Spontaneous Musings

Finished re-watching Buffy S4 and Angel S1 yesterday, with the iconic episodes "Restless" (Buffy S4) and "To Shanshu in LA" (Angel S1), which were both written and directed by the principle show-runner creator of each series, Joss Whedon and David Greenwalt respectfully.

Both date rather well for the most part, with a few crucial exceptions (the white male writers of Northern European descent have some decidedly judgmental stereotypes about Black and African culture that regrettably end up on screen and are kind of racist) - Gunn and the First Slayer...ugh.

Upon re-watching I picked up on the flaws in the writing, and of the two, I think Greenwalt's is easier to follow and more engrossing, while Whedon's is a bit more on the self-indulgent side (if you doubt Whedon's creativity, sizable ego, or his power on that show - just watch Restless), far more ambitious, and drags a bit. Even if Whedon's is much more memorable and kind of a game-changer in television writing.

Can you skip over Restless and still enjoy the series? Absolutely. It's a stand-alone episode, filled with foreshadowing, but so vaguely and confusingly displayed, that you are almost better off not thinking too much about it? People did at the time (myself included) - and came up with far better plots than the writer did or even imagined, which is never a good thing and alas one of the pitfalls of reading and writing fanfic while a series is airing, and before it's been completed. It's almost better to read it after the fact (which I seldom do) but there you go.

To Shanshu in LA on the other hand is kind of required to understand what is happening in Angel. It's not a skippable episode, and I would state one of the anchors of the series? There's a handful of episodes in Angel S1 that you need to watch to understand what is happening, the arc of the characters, etc. It is not a stand-a-alone, which is why David Greenwalt wrote and directed it. The only problem with it - is I'm not sure Greenwalt knows whether he is writing noir or a classic hero story or both? It's a confusing episode. Because it seems fairly clear from the ending, just as it did from the ending of Blind Date (the episode before it) - that the Senior Partners are gleeful with the result, and busy rewarding both Lindsey and Holland Mathers for executing it. Lilah is just along for the ride.

I think Greenwalt is attempting to do two things here? Hoodwink/mislead the audience and our heroes, while at the same time get across what the villains are doing and how they succeed. Plus, be able to get across to the audience the twist or the mislead upon completion of the series - so if someone were to re-watch it after seeing S5, they'd get it. And that's really hard to pull off well, without a few confusing plot holes. (Especially with the constant turn-over in writers and show-runners. But Whedon was most likely the instigator of the mislead, as was Minear.) It's more coherent than Restless, but then just about anything in either series is? And overall, I'd say Greenwalt was slightly more successful in the mislead than Whedon was in Restless, although it's not real clear Whedon knew what he was doing in Restless. Or if he was, he didn't do a good job of communicating that to anyone else?

Take-aways and Reviews of the two upon re-watching years later, are below:

Restless - written & directed by Joss Whedon (who wrote about four-five episodes per season in the first four-five seasons, and often the first episode and the last episode, this is common with show-runners of broadcast television shows with large team of writers and 22 episodes).

There's a dream sequence episode in Dark Winds S3, where the lead character Joe Leaphorn is wrestling with his own inner demons, and goes through this confusing dream sequence in the desert - while being attacked by someone that he believes is a monster in reality. The dream sequence finally gets across to him, as he figures out who killed a priest in his distant past during it, that there are no monsters, just men. And the thing fighting him the desert isn't a monster, but a man.

Restless is kind of similar set up? ( Read more... )

Overall, an okay episode? I kept falling asleep during it yesterday and found it, as I always find dreams shown in art and media - to be mentally exhausting and exhilarating at the same time.

To Shanshu in LA - written and directed by David Greenwalt (who was technically the show-runner of Angel, with oversight by Whedon).

Before Angel the Series, there was another cult noirish vampire detective series known as Nick at Night and later Forever Knight. It was about a Vampire who solved cases, while dealing with his creators. Moonlight reminds me a lot of Forever Knight. Angel the Series is kind of merger of Forever Knight (a Canadian 1980/early 90s series) and Kojack the Night Stalker (which was a cult show in the 1960s). It is at its heart - a noir or dark anti-hero series about a Vampire and his friends attempting to help people, and solve crimes, for a fee. Notably, a big difference between Angel Investigations and the Scooby Gange - is Angel is "paid". Often with big checks by folks who can afford it. Up until To Shanshu in LA? I'd say Angel the Series was very similar to Forever Night, Nick at Knight (earlier version of Forever Knight) and Kojack the Night Stalker. After that it goes in another direction entirely.

The beginning of the episode, two things happen worth noting. ( Read more... )

Overall a good episode, if a bit clunky and confusing in places. I did enjoy it more than Restless, in that I stayed awake during it.

***

Now that I've finished my rewatch of Angel S1 and Buffy S4, I'd say they were both a mixed bag? Buffy's stand-a-alones are better, while Angel's arc episodes are better.

( Buffy S4 Rewatch Over-view, cut for length )

If you really dislike S4, and preferred S1-3, and love those seasons and their narrative framework, setting, etc, then, you probably are better off sticking with the first three seasons and not continuing with the series. If however, you were like me, and loved aspects of S4, then yes, it gets better as we go. And is a very different series post-S4.

Takeaways?
( Read more... )

Angel S1 overview.

Better than I remembered. Less skippable episodes than I recalled, although they are there. It is more noirish than I thought. And dives deep into many noir tropes. Every single episode has a dark twist, some better than others.

Also the characters are well developed, and more likable and relatable here than they were on Buffy. Angel, Wes, and Cordelia are far more developed and more three dimensional. We get inside each's point of view. And they are given room to breath and develop that they never had on the other show, too busy competing for screen time.

The writers clearly aren't good at the stealth anthology or case of the week format, and by the end of the season give into serial for the most part. A recurring theme with this series.

WRH may be among the best villains in television. They work on multiple levels, the evil law firm on speed. It's a trope that has been done repeatedly of course, but the Angel writers kind of run with it and take it to new lows. And they keep with the noir themes and landscape - Angel is the classic Noir anti-hero, along with Wes and Cordelia.

I'm looking forward to rewatching S2, which I've mostly forgotten.

I saw this quote on Facebook from a social activist that I've been following, which stated:

"Do less of passing on your fears to people."

And I thought, if less people did this? I wouldn't have social anxiety or a lot of other anxieties for that matter - most of which have been thrust onto me by other people. People can be scary.

This quote is also apropos for the episode of Buffy that I re-watched this week, entitled (per Hulu) Gingerbread, S3 Episode 11. I think it's 11. It's not an episode that I remember fondly, and have been known to skip it on past re-watches. Mainly because it focuses on a recurring theme in horror/supernatural fiction - which is well - the witch hunt. It's been explored in a lot science fiction series as well, from Invasion of the Body Snatchers to the The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" (a classic Twilight Zone Episode). And historically with the Salem Witch Trials and the Holocaust - where a group of people become scapegoats and people hunt them down and kill them as if they are demons or animals with no worth. I'm not fond of the theme - because, well, I find it frightening and incredibly frustrating, not to mention annoying, especially right now. I'd rather not think about it or watch it. Out of sight, is out of mind, right? Well unfortunately not always.

Also, I remembered Gingerbread being somewhat cliche and eye-rolling in places. (It's not. I was mistaken.)

I was surprised by how cleverly written this episode actually is, and how it manages to involve all of the main contracted cast, with the exception of Faith (who isn't a lead cast member and recurring).

It manages to take a well-known fairy tale and flips it on its head, in a way no one else has done before or since. What if the villains in the fairy tale were in reality the protagonists or victims, and they weren't what they seemed?

( spoilers for well anyone who hasn't seen the show in the last 25 years and still wants to...when do spoilers expire anyhow, probably never? )

I found this episode, like all the other episodes in s3, to date rather well - and to cross-over well into the modern age, in that we've always had this problem. And it is an universal one. People get afraid of something or someone - and feel the need to tell everyone else about it - to share this anxiety or fear. Right now it's immigrants - and the fear that the immigrants will take away their jobs, their homes, and their way of life. Irrational as this fear is, they believe it is a real threat and they must fight to make sure it doesn't happen by any means necessary.

I once had a frightening debate with a poster named peasant in my journal way back in 2017. Peasant, a Brit, was convinced that the evil immigrants were coming to take away their job, home, and everything they held dear, and they had to stop them. That the evil socialists would help the evil immigrants. Fascism was better in Peasant's view than the alternative. And Capitalism was the best approach, everyone was happier under that. Peasant was terrified of socialism. Peasant's political views scared me, not just the views themselves, mind you, which were scary in of themselves, but the fact that someone actually thought that way? That they had demonized a group of people in their head to that extent. An otherwise rational and from what I saw kind person who cared about animals, gardened, etc - felt like this? That scared me. Peasant scared me, not the immigrants. I was afraid of Peasant. And I'm not an immigrant - my ancestors came to the United States in the 1600s, 1700s, and 1800s, both my parents, grand-parents, and for the most part great grandparents and great great grandparents are US Citizens. I was afraid for the immigrants, Peasant hated, and the their view that fascism was the better choice. That scared me. So badly, that I eventually blocked them from my journal.

Fear divides people and unites people - it also starts wars, and kills millions. It causes debilitating anxiety.

Peasant in attempting to pass their fears on to me, much like Joyce does to the other adults in town including Willow's mother - caused me to block them and ended our correspondence.

Another example? JK Rowlings fear of transgender has resulted in various people distancing themselves from her, and book stores no longer selling her books and removing them from their shelves. I don't see them at all in area book stores any longer. She has been deemed a lost cause, and repeals people with her hate and fear, and her attempts to pass it on to other people. Even those who agree with her, such as Musk, have attempted to reign her in on Twitter (aka X).

Passing fear on to others - may be rewarding in the short term, but it isn't in the long term. It did Joyce no favors - at the end of the episode, it is implied not shown by Buffy that Joyce has retreated to her gallery, and (potentially her booze), appalled at her actions, and her friends have disassociated themselves from her. This is shown with wry humor in the episode, but at the same time - as a kind of twisted morality lesson? Not to take things at face value, to question fears, and to try not to instigate a lynch mob.

I've read through the NY Magazine aka Vulture Whedon article now, and ..I find I don't come to the same conclusions as the author does.

( conclusion of the article )

Perhaps because I've met people like Whedon in my life time, too many to count, across industries. Narcissists are very charming, and more than one thing. But I don't see Whedon as a victim here - but as someone who is well-off and invested in playing the victim.

He reminds me a great deal of Steve Carroll's character in The Morning Show. Is he mentally ill? Yes, most likely. And as Claudia Black previously stated - I do hope he gets help for it. But the mental illness doesn't excuse his behavior, it doesn't remove culpability or accountability.

Also, I watched Snyder and Whedon's Justice League's back to back, and well, you know there's a problem when the least offensive version and most entertaining was Snyder's. I'm not necessarily a huge fan of Snyder (actually I'm rather ambivalent and I don't tend to seek out his work for the most part, it's very stylistic, with not much emphasis on script, he has a painting background and is into video games), but Snyder's Justice League was not only the better film it was the least offensive.

There's changes Whedon made that underscore an offensive frat boy sexist humor, that I kind of handwaved in the Buffy and Angel series, but was blatantly obvious here.

I also read the Wonder Woman script, and the original Buffy script. So...there you go.

The writer of the article spends more time critiquing Whedon's fandom or the fans of his work - as if they are somehow complicit in his downfall or worse in enabling his actions. I don't agree with that assessment. They were and are fans of the art, they don't know him. They fell in love with their perceptions of his work and the performance he provided. My friend embers_log certainly did not endorse any of these actions, she didn't know about them. She loved the performance or what she perceived.
**

Why does this intrigue me, right now?

I'm discussing this because it fits with a theme of works that I gravitated to this weekend for reasons I'm not quite certain I understand. Except that I've always been fascinated by why we do what we do, the dark underbelly of humanity or those dark impulses.

From Frankenstein to Dexter. In each, the individuals involved are putting on delicate performances. They are brilliant men, some may say genius. And yet, they are also incredibly good liars. I told a friend once, that humans are good liars, particularly at lying to ourselves.
( meta narrative on Dexter, Frankenstein, Whedon, Buffy, and Yellowjackets - with major spoilers for Frankenstein and Dexter, vaguer ones for Buffy and Yellowjackets )

**

On Twitter, Michael E Knight's comment at fan event was posted, and I thought it telling in a way...

Last night on the JPS/MEK zoom, MEK said about these times we’re in:

“I don’t know anyone who’s thriving right now. In 10 yrs, we’re gonna look back at now & be like ‘that was really some shit’. You don’t know you’re living through something biblical until it’s over.”

I think this is true. Trauma can take many forms. And affects people differently. But, there's a caveat here, it does not excuse or justify hurting others to benefit one's self. The actor who I quoted, to my knowledge, has always been kind and never hurt a soul.

Justice League's Director Joss Whedon's Controversial Toxic History"

The opening was straight out of every old horror movie: Teen couple sneaks into a darkened building. Ominous background music swells. He wants to go up to the roof and make out. She thinks she hears a noise; he says it’s nothing.

And then she turns into a monster and pounces on him.

“Welcome to the Hellmouth,” the 1997 pilot episode of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” wore its trope-flipping female empowerment on its sleeve, and audiences devoured it.

Showrunner Joss Whedon had arrived.

Twenty-four years later, Whedon is facing multiple allegations of being the monster himself. Many of the female stars from “Buffy” are done with him. “Justice League” star Ray Fisher has accused him of being racist and abusive in a Hollywood Reporter story that also details a witness’ account of Whedon’s boast that he would make actress Gal Gadot “shut up and say the lines.” The latest details hit as “The Nevers,” HBO’s Whedon-created show about Victorian women with superpowers, is set to debut Sunday, and Whedon is so radioactive the network isn’t even using his name.

It’s an ironic twist of cinematic proportions for the auteur who, for decades, was Hollywood’s go-to male feminist.

I realized today while fighting with a Whedon fan on the Whedon Studies board on FB, that I am angry at Joss Whedon. But it's an empty anger.
( regarding monsterous acts by writers that I once respected )
How do you reconcile the art of someone you once ...respected, with the truth of who they were? Or the truth of how they acted? Does that change how we view the art that we loved or once loved? Or not at all? Can we look past the abusive actions of the artist and see the art clearly for what it is, ever again? Does it taint our love for it? God knows.

It's something I'm still grappling with, apparently.

Deep breath and sigh - it's now day 90. Ninety Days.

1. Tomorrow is a doctor's appointment, which requires a subway ride. Granted it is really only a twenty-thirty minute subway ride. About nine to ten stops. Not too bad. The subways are supposed to be clean. Masks are allegedly mandatory - curious to see how that's being enforced.

It also requires some walking along residential streets. Sitting in a doctor's office waiting room, and a doctor's exam room. The question is which mask to wear - the one with the additional filter? The surgical blue and white masks? The new ones I got with two layers?

I'm dreading it. ( Read more... )

2. In other news, the Supreme Court determined by a 6-3 vote that the Civil Rights Act did protect LGBTQA folks from getting fired from a job for being LGBTQA. The ACLU was rather proud of this victory - considering it had been fighting for it for a while now. There's still more ground that needs to be covered, but a spot of good news. Kind of justifies my donations to the ACLU over the years.

3. Crazy Workplace

( Read more... )

4. Mother's depressed. God, who isn't? Also, while I knew 2020 was going to be a roller-coaster ride, I didn't realize it would be this bad of one. I should have - we have the Anti-Christ in the White House (Lando's nickname for him), I don't know what I was expecting.

I almost burst into tears twice today - feeling sorry for myself. Thinking I should have prepared for this better. But honestly, I tried. I did what I could with what was available.

And I'm tired of being scared and anxious over simple things. Latest, an area of my tub that appears to be wearing away and I don't know what to do about it. It's now rust colored. And rough. I can't figure out how to fix it or stop it. I think it's the water that pools in that place. I can't call the super to fix or look at it right now.

Routine helps. I am a creature of habit. And I've a strict routine that I more or less stick to. That provides sanity, as does taking long walks through a cemetery - yesterday's was five miles for three hours. Or meditation. Writing daily in this journal. Calling my parents. Texting my brother. Interacting on FB. Completing work assignments. Watching the Governor's live news briefings - which my mother is catching via youtube now.

My mother worried today about never being very good at anything. She wanted to be a good artist.
( Read more... )
I don't think she understood. But it's something I've learned over the past ten years - that I can't get validation from outside myself. Nor can other's define or tell me who I am or what I can or can't do or what I enjoy, or what I'm even good at.

Most people have no clue who they are, how are they supposed to figure out who I am? ( Read more... )

At any rate, I've learned to write what is inside me, and let the chips fall where they may. I no longer desire fame or fortune, just a handful of souls here and there who may find something of value in it, whatever that may be.
Sometimes, I just write as I am tonight, to let off steam as one might with a pressure valve. If people enjoy it, find meaning in it, can relate...all the better, if not...it is what it is. I've little control over it either way.

I leave you with...a big fluffy cat, my niece's to be exact.