Spontaneous Musings

I suppose I should do separate reviews, but easier to just do them all at once. This is basically, the good (House), the okay (SPN), the bad (Terra Nova), and the just plain ugly (American Horror Story) - although to be fair are any horror stories supposed to be pretty?

1. House - I think we are on S6 or S7, can't remember which, not sure if it will be the finale season or not. Will state that the premier was surprisingly good. Reminded me of the episode in which House was in the psychiatric ward for several months. ( spoilers )

2. Terra Nova - hmmm, this appears to be as poorly written as BBC's Outcasts and has more in common with Outcasts than with either Jurrassic Park or Earth 2, which is not a good sign. Quite dumb in places. The second episode is worse than the pilot. I'm beginning to understand why David Fury jumped ship - it's really not his cup of tea, too...Swiss Family Robinson, not enough Jurassic Park. The writing makes Star Gate look like Shakespeare in comparison. Very clunky and silly. But, I remain curious about a few things - so may stick with it a bit longer. I know it is basically dead in the water. The series is too expensive to survive the low ratings it has, but Fox invested so much into it - that it will run all 12 episodes, which I guess is better than what they did with Lone Star (although Lone Star was a better written television series.)

3. SPN or Supernatural - eh, not thrilling me.( vague spoilers )

4. American Horror Story - sorry to say but Supernatural and Secret Circle were scarier this week than American Horror Story. The reason? I wasn't given any reason to care about the people in American Horror Story. Note to Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuck - it's a good idea to build up the audience's sympathy for the main characters before you start with all the scares and hijnks. Even Kubrick seemed to understand that concept, at least to a degree, with The Shining. American Horror Story borrows heavily from classic haunted house horror films. There's the Geoffrey Rush remake of House on Haunted Hill with all the bizarre experiments in the basement and jaws with baby heads, the gothic windows of Amityville Horror and the fire references, the twins from The Shining, and the beautiful woman seducing the husband who in reality is an old and possibly dead crone - also from The Shining. It's almost as if they took these films threw them in a meat grinder and added a few bits from Eyes Wide Shut.

I didn't find the episode all that shocking. I don't know what that says about me? Or that scary. Just sort of dull and a bit boring.
Nor did I really care about any of the characters. The best - are Vivian (Connie Britton), the wife who lost her child, and Connie (Jessica Lange) , the nosy neighbor, but that has more to do with the actresses than the script. Dylan McDermot isn't having enough fun with the role - and I already miss the guys from Nip/Tuck - Dylan Walsh would been better in this role...McDermot lacks warmth. (I'm admittedly not a fan of the actor - didn't like him in The Practice either.)

The plot isn't that complicated.
( detailed spoilers for the first episode )

Whenever I post something on my journal online, does not matter what it is or the style I choose, I worry about how people will choose to respond to it. I can imagine all the possibilities, and certainly speculate about each and every one, but I never know how exactly they will respond. And the responses invariably are the opposite of what I expect and more often than not surprise me. Proving that human beings are not predictable and defy categorization or definition. And to be honest? I can't even predict what my own taste or interest will be on any given occasion. It is constantly in flux, inconsistent, and often defies pattern-analysis or pigeon-holing. The best I can come up with is that I am intrigued by certain aspects in characters or human behavior. Why people do what they do, and in particular the decisions people make that defy expectation, that go against what one might predict.

Thought about the tv shows that I currently adore and don't want to miss in comparison to those that I half-watch or am more ambivalent about. Or even those that I tried and quickly gave up on. What is it that keeps me enthralled? What is the common deminoator. Why do I want to pick Lone Star as opposed to The Event next week? OR why do I adore House but find Castle dull?

Here's a list of the shows that I adore, with a quick explanation of what keeps me enthralled. Well, I will certainly attempt to be quick. Please note the style of this post is more serious in tone and less conversational. This is deliberate. It means, I'm being serious and not snarky. I change my writing style to fit mood and intent. It's my way of letting the reader know how to respond or rather how I will most likely read their response.

If you choose to do this yourself? Basically list the tv shows or books or films or whatever you adore and explain why. Is it a character that keeps you enthralled, or a theme, or a plot?

1.( House )
2. ( Vampire Diaries )

3. ( Smallville )
4. ( Supernatural )
5. ( Grey's Anatomy )
6. ( Gossip Girl )

7.( Mad Men )

I meant for this to be brief, but I apparently had more to say regarding the shows and this topic than I thought. But, it's late and seven tv shows is enough. I know, I know, I watch far too many. Please, I beg of you dear reader, do not attempt to pigeon hole me by these shows, because I have not listed all the ones I watch. And most of these, I rarely discuss. And it would be wrong to state that these are the only ones I love or that I love them all the time or are always compelled by them.

There is for instance The Good Wife ( Read more... )

Or for that matter tv shows like Glee - ( Read more... )

And finally The Big Bang Theory - which is the only sitcom I'm DVRing at the moment, with possible exception of Community - which I'm on the fence about. Big Bang sucked me in. Sheldon who is annoying, yet endearing. Leonard who is the Oscar to Sheldon's Felix in Big Bang's reworking of the Odd Couple. With Penny playing straight woman to them. At first it felt sexist, and perhaps it still is, but when you realize the pov, it isn't. I watch for Sheldon, who reminds me at times of my own cousin, an odd cat, brilliant yet dumb, contradictions. And I guess it is here we see the pattern - I love the contradictions. Characters who are contradictory things. Greg House who is nasty, yet also kind. Damon who is cruel, but comforting. Razor sharp, yet vulnerable. Two things that don't appear possible. Good and evil, light and dark, male and female, lies and truth, life and death...all exist hand in hand, yin and yang, both inside us at the same time. No one truly is just one or the other. We have male and female aspects in our personalities. Some swing more one way than the other, some are clearly both. The contradiction fascinates me. How we handle having both? How do we choose which is which or what is what? Characters that are contradictory are human, characters that aren't - well are idealized versions or simplestic allegories of what we want human to be.

It would be simpler, I think sometimes, if I could be pigeonholed. If I could swear that I'm good, that I would not hurt anyone. But I don't know what I'll do. I try not to, I choose not to. But there are days that I am wickedly stupid and cruel, and others that I am kind and wise. Characters who traverse this landscape, who struggle with the inherent contradictions inside and often flail wildly, as they hover over the abyss intrigue me. I root for their survival for them to succeed, but I never know if they will - any more than I know for certain any of us will.

Stories for me - are ways to deal with pain, with fear, to understand myself, to understand others, and to laugh, to love, to cry, and figure out the problems...that haunt dreams and nightmares. I do not expect others to share my tastes or the stories and characters I've fallen for. I am, in truth, more often than not, somewhat surprised and bewildered when they do. I was shocked to find so many people around the world of various ages, creeds, races, sexes, etc - who adored Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And that so many loved it in the way I did...shocked me even more.
I did not expect it. I was equally shocked to learn people loved Kimba as kids, as I did.

It is actually more shocking to me to find those who share my views, than those who don't. I expect the rejection, I expect the argument. I dread it. Hence the worry about posting. The fear.

You want to connect, but you don't expect it. And you think how silly, or rather I do (you here is meant generally not specifically), it is just a tv show, just a story, not worth the worry or the time to write about it. The term the idiot box is ground into my head by peers, parents, teachers, bosses..And at work, it is a rare thing to find someone who watches the same show I do. But we rarely speak of it. There are no water-cooler chats - which others brag over. So, in most cases, not all, the watching of the tale or the reading of it is a solitary invent. The sharing of it - a gift, whether that sharing be in joy, or mockery, or ranting...the meeting of minds over one of the three or all together - brings a laugh or a smile. While the discordant disagreement a rise in blood-pressure and painful self-examination...struggling to understand the other view, while at the same token, struggling to explain my own without erupting with frustration in my failed attempt to do so. I think when the latter happens, that I've failed miserably as both writer and reader. And wonder to myself why bother at all. While at the same time - I rail at myself for caring so much, and am deeply embarrassed. As well..as well as thinking, disagreement is good, it challenges.

The problem with life, sometimes I think, is there are no clear-cut or comforting answers. Only endless questions.

[I'm writing this on my new MacBook PRo, which I'm still getting used to.]

Why do we tell stories? Or rather more importantly, why do we listen to them? I know the answer of course, and there are many...but I think the principal one is to resolve an issue, a problem, a question, or an itch. To get an answer.

Just finished watching the two hour season premiere of the series House - In the premiere - House is in a mental hospital struggling with his viacodine addiction. The episode is not about his addiction or detox, but rather about him dealing with his inability to connect to others in a meaningful way. This was a tale I'd seen before told in a different way, for there are no new stories just new ways of telling them. From I Never Promised You A Rose Garden to Girl, Interrupted and of course who can forget One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest - each tale about someone lost, friendless, who feels betrayed, alone, as if they can't trust anyone, including themselves, finding themselves again. Each time it is told, something new comes out of it. For the teller is different each time, and each teller gives a new twist, a new angle. The House tale had me in tears by the end of it...it spoke to me about loss, about moving on, about the fact that sometimes we can't fix things, and sometimes just being is enough.

When I was child - my friends and I told stories. One of my bestfriends, on the way to school, used to tell me what happened on the tv shows that I missed the night before. This was before the invention of VCR, DVR, cable, or the internet. I went to bed at 8, and on the east coast all the tv shows started at 8 or 9pm. Later when I saw the shows in reruns, I remember being disappointed - for they were not the same stories my friend had related to me on the way to school each morning. In a way she was telling me her own version, recreating the bits she liked, deleting the bits she didn't, and adding bits that she wished had been in it. Fanfic if you will. Another friend and I, used to take a show or book and create oral fanfiction from it - we'd tell long serial tales, either about our friends (real person fanfiction) or about the characters in a book, film, or tv show we loved. She'd tell me chapter one on Monday, and I'd tell her chapter two on Tuesday.

And when I thought about it this week, rolling the question around in my brain, why do we tell stories? I realized we always have, all of us, since the beginning. Whether they be a tale as simple as what we did at work today or one made up from our head with makebelieve characters, or a twist on a story that was already told, a what-if or a fill in the gap.
Our religions have that one thing in common, stories. Every religion has at its foundation a story. And the stories are incredibly similar...twists on the same tale, told from multiple perspectives. About sacrifice, pain, love, loss, and redemption. But mostly about what it means to be human, how to be good, and what happens when we aren't.

This is a long introduction to something I rarely if ever do in my livejournal. I don't tend to admit that I read fanfic. Especially B/S fanfic. Oh I admit it, but I don't talk about it too much, mostly out of embarrassment. And even though I've written fanfic, few have seen it - again embarrassment. Which I now realize is rather silly and stupid.

This month courtesy of moscow_watcher's recommendations, I found a rather interesting fanfiction on the internet that addressed an issue that I'd been tossing about in the periphery of my brain in a new way. While reading it, I was or rather am also reading Bram Stocker's Dracula, and watching Season 3 of Dexter ( A noir cable tv series about a serial killer who attempts to handle his "homicidial tendicies" by killing only serial killers or individuals who murder others) - which in their own ways addressed similar issues but from other perspectives.

I think we can learn from each other's stories. And I think sometimes a story, a fictional one, can tell us things or rather show us things that we can't get from a simple conversation or lecture or rule book. Stories are morality plays...most of the time. Or at least that was how Patrick Stewart, who portrayed Jean-Luc Picard in STNG, once defined Shakespearean plays and Star Trek The Next Generation (STNG).

The fanfic - if you are at all curious, can be found here:

http://unbridled-b.livejournal.com/tag/forward+to+time+past

It is entitled: Forward to Times Past by Unbridled Brunnett.

The fanfic is a Buffy/Spike fanfic (I won't use the other term since I find it silly and offensive - yes, I am anal about certain things, I admit that. Combining people's names into one word makes me cringe for some reason). It is a time travel fic. It is also a what-if scenario - where the author through the fic struggles to answer several questions that have been nagging at her - questions that do not necessarily have simple answers. Questions I've seen the tv series Dexter attempt to answer, but from another angle. It is a story about a hero who goes back in time and allows herself to be taken care of, who in attempting make the best of a situation may have inadvertently caused things to go...well not in a good direction. It is a story about a relatively good and gentle man who becomes a horrible monster and tries to become a good and gentle man again and isn't quite sure he can. It is about the messiness of obsessive and passionate relationships that we adore on the pages of a romance novel, but don't quite work as well in real life. And it, for me at least, gets to the heart of why we tell stories...to stave off the darknees, to find peace of mind, to entertain, to have the happy ending, to understand what it is to be human, to attempt to understand why people do horrible things, or merely to survive.

( Meta on Unbridled Brunnett's BTVS Fanfiction Forward to Times Past - major spoilers for anyone who has not read it. )

These past two weeks have just been one long suppressed scream (well except for on my lj where I did scream at a couple of folks, depending on one's point of view, which may have been in retrospect a re-soundly stupid thing to do).

Yesterday, had a brief reprieve - wandered about with Wales, where we both lusted after a handblown lamp by New Orleans artist. It has a red/orange/and blueish shade in handblown glass, with a bronze stand and comes to $250 bucks. I spent most of last night talking myself out of it. As beautiful as it is...I'm not sure it's all that practical. (Which explains why I buy comic books that I don't need and am embarrassed to tell people about -such as Fray, and part II of Brian Lynch's Zombie story Everybody is Dead, which makes me laugh. )

Today, thought was at the end of my edgy, frustrating week - it is an absolutely beautiful day - so beautiful, I opened up my windows to get some fresh air. But turns out, not so much, when I discovered I can't find the password to a database I've got to get into to electronically file a financial non-disclosure statement with the state. It's required of all state employees that handle state money. Apparently the password was sent in a separate letter from the user id (which I did find) for my own protection. This is how bureaucracy is created from paranoia and well good intentions.

( Small Favor )

( tv shows -American Idol, Gossip Girl, Lost, Supernatural, House, Smallville )

I really shouldn't do this, there are so many other things I need to do right now. Like fix myself lunch and finish writing my book. Take a walk. But what the hell.

Why do writers of fan fic and fans make such a big deal about canon and get all hot and bothered when the series that they are watching or books they are reading don't fit the fanfic they've created?

If you were that good at guessing what would come next in the story, then why bother reading or watching it? When stories become predictable like that for me, I get bored and watch something else.

Right now the ipod is playing my Madonna CD - I got tired of it going wonky every time I tried to control it's playing choices. So am letting it do whatever it wants at the moment.

There are two excellent posts on lj that explain the television writing and filming process - one is by tightropegirl commenting on House. The other is an interview with Stephen DeKnight regarding the writing and filming process behind the Buffy S6 episode, Dead Things. I recommend people who bash television writers read these two posts carefully. Afterwards, you'll probably want to slap yourself repeatedly in the forehead for being such a nitwit. But it is worth it.

Here's the links: Stephen Denight Interview

And...

Filming and writing an episode of House or Smallville

Imagine working 14 hours a day. Having 3 days to deliver a script. Having it torn to pieces by twenty people. Having 15 minutes to rehearse your lines, memorize them, and deliver them in front of a camera on mark. Imagine doing it after sitting around on a cold set with only one bathroom for 10 hours.

Then imagine after you are done, going on the internet and reading someone bash your work online. Or question your work. Or bash your best friend's work - when you watched them sweat bullets over it.

And you think your job sucks.