geegees
I want to talk about Gilmore Girls, partly the show itself, and mainly about how I'm watching it.
To reiterate what I've said before - I'm loving it, it's so funny and touching, and I'm really glad to get the chance to watch it (why oh why did no terrestrial British channel ever pick it up?) even though it means watching Nickelodeon, and its kid-friendly adverts and feeling ridiculous. For instance, there's a trailer for a competition where a viewer gets to choose the channel's programming, and it ends with a boy and a girl facing the camera, one holding a card with 'UST' on it, the other 'AUG' and the joke is that they're holding it the wrong way and have to swap it over to make up the month. But instead of just laughing 'ha, ha' and moving on, I keep on seeing the acronym UST and thinking, now wouldn't that have made a great challenge 'putting the UST in August'? Then I have the whole jolting realisation that I - who am closer in age to Lorelai than Rory - am watching Nickelodeon, nightly, for a show that is probably on too late for most of the channel's target audience. I presume.
I have no idea why that is freaking me out, I went through a phase of watching X-Men cartoons on other kid channels: such are the joys of satellite TV. Normal people watch cooking programmes. And it's almost a summer tradition now for me to find a new-to-me series that's on daily and get obsessed by it. Though they are normally completely rubbish, and thus a guilty pleasure. A lone guilty pleasure too.
In fandom, it seems that watching TV - despite the rise of downloading and Tivos and other whatnots, is a shared experience, that for a lot of people, going online to chat about it is an immediate part of the viewing experience, and I'm mostly removed from that. I'm the straggler. Then too, I tend to plump for such cultish shows (using the term loosely so that it can cover those guilty pleasures) that I'm used to not watching them in a living room with other people.
And here I am, watching a show that originally aired weekly several years ago, nightly, gobbling up every episode with it's whip-crack dialogue. Syndication is, of course nothing new - insert obligatory Trek reference here - and with DVDs I can watch a show any time I like, which I love. Though, I think, given the rise of extras with commentaries and extra scenes, that programme-makers are more aware of that format, if not the full ramifications of how it changes viewing habits and expectatins. But I've been conditioned into thinking that the weekly first run is best, partly because of the whole 'see it when it is new, be on the pulse' pressure of our culture, both Western and fannish - I'll probably return to this when Serenity comes out.
Plus, i can't get away from the fact that the weekly run is how it was intended to be seen, for instance, watching Gilmore Girls in this concentrated way, I'm painfully aware that LORELAI GOT PREGNANT WHEN SHE WAS SIXTEEN! SIXTEEN!! and RORY IS SPECIAL AND IS GOING TO HARVARD!!! Of course, I'd probably be bothered by the anvilicious repetition of those facts, anyway, especially in a show that manages such dinky little touches. But the show was commissioned by a channel that airs its shows weekly, right? The programme-makers made a deal knowing in which parameters the programme would be aired, and, as they didn't know, and presumably still don't, precisely how long they have, repeats abroad weren't even a factor.
I'm wondering if having the show on nightly takes away from its status in my mind. I mean, we joke that there's a Friends or a Simpsons episode on some channel (or a Buffy, a Will and Grace or a Charmed.) It is as if I feel that good TV shows should be appointment TV on at set (inconvenient) times, and that I should put in an effort to watch them. I'm not saying that it is a fair world when HMV is overloaded with DVD sets for shows I have no interest in but there is no Jake 2.0 release. It's just what I'm used to.
But then, I'm enjoying this quick catch up, in what is almost a desert schedule-wise, of this show. Because I want to move to quirky Stars Hollow in a way I would never want to move to Smallville or Capeside. I love the wit - the pacing of gags is so perfect, plus the more dramatic examination of relationships - how it has the Gilmore family at heart, concentrating on the matrilineal issues, and is as concerned with friendships as well as swoony 'ships (that would be Lorelai/Luke.) And then the show has visual moments of sharp beauty (Lorelai surrounded by a thousand yellow flowers) or wit (Luke sitting heavily on a bench, doing the manly lovelorn thing, next to three little girls, ludicrously dressed up as brides, looking at him funny) to treasure.
To reiterate what I've said before - I'm loving it, it's so funny and touching, and I'm really glad to get the chance to watch it (why oh why did no terrestrial British channel ever pick it up?) even though it means watching Nickelodeon, and its kid-friendly adverts and feeling ridiculous. For instance, there's a trailer for a competition where a viewer gets to choose the channel's programming, and it ends with a boy and a girl facing the camera, one holding a card with 'UST' on it, the other 'AUG' and the joke is that they're holding it the wrong way and have to swap it over to make up the month. But instead of just laughing 'ha, ha' and moving on, I keep on seeing the acronym UST and thinking, now wouldn't that have made a great challenge 'putting the UST in August'? Then I have the whole jolting realisation that I - who am closer in age to Lorelai than Rory - am watching Nickelodeon, nightly, for a show that is probably on too late for most of the channel's target audience. I presume.
I have no idea why that is freaking me out, I went through a phase of watching X-Men cartoons on other kid channels: such are the joys of satellite TV. Normal people watch cooking programmes. And it's almost a summer tradition now for me to find a new-to-me series that's on daily and get obsessed by it. Though they are normally completely rubbish, and thus a guilty pleasure. A lone guilty pleasure too.
In fandom, it seems that watching TV - despite the rise of downloading and Tivos and other whatnots, is a shared experience, that for a lot of people, going online to chat about it is an immediate part of the viewing experience, and I'm mostly removed from that. I'm the straggler. Then too, I tend to plump for such cultish shows (using the term loosely so that it can cover those guilty pleasures) that I'm used to not watching them in a living room with other people.
And here I am, watching a show that originally aired weekly several years ago, nightly, gobbling up every episode with it's whip-crack dialogue. Syndication is, of course nothing new - insert obligatory Trek reference here - and with DVDs I can watch a show any time I like, which I love. Though, I think, given the rise of extras with commentaries and extra scenes, that programme-makers are more aware of that format, if not the full ramifications of how it changes viewing habits and expectatins. But I've been conditioned into thinking that the weekly first run is best, partly because of the whole 'see it when it is new, be on the pulse' pressure of our culture, both Western and fannish - I'll probably return to this when Serenity comes out.
Plus, i can't get away from the fact that the weekly run is how it was intended to be seen, for instance, watching Gilmore Girls in this concentrated way, I'm painfully aware that LORELAI GOT PREGNANT WHEN SHE WAS SIXTEEN! SIXTEEN!! and RORY IS SPECIAL AND IS GOING TO HARVARD!!! Of course, I'd probably be bothered by the anvilicious repetition of those facts, anyway, especially in a show that manages such dinky little touches. But the show was commissioned by a channel that airs its shows weekly, right? The programme-makers made a deal knowing in which parameters the programme would be aired, and, as they didn't know, and presumably still don't, precisely how long they have, repeats abroad weren't even a factor.
I'm wondering if having the show on nightly takes away from its status in my mind. I mean, we joke that there's a Friends or a Simpsons episode on some channel (or a Buffy, a Will and Grace or a Charmed.) It is as if I feel that good TV shows should be appointment TV on at set (inconvenient) times, and that I should put in an effort to watch them. I'm not saying that it is a fair world when HMV is overloaded with DVD sets for shows I have no interest in but there is no Jake 2.0 release. It's just what I'm used to.
But then, I'm enjoying this quick catch up, in what is almost a desert schedule-wise, of this show. Because I want to move to quirky Stars Hollow in a way I would never want to move to Smallville or Capeside. I love the wit - the pacing of gags is so perfect, plus the more dramatic examination of relationships - how it has the Gilmore family at heart, concentrating on the matrilineal issues, and is as concerned with friendships as well as swoony 'ships (that would be Lorelai/Luke.) And then the show has visual moments of sharp beauty (Lorelai surrounded by a thousand yellow flowers) or wit (Luke sitting heavily on a bench, doing the manly lovelorn thing, next to three little girls, ludicrously dressed up as brides, looking at him funny) to treasure.