomped on the similarity in that both revolve around eighteen year olds who's lives have changed (one lost hers and became a Grim Reaper, the other lost her innocence and became a de facto private detective. Both Veronica and George can give plenty of lip - and do, in voice overs.
The voice overs work well in both cases (unlike Dark Angel, where it was used less extensively, and came off as Max whining and, justifying heself. I always found it more distancing than not. The fact that both Kirsten Bell and Ellen Muth are better actresses given better material may also be a factor.) I've seen more written about Veronica's voice overs - doesn't it get its own acronym in TWOP recaps? This may also be because I've read more VM meta than DLM, of course. It's a traditional device in noir films (I really need to research the relationship of voice over to narrator and its presence in adaptations and original works). In VM, it gives the audience ingress into her thoughts, occasionally sums up what she knows. My perception is that George's voice over addresses the audience much more knowingly. She controls the telling of the story more than Veronica. George is playing the role of the beyond the grave narrator who is also a precence in books.
I'm reminded here of another beyond the grave narrator, one whose voice dripped of smug, Desperate Housewives' Mary Alice. Like her, Georgia does work as a very knowledgeable commentator on what's going on with those that she left behind. The twist is she's both ghost and protagonist. She is a lot more fully fledged.
But anyway, in George you have a know it all who doesn't know much about life, in Veronica, a know it all who doesn't know much yet about the cases she's going to investigate. George's whole story is more ofa coming of age story too. And the voice overs, different though they are, are part of what make both sympathetic protagonists.
VM 2.21 Happy Go Lucky
I was enthralled by the ep while watching it (though it doesn't truly compare in emotional impact to ' Visit to the Dentist'). Still, it packed plenty of wallops, and leaves things open and intriguing. The shoot-out was gripping. (I'm censoring myself on my opinions about guns in schools and the so-called right to bear arms.) Wallace was immensely brave and stupid. So was Jackie in her own way, and ow, V's face. So, enter Keith's protective instincts, and how much was a courtroom not the place for all that to come out? Oh, Veronica. So much ouch. Again, Veronica's face (and Logan's) at Aaron's verdict! Two vigilantes or more in the making there. Though Logan really oughtn't have burned those tapes. And Aaron shouldn't be out on the streets. So many things clicked together in that court case, and I don't think that story's over.
Having said that, I can't believe that Veronica and co weren't stripped of their fancy mobile phone wotsits before sitting final exams like that. What kind of integrity can those results have if all those being examined could potentially be fed answers to the questions? A rare flub. I'm presuming too that Keith let Veronca's need to be there and see Aaron's face override her need to be there at the final exam that counted as the culmination of her secondary education...you see my difficulty, yes. He shouldn't have put the temptation in front of her (even if he maybe subconsciously wants to sabotage her chances to get the Kane Scholarship, which also puts him in a bad light.) I mean, in the real world he surely couldn't have done that anyway.
Not that it isn't obvious that Veronica is going to Harte - c'mon Mac is going there too. (Yay!) Mac and Beaver were very cute (I was a bit snide about Weevil and algebra and the last minuteness. Idiot. All he needed was a mobile phone on the day of the exam.) However, it was tragic in the sense of inevitable, perfect timing, that he was dobbed in for Thumper at the moment of his triumph. In contrast, Jackie and Wallace and her sudden departure were not that involving.
On the revelations about Goodman, well, I mostly called it. (I'm a little confused about his exact predelictions and the age of the kids he abused though. There was too much use of American sports shorthand). Has Gia gone too? Poor Gia with her faiure to get sarcasm. Very good part for Steve Gutterman, he played it really well, even if some of the punch was extraneous to his performance.
Neptune is no plce for children, is it? If there's one thing we've learnt from the past two seasons that is it.
So with him on the lam, I'm minded to discount him as the suspect. (Sidenote, why can't Lamb do more actual police work competently regardless of the Marses outsmarting him! GRR! Still, he entertains.) We're left with loose threads - the weird one is Mr Manning's connection to Lucky. Will Logan's nicking of the Woody's signature stamp be significant? The casino owner who owns Cooke (and the Fitzpatricks?), what's his involvement? I may be influenced by the spoiler that I would have had to be Gia to miss, but I wonder if Casablancas snt/the policy on his kids/Kendall's involvement with the Fitzpatricks has a part to play. Other strands - Weevil's complicity (though not sole guilt, but he did hand Thumper over to the Fitzpatricks knowing what that'd mean) - does it mean prison? Veronica's future and fallout with Keith - so many lies for understandable reasons at the time, all coming to light in someone else's public trial. Protevitve Dad with trust issues further intensified. Aaron walking free and what that'll mean for Logan, Veronica (and Duncan). I expect some something between Veronica and Logan. And yeah, a lot of ground to cover. But the show's good like that.
Speaking of another good show, Dead Like Me
It felt a lot like a pilot - the characters are brasher, less blended and settled than the ones I grew to knew. And George and Reggie particularly felt so young. (Reggie is smaller, and George looked particularly vulnerable, younger). Having said that, all the elements are there - George's voice over and world-view, the set up - lost little girl dies before she gets to live or has figured out what she wants, and gets called chosen to be a Grim Reaper. There's the mix of realistic vignettes and non-realistic narrative devices. There's the dark humour of the nasty ways to die; the gravelings get introduced and the later revelation that George saw them as a child fits into that introduction. There's the desperation and hope of Happy Time (An American Workplace), the specific domesticity and skewered real family dynamics, the specific locale of the muffin house, with Kiffany (ya) - the replacement kitchen/dining room for the post-death created family George is going to be part of. It's where these squatters come together. (Note that the sitting on the top of tall buildings - reminiscent of angels here - was dropped for more mundane, and thus relatable, and poigniant, locations. Maybe it was a Betty thing too, seeing as that's how they introduced her.)
I love the created family (and respect to the grief and ties of the biological family) element of Dead Like Me. I think it's one of my narrative kinks when it comes to people who work together as a team to try to save the world. It also ties into how strongly this series resonated with me about the death of childhood and the struggles of adulthood. Of course, in the pilot George is still freaking out at being handed this life and meeting all these people. Roxy is pretty much Roxy (I love Roxy). Rube isn't quite, but he called George 'Peanut' - aww. Betty is...quirky, and she was pretty quickly replaced, wasn't she? She's pretty much a proto Daisy, was she meant to be an elder sister for elder sister George? The full levels of Mason's depravity and idiocy have not been revealed, but those baby blues have. (Callum Blue is so very, very pretty. So, too, is Britt McKillip.)
Here I admit that I was almost a George/Mason shipper. Almost. I knew he was a no good screw up, but I loved the affection that grew between them - I mean, again, it's that close friendship that's almost familial - how some people see Mal-Kaylee or Cordy-Angel.) And I'm not sure whether the show wanted him to be a love interest or not. (He is, at his worst, Sketchy.) And given the premise, could they or would they have gone there in a third series? The unrequited mess with Daisy was organic. I'm wondering this partly because of the way that he's introduced, partly because I'm a little dazzled. (Callum Blue has been off my screens too long).
Anyway, even in this not quite done state, I'm loving the characters - Dolores is a genius creation, especially with Crystal looming around, and George's initial encounter with her totally explains why George has to go back to Happy Time and, well, repay her debt and learn her lessons, kinda. Oh, George, you tryhard misanthrope.
And then there's Reggie, who is weird and needy and The Kid Sister by way of Wednesday Addams even before George dies and I love how Joy is relatable and a failure and the antagonism between her and George. There's gay subtext that went nowhere (or did it?) with Clancy, and it's interesting that he faded, comparatively, from the show - there was a bunch of strong female characters here. Joy dealing with Reggie (and George) was much more compelling.
And it's bleak and it's funny and it's going to be heartwarming, and I find myself thinking I'll probably rewatch the next few episodes, at least, because I really missed these characters. Well, not Betty (does she go in the same ways as the anonymous Grim Reaper - and how did Rube and Betty know to come for George? And this idea of divisions of reapers got somewhat dropped too). But the others.
So, last night, I successfully caught the first episode ever of Dead Like Me. But as I had yet to write up my thoughts on the last Veronica Mars, I of course glomped on the similarity in that both revolve around eighteen year olds who's lives have changed (one lost hers and became a Grim Reaper, the other lost her innocence and became a de facto private detective. Both Veronica and George can give plenty of lip - and do, in voice overs.
The voice overs work well in both cases (unlike Dark Angel, where it was used less extensively, and came off as Max whining and, justifying heself. I always found it more distancing than not. The fact that both Kirsten Bell and Ellen Muth are better actresses given better material may also be a factor.) I've seen more written about Veronica's voice overs - doesn't it get its own acronym in TWOP recaps? This may also be because I've read more VM meta than DLM, of course. It's a traditional device in noir films (I really need to research the relationship of voice over to narrator and its presence in adaptations and original works). In VM, it gives the audience ingress into her thoughts, occasionally sums up what she knows. My perception is that George's voice over addresses the audience much more knowingly. She controls the telling of the story more than Veronica. George is playing the role of the beyond the grave narrator who is also a precence in books.
I'm reminded here of another beyond the grave narrator, one whose voice dripped of smug, Desperate Housewives' Mary Alice. Like her, Georgia does work as a very knowledgeable commentator on what's going on with those that she left behind. The twist is she's both ghost and protagonist. She is a lot more fully fledged.
But anyway, in George you have a know it all who doesn't know much about life, in Veronica, a know it all who doesn't know much yet about the cases she's going to investigate. George's whole story is more ofa coming of age story too. And the voice overs, different though they are, are part of what make both sympathetic protagonists.
VM 2.21 Happy Go Lucky
I was enthralled by the ep while watching it (though it doesn't truly compare in emotional impact to ' Visit to the Dentist'). Still, it packed plenty of wallops, and leaves things open and intriguing. The shoot-out was gripping. (I'm censoring myself on my opinions about guns in schools and the so-called right to bear arms.) Wallace was immensely brave and stupid. So was Jackie in her own way, and ow, V's face. So, enter Keith's protective instincts, and how much was a courtroom not the place for all that to come out? Oh, Veronica. So much ouch. Again, Veronica's face (and Logan's) at Aaron's verdict! Two vigilantes or more in the making there. Though Logan really oughtn't have burned those tapes. And Aaron shouldn't be out on the streets. So many things clicked together in that court case, and I don't think that story's over.
Having said that, I can't believe that Veronica and co weren't stripped of their fancy mobile phone wotsits before sitting final exams like that. What kind of integrity can those results have if all those being examined could potentially be fed answers to the questions? A rare flub. I'm presuming too that Keith let Veronca's need to be there and see Aaron's face override her need to be there at the final exam that counted as the culmination of her secondary education...you see my difficulty, yes. He shouldn't have put the temptation in front of her (even if he maybe subconsciously wants to sabotage her chances to get the Kane Scholarship, which also puts him in a bad light.) I mean, in the real world he surely couldn't have done that anyway.
Not that it isn't obvious that Veronica is going to Harte - c'mon Mac is going there too. (Yay!) Mac and Beaver were very cute (I was a bit snide about Weevil and algebra and the last minuteness. Idiot. All he needed was a mobile phone on the day of the exam.) However, it was tragic in the sense of inevitable, perfect timing, that he was dobbed in for Thumper at the moment of his triumph. In contrast, Jackie and Wallace and her sudden departure were not that involving.
On the revelations about Goodman, well, I mostly called it. (I'm a little confused about his exact predelictions and the age of the kids he abused though. There was too much use of American sports shorthand). Has Gia gone too? Poor Gia with her faiure to get sarcasm. Very good part for Steve Gutterman, he played it really well, even if some of the punch was extraneous to his performance.
Neptune is no plce for children, is it? If there's one thing we've learnt from the past two seasons that is it.
So with him on the lam, I'm minded to discount him as the suspect. (Sidenote, why can't Lamb do more actual police work competently regardless of the Marses outsmarting him! GRR! Still, he entertains.) We're left with loose threads - the weird one is Mr Manning's connection to Lucky. Will Logan's nicking of the Woody's signature stamp be significant? The casino owner who owns Cooke (and the Fitzpatricks?), what's his involvement? I may be influenced by the spoiler that I would have had to be Gia to miss, but I wonder if Casablancas snt/the policy on his kids/Kendall's involvement with the Fitzpatricks has a part to play. Other strands - Weevil's complicity (though not sole guilt, but he did hand Thumper over to the Fitzpatricks knowing what that'd mean) - does it mean prison? Veronica's future and fallout with Keith - so many lies for understandable reasons at the time, all coming to light in someone else's public trial. Protevitve Dad with trust issues further intensified. Aaron walking free and what that'll mean for Logan, Veronica (and Duncan). I expect some something between Veronica and Logan. And yeah, a lot of ground to cover. But the show's good like that.
Speaking of another good show, Dead Like Me
It felt a lot like a pilot - the characters are brasher, less blended and settled than the ones I grew to knew. And George and Reggie particularly felt so young. (Reggie is smaller, and George looked particularly vulnerable, younger). Having said that, all the elements are there - George's voice over and world-view, the set up - lost little girl dies before she gets to live or has figured out what she wants, and gets called chosen to be a Grim Reaper. There's the mix of realistic vignettes and non-realistic narrative devices. There's the dark humour of the nasty ways to die; the gravelings get introduced and the later revelation that George saw them as a child fits into that introduction. There's the desperation and hope of Happy Time (An American Workplace), the specific domesticity and skewered real family dynamics, the specific locale of the muffin house, with Kiffany (ya) - the replacement kitchen/dining room for the post-death created family George is going to be part of. It's where these squatters come together. (Note that the sitting on the top of tall buildings - reminiscent of angels here - was dropped for more mundane, and thus relatable, and poigniant, locations. Maybe it was a Betty thing too, seeing as that's how they introduced her.)
I love the created family (and respect to the grief and ties of the biological family) element of Dead Like Me. I think it's one of my narrative kinks when it comes to people who work together as a team to try to save the world. It also ties into how strongly this series resonated with me about the death of childhood and the struggles of adulthood. Of course, in the pilot George is still freaking out at being handed this life and meeting all these people. Roxy is pretty much Roxy (I love Roxy). Rube isn't quite, but he called George 'Peanut' - aww. Betty is...quirky, and she was pretty quickly replaced, wasn't she? She's pretty much a proto Daisy, was she meant to be an elder sister for elder sister George? The full levels of Mason's depravity and idiocy have not been revealed, but those baby blues have. (Callum Blue is so very, very pretty. So, too, is Britt McKillip.)
Here I admit that I was almost a George/Mason shipper. Almost. I knew he was a no good screw up, but I loved the affection that grew between them - I mean, again, it's that close friendship that's almost familial - how some people see Mal-Kaylee or Cordy-Angel.) And I'm not sure whether the show wanted him to be a love interest or not. (He is, at his worst, Sketchy.) And given the premise, could they or would they have gone there in a third series? The unrequited mess with Daisy was organic. I'm wondering this partly because of the way that he's introduced, partly because I'm a little dazzled. (Callum Blue has been off my screens too long).
Anyway, even in this not quite done state, I'm loving the characters - Dolores is a genius creation, especially with Crystal looming around, and George's initial encounter with her totally explains why George has to go back to Happy Time and, well, repay her debt and learn her lessons, kinda. Oh, George, you tryhard misanthrope.
And then there's Reggie, who is weird and needy and The Kid Sister by way of Wednesday Addams even before George dies and I love how Joy is relatable and a failure and the antagonism between her and George. There's gay subtext that went nowhere (or did it?) with Clancy, and it's interesting that he faded, comparatively, from the show - there was a bunch of strong female characters here. Joy dealing with Reggie (and George) was much more compelling.
And it's bleak and it's funny and it's going to be heartwarming, and I find myself thinking I'll probably rewatch the next few episodes, at least, because I really missed these characters. Well, not Betty (does she go in the same ways as the anonymous Grim Reaper - and how did Rube and Betty know to come for George? And this idea of divisions of reapers got somewhat dropped too). But the others.