Television rap, whine and muse
Feb. 13th, 2005 02:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatBefore I go take a nap or read the NY Times...I feel the oddest need to rap, whine and muse about TV.
TV muse...
Was thinking about my BTVS obsession the other day, or rather my interest in the Spike/Buffy relationship...which continues to fascinate me. Not the relationship, but my interest in it. Also that whole thread, which I didn't read (no time) but![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ponygirl referred to in her livejournal - about how we are fascinated by the "bad boy." Funny. While flipping channels the other day I caught a glimpse of "I love Lucci" - 35 years of loving Television's perennial bad girl - Erica Kane on Soap Net. OR how Joan Collins made Dynasty the most watched show in the 80's. Or Heather Locklear's bad girl in Melrose Place. It ain't just the bad boy folks, that people are interested in - the bad girl fascinates as well. Why else would so many male and female fans be hot and heavy over Lilah on Angel? Or prefer Illyria to Fred? Or adore Faith? [Now, as an aside, my interest in S/B has zip to do with the bad boy/bad girl thing. Actually I liked it because it was one of the few relationships on the series in which neither character appeared to be in control - they kept wrestling for control, but neither seemed to have it. B/A? Angel had control the whole way. B/R? Riley drove that sucker. X/A - Xander. W/T? Another nifty wrestling match - which is why I prefer it to W/X or W/O. Willow/Oz - definitely Oz. Dru/Spike? - Definitely Dru. Angel/Darla - wrestling match the whole way. Jenny/Gile - wrestling match. My favorite relationships - the ones that fascinated me the most - were the ones in which neither character had complete control, they wrestled for it. I think I liked that. I like the idea that the relationship is a partnership. Equal fighting. Equal fighting over falling for each other. Equal love/hate. Equal lust. Equal fighting over being the one to control the other. And eventually equal trust and respect. I know, not everyone saw the B/S relationship this way - and that's what fascinated me as well - that you could see it in so many different ways and each one completely works for each individual. It was the one story in that show that I can flip five different ways, get five different versions and still fit within the structure. Nifty, that.] Getting back to the bad boy/bad girl fetish in television and to a degree movies, I honestly think ponygirl was right when she mentioned in her journal that it is about the narrative flow - creating conflict in drama. You need edgy characters. Characters who shake stuff up. That's why the trickster shows up in so many myths - to shake things up, that's his role. Male or female. He or she or it is not necessarily evil per se as much as means of shaking things up, creating conflict. Sometimes the trickster, if we're really lucky, becomes the lead and it becomes about how he/she/it deals with order, how they handle being controlled or boundaries. The need to control the trickster character - I believe is what lies behind the fascination. The need to control our own baser instincts, our own desires, lusts, needs. IT is also the desire to break free of them - what would it be like to be free of the need to control our world?
To have it shaken a bit. To be Faith or Spike or Darla or any number of trickster characters? Our fascination with them is two fold - life is more interesting when it isn't controlled and the natural human desire to experiment with the unknown, to push past the boundaries, to explore - without that desire we wouldn't have computers, the internet, cures for diseases, books, or guns.
TV Rap & Whine...
Bored by most the offerings this week. Felt like rehashed plots. Alias keeps reminding me of La Femme Nikita. But I did watch this week's episode, because it gripped me more than the political preachiness of West Wing or the egotistical sniping of American Idol. While the plot in some ways was quite similar to the Nikita episode, where Nikita is poisoned, hallucinating, and Michael has to find a cure for her before she dies (the poison was given to her by Section to test Michael) - it focused on some trippy character issues. Such as Sydney's inability to trust the three male presences in her life: her father, Sloan (the mentor/evil father figure), and Vaughn (her handler/now boyfriend). Each one at a separate point in her life has tried to control her - either through withholding information or imposing information onto her. Now with this drug - her mind trapped in waking nightmare. She remains uncertain what information to trust. Information is her job. Manipulating it. Pilfering. Sharing it. And now, she can't trust it. The Nikita episode was in some respects more obvious (the acting better, but that's just because I prefer the actors who played Nikit and Michael to Syndney and Vaughn), less metaphor driven, this episode is subltler, vaguer. At the end of it, we the audience are left in somewhat the same position as Sydney - can we really trust these men? Should we? Even though they've proven they love her - can she ignore their ruthlessness? Much better episode than most. Also Dixon's last line to Sloan was worth the hour. I happen to be a Carl Lumby fan. So overall - I liked this episode better than the Nikita one, but still prefer the Nikita version. I think my reason for this is La Femme Nikita was about a woman desperately trying to hold on to her innocence, her compassion, her humanity - trying not to let the job she had strip it away from her. Nikita is a tragic tale, and Nikita herself a tragic heroine. Her journey is the dark side of Buffy's. In Nikita - the violence and torture is not done for laughs, it hurts, you want to look away from it. Nikita herself is tortured by what she's done and horrified by the toll it takes on her and everyone around her. When a gun was shot on that show, a life taken, we felt the cost of it. Alias? Violence is glossed over more, made more into a cartoon, fun with nifty music. Sydney doesn't feel the cost as much. She's still in some ways the wide-eyed kid. And that bugs me.
Medium? The last two episodes have left me sort of blah. Not sure why.
ER? Very good if somewhat preachy episode about Carrie finding her mother.
I taped to watch later - because it was an episode I'd been waiting for and I love Frances Fisher who played the role. And although I think the show may have been a little too heavy handed regarding the message - I wholeheartedly agreed with it. One of the reasons I refuse to attend church any longer (was raised Catholic) is the exclusion of homosexuals. I am not homosexual by the way nor do I believe my sexuality is relevant. I consider Christianity's dismissal of a whole group of people based on their sexual orientation incredibly hypocritical, offensive, and demeaning. This episode hit on the reasons I feel this way succinctly and to the point. I believe in God, I just believe God is unfathomable and does not care about silly things like sexuality. That's a human trait which we've in our arrogance, fear, and egoism imposed/projected onto something unfathomable to us.
Joan of Arcadia - comforting, somewhat sappy in places, but comforting. I like the range of character actresses this show continues to focus on.
Gilmore Girls - also oddly comforting. I enjoyed this weeks episode, even if portions of it grated.
Veronica Mars - not as good as the previous one, where the mother disappeared.
But still fascinating. These characters are definitely growing on me. Veronica's only draw-back is it's on opposite House. Damn Fox and their scheduling. Almost makes me wish I had a DVR (the cable version of Tivo).
BattleStar Galatica - best damn series on TV. Nail-biting episode. Lots of unpredictable twists and turns. And the acting continues to blow me away.
This week's episode - in a fitting tribute to both Arthur Miller (The Crucible) and to the witch hunts of the McCarthy era (which if we aren't careful, we could be in danger of repeating) - the Galatica crew deals with the concept that Cylons, the horrible enemy, may look and be one of them.
It's a lovey take on Serling's the Monsters are Due on Maple Street. The twist? One of the Cylons is one of them. In fact - she's one of their pilots.
Sleeping with the Chief. And if the Tribunal had been allowed to continue, they may have uncovered her. Or maybe not. That question is left unanswered.
The episode poses many questions and answers none of them. What is worse?
Letting the enemy walk amongst us? Or abridging our civil rights, living in a military state of suspicion and rigid rules? Having briefly experienced both scenarios? I'd rather let the enemy walk amongst us. Trust me - you do not want to live in East Germany during 1970-1980s. Seeing the World Trade Center Collasp was preferable to that bleak world. But why live in either? That's the third question posed. Who do you trust? What are willing to sacrifice? Is love worth any cost? Unlike the other shows on this week, Battlestar is the only one that doesn't answer our questions, doesn't give us a neat little morality lesson at the end. Instead, like its predecessors - The Twilight Zone, Star Trek Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Farscape, The Prisoner and Angel - it poses questions.
The irony is that the old Battlestar Galatica - was the opposite. It was a comforting parent to a wayward child. Each episode left us with a nice little morale straight from the mouth of Lorne Green - similar to the morals he left us with on Bonanza. In some ways that was what the old Battlestar was meant to be - a Bonanza in space. Which makes watching the new version all the more enjoyable.
TV muse...
Was thinking about my BTVS obsession the other day, or rather my interest in the Spike/Buffy relationship...which continues to fascinate me. Not the relationship, but my interest in it. Also that whole thread, which I didn't read (no time) but
ponygirl referred to in her livejournal - about how we are fascinated by the "bad boy." Funny. While flipping channels the other day I caught a glimpse of "I love Lucci" - 35 years of loving Television's perennial bad girl - Erica Kane on Soap Net. OR how Joan Collins made Dynasty the most watched show in the 80's. Or Heather Locklear's bad girl in Melrose Place. It ain't just the bad boy folks, that people are interested in - the bad girl fascinates as well. Why else would so many male and female fans be hot and heavy over Lilah on Angel? Or prefer Illyria to Fred? Or adore Faith? [Now, as an aside, my interest in S/B has zip to do with the bad boy/bad girl thing. Actually I liked it because it was one of the few relationships on the series in which neither character appeared to be in control - they kept wrestling for control, but neither seemed to have it. B/A? Angel had control the whole way. B/R? Riley drove that sucker. X/A - Xander. W/T? Another nifty wrestling match - which is why I prefer it to W/X or W/O. Willow/Oz - definitely Oz. Dru/Spike? - Definitely Dru. Angel/Darla - wrestling match the whole way. Jenny/Gile - wrestling match. My favorite relationships - the ones that fascinated me the most - were the ones in which neither character had complete control, they wrestled for it. I think I liked that. I like the idea that the relationship is a partnership. Equal fighting. Equal fighting over falling for each other. Equal love/hate. Equal lust. Equal fighting over being the one to control the other. And eventually equal trust and respect. I know, not everyone saw the B/S relationship this way - and that's what fascinated me as well - that you could see it in so many different ways and each one completely works for each individual. It was the one story in that show that I can flip five different ways, get five different versions and still fit within the structure. Nifty, that.] Getting back to the bad boy/bad girl fetish in television and to a degree movies, I honestly think ponygirl was right when she mentioned in her journal that it is about the narrative flow - creating conflict in drama. You need edgy characters. Characters who shake stuff up. That's why the trickster shows up in so many myths - to shake things up, that's his role. Male or female. He or she or it is not necessarily evil per se as much as means of shaking things up, creating conflict. Sometimes the trickster, if we're really lucky, becomes the lead and it becomes about how he/she/it deals with order, how they handle being controlled or boundaries. The need to control the trickster character - I believe is what lies behind the fascination. The need to control our own baser instincts, our own desires, lusts, needs. IT is also the desire to break free of them - what would it be like to be free of the need to control our world?To have it shaken a bit. To be Faith or Spike or Darla or any number of trickster characters? Our fascination with them is two fold - life is more interesting when it isn't controlled and the natural human desire to experiment with the unknown, to push past the boundaries, to explore - without that desire we wouldn't have computers, the internet, cures for diseases, books, or guns.
TV Rap & Whine...
Bored by most the offerings this week. Felt like rehashed plots. Alias keeps reminding me of La Femme Nikita. But I did watch this week's episode, because it gripped me more than the political preachiness of West Wing or the egotistical sniping of American Idol. While the plot in some ways was quite similar to the Nikita episode, where Nikita is poisoned, hallucinating, and Michael has to find a cure for her before she dies (the poison was given to her by Section to test Michael) - it focused on some trippy character issues. Such as Sydney's inability to trust the three male presences in her life: her father, Sloan (the mentor/evil father figure), and Vaughn (her handler/now boyfriend). Each one at a separate point in her life has tried to control her - either through withholding information or imposing information onto her. Now with this drug - her mind trapped in waking nightmare. She remains uncertain what information to trust. Information is her job. Manipulating it. Pilfering. Sharing it. And now, she can't trust it. The Nikita episode was in some respects more obvious (the acting better, but that's just because I prefer the actors who played Nikit and Michael to Syndney and Vaughn), less metaphor driven, this episode is subltler, vaguer. At the end of it, we the audience are left in somewhat the same position as Sydney - can we really trust these men? Should we? Even though they've proven they love her - can she ignore their ruthlessness? Much better episode than most. Also Dixon's last line to Sloan was worth the hour. I happen to be a Carl Lumby fan. So overall - I liked this episode better than the Nikita one, but still prefer the Nikita version. I think my reason for this is La Femme Nikita was about a woman desperately trying to hold on to her innocence, her compassion, her humanity - trying not to let the job she had strip it away from her. Nikita is a tragic tale, and Nikita herself a tragic heroine. Her journey is the dark side of Buffy's. In Nikita - the violence and torture is not done for laughs, it hurts, you want to look away from it. Nikita herself is tortured by what she's done and horrified by the toll it takes on her and everyone around her. When a gun was shot on that show, a life taken, we felt the cost of it. Alias? Violence is glossed over more, made more into a cartoon, fun with nifty music. Sydney doesn't feel the cost as much. She's still in some ways the wide-eyed kid. And that bugs me.
Medium? The last two episodes have left me sort of blah. Not sure why.
ER? Very good if somewhat preachy episode about Carrie finding her mother.
I taped to watch later - because it was an episode I'd been waiting for and I love Frances Fisher who played the role. And although I think the show may have been a little too heavy handed regarding the message - I wholeheartedly agreed with it. One of the reasons I refuse to attend church any longer (was raised Catholic) is the exclusion of homosexuals. I am not homosexual by the way nor do I believe my sexuality is relevant. I consider Christianity's dismissal of a whole group of people based on their sexual orientation incredibly hypocritical, offensive, and demeaning. This episode hit on the reasons I feel this way succinctly and to the point. I believe in God, I just believe God is unfathomable and does not care about silly things like sexuality. That's a human trait which we've in our arrogance, fear, and egoism imposed/projected onto something unfathomable to us.
Joan of Arcadia - comforting, somewhat sappy in places, but comforting. I like the range of character actresses this show continues to focus on.
Gilmore Girls - also oddly comforting. I enjoyed this weeks episode, even if portions of it grated.
Veronica Mars - not as good as the previous one, where the mother disappeared.
But still fascinating. These characters are definitely growing on me. Veronica's only draw-back is it's on opposite House. Damn Fox and their scheduling. Almost makes me wish I had a DVR (the cable version of Tivo).
BattleStar Galatica - best damn series on TV. Nail-biting episode. Lots of unpredictable twists and turns. And the acting continues to blow me away.
This week's episode - in a fitting tribute to both Arthur Miller (The Crucible) and to the witch hunts of the McCarthy era (which if we aren't careful, we could be in danger of repeating) - the Galatica crew deals with the concept that Cylons, the horrible enemy, may look and be one of them.
It's a lovey take on Serling's the Monsters are Due on Maple Street. The twist? One of the Cylons is one of them. In fact - she's one of their pilots.
Sleeping with the Chief. And if the Tribunal had been allowed to continue, they may have uncovered her. Or maybe not. That question is left unanswered.
The episode poses many questions and answers none of them. What is worse?
Letting the enemy walk amongst us? Or abridging our civil rights, living in a military state of suspicion and rigid rules? Having briefly experienced both scenarios? I'd rather let the enemy walk amongst us. Trust me - you do not want to live in East Germany during 1970-1980s. Seeing the World Trade Center Collasp was preferable to that bleak world. But why live in either? That's the third question posed. Who do you trust? What are willing to sacrifice? Is love worth any cost? Unlike the other shows on this week, Battlestar is the only one that doesn't answer our questions, doesn't give us a neat little morality lesson at the end. Instead, like its predecessors - The Twilight Zone, Star Trek Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Farscape, The Prisoner and Angel - it poses questions.
The irony is that the old Battlestar Galatica - was the opposite. It was a comforting parent to a wayward child. Each episode left us with a nice little morale straight from the mouth of Lorne Green - similar to the morals he left us with on Bonanza. In some ways that was what the old Battlestar was meant to be - a Bonanza in space. Which makes watching the new version all the more enjoyable.
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Re: trying to catch up here...
Date: 2005-02-18 08:41 pm (UTC)Me, I actually like nice. It's #1 on my list of desired characteristics. I don't think it makes someone bland or boring--never understood why some people think so. It's not enough by itself, but the thing is, that's never all there is to a person. You can have all sorts of other qualities, but if you're not nice too--I'm not interested.
Everyone is nice and everyone is cruel. It just depends who they are with. I've known some people that you would upon meeting them think this is the nicest person who walked the planet, charming, kind, joking, on the surface they are incredibly nice. But...ah but. One was a bank robber, in Leavenworth Penitentary. Very nice man. Very pleasant. Another, well an ex-boyfriend in college. Sweetheart as a friend, one of the nicest people on the planet. As a boyfriend? Well... we won't go there. The last a former boss,
also sweetheart, nice guy to everyone who didn't threaten his ego or challenge him. And wasn't ahem, a woman.
Evil can be very *nice*, very sweet. When asked about a next door neighbor who had been accussed of killing over 20 women, someone was known to have said:"oh but he was so NICE."
Me, I like nice fine. But I don't trust it. Or depend on it. People are complicated creatures, we all are nice and we all are cruel depending on the situation. Just look at the discussion boards - there are posters who are incredibly nice to certain people and incredibly cruel to others. Are they nice people? Well, it depends on who you ask.
Now don't misunderstand me - I like nice. I despise conflict. I avoid confrontation in real life and when cruelty comes a calling, I leave the room and choose not to engage. No one likes to be with someone who is mean, no one chooses that. Real life ain't that easy. People aren't black and white. We don't have nice guys in one corner and mean guys in the other. Sometimes I wish we did, make life easier, but also sort of boring I suppose. Part of being human is that predatory nature that lies in us all, like it or not we are predators, we are animals, we are competitive and we aren't always nice.
I'm not so sure I agree about Angel & Riley being in control in their relationships w/Buffy. Angel, maybe in the beginning, but Buffy grew up a lot in dealing w/Angelus. I don't look at these relationships as parent/child, but Buffy was the one taking responsibility when Angel 1st returned, & Angel had plenty of childish moments. Riley liked the way Buffy took charge. When he & Angel finally faced off & it degenerated into a fistfight, Buffy was the closest thing I've seen on the show to a parent separating squabbling children.
My difficulties with Riley might actually have more to do with Marc Blucas than the character. Marc Blucas is one of those actors who bores me silly. In my humble opinion he has the screen chemistry of television test pattern and about as many expressions as Keanu Reeves, except not nearly as pretty. Stiff, cute guy.
Bores me silly. He's not alone - there's a whole list of actors who I just can't watch on-screen without becoming distracted, flipping channels or getting bored. And they all have the same exact acting style as Blucas. The stiff, almost, but not quite expressionless, stoic, *way* less is more deal:
1. Keanu Reeves
2. Matt Damon (with the exception of Good Will Hunting, and Bourne movies (which this worked in))
3. Ben Affleck...(although he may well be the most expressive of the bunch)
4. Richard Burgi (currently on Point Pleasant as the father of Christina character)
5. Grant Show
6. Richard Dean Anderson
7. Marc Blucas
8. Michael Vartan (Vaughn on Alias).
And Leonardo Di Caprio (although I think he has a great deal of talent, just no screen charisma - bores me, except for Romeo & Juliet and Catch if You Can.) Also David Boreanze - he was fine as Angel, but to be honest, I didn't watch Angel for Boreanze, I watched it for everyone else - Boreanze's acting tends to bore me.
It's subjective, I know.
Re: trying to catch up here...
Date: 2005-02-18 08:46 pm (UTC)It's very serialized. But I think you could figure it out.
Each episode is amazing. Tonight's one of the best I've seen.
And actually demonstrated some of what I was talking about above about nice. Very interesting show. Not at all like the original series in any respect.