my big fat greek rush week
It's been a while since I did a regular sort of fandom update when shows aired -- actually, it may have been since the Buffy and Angel days. (Wow.)
Getting back into the habit, then-- here are my quick post-viewing thoughts for Veronica Mars 3.02, "My Big Fat Greek Rush Week."
* It's my understanding that the show's going to do a number of mini-arcs instead of one long overall storyline this season. I like the idea in theory, but I'm beginning to wonder how well it's going to work in practice, as I am beginning to feel that the storyline of Veronica's mystery du jour is very high-pressure. She is the center of the show, so it makes sense, but I liked the long-running plot and occasional "monster of the week" feel that unified relationships-- and I'm not talking simply in the romantic sense. Still, it's early days yet, so I guess we'll see.
* Parker actually looks nice with the short hair, although the reason for it remains reprehensible.
* The timing on this episode amuses me for personal reasons, since I've just finished reading Michel Foucault's Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Anyway, it was interesting to see the Stanford prison experiment being recreated via an introductory sociology course. (Previous link is to the researcher's site, as far as I can tell in a quick check; here's the Wikipedia summary version.) When I say "interesting" above, I should note that the experiment was done back in 1971 and the results were rather alarming. It was intended to run for two weeks, and was terminated after six days due to how bad things got. It gets compared a lot to a similar social psych study, the Milgram experiment. Both experiments raised some serious ethical questions.
* I still don't like the credit remix as well as the original credits.
* WTF, Keith. WTF, Liam. WTF, Liam's brother. WTF, Kendall. And are those last two really dead or not? How did Liam survive in the first place? Did Keith set the trap, or did Brother just happen to hit another one at random? (I'm assuming these are coyote traps, but who the heck wants to trap coyotes in the desert? Is there a reason I'm missing here?) I'm hoping we get more information later, but this feels very disjointed as a storyline.
* Did everyone get the impression that the student newspaper journalism professor has a few axes to grind? Or was that just me? BTW, Veronica? There's nothing wrong with working in a library. Use it to forward your investigatory research skills.
* As I ended up commenting elsewhere, kudos to the show for pointing out that despite California's passage of Proposition 215 back in 1996, there are still some difficulties with medical marijuana when it comes to legality. (See also this site on the May 2001 Supreme Court decision; 2005 reports here and here on federal prosecution being allowable, again from the Supreme Court; and the DEA's opinion on it all-- oh, and now edited to include the actual links. Oy.) Also, that's a LOT of pretty green plant for a single patient. No, really.
I feel as though there should be more to say, but if so I can't think of it right now. Perhaps as things develop I'll find more in-depth analysis to give, or theories to pursue, but not so far.
Getting back into the habit, then-- here are my quick post-viewing thoughts for Veronica Mars 3.02, "My Big Fat Greek Rush Week."
* It's my understanding that the show's going to do a number of mini-arcs instead of one long overall storyline this season. I like the idea in theory, but I'm beginning to wonder how well it's going to work in practice, as I am beginning to feel that the storyline of Veronica's mystery du jour is very high-pressure. She is the center of the show, so it makes sense, but I liked the long-running plot and occasional "monster of the week" feel that unified relationships-- and I'm not talking simply in the romantic sense. Still, it's early days yet, so I guess we'll see.
* Parker actually looks nice with the short hair, although the reason for it remains reprehensible.
* The timing on this episode amuses me for personal reasons, since I've just finished reading Michel Foucault's Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Anyway, it was interesting to see the Stanford prison experiment being recreated via an introductory sociology course. (Previous link is to the researcher's site, as far as I can tell in a quick check; here's the Wikipedia summary version.) When I say "interesting" above, I should note that the experiment was done back in 1971 and the results were rather alarming. It was intended to run for two weeks, and was terminated after six days due to how bad things got. It gets compared a lot to a similar social psych study, the Milgram experiment. Both experiments raised some serious ethical questions.
* I still don't like the credit remix as well as the original credits.
* WTF, Keith. WTF, Liam. WTF, Liam's brother. WTF, Kendall. And are those last two really dead or not? How did Liam survive in the first place? Did Keith set the trap, or did Brother just happen to hit another one at random? (I'm assuming these are coyote traps, but who the heck wants to trap coyotes in the desert? Is there a reason I'm missing here?) I'm hoping we get more information later, but this feels very disjointed as a storyline.
* Did everyone get the impression that the student newspaper journalism professor has a few axes to grind? Or was that just me? BTW, Veronica? There's nothing wrong with working in a library. Use it to forward your investigatory research skills.
* As I ended up commenting elsewhere, kudos to the show for pointing out that despite California's passage of Proposition 215 back in 1996, there are still some difficulties with medical marijuana when it comes to legality. (See also this site on the May 2001 Supreme Court decision; 2005 reports here and here on federal prosecution being allowable, again from the Supreme Court; and the DEA's opinion on it all-- oh, and now edited to include the actual links. Oy.) Also, that's a LOT of pretty green plant for a single patient. No, really.
I feel as though there should be more to say, but if so I can't think of it right now. Perhaps as things develop I'll find more in-depth analysis to give, or theories to pursue, but not so far.