Lots of TV reactions
Oct. 5th, 2008 08:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragojustineOh GOD. My life EXPLODED. I wanted to do so much writing and I can't and I wanted to do so much reading and I've had no time and I kind of HATE being this busy. I sort of fell into bed Saturday night, then got up and watched like four straight hours of TV today, because I am FRIED.
Pushing Daisies: I kind of thought this show could not possibly be as fun as I remembered. It is. Also, that bit where Chuck says she's never lived alone, and is so happy to finally be able to? I can't remember the last time I empathized so much with a character. I still think there is a huge amount of massively hot but tooth-achingly sweet porn to be written in this verse.
Chuck: During its third season, Supernatural lost its consistent Most Awesome Music Usage crown (though it seems to be coming back a little now). Chuck is really gunning hard to take that spot. I forgot how fun this one was too.
Dexter: I fucking LOVE this show. And Debra. I especially love her.
Sanctuary: I am not sure about this, just because I am a bit burned out on "ghosts/vampires/aliens/whatever are real and right beneath our noses in secret!" setups. I am craving some actual world building in my SF, and "gritty urban fantasy" ins't worlbuilding, it's shortcut. That said, the liquid that runs through Amanda Tapping's veins is pretty much pure undiluted awesome, so.
Eureka: This show is SO CUTE and SO FUN as a character-based adorable soap opera thing. I just really, sincerely wish it did not fail so badly as SF. If this were written by writers with a love of real, relatively intelligent SF, it could have been something extraordinary.
So my TV lineup right now looks like: Wildly fannish about SGA and SPN. Likes Chuck, Pushing Daisies, and Dexter. Giving Sanctuary a chance. Watching Eureka every once in a while, when I have time. Sounds crazy, but the vast majority of those are short seasons and/or early seasons, and will be over by December (early January, in the case of Atlantis. Only Supernatural will go to spring).
Jesus, SPN 4x03. My God. Have I said recently how much I love this show?
On the one hand, it has a couple big Plot Points of Mythos Fail. (The YED CAN'T BRING PEOPLE BACK! And Dean has to convince John to buy the Impala? And wow, but isn't Castiel a sadistic bastard anyway?) And a frustrating lack of brother-togetherness (but the model of Season 3 gives me hope that it will turn out all to the good) and all kinds of nit-picky problems. BUT!
The basic structure of a back to the future episode is made of solid golden 24-carat squee. And Jensen's acting, both comic ("Mom's a babe! *pause* I'm so going to hell. Again.") and angsty ("Don't get out of bed...") is as truly stunning as always. And the casting of Skinner/Caldwell was an absolute coup.
Mostly I loved all the ways this episode paralleled all the important stuff that's gone before- generational thematic parallels are one of my single BIGGEST fiction-kinks. Not just straightforward stuff; like, Harry Potter got way better when it stopped being "Harry is just like his dad!" and starting being a complex, tangled weave of thematic parallels between Harry and James and Snape and Tom. This was like that.
Because Mary echoes Dean, sometimes, but mostly Sam- at the same age, rejecting the life of a hunter only to be pulled back into it by tragedy- but John also echoes Sam- maintaining his innocence and sweetness in the face of horror. And of course Castiel's conversation with Dean in the car echoed the question of WIAWSNB (and there is interesting meta to be had about why the answer is different this time), and theCaldwellGranddad/Dean scene echoes and parallels Devil's Trap in about a billion ways, including the creepy-intense sexualization of it, and Deanna and Samuel echo Sam and Dean, but then also Deanna and Samuel and Mary echo the Harvelle family. And of course, Mary's deal closes the Winchester circle of deals and sacrifices- but with such different motivations! And such horrible irony in the effects! And Dean running up too late echoed AHBL, and the final conversation with Castiel echoed John's final admonition to Dean, and sets the show up to pick up the "save Sam (or he's lost forever)" thread that was never resolved in Season 2.
This bit of backstory casts everything into a different light- Mary is no longer just a symbol of tragedy, the woman-in-the-fridge origin story of the Winchester men, but is instead the initial template that they all follow- this story made Mary ONE OF THEM, not just "she was a hunter," but thematically- her conflicted feelings about hunting, her desire to keep her family safe, her tragic loss, her willingness to make unwise choices in the name of loyalty and saving the one she loves. And it makes John not the brave hero who quested out into the darkness and discovered the underground world all on his own- No! It makes John the carefully protected, coddled mundane (it turns John into SAM, more or less), leaving all four Winchesters (really, all six, with the grandparents), in a complex three-generation web of tragedies and avenging and saving and sacrificing and protecting and deals and doublings and parallels and shared tragic flaws, and that is a SO MUCH BETTER story than just "sad dead woman symbolizing all the normalcy you've lost," so who cares if you can nitpick plot holes in it?
Also, Dean drove a Pinto.
I may or may not have spent 45 minutes assembling a timeline for the 4x03 AU fic of Doom. There is NO WAY I would have time to write that and get it betad before next Thursday... but is there anybody who COULD beta it on Wednesday, if I do get it written?
Pushing Daisies: I kind of thought this show could not possibly be as fun as I remembered. It is. Also, that bit where Chuck says she's never lived alone, and is so happy to finally be able to? I can't remember the last time I empathized so much with a character. I still think there is a huge amount of massively hot but tooth-achingly sweet porn to be written in this verse.
Chuck: During its third season, Supernatural lost its consistent Most Awesome Music Usage crown (though it seems to be coming back a little now). Chuck is really gunning hard to take that spot. I forgot how fun this one was too.
Dexter: I fucking LOVE this show. And Debra. I especially love her.
Sanctuary: I am not sure about this, just because I am a bit burned out on "ghosts/vampires/aliens/whatever are real and right beneath our noses in secret!" setups. I am craving some actual world building in my SF, and "gritty urban fantasy" ins't worlbuilding, it's shortcut. That said, the liquid that runs through Amanda Tapping's veins is pretty much pure undiluted awesome, so.
Eureka: This show is SO CUTE and SO FUN as a character-based adorable soap opera thing. I just really, sincerely wish it did not fail so badly as SF. If this were written by writers with a love of real, relatively intelligent SF, it could have been something extraordinary.
So my TV lineup right now looks like: Wildly fannish about SGA and SPN. Likes Chuck, Pushing Daisies, and Dexter. Giving Sanctuary a chance. Watching Eureka every once in a while, when I have time. Sounds crazy, but the vast majority of those are short seasons and/or early seasons, and will be over by December (early January, in the case of Atlantis. Only Supernatural will go to spring).
Jesus, SPN 4x03. My God. Have I said recently how much I love this show?
On the one hand, it has a couple big Plot Points of Mythos Fail. (The YED CAN'T BRING PEOPLE BACK! And Dean has to convince John to buy the Impala? And wow, but isn't Castiel a sadistic bastard anyway?) And a frustrating lack of brother-togetherness (but the model of Season 3 gives me hope that it will turn out all to the good) and all kinds of nit-picky problems. BUT!
The basic structure of a back to the future episode is made of solid golden 24-carat squee. And Jensen's acting, both comic ("Mom's a babe! *pause* I'm so going to hell. Again.") and angsty ("Don't get out of bed...") is as truly stunning as always. And the casting of Skinner/Caldwell was an absolute coup.
Mostly I loved all the ways this episode paralleled all the important stuff that's gone before- generational thematic parallels are one of my single BIGGEST fiction-kinks. Not just straightforward stuff; like, Harry Potter got way better when it stopped being "Harry is just like his dad!" and starting being a complex, tangled weave of thematic parallels between Harry and James and Snape and Tom. This was like that.
Because Mary echoes Dean, sometimes, but mostly Sam- at the same age, rejecting the life of a hunter only to be pulled back into it by tragedy- but John also echoes Sam- maintaining his innocence and sweetness in the face of horror. And of course Castiel's conversation with Dean in the car echoed the question of WIAWSNB (and there is interesting meta to be had about why the answer is different this time), and the
This bit of backstory casts everything into a different light- Mary is no longer just a symbol of tragedy, the woman-in-the-fridge origin story of the Winchester men, but is instead the initial template that they all follow- this story made Mary ONE OF THEM, not just "she was a hunter," but thematically- her conflicted feelings about hunting, her desire to keep her family safe, her tragic loss, her willingness to make unwise choices in the name of loyalty and saving the one she loves. And it makes John not the brave hero who quested out into the darkness and discovered the underground world all on his own- No! It makes John the carefully protected, coddled mundane (it turns John into SAM, more or less), leaving all four Winchesters (really, all six, with the grandparents), in a complex three-generation web of tragedies and avenging and saving and sacrificing and protecting and deals and doublings and parallels and shared tragic flaws, and that is a SO MUCH BETTER story than just "sad dead woman symbolizing all the normalcy you've lost," so who cares if you can nitpick plot holes in it?
Also, Dean drove a Pinto.
I may or may not have spent 45 minutes assembling a timeline for the 4x03 AU fic of Doom. There is NO WAY I would have time to write that and get it betad before next Thursday... but is there anybody who COULD beta it on Wednesday, if I do get it written?