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Dispatches...
1. My workplace's browser (MSN) shot an article at me today on the renewed, cancelled and still waiting television series. I'll see if I can find it?
Well I found it HERE on Scary Mommy (sigh don't ask) (does it by network and streaming channel) and via Rotten Tomatoes (does it alphabetically),
and Tv Line and Metacritic (which is more up to date than Scary Mommy, not surprising in the least).
Interesting, albeit not surprising, sidebar? Paramount is cancelling all the Star Trek in favor of all of the Taylor Sheridan modern (also uber violent) Westerns. (I'm feeling validated for cancelling Paramount and boycotting CBS. Honestly, people were willing to unsubscribe to Disney for Jimmy Kimmel, but not unsubscribe from Paramount for Star Trek and cancelling Colbert? People? Really?)
Gone are the days, I can just list them. There's too many. It would take me hours.
2. Listened to a podcast - with Juliet Landau interviewing David Greenwalt.
Landau is great at interviewing folks. She barely talks and just lets them talk, with various targeted questions that spur them to say more about the business, and she, for the most part, avoids problematic topics.
Take away? Greenwalt's reward for doing Buffy was supposed to be - joining the writing and producing team for the X-Files. But Greenwalt states that he couldn't write for the X-Files. He just couldn't write that type of television series. When Landau asked why, he said that he needed an emotional arc or an emotional core - that his writing was more character based and emotion based. He said that while the X-Files is brilliantly written - it has no emotional core. It's just not there, and he couldn't write for it because of that. The network apparently wanted Mulder and Scully to kiss in the first episode, and the writers fought against it and won. Which was the right decision - it wouldn't have worked at all.
X-Files is plot based, not character based. You literally could put anyone in it and it would for the most part work - a skeptic and a true believer.
That's actually a hard format to pull off well. Emotion based is easier.
Plot based can get redundant and old fast. X-Files had good writers: Tim Minear came from the X-Files as did Vince Gillian.
I didn't like the X-Files that much - for two reasons? 1) I don't really like hyper-realistic horror. I like my horror unrealistic. Also alien invasion/government conspiracy stories irritate me - it's most likely a side effect of being forced to watch a lot of 1950s, 1960s and 1970s sci-fi alien invasion/government conspiracy series/ and B movies as a child. My best friend at the time loved that shit. 2) It's a by the books, plot procedural with no emotional base - and I'm a bit like Greenwalt, I need the emotional arc. I get bored or my attention starts to wander if I don't have that. I'm more character than plot oriented, most people tend to be one or the other? Some are both. I preferred Fringe? It was less hyper-realistic scary, and had more of an emotional core.
3. Listened to Nerd Subculture - which is an Australian Podcast Series on well, American television series? It's not very good. FB kept throwing snatches of it at me. So I gave it a try. They lost me in their analysis of Beneath You. (It's a couple, one has seen the series, one hasn't.)
Female Australian Commentator: No, Beneath You wasn't controversial at all, and didn't make anyone's best or worst of - lists.
Me: You obviously didn't watch this while on the Buffy boards in 2003. Because yes, it was controversial and yes, it did make many folks best of lists.
Female Commentator, I think her name is Angie? But not certain?: Angel was crazy for 100 years with a soul. That's why I wanted you to watch Angel - at the same time - because it really goes into what having a soul means...
Me: Clearly you haven't watched Angel? Because he wasn't crazy at all. Spike yes. Angel no. Angel was mopey, but not crazy. He moped. He occasionally did things that were nasty. But he mostly spent a lot of time moping - usually because Darla couldn't abide him and he was lonely. He even tried to hang with Dru, Darla, and Spike for a bit. It's why Dru and Spike were confused by his behavior in S2 Buffy, because Angel did bad things with a soul. They went heavy on the alcoholic theme on Angel.
If you are going to do a podcast? Try to be intelligent about it? Or people won't watch. (No one is - they have 0 likes, they are basically talking into the void and well anyone who stumbles upon them via FB.)
I was disappointed in the podcast. The snatches on FB led me to believe it would be somewhat insighful? It's not. Everything they say - we said with a lot more depth on the Buffy boards as the show aired and in writing. Podcasting is kind of lazy.
Well I found it HERE on Scary Mommy (sigh don't ask) (does it by network and streaming channel) and via Rotten Tomatoes (does it alphabetically),
and Tv Line and Metacritic (which is more up to date than Scary Mommy, not surprising in the least).
Interesting, albeit not surprising, sidebar? Paramount is cancelling all the Star Trek in favor of all of the Taylor Sheridan modern (also uber violent) Westerns. (I'm feeling validated for cancelling Paramount and boycotting CBS. Honestly, people were willing to unsubscribe to Disney for Jimmy Kimmel, but not unsubscribe from Paramount for Star Trek and cancelling Colbert? People? Really?)
Gone are the days, I can just list them. There's too many. It would take me hours.
2. Listened to a podcast - with Juliet Landau interviewing David Greenwalt.
Landau is great at interviewing folks. She barely talks and just lets them talk, with various targeted questions that spur them to say more about the business, and she, for the most part, avoids problematic topics.
Take away? Greenwalt's reward for doing Buffy was supposed to be - joining the writing and producing team for the X-Files. But Greenwalt states that he couldn't write for the X-Files. He just couldn't write that type of television series. When Landau asked why, he said that he needed an emotional arc or an emotional core - that his writing was more character based and emotion based. He said that while the X-Files is brilliantly written - it has no emotional core. It's just not there, and he couldn't write for it because of that. The network apparently wanted Mulder and Scully to kiss in the first episode, and the writers fought against it and won. Which was the right decision - it wouldn't have worked at all.
X-Files is plot based, not character based. You literally could put anyone in it and it would for the most part work - a skeptic and a true believer.
That's actually a hard format to pull off well. Emotion based is easier.
Plot based can get redundant and old fast. X-Files had good writers: Tim Minear came from the X-Files as did Vince Gillian.
I didn't like the X-Files that much - for two reasons? 1) I don't really like hyper-realistic horror. I like my horror unrealistic. Also alien invasion/government conspiracy stories irritate me - it's most likely a side effect of being forced to watch a lot of 1950s, 1960s and 1970s sci-fi alien invasion/government conspiracy series/ and B movies as a child. My best friend at the time loved that shit. 2) It's a by the books, plot procedural with no emotional base - and I'm a bit like Greenwalt, I need the emotional arc. I get bored or my attention starts to wander if I don't have that. I'm more character than plot oriented, most people tend to be one or the other? Some are both. I preferred Fringe? It was less hyper-realistic scary, and had more of an emotional core.
3. Listened to Nerd Subculture - which is an Australian Podcast Series on well, American television series? It's not very good. FB kept throwing snatches of it at me. So I gave it a try. They lost me in their analysis of Beneath You. (It's a couple, one has seen the series, one hasn't.)
Female Australian Commentator: No, Beneath You wasn't controversial at all, and didn't make anyone's best or worst of - lists.
Me: You obviously didn't watch this while on the Buffy boards in 2003. Because yes, it was controversial and yes, it did make many folks best of lists.
Female Commentator, I think her name is Angie? But not certain?: Angel was crazy for 100 years with a soul. That's why I wanted you to watch Angel - at the same time - because it really goes into what having a soul means...
Me: Clearly you haven't watched Angel? Because he wasn't crazy at all. Spike yes. Angel no. Angel was mopey, but not crazy. He moped. He occasionally did things that were nasty. But he mostly spent a lot of time moping - usually because Darla couldn't abide him and he was lonely. He even tried to hang with Dru, Darla, and Spike for a bit. It's why Dru and Spike were confused by his behavior in S2 Buffy, because Angel did bad things with a soul. They went heavy on the alcoholic theme on Angel.
If you are going to do a podcast? Try to be intelligent about it? Or people won't watch. (No one is - they have 0 likes, they are basically talking into the void and well anyone who stumbles upon them via FB.)
I was disappointed in the podcast. The snatches on FB led me to believe it would be somewhat insighful? It's not. Everything they say - we said with a lot more depth on the Buffy boards as the show aired and in writing. Podcasting is kind of lazy.