Spontaneous Musings

I found it easier to work and to write when I didn't have the internet to distract me.

1. Saw WandaVision, which has Nine Episodes - to date only five have aired.

I'm not sure it works as well if you are unfamiliar with the films. Although, it may provide more suspense?

I am familiar with the films - and have seen the critical ones more than once - possibly because I adored Robert Downy Jr's take on Tony Stark, Chris Evans on Captain America, Jeremy Renner's on Hawkeye, Natasha Richardson's Black Widow, Mark Ruffalo and Chris Hemsworth's Hulk and Thor. I liked how they did it. (I don't always - I was brutally disappointed in the Batman films...with few exceptions. And in the Superman (with few exceptions) and the Wonder Woman (with few exceptions), and in the Fantastic Four (no exceptions) and Spiderman (few exceptions), and most of the X-men films (the only one I loved was Days of Future Past and Logan, everything else...ugh.)

I'm picky when it comes to this stuff - because I have a weakness for it.
I love stories about people with superpowers. Not everyone does. Some people like stories about pirates..I'm kind of ambivalent to be honest, others love stories about highlanders (also ambivalent), others love war movies (appeal is completely lost on me), others about people who work in diners...

Anyhow - this one is admittedly unique. It's kind of a show within a show. Wanda Maximov aka Scarlett Witch can manipulate the fabric of reality with a hex. She can literally rewrite reality if she so desires. Here she's rewritten the reality of the small town of Westville - turning everyone in town into one of her sitcom creations. They all play roles in her situation comedy. But she seems to be oblivious to the fact that they are doing so, or is she? The situation comedy format starts in the 1950s, jumps to the 60s then to the 70s then to the 80s, complete with front and end credits, sets, wardrobe, etc. She literally is rewriting reality to look like a sitcom, and each time she feels threatened or challenged, she changes the time period, the sets, everything.

I've never seen anything quite like it - but it takes the whole concept of the meta-narrative to the next level. I mean the 70s set looked like the Brady Bunch's House, and the 1980s set reminded me of my childhood home. And the 1950s set looked like Bewitched.

The cast is quite good. Olson and Lucas hold it together well, and Olson makes Wanda likable and kind of amusing at the same time.

2. Speaking of meta narratives...Legacies mini-musical performance of "The Vampire Diaries" was well done. Apparently the executive producer sent clips from it to the actors from the Vamp Diaries - and they posted small references to it on Twitter. Making the fans think they'd get a S9 of TVD.
( Read more... )

The big difference between Vamp Diaries and Legacies - which shows how things have changed is ...Legacies is far more diverse in its casting choices. And is getting better at featuring the diverse cast as it moves forward. Depicting how much things have truly changed. Vamp Diaries lasted longer than Buffy, in the much the same way that Supernatural did - because they weren't quite as expensive to make, didn't wear out the cast, and weren't as well written. They just wanted to be supernatural soap operas or fun shows. ( Read more... )

At any rate - I feel an odd desire to binge-watch Vamp Diaries. LOL!

There's an article about fanfiction, fandom and shipping in the new romance magazine Blush, that's just been launched. (Got it via Smartbitches. )

1. Critiques?
( tiny print and what is cult not cult )
2. Wrong-headed shipping or shipping bad guys with heroes...such as Kylo Ren and Rei, or Draco Malfoy and Hermonine, or Angelus and Buffy.

Quibbles aside..I don't ship the way the person being interviewed does. I don't really do or tend to do "wrong-headed" shipping. With a few rare exceptions -- and usually those are one's that fit the story thread and are canon. I don't tend to ship counter to the canon.
( Read more... )

3. Canon vs. non-canonical shipping (not to be confused with m/m or f/f slash - which can be canonical or non-canonical depending on the series.).

Per the above, I ship with the canon or with the story-thread. And don't have a lot of patience for shipping against the story-thread. It's rare that I'll ship characters that aren't going to end up together, aren't written to be romantic love interests, and aren't written to be friends. And if they are friends or lovers or married and the story-thread leads to their inevitable separation and the demise of their relationship in a convincing manner that tracks -- and shows why, doesn't tell, I'll go along with it. (See Buffy/Angel above as an example. The writers successfully broke that ship up for me in S1 Angel.)
( Read more... )

4. Where the line should be drawn regarding shipping...

( shippers who try to influence the writing of the show )

5. My ships or the one's that I have shipped the hardest in recent years and still do to an extent?

Canonical Ships:
( Read more... )

Nothing new though. I don't ship much any longer. Shipping for television shows is ridiculously painful.

Non-canonical?
( Read more... )
But I can't say I was passionate about any of them.

1. Vamp Diaries

( spoilers of course )

2. Merlin

I'm enjoying Merlin this year. Although Morgana is starting to feel a bit like Wile E. Coyote...they keep throwing her off the cliff, she keeps getting up again.

( spoilers )

3. Finished watching most of Glee...eh, the musical numbers are still better than the writing. I get that it is a satire, but it's a bit...over the top, and losing it's characters in the process, again. Although it does appear to be addressing bulmia, finally - although in a weird way.

Well that was interesting and entertaining...although, again, show stop teasing me about killing main characters, seriously you are worse than Downton Abbey teasing me about the loss of Downton Abbey. I know you aren't going to go through with it - there wouldn't be a tv show.

Must say it was a hoot to watch this after General Hosptial - which is currently doing an off-beat homage to its vampire soap opera spin-off series "Port Charles" (GH's 1990s spin-off) which predated Buffy by about two years. In it - Lucy Coe was the vampire slayer. So now, Lucy's back on GH and so are the actors who played vampires on Port Charles, but completely different characters on GH. Lucy is convinced they are vampires still. The other characters have to keep telling her that vampires don't exist. "But, but," sputters Lucy, "I'm the vampire slayer. They have you hypnotized. You can't see it. They showed up as a rock band. Then the king of vampire's morphed into a priest, and now he's morphed into a cop." (Klaus apparently has nothing on Michael Easten's former vamp character Caleb). Hilarious. Particularly because in a soap opera, that absurd plot-line is actually possible. (In this day and age, soap operas actually make fun of themselves. One week they had the characters state that no one in this town ever stays dead...possibly because of the unknown vampire population? Hey, it's one explanation.)

Also the promos for the YA Zombie/Human romance Warm Bodies continues to amuse me. Particularly when I think about all the Buffy fans who were squicked over Buffy loving vampires on BTVS. Because you know, necrophilia. And how they'd joke about vampire romance, how lame it is, and say no one does that with zombies. Hee. People? Friends of mine?

Warm Bodies was made just for you.

But back to my guilty pleasure, because frankly I find rotting corpses gross, so prefer vampires to zombies...Vampire Diaries.

( eh, spoilers...and eeny meany moe who is the worst vampire tonight? )

1. So I bought a Chrismas tree, actually it's Charlie Brown's Christmas tree's poor decrepit cousin. It was basically five buckeroos. And is comprised of what appears to be two small pine covered branches, a bunch of tiny ornaments, and gel to keep it alive, I think. It's called a living Xmas tree..and is supposed to be healthy and hardy. Read the directions after I bought it...and thought, okay, I'll be lucky if this thing makes it two weeks. It wants sunshine, lots of watering, and a nice sunny plot after the holidays. Yeah right, good luck with that. Ain't gonna happen. Besides I kill plants. I can kill a cactus. I did kill a cactus. I kid you not. It drowned and rotted.
Was not a pretty sight.

But hey it was only five dollars and it looks sort of cute next to my tv and along-side the tiny pumpkin I bought for Halloween. I'm not much into decorations...or design, that's my bro and Mom's gig, I take after my Dad...I really don't care that much. Low maintenance all the way. As you may have noticed if you ever checked out my live journal - I don't do banners or lots of graphics or even icons for that matter, too much bloody work.

Speaking of work? I gave up on WW, I have too many things to track, can't do it too.
Also let go of the Y membership - too far away and too problematic. So, I'm saving 80 dollars a month that used to be spent on that. We're not talking about the amount I wasted on both.

2. TVD...sigh. It was going so well, but alas... it's a soap opera. And sigh...I have a weakness for soap operas, apparently. They are also the only things I ever hunt for spoilers on. For the record, Buffy was a soap opera too, if you don't think it was...well, take it from an expert, it was a soap opera. A well written soap opera, but still a soap opera. Whedon is a huge soap fan - he is on record for watching both General Hospital and that supernatural soap that I can't remember the name of. The problem with soap operas is they like to do the same stupid romantic tropes over and over again. I can never predict them because they have troll logic...they tend to go by "emotion" not well logic. Or whatever pulls at the writer's emotions. Which is impossible to predict. Also you get roped into hoping for things, because occasionally the soap will surprise you and do something really cool and innovative and no one does that...then they'll fall into the abyss and go the cliche route and you want to throw things at your tv in frustration. Long-time soap opera watcher...I'm not masochistic, just addicted to those chewy bones they throw me on occasion. Even if they are wonky.

At any rate I'm pretty sure I've figured out TVD aka Vamp Diaries (a title that makes me laugh, so I prefer it, we need laughter in our lives...it helps.) current wonky plot thread. I could be wrong - it is after all a soap opera...they defy me. Which is why I like the dang things.

( spoilery speculation...will try not to be too snarky, but not promising anything )


3. Story Tropes that have been overdone...been thinking about this today. It is in a way an off-shoot of previous posts. The problem with the influx of information or the fact that everyone can publish a book, a movie, a tv show...is after a while certain tropes get done to death.

Here's a challenge, can you do any of these tropes in a way that has not been done before? I bet you can't.

* It's a Wonderful Life - how many times have you seen this story done?
* Three ghosts from your past will visit you in one night ...the Christmas Carol Trope
* sire bond - ie. I sired you, you are my childe, you will do my bidding unless you can find a way to break it...
* Romeo and Juliet...the star-crossed lovers who met, fell in love at first sight, and are doomed to never be together...one or the other, or both will die...or be separated forever. (I did actually see in the book store a new twist on it - entitled Immortal Juliet...where Romeo is a bad guy who killed her and they fight each other for eternity.)
* Evil Dude: I know, we'll kill the mom(or dad, but mom works better) before the son(or daughter or both), who is prophesied to save humanity, was ever born.
* Oedipus complex - he sleeps with or wants to sleep with mom, and kill the stepfather, then goes balmy. (OR for a bit of spice...Electra Complex - goes after Dad, wants him, gets rejected...kills mother or something to that effect.)


There's probably more but that's all I can think of at the moment.

4. Saw OUAT and Revenge last night. Revenge was better, admittedly not hard. OUAT is...well, poorly written. The dialogue and direction is off. And a lot of the characters actions make no sense. It's also a bit jarring in how it flips around. I want OUAT to be better than it is, it's very disappointing - great ideas, poor execution. Damn, why can't they hire better tv writers? Too many bad writers get hired and published, and too many good writers are stuck doing real hard jobs that are more meaningful and contribute more to the world than well tv shows do. Pop culture brings out the bitch in me, I've decided. OR it has been lately. Mainly because I'm frustrated with the tv shows I've been watching. Although to be fair...Jennifer Morrison does not quite work for me as Emma, I don't know why. I didn't like her that much in House either. Didn't dislike. Just felt ambivalent. Same here. It's weird...but I'm finding Regina, Rumple, Cora, Jefferson, Cassaday, and Hook to be the most interesting characters in the show at the moment.

Revenge was convoluted. I don't like the Jack subplot, it's cliche and stupid and I can see where its going. I am on the fence about the Nolan subplot. And confused by the Emily/Aiden/Daniel/Grayson's subplot. That said? It was enjoyable.

Haven't seen Good Wife yet.

Nashville? I like the main arc with Juliette Barnes and Ryana, can't stand the subplots with the horridly whiny Scarlette who managed to ruin my favorite Johnny Cash song (Ring of Fire) which I did not think was possible. She's really bad. And Gunner, the guy mooning after her, is worse. The only one I find talented or interesting is Avery (Jonathan Jackson) but I hate his storyline (even if it is admittedly realistic). I'm afraid they'll write him out, when I'd rather they write out the other two. Also not a fan of the political subplot which also screams cliche. Nashville in short is suffering from the same problems that SMASH did, bad subplots.

Off to watch The Good Wife which got chopped up and disrupted by football. They apparently ended one game and decided to go 15 minutes over watching the end of another one? Weird.

I don't know why, but I've never been able to fall in love with the Doctor Who series. I like it. But I don't lovvve it. Why this is...I'll never know. It's weird what I fall in love with. There's only a handful of tv series that I've fallen in love with - MASH, Buffy, Farscape, Battle Star Galatica (both versions), Kimba, The Monkeyees (I know), and Battle of the Planets. Very odd. Although did obviously fall enough in love with Game of Thrones to buy the first season on DVD. And
I own the first season of ...Veronica Mars on DVD. Plus four seasons of Angel (skipping S3). And I do own the 5th Season of The NEW Doctor Who on DVD....so there is that, I guess. What can I say? I'm a tv whore? Been tempted by the DVD set of The West Wing. Love The West Wing. Did I tell you that they did a skit from The West Wing as a church reading last Sunday? It was part of the Minister's Sermon.

Anywho...Vamp Diaries aka The Vampire Diaries or TVD was better than expected this week.
Tempted to do a two-parter review. Half snark/half serious, because there were actually some juicy character bits. Also EW did an interview with producer/head writer Julie Plec on Vamp Diaries characters...

First things first...Vamp Diaries Review

( eh, spoilers in them there hills - it's both snarky and serious so for those who struggle with my admittedly dry and at times insensitive wit, just scan those bits and jump to the serious, if you prefer the wit, do the opposite. I aim to please or not as the case may be. )

Before I go into the next section. EW mag had three interesting things of note.

1. EW states Twilight changed books, tv, and film. Eh. I disagree. Twilight's just a pop culture trend/fad. It'll go the way of the dodo in ten years. It would have gone away sooner, but the movies sort of extended it. I personally think Harry Potter will last longer.
( Read more... )
2. Star Wars bought by Disney, who has turned into a bit of a frightening mega corporation - like a big shark swallowing a lot of swordfish and Little Nemos. 45 year old me, who is cynical, is bemused. 25 year old me is skittish. 12 year old me is sort of thrilled? Hey, I liked Disney at 12.
I was young and wet-behind the ears.
( Read more... )
3. Vamp Diaries...the EW interview with Julie Plec:

"Vampire Boss Julie Plec Takes your Questions" (Interestingly enough some of these same questions could have been asked to Joss Whedon by Buffy fans, not that we did, nor that he'd answer them...but still it is worth noting.)
( Vamp Diaries interview in EW )

1. Arrow - admittedly slower this week than usual. Writing was a bit off, and the take-down-of-the-week on the cliche side of the fence. ( spoilers )

2. Vamp Diaries

Does the story always have to center on how can we save or cure or protect Elena? It's getting old.
Stop. Well that and the love triangle between Damon/Elena/Stefan - its getting to the point in which I'm rooting for Elena to hook up with Matt. And for Katrina to come back and have a hot fling with Damon.

( spoilers )

Rather enjoyed Vamp Diaries tonight, despite the violence.

*decapitated body (granted a bad guy and not a person of color or minority...so not so bad. Also not a woman. Progress.)
*guy run over by a car and pronounced dead (he did wake up, but coughed blood)
* staked woman (she's technically not completely dead though).
* fight scene with burning (but two guys, and both vampires, and brothers...)

Actually not that high. About a 3 considering. TrueBlood is a lot higher, but it is also on HBO. They do off-set it with nudity and sex-scenes though. Vamp Diaries off-set with one kissing scene...which admittedly was hotter than TrueBlood's naked sex scenes, but still not quite enough.

( spoilers, ie, actual spoilers and not merely vague ones like above )

First off - the Buffy marathon is NOT running on the Syfy channel in NYC area. Some movie called Petrodactyle is. Nor is it listed to run. Sci-Fi lies. Not that this is a big issue, I mean, it's not like I don't have every episode on DVD. If I really wanted to do a marathon - I could hold my own. Although, admittedly there's a disc in S2 that has issues. It's the one with School Hard - apparently someone watched and rewound and watched and paused and rewound the disc too many times...can't think who would do such a thing. Note - I'm about as hard on my DVD's as I am on certain books, apparently. But still...if you tell me there's a marathon and you show a bad sci-fi film instead...

Watched Vamp Diaries yesterday. It's sort of pouring today, so chose not to do the laundry thing. Might try to bring in the laundry tomorrow - not sure if they will have the day off or not. Easter is a funky holiday, half the town celebrates it, the other half ignores it completely. I'm in the second half this year more or less. Not a holiday I like and I don't need the sugar buzz. There's a lull now - so suppose could do it now or try to go food shopping.

But you don't care about what I'm doing. Do you? You want to hear about Vamp Diaries, far more interesting.

Vamp Diaries is guilty pleasure tv at its best. I don't compare it to Buffy, because it's nothing like it nor does it want to be. Actually, nothing on tv is like Buffy. Whedon's shows tend to stand out a bit like a thorny sunflower in a field of daisies or a bird of paradise flower in a field of primroses. He didn't follow formulaic television rules, he either made fun of them or blatantly broke them. And he liked to work within genres which he could get away with that.

Vamp Diaries in direct contrast is basically a fun soap-operaish gothic horror thrill ride that doesn't take itself too seriously. It's a lot like True Blood in that respect, except I think True Blood is smarter and has a better overall production value - ie. better actors, dialogue, film-making, etc. Also it's fun to analyze True Blood - since Alan Ball is quite good at social and political satire (better than Ryan Murphy, but the British tend to be better at this than the Americans for some odd reason.) Vamp Diaries is sort of the teen version or PG-14 version of True Blood. Will state Vamp Diaries is better paced and the plot is more entertaining. Also it's more quotable. But - you don't want to over-analyze the metaphors...because ugh. I did. I regretted it. I stopped. (Suffice it to say - the head-writer/show-runner has some serious Mommy!Issues. Since it's Kevin Williamson, more or less - and all of the things he's done sort of reflect that, this shouldn't come as a big surprise.) There's just some shows that one should watch the same way one might jump on an amusement park ride - whee! Leave the brain at home, please, otherwise you may get motion sickness.


That said, I rather like Vamp Diaries take on the whole werewolf bit. Although it does feel like its been borrowed hook, line, and sinker from Underworld (a series of gothic horror action flicks starring Kate Beckinsal and directed by her husband, or am I confusing that with Mila Kovinisch and her hubby who did the Resident Evil films?) Let's face it - all these shows borrow from each other, there really are no new ideas out there, just new variations.

This week's episode delved into the mythology and provided a great deal of exposition. Now, exposition folks, is hard to pull off. Not everyone does it well. Whedon (and his writers) sucks at it - unless of course you thought Giles lectures in the library were entertaining. (They sort of were, but that had less to do with Whedon and everything to do with Anthony Stewart Head - having read the comics and watched S7, I know whereof I speak). Kevin Williamson, on the other hand, and his group of writers are actually rather good at this sort of thing. Say what you will about the Scream flicks - the exposition was delivered in a hilarious and entertaining manner.
(In the first film - it was delivered by Jaime Kennedy, Billy Cruddup and Mathew Lillard as rules you must follow to survive a horror film.) And say what you will about Vamp Diaries - it excels at exposition. Actually it is worth watching Vamp Diaries just to see how exposition can be done in an entertaining manner. The trick is to show the reader or audience what happened, and intrigue them, not lecture them as one might their American history class on the Civil War. (Actually a few teachers might benefit from this - there's nothing more sleep-inducing than someone sitting in front of you and lecturing - you think high school is bad, try law school - 85% of it was basically that. Socratic method, my foot.)

( Spoilers within...review of this week's episode of Vamp Diaries )

Occasionally when I post to LJ, then edit it - it ends up double-posting, so I have to delete one of the entries - which isn't an issue except when you get comments to both entries. Then it's sort of eeney meanie miny moe. I suppose I could keep both, but I'm anal, it bugs me. Sorry for last night,
a nasty side-effect of a sugar high is the crash afterwards. Have decided to go cold turkey. No more chocolat or sugar for moi.

Results of Reader Poll - pretty much stated that people wanted reviews on more or less everything I listed. In particular the Spike comic. There were also about 7 people who wanted Vampire Diaries. And since I saw that last night, might as well review. It was an interesting episode,
exposition heavy but with great character moments. The series also has an interesting mythology or back story - that is different than most of the stories I've seen in this particular trope. In some respects the fantasy world that the writers are building here is more detailed and far less derivative than other gothic horror tv shows and novels.

And it has some great one-liners.

( Spoilers for this week's Vampire Diaries )