Comments | justacat: Pros Rant!!

justacat

Pros Rant!!

Feb 05, 2004 14:47

My newest obsession - yes, due South is my true love, but sometimes I need a little spice on the side - is Pros. meri-oddities, a long-time Pros fan with an incredibly impressive zine collection (she runs the online archive), pimped me into it last October in an all-day, all-night Pros episode viewing session, and since then my interest has been growing ( Read more... )

rants, pros

Comments 21

mergatrude February 5 2004, 21:16:25 UTC

Where can you get DVDs in the US? I've found them at amazon.co.uk, but the exchange rate is way better with you guys (gotta thank gwb for something, but sorry about your economy ;-)) and my sister will be 'over there' at the end of the month - she who had the big crush on Martin Shaw back in the 80s.

Re: justacat February 5 2004, 23:10:54 UTC

You can't get the DVDs in the U.S., as far as I know. They were only ever released in the UK, and they have Region 2 coding - so here in the US (Region 1) we need a multiregion player (or a hack) in order to play them at all. So I'd be very surprised if they were available commercially anywhere in the US, though you occasionally see them for sale at a con.

I got mine from Amazon UK. Recently they were having an *amazing* deal - something like 50 GBP for the set, all four seasons (half the price I got them for!) - I'm pretty sure that deal is still going on.

Hey, and I'm not thanking gwb for nuthin! :-)

Re: mergatrude February 16 2004, 23:22:48 UTC

Damn. 50GBP with postage works out at something like AUD$200. Sigh. But as a plus we got to see Martin Shaw last Sunday as Inspector Dalgliesh and he's aged well!

byob_kenobi February 5 2004, 21:19:07 UTC

Sing it, sister! Start a revival!

and there are plenty of nice ... er ... package shots, if you know what I mean

Of course, this is the one part of your post I pick up on. *g* I watched "Backtrack" today, and yeah...wow. Package city. God, he's hot. I want a Bodie icon, I think. Just 'cause he's so freaking sexy.

I was going to write up a whole post about what I think of Pros, which I can hopefully get to by tomorrow. It's really a very good show, which I love as a *show* but not necessarily in a fannish way. Except Bodie, who I love with all my er...heart. Anyways, I think that part of my issue is that, between the poor quality of the tapes that I have and trying to understand the Britishisms, I spend most of the ep trying to figure out what the heck is going on, rather than thinking about the characters.

It reminds me 24 quite a bit, which I really like.

Re: justacat February 6 2004, 04:42:26 UTC

When you say not necessarily in a "fannish" way, do you mean "slashy" way? And if you do, we definitely need to talk, sister - that slashiness is so there! *g*

Maybe the tape quality is the problem. The DVDs solve that completely - though occasionally you still miss a word because of the Britishisms.

As for Bodie: so freakin' sexy, yes. It's hard to make a good Bodie icon, though - I've tried! The still photos just don't seem to capture it - he always looks dorky. But I will keep toiling away until someday maybe I'll get it right...

beledibabe February 5 2004, 21:29:47 UTC

Hon, I'm so there for you! I love B&D with all my heart, and yes, part of that is the tight trousers. ::sigh:: But a lot of it is the fact that these guys are killers, pure and simple, who are willing to die for each other. And that gets to me every time. I have a few stories saved to my hd, if you're interested, although you've probably read them. And damn, we need to get together sometime!

Re: justacat February 6 2004, 04:46:00 UTC

But a lot of it is the fact that these guys are killers, pure and simple, who are willing to die for each other.

Exactly, exactly, exactly! You obviously see what I'm trying to say.

As for fic: I've actually read relatively little so far, though I have (or have access to) a ton - I'm making my way through it slowly. I'd be most interested to know which fics you really love if any. So far there are very, very few that fall into that category for me - as contrasted with, say, dS, where there are so many fics that I've reread countless times. Maybe it's the generational thing again, like I wrote below to cathexys.

And yes, we definitely need to get together sometime!!

cathexys February 5 2004, 21:44:33 UTC

I think a major problem is that so much of it is in zines. The two big resources online are, I guess, the circuit archive and Glasgow's stuff (though the pdf's were driving me nuts!!!), but just like with SH, I had a hard time feeling like I was getting to the majority of stuff (b/c I wasn't :-). The other problem I have with both of these was that it really is a different type of writing in a lot of ways. All the misogyny crap that is so often assigned to slash...well, I went through enough stories to certainly see in in those fandoms...and the theory triad, jenkins, bacon-smith, and penley, make so much more sense after spending some time in the slash eighties. lol.

but if you find some hidden treasures...tell us about it :-) I'm so there!!!

Also, revival in SH...where? send me in the right direction, please!

Re: justacat February 6 2004, 16:49:50 UTC

The other problem I have with both of these was that it really is a different type of writing in a lot of ways.

Yes! One of these days I'm going to post about this too. It's not just the mysogyny ... it's something about the way of writing, especially the way of writing sex. Most of the stories I'm reading have sex, but very few of them are at all ... well, hot, I guess. There's this kind of disembodied, remote way of writing the sex - "lips touched, tongues tangled, cocks rubbed together" - that can be almost boring - and I mean, I'm someone who loves smut, so this is really saying something. And even aside from the sex, sometimes the writing style just seems very repetitive and pedestrian to me. Slash writing seems to have evolved quite a bit ( ... )

Re: cathexys February 6 2004, 17:08:26 UTC

on my way to class, so the short answer: http://www.livejournal.com/users/cathexys/62462.html

and yes, sex is different, writing is different...and there seem to be different conventions all around...

Re: justacat February 6 2004, 17:08:19 UTC

Also, revival in SH...where? send me in the right direction, please!

What I was referring to here was Flamingo's almost single-handed effort over the last number of years to bring the fandom alive again. She's been a SH prosyletizer - sending out boxes of tapes, publishing zines, making vids, having panels and viewing sessions and parties at cons, all that kind of stuff. At SH panels at cons, she has handouts listing various SH websites and resources. She actively recruits and welcomes newbies - I was one at last year's Connexions, and everyone fell all over themselves at the panel to tell me all about it and welcome me and gush about SH.

Contrast this with Pros - the Pros panels I've been to have been lackluster, disorganized, and boring.

Flamingo also has made an enormous effort to get zine stories (and sometimes entire zines) online. The Starsky & Hutch Slash Archive (which you can't get to this instant because squidge appears to be totally down) has old stories, new stories, zine stories, tons and tons and tons of stuff. ( ... )

Thread 6

mandragora1 February 5 2004, 22:44:58 UTC

Actually, that just reminded me, I did say to phantomas that I'd sign up for crack_van and make some Pros recs. But I haven't done it as yet. Must do so ( ... )

Re: justacat February 6 2004, 05:02:40 UTC

Hey, good to hear from you! I understand about the zine-based fandom problem. That's why meri hasn't volunteered to rec for Pros yet (I'm working on her) - because lots of her favorite fic isn't online. But there is some good fic online, so it seems like it should be possible to come up with 7 or 8 recs in a month ... So go for it! I'd love to see your recs on crack_van ( ... )