Favorite Whedon TV Show Meme

[shadowkat]

I can't remember what Whedon tv shows my readership favors. So perhaps you can help? My current guess is that you rank them as follows:

1. Buffy
2. Angel (with about 25-45% preferring Angel to Buffy for various reasons)
3. Firefly
4. Dollhouse (with 65% squicked by the series and finding it unwatchable)


Only 5% read the comics and liked them. Everyone liked Dr. Horrible. Few read the X-men comics by Whedon or stuck with them. So comics Whedon - not a fav. Also few appear interested in the current films, Much Ado, Cabin in the Woods, or Avengers. Am I right?
Here's a poll to find out, assuming people participate. As all mathematicians and staticians know...polls are repsentative of the sampling. If only 20 people take the poll?
You guess based on those 20. So...I have approximately 150 who have friended me, of the 150, about 50 probably read on a daily basis, of the 50, 30% are into polls. So..I have no way of knowing, do I? The only way I can know is if everyone who reads my journal and likes or ever liked Whedon shows takes the poll. And that's well impossible. So this is ...far from an exact exercise. (A lesson to the people out there who do a lot of surveys for sociology, psychology and marketing classes - people? They aren't that reliable. You know that right? IF not, just read the internet - it will prove it to you. There's a reason that sociology, psychology and marketing are considering inexact sciences or soft. They rely on inexact data that can't be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Lawyers love to poke holes in statistical data.)

That said, for a bit of fun, take the poll and see if you can prove me wrong? Feel free to link, since a lot of readers seem to be through links at times.

[Poll #1831422]

[Note: Won't be able to respond until late on Thursday or Friday, since I can no longer access personal blogs via my workplace. So can only access at home. PS: I reposted this poll fifteen minutes after first posting, because I screwed up on the last question and had to fix it. Now it should be fine. If you responded to the deleted post, please respond again. Thanks.]

[ETA: Read the comments. Fascinating.]

Comments

[fenchurche.livejournal.com]

I went back and changed my answer to the last question... because odds are good if I can't ever work up the nerve to see "Cabin in the Woods" in the theaters, I'll probably rent it.

[sophist.livejournal.com]

I picked Dollhouse second, but that's based solely on S1. It took me a couple of watchings, but I get the idea. It still has weaknesses (ED's acting), but there's a real point there. AtS never interested me much even at its best and I find substantial parts of it unwatchable.

I rated Firefly last. This is a personal thing with me. The American movie tradition of romantic Southerners after the Civil War drives me nuts. Former Confederate soldiers were NOT heroes. They may have been personally brave, but they fought in support of one of the worst causes ever. Glorifying them was wrong.

When I watch Firefly, I can't get this background out of my head. I realize that the rebellion there didn't necessarily bear any resemblance to our Civil War. Nonetheless it resonates with themes that I find personally obnoxious and I can't really enjoy it.

[infinitewhale.livejournal.com]

Personally, I think Buffy and Angel are a few tiers above the other two. Firefly was too shortly lived to form a solid opinion, IMO. It's, like, what would we think of Buffy if it was only WTTH-IRYJ? Same time, it could have gotten much worse (Dollhouse S2). Beautiful rape!

I'm not seeing anything, but if you held a gun to my head, I'd see Much Ado. Cabin In the Woods is everything about Whedon I dislike and I've never been into Avengers.

[liliaeth]

My main issue with Firefly was the lack of decent actors and relatable characters. I gave the entire first season a chance and by the end of that I still couldn't give a damn about a single one of the characters. The closest I came to that was Jayne, but everyone else just left me cold.

I've seen series before where the first season was it's weak spot, like say SPN and Buffy, but even then, I would generally care about the characters by about half the first season. If a show can't even manage to get me to do that, then I give up on it.

[snickfic]

I realize this isn't a series, but outside of his TV shows my favorite Whedon project is Fray.

Rather to my surprise, I ranked Angel last out of the four. Dollhouse was a hot mess, but I still cared more about it than I cared about most of Ats.

[infinitewhale.livejournal.com]

It didn't grab me in the slightest but it didn't offend me like Dollhouse did. I'd have given it about 12 eps since it was plot-based rather than character-based (which is what Whedon should stick with). I doubt it would ever have become one of my favorite shows, but I might have stuck with it in a Watch It and Forget It fashion like Earth 2 or something.

Besides, I think Brisco County Jr meshed the SciFi and Western genres much better.

[liliaeth]

I can't say much about Dollhoue, because I gave up on it after the second ep. For one thing, the premise really didn't work for me, and two, Eliza Dushku just didn't have the range to play the character, let out carry a show.

[kwritten.livejournal.com]

I probably screwed all the data up by not ranking anything but the last two queries... but when people ask me to do this I always grab all four and scream "BUT THEY ARE MINE AND I LOVE THEM AND YOU CAN'T MAKE ME!"

. . . .

or at least, my entire brain shuts down and logic flies away and I just sort of space out until the conversation is over, hoping that no one will notice I didn't answer...

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I liked both Buffy and Angel relatively evenly.

Firefly annoyed the crap out of me with its failure to logically world-build. We were simply supposed to 'accept' for no reason whatsoever that in the future people would decide to adopt slang from a brief period of the late 19th century Western U.S., that female terraformers would wear long calico dresses, and that they'd use horses (relatively fragile creatures with temperature sensitivities) rather than the advanced vehicles they clearly possessed. All of it plus so much more simply made no 'world-building' sense and I knew that Whedon would never, ever, ever even try to build that world. We were simply to accept it... and I couldn't.

"Dollhouse" straight-up squicked me as a premise. Add in FOX's "prostitution yay!" ad campaign (seriously, that's what it looked like) and I was double squicked. (I was triply squicked when Whedon claimed that what went wrong with the series was that FOX reigned in the prostitution aspect. Apparently, he wanted more prostitution.) I really didn't like "Dollhouse."

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Beautiful rape!

Thanks for unearthing memory of that interview. Ugghhh!!!!!!!!!!

[embers-log.livejournal.com]

I rank 'Firefly' the highest because I think it had the best cast and the tightest world vision...
Buffy is a VERY close second because it really had time to develop into something brilliant.
I rate Dollhouse third because I was fascinated by the flawed idea that never really worked (it might have worked better w/out Fox's interference).
And Angel is always last with me because I didn't like most of the cast and stories... And I hated everything about season 4 (I should recheck that, but I'm pretty sure I never liked anything from Season 4), however season 5 was somewhat a redemption....

None of the comics mean much to me, but I do adore 'Dr. Horrible', particularly the musical commentary!

And I will watch in the theaters and buy all three of the upcoming movies! I have high hopes for all three being big fun.

[gingerwall.livejournal.com]

Firefly was fantastic - I think in terms of the amount of awesomeness per episode it was better than Buffy. Great cast, great characters, great dialogue. They managed to have 9 main characters, and develop all of them. Plus there were not-white characters that were awesome and important! Wheden really perfected his ability to completely change tone between episodes and yet still have a cohesive-feeling for the show with Firefly. When I watched Buffy after I finished Firefly, I could totally see him figuring it out there. Restless reminded me a lot of Objects in Space in terms of surrealism. The chronology and the construction of Out of Gas was brilliant. Also Kaylee gets to have _tons_ of awesome sex with no horrible consequences. Yay!

But because Buffy had so much more time to develop, it actually accomplished more overall. So many brilliant episodes. So self-referential - you get more and more out of it every time you watch it - but not annoyingly so. After watching Buffy I get annoyed by other shows where the characters have zero memory of everything that happened before that isn't specifically related to whatever plot arc they are currently exploring. Like they haven't spent the spent 3 years doing X together. I love Buffy more than Firefly overall, I'm just not waxing as poetic, because that seems to be the general consensus (not the case with Firefly apparently - I didn't expect that.)

Angel has its wonderful moments: Cordy in seasons 1 and 2; Wesley's amazing progression; Fred being adorable; Gunn as a real character that isn't just a sassy black friend; Lilah and Lindsey being deliciously evil; Amy Acker transforming from into Ilyria - that was amazing beyond words. She is just so fucking talented. But overall, (somewhat) in the words of Mark: I'm just not super into watching a dude angst over his guilty past. So overall it doesn't resonate on the same level as Buffy.

And Dollhouse... well, I enjoyed most of the episodes... I loved Topher and DeWitt and their dynamic. Most of the dolls were pretty good, but Eliza as Echo was underwhelming and that made it hard to really love. Eh.

Edited for grammar fail.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

The Buffy and Angel ranking really depends for me on the day I've been having, I switch between them all the time. (Mostly my take is that BTVS is the better show, but there are times where I connect deeper with AtS, and it definitely inspired more fanfic from me.)

Also I love Astonishing X-Men as much as both of them, but that wasn't what you asked.

[oursin.livejournal.com]

Never saw any of Dollhouse (not sure it ever reached UK terrestrial TV and what I'd heard didn't make me feel like shelling out for a boxset). The thing with Angel was that it was very uneven - on the latest rewatch I was really aware of how long it took to hit its stride, one might almost say not until Season 2 - and I really dislike Season 4. It picked up massively in Season 5 and then I thought blew the ending, though presumably that was mostly about show being terminated without renewal.

[shapinglight]

I've never managed to get through all the episodes of Firefly. The world building was plain ridiculous as shipperx points out, and I don't like Nathan Fillion.

I quite enjoyed season one of Dollhouse despite the squicky premise, but season 2 was shockingly bad. The Buffy comics should have taught me, I suppose, but I really didn't think Whedon could produce anything that bad.

I doubt I'll bother going to see the Avengers, but I might watch it on DVD some day. But then I said the same about Serenity and I've never managed to watch that.

I may well be alone in the fandom in not rating Doctor Horrible either.

[speakr2customrs.livejournal.com]

Your guess seems to be pretty accurate.

I loved Buffy, liked Angel a great deal, thought Firefly was extremely poor (shipperx has voiced my opinion very accurately, although she missed the ludicrously immense thermal zone in a single system and the Chinese phrases cropping up all the time despite us never ever seeing an ethnic Chinese person), and I thought that Dollhouse was the vilest thing ever to disgrace television.

I wouldn't pay to watch any Whedon film (two words; Alien Resurrection) but I'll probably watch The Avengers when it comes on TV. I may well lose interest halfway through, though.

And the Buffy comic is the worst story ever to appear in print in the entire history of humanity; it makes even Left Behind look good (well, less awful) in comparison.

[spikereader.livejournal.com]

I haven't filled out the poll as Buffy is the only series I've ever watched. I tried a couple of episodes of Angel, but couldn't get into it (not even S5 with Spike), and haven't seen any of the other two.

No interest in the comics (not a format I enjoy) or the films. It's obviously all about the Buffy for me. :)

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

I like Buffy best. I don't usually read or watch for character (for writers or actors but not characters so much) but she and Sarah Connor are my exceptions that prove the rule. Actually, to be more specific it's post S5 Buffy I watch for. The original Buffy came from horror movies, the blonde in the alley who died a hero. My Buffy came from the musical, life's-not-a-song Buffy, Buffy came back wrong and stayed that way. Which makes sense, I like the idea of horror movies more than the reality but musicals are in my blood.

Firefly has a warmth to it, it's a show a lot of love went into but its a Western and its hard for Europeans to feel the resonances of that genre. it's not our history. Dollhouse isn't as lovingly crafted but I like the imagery and ideas and where they're good they speak to me.

Angel, meh. It's a boy story how I used to imagine comic books would be before I read any (and some still are).

Other stuff, I think the third book of AXM is the best of them but still prefer the BtVS book at least when Whedon writes it himself. Then I can be with my Buffy again.

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

I think Whedon's X-Men comics are among my favourite work of his now. Probably because the fact that he didn't own the characters meant that he wasn't allowed to do his post-2003 thing of utterly destroying them because he couldn't think of any way to develop them. (I have a strong suspicion that Brand survived because somebody else in Marvel decided that she was a promising character and shouldn't be killed off.) Also, his writing of Emma Frost makes it clear that he can write grown-up sexually-active women without vilifying them, but just doesn't usually want to.

[embers-log.livejournal.com]

You don't mention 'Doctor Horrible' but if musicals are in your blood I would think that you would love it (and the musical commentary):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apEZpYnN_1g

[rose-griffes.livejournal.com]

I put Angel ahead of Buffy but I really can't say why. I think it resonated more because it reflected that whole post-high school "Now what do I do? I'm supposed to be a grown-up!" feeling that still happens to me even now.

Plus I love Wesley's arc on ATS, and then Faith had some amazing stuff and... yeah. So while I wouldn't necessarily argue that Angel is the better series, it's still my favorite.

I'm rather glad I didn't discover online fandom until both shows were off the air, though. Heh.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Not sure, aycheb will like it...I could be wrong. But Doctor Horrible is unfortunately very male and very much a critique of super=hero comic book genre much like the first three seasons of Buffy was a critique of the slasher horror flick genre.

Whedon reminds me at times, a lot of Quentin Tarantino, he likes to critique the genres that he studied insanely in film school or otherwise.
Both are fans of B-movie horror flicks and to a degree critics of them.
Also superhero comic books.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

For me it was a tie between Doctor Horrible (which is an excellent critique of the superhero genre and protagonist privilege...it really plays with the audience's perceptions) and Astonishing X-men. I agree, when provided with an editor, such as Marvel, or a strong network presence such as WB or even Fox, Whedon is forced to reign it in. I think Whedon is a writer, with the possible exception of Doctor Horrible, requires a strong editorial vision.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Depends on which part of the fandom you got into. Angel's Soul Board actually would have agreed with you as would several people on ATPO. And quite a few on whedonesque.

It depends...I think on what resonates. I've tried to pinpoint why certain people loved Angel and why others really didn't, and I'm at a loss.

Sometimes..it's really no different than saying I like Grapefruit juice over OJ or vice versa.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Curious...what do you mean by this statement:

I don't usually read or watch for character (for writers or actors but not characters so much) but she and Sarah Connor are my exceptions that prove the rule.

I've managed to interpret it three different ways and am uncertain which is the correct one.

1) you are more interested in the performance of the actor and the structure of the narrative than character arcs? (ie. a Doylist take as opposed to a Watsonian one?)

2) you prefer theme, and style...or the world and setting and mythology to the character, characters are window dressing?

3) you can't identify with the characters...so focus on the plot and theme instead, with the exception of Buffy in S6-(comic books), and Sarah Connor?

Or none of the above?

Not sure. But it is an intriguing take. The exact polar opposite of how I come at things, which is what I find so interesting about it. See? For me it's all about the characters, if I can't find anything interesting about the characters or don't like any of them, I'm gone. I won't bother. The character arcs are the most important bit. It's how I write and how I approach narratives. And mainly how I've been taught to...from the age of 1 up. But from what you stated above, I'm wondering if you are the opposite?