(no subject)

[shadowkat]

The sky has opened up and it is raining buckets...with rumblings of thunder - so not braving the wilds for church today or the farmer's market for that matter. Rather like rainy days, they give you an excuse to sit at home and do relatively little but pitter about on the net, watch tv, read, and make up stories in one's own head. (I'm easy, I never really require much in the way of external entertainment, have always been quite capable of entertaining myself.)

If you, like me, found the NPR Sci/Fantasy Top 100 List relatively boring/annoying...go here to nominate your favorite sci-fantasy book, comic book, cartoon, graphic novel, short story, tv series, film or music (apparently there is actually music that fits in this category):

http://eruthros.dreamwidth.org/323096.html?page=4#comments

There's already 185 comments. I nominated Buffy the Vampire Slayer (the tv series) - rather glad I did, since there were quite a few Angel and Angel/Buffy nominations but no Buffy nominations. How can people think Angel was better? (I used to have this argument with my brother and sisinlaw and got no where...they hated the high school bit of Buffy and thought Angel dealt with more adult themes. Bullshit, in my opinion. The last four seasons, the best and most innovative were after high-school.) Haven't you guys watched/read much male centric anti-hero noir sci-fantasy tv, books, films, and comics? I mean - Angel had been done before quite a few times actually - hello? Forever Knight! Brimstone! American Gothic! Surely I wasn't the only person who watched those series? While Buffy had not EVER been done on TV before. Before Buffy - we didn't have female vampire slayers on tv - they were always the damsels. Angel was more comforting in a way because it stuck to the standard traditional trope -classic noir hero in a disfunctional world, filled with damsels and femme fatals...Buffy subverted that trope and jumped up and down on it.

Very glad someone else nominated Farscape, because I forgot about it - I know, insane, considering it is my favorite science-fiction series, bar none. Did nominate Joan D. Vinge's The Snow Queen and Mary Doria Russell's The Sparrow - which no one else did (the later surprised me - The Sparrow is rather brilliant). Was rather glad people nominated Octavia Butler and CJ Cherryh - but no one nominated the Chanur series - which I adore, and forgot about - should have nominated that over Kim Harrison's The Hollows (dammit!). I need to read more Cherryh - The Foreigner series sounds rather interesting - I'm currently obsessed with sci-fi that delves in miscommunication or communication issues - which is what I loved about Farscape.

Hmmm..am I the only person who fell in love with LadyHawk? Hee.

We should do our own list for mystery and thrillers too, not to mention romance novels...was not happy with either of those lists either. Tried to do the romance novel list and gave up. Personally, favorite genre at the moment is sci-fantasy...I got burned out on straight up mystery/thriller and romance/chicklit a while back.

Comments

[embers-log.livejournal.com]

I've always thought that Buffy (and Firefly) were head and shoulders above Angel (but I always felt that both Angel and Cordelia were weak characters to base a series on). So I loved that you named Buffy, AND Misfits (which I think it brilliant!).

I would add in books: 'Hunger Games' (did anyone else? I didn't see it) and Jasper Fforde's 'Shades of Gray' (his best work)

comics: Terry Moore's 'Echo' a wonderful series that he just finished.

TV: I'm glad that someone mentioned Firefly and Farscape, but I didn't see Max Headroom on the list (which really stands up to rewatching!)

movies: V for Vendetta
Brazil
and Little Shop of Horrors (I do love the musical the best, but both were amazing)

There really has been some wonderful entertaining stuff out there over the years!

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

(but I always felt that both Angel and Cordelia were weak characters to base a series on).

I don't think they were weak so much as just over-done. Or standard boilerplate tropes.

Angel's character has been done so many times by now, it's almost a cliche.
And his arc was rather predictable as a result. I knew he'd die by the end of his series, or at the very most - do one last wild bunch fight in an alley. Tragic Greek Hero trope - goes all the way back to Hercules and Oedipus, and god, bored now. Cordelia? Same deal - the spoiled bratty Daddy's princess/cheerleader who falls in with the wrong crowd - she litters
horror films and the noir genre with her corpse. Easy to base a series on, but hardly memorable. Will state they are more interesting than some of the recent copy-cats.

[embers-log.livejournal.com]

well I meant weak as in thin/superficial characters... and in that neither David nor Charisma were able to do much with their characters when the writers tried to give them more depth (again, just my personal opinion).
I never felt that Angel could hold a candle to Buffy or Firefly....
Although I did feel that the 5th season of Angel was a lot more interesting.

I'm not adding my picks to that blog because she obviously has way too many suggestions already, and I don't feel like signing in to dreamwidth.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Not a fan of dreamwidth? ;-)

I liked the last two seasons of Angel, but admittedly those two seasons were more about Wesley, Fred, and Spike than they were Cordy and Angel, so that may be why.

[embers-log.livejournal.com]

Oh I have nothing against dreamwidth, but I have a paid account w/lj with years of posts and tons of photos....

Of course neither site (ie dreamwidth and lj) seems to be relevant these days; most of my old friends from lj are only to be found at twitter and/or facebook now (which are both a very poor substitute because no one write more than a sentence at either one of those). It is a little frustrating because I still prefer the longer blog myself.

[shapinglight]

Hmmm..am I the only person who fell in love with LadyHawk? Hee.

I love that film - except for the music, which is terrible.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I honestly can't remember the music that well...
but it did have a repetitive chord, that was a bit on the sappy side.

[norwie2010.livejournal.com]

Angel was more comforting in a way because it stuck to the standard traditional trope -classic noir hero in a disfunctional world, filled with damsels and femme fatals...Buffy subverted that trope and jumped up and down on it.

Amen to that.

To add one of my own gripes about "Angel" and the argument of "more adult": That's only true if one considers it more adult to commit "evil" (crimes) as necessity to make your point/life. More adult? Wha...how?

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

To add one of my own gripes about "Angel" and the argument of "more adult": That's only true if one considers it more adult to commit "evil" (crimes) as necessity to make your point/life. More adult? Wha...how?

True. Although, I think part of that came from the marketing. Buffy was aimed at teenage girls and shown in a earlier time slot. It also was set in high-school and then college, really wasn't until the last three seasons that it drifted a bit away from that. A lot of people see "high school" settings as young adult or juvenile, but it's not really. Adult themes are explored in those settings all the time.

Angel didn't necessarily deal with more adult themes, it just had a more adult setting (LA, detective agency, business world). But the themes about power, and horrible things we do for power were ageless.

I'm right there with you on Buffy

[sophist.livejournal.com]

I find much of AtS to be unwatchable.

Re: I'm right there with you on Buffy

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Out of curiousity? Why? Was it the actors, the writing...the standard noir detective trope...

I know I struggled with the series. Stopped watching it four or five times, was drug back to it by Buffy cross-overs and the ATPO board at different points.

Re: I'm right there with you on Buffy

[sophist.livejournal.com]

A combination of several factors, I think (in no particular order):

1. I thought the acting was relatively poor. Buffy had 3 great actors (SMG, JM, AH) and many excellent supporting actors (e.g., ASH, HG, NF). AtS had just one good actor (AD), with most of the others quite limited in their range (e.g., CC). The acting on AtS just wasn't good enough to carry the show.

2. The dialogue on AtS wasn't nearly as good. Joss was far more involved in editing Buffy scripts, and it showed.

3. I thought many of the plots of AtS episodes were derivative of plots already shown on Buffy.

4. The use of metaphor seemed much more sophisticated and used more often on Buffy.

5. I never had much interest in Angel or Cordelia as characters; as you say, they seem like strange choices to build a show around and their stories were kind of tired (in stark contrast to the fresh and insightful stories on Buffy). I absolutely hated Connor as a character. While I did like Wesley (at least through S3), I said at the time that the plot required him to be killed by Justine and I lost respect for the writers when they let him live. While his arc in S4 (I've only seem some of that season) is the best part of an otherwise dreadful season, by S5 he comes across as emotionally flat and boring.

I gave up on the show by the end of S3, though I watched a few episodes of S4 when people at ATPO thought they were great. In every case I thought they were wrong. Recently, at the urging of commenters at The AV Club, where I've been posting my thoughts on Buffy as comments to the reviews there, I watched AtS5. I will say that's probably the best season, but even then I'd rate all the Buffy seasons ahead of it except S1.

Re: I'm right there with you on Buffy

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I find myself agreeing with a great deal of what you state here.

And yes, S5, in my opinion, was the best season of the series and only one that I've found to be rewatchable. I couldn't make it through S1 when I tried to re-watch the series a few years back.

I get why other people love it, it just doesn't really work that well for me. In part, because I've watched and read far too many things just like it. The Showtime original series "Dexter" is a far better examination of this particular trope, with better actors, better use of metaphor, and much better writing. As is for that matter, the British series "Being Human" - which examined the same themes in a far more interesting manner. Once you watch those series...it's very hard to take Angel (the character or the series) very seriously.