Comics, Shakespeare, and Lost

[shadowkat]

So, got curious and checked out Whedonesque's discussion of the preview pages of Buffy issue #34, which annoyed me when I looked at them, but admittedly it's hard to tell whether an issue is worth reading based on preview pages, just as it is impossible to tell if a book is worth reading based on the first five pages. I usually check out first five, middle ten, and last five. Just as I normally give a tv series at least five episodes before I kick it to the curb, with a few exceptions.

Anyhow...the discussion is a rather interesting one on the comic book medium and how various people relate to that medium. It's worth noting that not everyone enjoys all mediums. My brother hates live theater or "plays". He loves rock or live music performances. But plays with dialogue, dance, and people singing to a story on stage? Not so much. Has 0 patience for them. I'm the exact opposite - I love live theater and plays. But tend to fall asleep or become incredibly bored during a live music performance, with few exceptions.

Same deal with Shakespear...my brother like a lot of people that I've met does not understand nor has a lot of patience for Shakespeare. I've performed Shakespeare. And studied it. To me reading Shakespeare is well as natural as breathing. I've even written or attempted to write a sonnet, sigh, hasn't everyone? So when we, my brother and I, went to see Julie Taymor's Titus Andronicous way back in the early 1990s, and I was tasked with explaining the dialogue and story to him - he got the visuals, the visuals made perfect sense, but the dialogue, the poetry of the words was lost on him.

Comics are the same way, I think. But it is also more complicated than that. Like music or books. Some music speaks to me, some doesn't. Some art speaks to me. Some doesn't. And some Shakespeare does and some just doesn't. You can't really generalize, although it is incredbily tempting. I've read a wide range of comic books. Some are amazing - my favorite artist may well be Alex Kross (I think that's the spelling) who did the extraordinary Kingdom Come DC Universe arc and Marvels - for the Marvel Universe. There's also Jai Lee - who uses shadows in a way that is memorable. His art sings. Is there a specific language to comics - that you need to learn? Depends on who you ask - Scott McCloud and the ahem, academically inclined certainly believe there is. But I never took a class and I don't agree with some of the things McCloud is stating in Understanding Comics, but then for me? Comics are told in my language. I am a visual learner. Phonics confused me. So I basically learned how to read with a comic book. It was called The Dick and Jane Reader - and like a comic - it had balloons and was sight and sound. Comics for me are easy to read, easier than a book. Requires no work. I flip through them at the speed of light. And can pretty much see all the nuances and angles.
But I'm also an artist. And I used to draw and tell myself stories at the same time. So, like
plays, I am in love with the comic book medium. I fell deeply in love with it in 1985.
And have had to deal with much abuse because of it - no one in my family understands my love of comics. And few friends have. So I tend to hide them and never mention it.

Are comic books silly? Yes. Sometimes. The Buffy Comics? I'd put in the same category as I put Astonishing X-men, X-men, Captain America, Superman, Wonderwoman, etc...fun. Pure entertainment.
They aren't going to ever really hit literary mainstream. Pop culture - sure. And their market tends to be adolescents. Don't get me wrong - I adore this genre. I've collected it. But I don't take it that seriously. I treat it much the same way I treat the soap operas I enjoy and for the same reasons - both genres have the same pitfalls, the same outlandish plots, out of character moments, and melodrama. They are serials. And much like the majority of Shakespeare's plays before them - created to entertain the masses. You aren't supposed to take them too seriously. They are fun.

Then there's comics like Persepolis and The 9/11 Commission Report and After-9/11, along with Maus, Neil Gaiman's Sandman, and Brian K Vaughn's epic Ex Deus Machina. As well as Alan Moore's Watchmen, Swamp Thing, and Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns - which jump from pop culture to literature. These are well...the equivalent of the Cormac McCarthy's, Edith Wharton, and James Joyce of the comic book field and often go by the name "graphic novels".

If you are new to the medium and think you can't read it or understand it? Look around a bit more...you may find something that fits your fancy. There are comics that are more like illustrated novels - such as Neil Gaiman's Caroline.

How do I feel about the Buffy Comics right now? Mixed. Part of me wants to throw the baby out with the bathwater so to speak - ie give up and throw them all in the trash in an absurd hissy fit. The other part, wants to keep reading to see if the writer saves himself and redeems the story or if it falls off a cliff. At the moment, could go either way. Curiousity will probably win out...and I'll keep reading. But I'm learning not to care too much, to not invest anything in it, and to treat them as a fun ride.

Feel much the same way about the tv show LOST at the moment. Although am far more ambivalent about LOST. I never really got that invested in it. I find myself watching it more casually. Less on the front of my seat. Which may be a good thing, since I find the direction it appears to be headed a tad on the cliche side of the fence. I'll stick it out as well, because like Buffy it only has six episodes left, and I've stuck it out this long, might as well keep going just to see if the writers jump off the proverbial cliff or save themselves at the last minute and look shockingly brilliant. I admit to a somewhat sadistic fondness for watching/reading experimental writing that happens without a net. It is amongst the many reasons that I adore tv shows like Lost, BSG, Buffy, Angel, Dollhouse, and the like - I like to see writers push at the envelope and break the rules.

Comments

[alocalmaximum.blogspot.com (from livejournal.com)]

How would you compare the Buffy comics to, say, the TV series? In terms of "outlandish plots, out of character moments" etc. I feel like the show mostly maintained emotional realism, with a few bumps, but not plotting realism. But Whedon does like his soap and horror conventions, which in some respects is admirable; he really *adores* "pop culture," doesn't think of himself as being above it, and mostly brings out the best in those genres, when he's on his game.

Yeah, the last engaging episode LOST had was "Dr. Linus." I'm pretty ambivalent about the show generally as well. This episode did have Yunjin/Daniel Dae chemistry (in one half the episode) and had Jack acting almost like a human being, for a positive change. It also felt very slow in both plotlines, without enough genuine character moments to balance the slow forward movement. I'm kind of amazed even LOST would have a character run straight into a tree and then get aphasia.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I think the aphasia may be there primarily to harken back to the beginning when Jin couldn't speak English and Sun could. Now it's reversed. Although, I did read a theory that the aphasia may have something to do with bleed-over from the AU where the AU Sun doesn't know English. Although, that seems a bit complicated for me (though, it's Lost, so I don't dismiss it). Still, it may just be an hommage to back when one or the other couldn't speak English.

[alocalmaximum.blogspot.com (from livejournal.com)]

Oh, don't get me wrong--I understand the meta reasons for the aphasia, and don't necessarily think it's a bad idea (well, it'll depend on how it's dealt with). But it's very...Flintstones for someone to get it by RUNNING INTO A TREE.

I suppose the fact that Jin and Sun didn't get married means that it wasn't a horrible, controlling marriage, which is why Sun didn't go to learn English (and cheat on him with Jae Lee) in the alt-verse.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Was that how it happened? The aphasia? I wasn't sure - if Lock had knocked her out or she'd gotten it from running into the tree. If the latter, you are correct, it is very Flinstones. LOL!

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

How would you compare the Buffy comics to, say, the TV series? In terms of "outlandish plots, out of character moments" etc.

I'm not sure you can compare them - because the mediums are so different, with completely different constraints and requirements.

The TV series - did at times rise to the level of art, above and beyond it's own genre constraints. Did it have outlandish plots? Sure. Was it melodramatic? Of course. But, unlike the comics, it was tighter and the characters seldom jumped off course. Part of the reason
it was tighter and had less OCC moments - was the fact that Whedon had to physically sit in a room with his co-writers/writing team and they all knew exactly where the story was headed, the main outline of the plot, and what emotional points had to be hit. He also
had actors - who played the characters and would often
question a line of dialogue or movement, or would interpret it in a way Whedon had not considered and that would be what we'd see. If Buffy had been a comic all along, Spike would most likely have been staked by Angelus in S2. Also on TV - actors can leave. So, if these were comics - you'd have had Tara as The First,
as well as Jenny. (Both actors declined to return when asked to play the role on the series.)

We also have input from some crucial writers...David Greenwalt, David Fury, Marti Noxon, all of whom had a hand in plotting and talked Whedon out of or into doing certain things. Angel most likely would not exist if it had not been for David Greenwalt, nor would Spike and Dru if it weren't for Noxon and Greenwalt.

The comics in contrast are written by email. They don't sit in a room to hash it out. Few of the writers meet with Whedon. They are dependent on a editor.
They can't write a long monologue and have to depend on
an artist to convey certain things that you would convey through dialogue or music on television. Many of the writers, Espenson for example, didn't even know the plot or where the story was headed when they wrote their section. The comics in many ways remind me of a collaborative fanfiction project that I did on a fan discussion board back in 2002. We didn't know where we were headed, someone edited it, and we just emailed in chapters. That type of writing, without an excellent and hands on editor - lends itself to pitfalls.

The other problem with the comics - is there are no boundaries. Anything goes. On TV - you can't just have Buffy fly or throw an ancient locomotive. You can, but you need to get approval and justify the costs.

The comics that are considered graphic novels or literary, mostly don't do whatever. They stay within certain constraints and are expertly plotted, with a writer who is often the artist as well and who writes and draws the entire volumn and is "hands on" - not flitting to and from the enterprise whenever he finds the time, between other more interesting and lucrative projects. Also those comics tend to happen within a short time frame.

Another difference is Buffy the TV series told it's seasonal arcs within a tight time frame, and resolved things within that time frame. 22 episodes. Sept - May.
Done. Two, maybe three breaks, if that. Each episode comes out once a week. The comics?
40 issues - over the course of five years. With one out once a month.

To me? The Buffy TV series had moments of brilliance
and I can see why some scholars went nutty over it. ;-)
The comics? sigh. I have a feeling they'll be forgotten and not taken that seriously. And to date have yet to come close to the brilliance of episodes like Restless or The Body. Whedon like it or not, is not a great comic book writer. He's enjoyable, fun for a quick read. But nothing to write home about. But he is a fantastic television writer. TV is his best medium. TV and Film. It's his forte. Comics? Not so much. Mostly because he's limited - he can only write the things, he can't direct the art (knows zip about that) and he can't really edit the final product. He can do all three with film and television.

[alocalmaximum.blogspot.com (from livejournal.com)]

Thank you for your eloquent response :)

I mostly agree with you. I do think that some of Whedon's comics work is very good. I don't really know how to evaluate it as art or not, but the "Torn" arc in Astonishing X-Men, aspects of "Gone", Fray, some of his short stories in Tales of the Slayers/Vampires, struck me as very strong. And while I have some problems with his arcs in Buffy season eight, there is a noticeable sense of...confidence in his issues, that I agree is lacking in most of the one-shots and Espenson's Retreat arc. How I feel about Time of Your Life may depend strongly on whether the next issues clarify some of the events there, but I sense, reading it, that Whedon knows exactly what he's doing, even if it's a stupid thing to do. Same with the levels of foreshadowing in The Long Way Home. I think that No Future For You and Wolves at the Gate both had a strong sense of forward momentum and were well plotted as individual arcs, and I think this is because it was early enough in the game for Vaughan and Goddard to follow their own obsessions rather than stick to a master plot they only partially understood. And also these issues were very Twilight-light, and so didn't run afoul of Whedon's vision for the season.

Ultimately I agree that Whedon's best medium is TV. And he works best when he has a strong collaborator like Noxon, Minear, Greenwalt--I actually think that as a dialogue writer Greenwalt is mediocre, but he seems to have very good "big picture" ideas. Whedon does do big ideas, and does small details (dialogue etc.) very well, but he fails at the medium-level of making the world believable, which is why collaborators willing to tell him he's wrong are important. Mostly no one has that position in season eight (except possibly Meltzer?).

And yet, I still enjoy season eight--partly I am just along for the ride, and want to see where it goes, but also I have found moments that affect me emotionally and engage me intellecutally in most issues. I might just have terrible taste ;), and I understand why others do not like them, and don't disagree that there are bad writing/art decisions, particularly in the last few issues.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Your welcome ;-) Although it would be more eloquent if I could get the stupid spacing thing to work. Your paragraphs are evenly spaced. Mine not so much.

Anyhow...I agree, Greenwalt was not good at writing dialogue - one of the many reasons his own series didn't quite work, nor for that matter did Moonlight - which he attempted. But when it comes to plotting - he is stellar. He also understands what works for a universal audience.

Whedon can at times get a bit too enamored of the "message" or all the ideas floating about in his head, to see the plot. His big ideas - are sometimes, shall we say, too big??? He sometimes takes on more than either he or the medium he is working can chew. I think he may well have done this with the comics and with S7 - both were BIG stories, but a bit too big for the medium and for his capabilities as a writer. Whedon isn't really a political epic plot writer a la Ron Moore, he's more an intimate psychological dramedy type of writer. When he takes on a big political story or arc such as say Firefly or Dollhouse - he's guilty of over-complicating things - to the point in which the story gets a bit diffused and meanders. And you feel like the writer is basically throwing things at a wall to see what sticks or spending a lot of time trying to explain what is happening. This happened in S7 - where he felt the need to introduce 100 new characters into the last season of the series, along with a chock full of exposition. Great in theory, not so great in practice. When writing a story? It's best to stick to as small an ensemble cast as possible - you get too big and too complicated, things get a tad unweildly and you end up with a lot of scenes of people sitting on bleachers listening to monologues. Note - if you have to explain the plot to the audience or the reader, then there is a problem with the plot. You shouldn't have to explain it. The reader should be two steps ahead of the characters...part of the fun is figuring it out ahead of the characters. Whedon gets caught-up in shocking plot-twists, forgetting that part of the fun is if the audience is along for the ride, not left hanging, thinking WTF? OR wait, why did they do that? And how did that happen?

The comics have somewhat the same problem - too many characters, too many plot threads, too many misleads, and too much exposition. I know what happened - Whedon wrote Fray, got enamored with it and decided he had to join the Buffyverse to Fray or explain how Fray came about - even if it doesn't totally work. I'm admittedly getting sadistic pleasure out of watching him attempt to make the Buffverse give birth to the Frayverse, even if Buffy does it kicking and screaming.

I agree - aspects of Astonishing X-men were strong - Whedon is at his best when he is doing intimate psychological stories. Torn was a psychological drama and did provide new insight or at least a different angle on each X-men, from Wolverine to Cyclops. But the arc about the Danger Room? Was silly beyond belief (although I have admittedly seen worse - The Teen Titans and The X-men vs. Darkseid was actually worse -I've been reading X-men comic books since the 1980s, and collected the one's prior to that. )

From what I've read, Meltzer had relatively little say in the arc, outside of his portion and how he thought they might want to build up to it. He came up with the idea of Twilight - so we can blame him for that.;-) And he may well have come up with Twuffy. I don't know. Hard to tell from the contradictory interviews. I don't think of Meltzer as a world-builder or detail oriented. I read a few of his early novels (a legal thriller which defied logic) and the Infinity story that Whedon
wrote an intro to. Both lacked attention to small details, and the characters at times felt as if they were pawns of the writers plot or paperdolls, not characters. ie - the plot was thrust on the characters, as opposed to organically coming from their own decisions and choices over a lengthy period of time.) I sense some of that in this story as well.

[alocalmaximum.blogspot.com (from livejournal.com)]

Well, I love Firefly, but I certainly prefer its intimate character studies to its political worldbuilding. And since its political messages are so tied up in the characters on the small ship--none of the worldbuilding aspects bother me. Dollhouse has bigger problems in that department; honestly I quite liked season one, even if the one-offs were boring often, but season two was all over the map trying desperately to make a story make sense without any real buildup. There were some wonderful moments, but the big picture mostly swallowed everyone, which is, I agree, what might be happening in the comics. Fray, like the "Torn" arc, was mostly a small-scale character study, with all the world/mythology kept in the background.

What season seven and eight have in common is that Whedon has a big overall vision, and one that makes thematic sense in his head, and then he leaves other people to fill in all the details. But his vision has too many characters to be controlled, and he hasn't surrounded himself with leaders. In season seven, Noxon was on maternity leave for most of the year if I remember correctly (and while she does emotions extremely well, she doesn't plot well), and Fury was mostly off on Angel; so was DeKnight. Goddard had just joined the staff. Espenson and Petrie are fantastic writers but they seem to be betas in the writers' room; Espenson's stepping down as the showrunner on Caprica kind of confirms this for me--she works very well bringing forth other people's vision, but doesn't actually like to run things that much. And Petrie, again, has written some amazing scripts but I'm not sure he has a strong sensibility that could animate a whole story; many of his best episodes are mostly setup or "part ones" (e.g. This Year's Girl, The Yoko Factor, Two to Go). Kirshner and Greenberg were okay writers but weaker than the rest of the staff. And Goddard just got started. The randomness of the year's plotlines feel a lot like all the individual writers' sensibilities leaking through--which is why I think season seven actually has many strong individual shows, just with a lot of bizarre jumps back and forth.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Oh, I love Firefly as well. I own it on DVD. But it is a deeply flawed work, albeit an ambitious one. (I tend to be more critical of things I love, things I don't, I seldom bother with. ;-) ). The reason Firefly failed to grab a broad spectrum of viewers - is that it tried to do too much. Whedon got ambitious and wanted to tackle a more political story, something more in line with what Ron Moore was doing over on Battle Star Galatica - Moore pulled it off, but then Moore is different type of writer than Whedon. He had a detailed character and world bible, with every tiny thing accounted for - before he did the Mini-series.
(He'd come from Star Trek and Farscape - detailed sci-fi series.)
Whedon - outlines, but he's looser, and likes to keep things open.
He's more about the intimate moments, the psychological, and less big picture guy.

His best work - if you think about it - has been psychological and emotionally based character moments. Such as The Body, Restless,
Who are You, Innocence, The church sequence in Beneath You, and Once More With Feeling. All had smaller casts and focused on psychological/emotional issues. I love the writer because of that. Not all writers have that ability or are interested in the "Why" or emotional arc of a character. Whedon is a poet.

Firefly was the same way - the best episode was a character story, Objects in Space. When he moved away from the characters to the corporate bad guys...it got preachy and lost it's oomph. Same deal with Buffy - Season 7's best episodes were Selfless, Conversations with Dead People, Beneath Me, Lies My Parents Told Me, and Same Time Same Place, Lessons - all focused on a specific characters, were psychological in nature and didn't have big picture or lots of characters.

So, I agree with most of what you state above, particularly the last paragraph... what S8 and S7 have in common is we don't really have anyone who is well a David Greenwalt - not that I'm a huge fan of Greenwalt. My favorite seasons are actually the latter ones on both series - the ones Greenwalt was not directly involved in, but I admit that the earlier seasons where he was involved were better plotted. Note David Greenwalt was involved to a degree up until S7 of Buffy and up until S4 of Angel, and not at all with Firefly. Minear became Whedon's principal writing partner after that point - and Minear sucks at big picture - I know I've seen three of his series fail due to that problem. And you are correct about Espenson - she's not a show-runner. She's a writer who likes to focus on the individual trees, or rather the ferns, and ignore the forest. Note - BSG: The Plan - which she wrote - fell apart, it was a big picture story and it made no sense. I tried to watch it and gave up, it made Retreat seem brilliant by comparison. She really is not a good plotter. Fury - I'm on the fence about, 24 went off the rails when he took over. He can go a bit too dark, and needs someone to reign him in. That said, he does brilliant character pieces - his episode of Lost that focused on Locke was brilliant as was Helpless in Buffy S3. Noxon - also on the fence about - every show she's tried to run, falls apart.
But she does great emotional moments.

I think Buffy worked best when they kept it simple. And the story personal. Small in scope. Angel also worked best when they did that. I get the desire to go big picture...and admire the writer for stretching his muscels, but...I don't believe it's where his strength lies. This story would have worked far better if he'd kept it more contained. S9 may actually be better than S8, but I don't know if I'll stick around for it - since rumor has it, Whedon is only executive producing, not writing.

[alocalmaximum.blogspot.com (from livejournal.com)]

Agreed. Although I do think that the episode "Serenity" is one of the best of the series as well--and this touches on some of the show's political themes. It mostly works by spending a lot of time letting us get to know its central character and his worldview. The other best episodes--"Out of Gas," "Our Mrs. Reynolds," "Ariel," "War Stories" are again strongly character driven. I quite like the film, Serenity, and I think the ideological conflict between Mal and the Operative (reflected elsewhere in different ways by Mal vs. Simon, Mal vs. Jayne etc.) was well drawn...but yes, there is something a bit preachy about the origin of the Reavers, which a better plotter might have been able to pull off more elegantly. And there's preachiness in "The Train Job," "Shindig," "Safe," and "Heart of Gold". Ultimately I think that Whedon has potential at making political stories, but he needs, again, a Greenwalt. In a sense it's very head and heart--Whedon, Noxon, Minear, Espenson etc. are very strong in the heart, but they need a practical Greenwalt for the head.

Agreed on Minear not being able to do big picture. The strange thing is how invisible this is--his episodes are uniformly so big in scope, on Angel. But you can see it on Dollhouse, the way the scale gets away from him. He also doesn't do political things well--"Billy" is a very good horror story, interesting as an exploration of how misogyny feels, not really about any of the social/political causes. "Omega" works okay until it starts getting to the political message, and then it gets preachy. His best episodes are things like "Darla" and "Out of Gas," where he's working entirely from the characters.

On Ron Moore: I suspect you may like him more than I do right now. While I did like BSG, I'm finding myself disenchanted with Moore's worldbuilding of late. (And by the way--he never worked on Farscape. He did work on Roswell, though. And his two Star Trek film scripts have good character moments, but often very weak plotting.) But his finale essentially argued that any plot contrivances (and Baltar's Head Six was, while entertaining and engaging, often nothing but a walking plot contrivance) existed on the whims of several Gods, whose plan was to give Roslin et al. visions for months on end, so that Caprica and Baltar could carry Hera five feet, so that Kara could recognize that "All Along the Watchtower" actually contained the jump codes to a new location...etc. I might be alone here but I actually thought the plotting in BSG fell apart completely at the end, although there were nice character moments in the finale. By contrast, I find the contrivances in "Chosen" much easier to swallow, because they are not presented as being intrinsically meaningful or the fulfilment of particular bizarre esoteric prophesies. Of course I'm sure you've heard this all before (the BSG finale is of course...let's say controversial *g*) so hopefully I haven't bored you.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

For some reason I thought Ron Moore was involved with or wrote a few episodes of Farscape. But you may well be right, since I can't find a list of the writers anywhere and could be confusing him with O'Bannion - who created Farscape. At any rate, doesn't matter.

Moore was the creator behind Star Trek Deep Space Nine, and wrote numerous Voyager episodes. (I was not a fan of DS9 - preferred B5 to DS9 and felt B5 was better plotted.)

When it comes to TV shows? Particularly genre? None of them are flawless or perfect. BSG came closest in it's first two-three seasons. Season 4 - in my opinion sort of fell apart. I think the series should have ended with their arrival on a burned out Earth.
And left it there. That to me, was the perfect ending. With Adama picking up a handful of radioactive dirt and saying - "this, this, is Earth???" Perfect. It went on too long. Same deal with Buffy, in some respects Season 7 and Season 5 Angel are the perfect endings. Season 8 Buffy and Angel After the Fall - really aren't necessary and to a degree do what S4 of BSG did.

That said? I liked the BSG finale better than you and a lot of people on my flist apparently did, but I also had relatively low expectations and more or less predicted that they'd end up doing that about five episodes before it happened. They summed up the character arcs well enough and by the time the series was over that's all I cared about. I have a review of it somewhere in my lj, can't remember where. And I suck at tagging - so can't find it. ;-)

Generally speaking? Moore does political big picture stories far better than Whedon, that does not mean I necessarily like them - Moore is obsessed with religious messiahs to a point that can be grating (DS9). Caprica - in some ways demonstrates that contrast - great with fine details/plot but has a tendency to get carried away on his religious pet peeves/obsessions. In that respect, the getting up on a soap box regarding political or religious pet peeves - Moore has a lot in common with Whedon, David E. Kelly, and Aaron Sorkin - who have all done the same thing. Moore though did it more with DS9 than he has with his latter series, not that he doesn't do it, it's just less apparent and a bit more subtle than it was in Ds9 in my opinion or...maybe I just like the characters in the BSG universe better and can ignore it, most likely the latter. While Whedon, Kelly and Sorkin ...started the whole I have a soap box now and I'm bloody well going to use it routine after they became successful.

[alocalmaximum.blogspot.com (from livejournal.com)]

I was a big Star Trek fan back in the day--it was probably my first fandom, though I didn't talk to people online or anything. But I bought interview books, the Star Trek Chronology and Encyclopedia, etc. It's interesting--I was much more into the plotting and the way the universe operated (I even had some technical manuals) than I am now, or am about TV now, where the plot and the details of the universe don't really interest me much. Anyway, I grew steadily more and more disenchanted with Voyager and gave up fairly early in Enterprise.

Moore was one of the top guys on Deep Space Nine, but he wasn't the creator. He didn't start on the show until after TNG ended, and in the last few years it was Ira Steven Behr who was running the show. So I don't know how much credit/blame to give Moore for the things that did and didn't work in the show. I haven't watched Babylon 5, though I plan to eventually. I do know that Moore tended to push for the more militaristic aspect and for the war to continue (and had a central role in pushing for the Klingon Civil War arc in TNG, which was basically its only season-long arc), and so I always saw BSG as essentially what Moore wanted to do in Star Trek but couldn't.

Anyway--I agree that BSG was a strong series for the most part. I think I prefer, e.g., Buffy generally, even discounting the ending, but that's partly personal preference and partly that I think it just peaked higher with the experimental episodes, poetry etc.

Season eight has yet to prove that it's necessary, to me, and many of the things I initially liked about it and thought had promise haven't been followed up on. As an example, I was very excited when Warren was reintroduced--while many people seemed to assume this was part of excusing Willow for her crimes by undoing them, I assumed that it would be the opposite and that his presence would force her to confront the Dark Willow period more than season seven did. But that hasn't happened after the torture session in the first arc. Lots of other details. Oh well. After the Fall, after a few issues, I mostly lost interest in, though I continued reading until the end--I just felt there wasn't any real meat to dig into, and I lost touch with all the characters. Which, oddly, hasn't happened for me personally with season eight, which is why I'm still willing to defend them--because even though I'm not sure they've proven themselves to be worthwhile, they haven't actually lost me.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Hee. I gave up on DS9 somewhere around S3, then came back and watched bits and pieces of it. I only know about Moore's involvement via die-hard fans and wikipedia. ;-) I did however meet the writer of the episode where the Commander's son is a sci-fi writer in an alternate time line, at a party in NYC back in 1992. He'd done about two other episodes as well.

As for BSG and Buffy, and which I find preferable? It's probably worth noting that I own the entire Buffy series on DVD and have watched it about a million times, and written too many essays and posts on the series to count. While I only one season of BSG (which was given to me as a birthday gift from a friend) and have only written a smattering of reviews on it in my livejournal. I don't read BSG fanfic. And haven't written any. While I have done both regarding Buffy. So.....in other words, while I think BSG is better plotted, that does not mean I liked it better. In some respects better plotted does not necessarily equal better written.
CSI is well plotted - it bores me to tears. I don't bother watching it. It's not hard to tightly plot a story or come up with a plot - plots are a dime a dozen and aren't copyrightable for a reason - there is no such thing as an original plot. It is however hard to create an engaging character, and an engaging character arc - that more than twenty people can identify with. The intimate moments are lot harder to pull off than the big picture ones. It's easy to write a battle scene, what is hard is making people care about the people fighting in that battle scene. BSG did pull off that bit, to a degree, but not enough to make me want to re-watch or buy the DVDs. Whedon pulled it off in Chosen and his Buffy tv series to a degree that made me obsess over the characters and fall deeply in love with them. I criticize Whedon more than Moore, merely because I like Whedon better. Moore - I'm sort of ambivalent about. ;-)

[alocalmaximum.blogspot.com (from livejournal.com)]

Michael Taylor? He actually wrote some of my favourite episodes--the future-Jake one being one of them, and a Hugo nominee at that. And he worked on BSG as well, though his work there was more hit and miss--the boxing episode, which seems to divide the fandom and critics into "love it" or "hate it" camps, the torturing-Baltar episode, Razor, Cally's death, the infamous "Sine Qua Non," etc. His BSG episodes are at the very least very memorable, often go-for-broke, which I admire. (Although I found Razor a bit pat.)

I think I more or less agree with you about Buffy vs. BSG.

[menomegirl.livejournal.com]

I tried to get into the Buffy/Angel comics. I truly did. But there weren't a wealth of words rife with layers of meaning for me to sift through, they weren't enough to visually stimulate me and there was no sound to evoke a sense memory. Reading them was sort of an empty experience; they just don't do anything for me.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I commented to a post by aycheb on this very topic. I've come to the realization that we learn and think differently. Some people are very oral or auditory. They have an aptitude for music. They remember the lyrics to songs. Can sing an entire song by heart. Remember and quote dialogue from tv shows - without having to look it up and get exact.
Can do impressions. Love radio. Love talking on the phone. And if they had to choose between tv or radio or a live concert or a art show, they'd pick the live concert. Others are visual - they prefer to look at things.
They have an aptitude for art. They prefer to write on a computer or email to talking on the phone. They never or seldom listen to the radio and would rather flip on the tv or watch a music video on youtube. For them, Lady Gaga's song Bad Romance doesn't work without the visuals.
And they prefer to read a comic book version of Buffy than a radio play.
And teleplays or scripts with just dialogue and no visual description?
Leave them cold.

Others are both...they need both the visuals and the sound.

And some, just depends on mood or where they are in their lives.

Difficult to generalize.

For me? I prefer visuales. There's a Buffyverse radio play online - which I have not been able to listen to. I hate podcasts - I need to see the person. I rarely if ever listen to the radio. Music? I prefer videos. I'll throw on the tv before I throw on the ipod. And if I had to choose between a friend's art show or a friend's band playing in concert?
I'd go to the art show without even thinking about it. That said?
I adore music. It makes me happy. But, I can turn it on in the background while I read the comics. However, listening to a radio play or James Marsters reading an audio book? Will put me to sleep. ;-)

[embers-log.livejournal.com]

I find that no only do people disagree about different media for entertainment and upliftment, but also (of course) different genre.... Some people will just never read a novel, or if they do like novels they despise Sci-fi (without ever reading any).... But I guess it doesn't make any difference to me, I just think they are missing out on the good stuff.

But the other thing I find is that people often like or dislike something according to their mood, or even their expectations: if you are in a bad mood then even something funny may not reach you.... And if you have really high expectations something may not meet them. Somehow my enjoyment seems to be at it's greatest when I'm in good mood with lowered expectations!
lol

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Agree. People I've found disagree on everything, including the meanings of words. (As an aside: Apparently they are fighting about the AR scene in Seeing Red AGAIN on one of the fan forums. Proof that not only do we disagree, and not only are we intolerant of others views, but we just can't let things go! Talk about pig-headed stubborness. LOL! And we wonder why there are wars. I mean if people can still fight about a tv show episode five to six years after it aired...then it shouldn't be surprising that people would fight over health care or which religion is better or ancient grudges or who should own what portion of land or where the boundaries should be drawn.)

But the other thing I find is that people often like or dislike something according to their mood, or even their expectations: if you are in a bad mood then even something funny may not reach you.... And if you have really high expectations something may not meet them. Somehow my enjoyment seems to be at it's greatest when I'm in good mood with lowered expectations!

For me...it's mostly about mood. As you may have realized - my taste is incredibly eclectic or rather diverse. I more or less like just about everything with few exceptions. And will pretty much try everything at least once - as long as it doesn't injure me physically.

But if I'm not in the right mood - I can't read or watch it. Was in horrible mood the first part of this week. So found fault with pretty much everything that was thrown at me.

My problem with comic books is well complicated. Part of it is that I'm rapidly running out of patience with the writer. Granted my patience is already taxed to the max by work and my own life issues...so in my entertainment choices...I don't have a lot to spare. ;-) The other bit is I want something, a specific something, from the writer. Now it would be one thing if the writer told me - no, you aren't going to get that.
Sorry. I'm telling this story and that has absolutely no impact on it and isn't going to be a factor. BUT noooo....instead, he's teasing me, and saying yes, you are going to get what you want, I'm going to tell you...just...well not yet. And oh by the way, I've decided to take a three month break to do something else. So you have to wait even longer to get the answer that you want. And this has been going on for over four years! I'm at the point in which I want to grab the writer by the coat lapels and scream, either deliver the goods you ass, or I'm done! Shit or get off the pot, already! LOL! I mean, really. Enuf is enuf.
And part of that is due to the fact...that my patience is almost completely devoured by my workplace, there isn't much left over. ;-)

That said, I do find the comics fascinating. I love the commentary on X-men and superhero comic books, as well as Twilight (Meyer's Twilight) - which I do believe is intentional regardless of what Allie states.
And I admittedly find aspects of the comics funny. Willow's commentary on Twuffy in last month's issue was hilarious.

[embers-log.livejournal.com]

I do think that it is likely that Joss named his bad guy 'Twilight' before he'd heard of the books... but I think NOW he is making fun of the Twilight books and the whole 'I'm in love with Vampires' phenomenon... anyone who thinks that Buffy is going to live happily ever after is (I'm betting) going to get a rude awakening when Joss rips them apart in some way that will keep them apart for many years to come.

I do think it is true that Joss isn't ready to kill Angel, because he can continue to go there to torture Buffy (dead ex-boyfriends are inspirational, living ones... not so much). And torturing her is the plan IMO.

I was just rewatching 'Not Fade Away' last night w/a friend who had never seen it... and I really find Wesley's death tragic every time... But if 'Angel' wasn't being canceled I'm sure Joss would have kept Wes alive to continue living in the pain of watching Illyria walk around in Fred's body.

So I continue to expect twists and turns in BtVS S8... and while I sympathize with you about how long this is taking to finish, I have to say that I'm not on the edge of my seat. I'm happy to read these when they come out, but they don't occupy my attention much otherwise.

If you want a distraction then you can watch this owl care for her young:
http://www.ustream.tv/theowlbox#utm_campaign=unknown&utm_source=3034451&utm_medium=social
she is pretty awesome.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Thank you for sharing the link and your unique perspective.

And To clarify: I know that Buffy and Angel aren't going to live happily ever after. And the writer will torture them. That's not what is bugging me. I know what Whedon is doing to Buffy and I know why. I know where the story is headed. I'm sadistically and somewhat masochistically reading because I'm curious to see if he can pull it off. I don't think he can. All the problems I have with this story and in S7 are directly related to Whedon attempting to make the Buffyverse give birth to his beloved Fray.