How I Met Your Mother S5 Gag Reel.  (This is still funny, I think, even if you don't watch the show.)

I made a big post about the Buffy musical episode "Once More, With Feeling" over here, if anyone cares.  Also, you can reply on LJ posts if you sign in with OpenID - it's just your login from Google or another of those kinds of sites.  Again, if anyone cares.

Flesh and Blood didn't make it to the semis at AFF.  Didn't get a letter for Fall River (I would have been called by now, so I'm not thinking it made it.).  I...have not been happy with the way they've done things this year.  First of all, why are they still mailing out actual letters?  Just email people.  Secondly, we got an email way back in August or late July telling us we'd get an email notification of whether or not we'd advanced on September 2nd; the day came and went with no email whatsoever.  I finally had to Google for like half an hour before I found the AFF Facebook page, where several people had asked the same question.  A staff member didn't answer till the next day.  I just kind of find that sort of thing to be really unprofessional.  Whatev.

Day 27 - Best pilot episode.

I tend to be pretty lenient with pilots; I always remember that they're not just the first episode of a show, they're also a sales pitch to the network. A pilot has to do a lot: introduce the characters, the setting, the tone, the premise, the visual aesthetic; it has to hook viewers; it has to be open enough that there are possibilities for dozens and dozens of episodes to come, but it has to be closed enough that there's some specificity there; it has to ask some questions and allowed them to remain unanswered, so the show has something to continue to explore, but not so many that you don't feel like you're going anywhere.



Most pilots aren't that great, really, or the show they set out to establish isn't the one it ends up becoming. The only pilot I've ever seen that does everything a pilot should do, is totally cohesive with the rest of the series, and hits the ground running is the Arrested Development pilot. I find it even more remarkable how well this pilot does everything it does in only 22 minutes.

Day 28 - First TV show obsession.

I was really into TV shows from pretty much day one. I rarely watched shows casually as a kid; either I made sure I watched every single episode or I didn't bother. But, as you might have guessed, it wasn't until The X-Files that I went crazy over a show. I imagine part of it was being at the right age, but it was also the first legitimately good show I watched as it was airing for the first time, and that was a big deal, too. And, of course, the shipping (from the show that brought us the term itself!). It's kind of hard to discuss obsessing over XF as a kid without mentioning that.



And, you know, it occurred to me recently that in a few months it will be ten years since I met most of you guys because of this show. So, y'know.

Went to the Farmer's Market this weekend. It was approximately a bazillion degrees and all the humidities, and every single person who lives in Kansas City was also there, and maybe some tourists too, I'm not sure. We actually don't buy much produce there, since we grow most of what we want at Grandpa's - tomatoes, green beans, zucchini, cucumbers, bell peppers, cubanelles, jalapenos, pumpkins, and watermelons; garlic, thyme, tarragon, mint, basil, sage. So we just picked up some limes and avocados, and then made our way to the spice and herb store, which is amazing. We buy a lot of their seasoning blends and such, stuff like Garlic Herb and Creole and Orange Pepper, but our favorite item is their Mexican Dip Mix.

It's great, because you can use it for just about anything. Grilling some chicken? Mexican Dip Mix! Making rice? Mexican Dip Mix! Spicy cheese for nachos? Mexican Dip Mix! Compound butter for roasted corn? Mexican Dip Mix! Mexican dip? Mexican Dip Mix!

Also, my dad finally managed to get us to watch the first episode of Castle with him, which Laura had been resisting, but it actually wasn't that bad. I mean, 90% of the charm is Fillion, but Rob Bowman directed the pilot so the visual style is nice, and there were a few laughs.

Wrote another short story; this one took me about two weeks. Some of the details, though not the main plot, are based on stories Gamps has told us over the years, so it was a little more personal than I usually write.

Day 25 - A show you plan on watching (old or new).



I watched the first two or three episodes back at UT, then I must have gotten busy and/or canceled Netflix and that was that. I liked it okay, but it was everyone in the TWOP thread for Babylon 5 talking about how Farscape is right up there with that show in terms of their love that made me decide to try it out again. I watched the pilot last night, since I didn't remember anything, and I wasn't immediately hooked but I'll give it awhile. Shows are so hard to judge when they first start; it's pretty, though, and I like the tall blue alien lady (who is not in this photo, that's a different blue alien lady), so that's a good start.

Day 24 - Best quote.

I narrowed it down to five, which considering I could make an entry for Best 50 Quotes From Arrested Development, was tough. I found it interesting that three of the five are Crowning Moments of Awesome, two of which are also Big Damn Heroes moments, one being the eponymous BDH moment, of course. These are clearly the moments that stick with me.

In alphabetical order based on show.

Angel - 2x12 - "Blood Money"



Arrested Development - 2x04 - "Good Grief."



Babylon 5 - 3x10 - "Severed Dreams"



Battlestar Galactica - 4x14 - "Blood on the Scales"



Firefly - 1x05 - "Safe"

Day 23 - Most Annoying Character



It's really not Kim Bauer's fault. I mean, she was a plot device a heck of a lot more than she was a character. But Kim highlighted probably my number one complaint throughout the years I watched 24 - the plot advancing only because characters made stupid decisions. Besides that, though, I have a hard time with any character, especially teenagers, who whine constantly about how awful their life is when their life is actually really great. Sure, Kim ends up getting kidnapped and all that, but remember - stupid decisions.

I just really dislike the trope of Action Man Caught Up In Things In Order To Save His Stupid Daughter. You see it a lot (I was so pissed about the inclusion of this in Die Hard 4, let me tell you.)

In other news, I finished the Babylon 5 series finale yesterday. Even though I knew pretty much every thing that happened in it before hand, because I couldn't wait till I was done with the show to start reading meta, I still ended up crying for pretty much the entirety of the episode. And not just, like, single artful tear rolling down my cheek crying - I'm talking hitched breath, scrunchy face, achy throat crying. It was pretty much perfect. And I'm already like, shit, I picked the wrong series finale to meme.

I have two TV movies to watch, and then I'm just going to start the show all over from the beginning. Yeah.

Day 21 - Favorite ship.

HAHAHA like I can pick just one. Let's face it - shipping is important. Sometimes that brief hand-hold or peck on the cheek is all that saves an otherwise mediocre episode. You need to see characters grow and evolve over the years, and no better way to do that than to see relationships grow and evolve as well. And, you know, shallowly, sometimes you just want to see attractive people make out.

So I narrowed it down to the top five. I couldn't cut any more than that. In chronological order from when I shipped 'em.











Yeah that last couple made it on the list! Why else do you think I managed to watch the entirety of seasons three and four in eight days? (Okay, it was like 30% ship, 60% the show was just that good, and 10%...because...I have a crush on Bruce Boxleitner. I mean, come on!)

Day 20 - Favorite kiss.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer - 6x08 - "Tabula Rasa"

Buffy's been through a lot, including being brought back from the dead when she really didn't want to be. Alienated from her friends, feeling overburdened, she ends up turning to Spike as a kind of comrade-in-arms, confidante, and punching bag. Down in the dumps, he shows up to be there for her, but she wants none of it, and so he leaves. Or so we think...

Day 19 - Best TV show cast.



Duh.

Day 18 - Favorite title sequence.

I love opening credits. To me, they're an integral part of the viewing experience; when we're watching TV together off DVD, Laura gets frustrated because she wants to fast-forward through them and I'm always like, "No! Credits! Love!" I don't think it's a huge surprise to say that my favorite title sequence is BSG's - besides the fact that aside from a handful of episodes at the beginning of S2, they were always different, with that little sneak-peak of the episode to come, I also loved that technically, there were two sequences - the credits proper and the Cylon Background Info that came before the previouslies; my favorite of that was S3's, because "They rebelled...they evolved" is in the right order and I love that shot of Six from Downloaded.



Unfortunately, there isn't a YouTube video of the actual credits, at least that I can find in a normal search - they're all fanmade or set to different songs or whatever, which I don't really get. You know what they are though.

Some other faves:

Great music and lovely images:



My childhood:



I love these because they're so elegant, so simple and yet there's so much packed into them (hidden clues!), and, again, the music:



And because I'm obsessed with it right now:

Who's got two thumbs and figured out today that you can watch full episodes of Babylon 5 on IMDB?

THIS GUY.

...I've watched eight ten episodes today.

Day 17 - Favorite mini-series.



Here's the thing about The Stand mini-series...it's not actually all that good. I know that it was actually really expensive to produce at the time, but it just looks...cheap. And very flat and uninspired. And while some of the casting is very good - Gary Sinise as Stu, Ruby Dee as Mother Abigail, Miguel Ferrer as Lloyd, and Matt Frewer as Trashcan Man - and some serviceable, there's some duds - I like Molly Ringwald, but she's completely wrong as Fran, Jamey Sheridan is so over-the-top as Flagg that he's not scary, again, love Laura San Giacomo, but either she or the director had the wrong approach for Nadine and it just didn't work (Nadine's a tortured idealist who basically goes mad! she's not a vamp!), and ugh forever to Rob Lowe. UGH. And the writing is okay but just doesn't capture some of my favorite parts from the book all that well, and the music is WRETCHED, and so on.

Why is it my favorite then? A lot of it's nostalgia - this is among the first "grown-up" TV I watched, although I'd already read the book at that point which is kinda wrong. I remember getting the big Stand preview issue of TV Guide and being super-excited about it. Honestly, though, a lot of my affection is less for the mini-series as it stands and more about the book upon which it's based - The Stand is my favorite King novel, and so much of it does come across, even if it's not the best.

That's not to say that I don't laugh at some of the really bad parts, though. I didn't feel like getting the DVD out and making caps, so I just Googled, and found someone's online review that was really quite scathing and mostly spot-on. The thing about King is that yeah, he sometimes paints himself into a corner ending-wise, and while the ending to The Stand in the book really works, I think, because it reads more archetypal and epic, in the mini it's, well, I'll let the online reviewer explain it:

Then ... okay, pay attention, this is where it gets good. You know the cloud of electricity or whatever that’s covering Bernard and Bitchface? Well, said cloud raises off of their dead bodies, floats over the crowd, then MORPHS INTO A GIANT CGI HAND. Suddenly, Mother Abigail’s voice says, “The promise has been kept, as God has willed it. Amen.” Ralph asks, “do you see it?” And Larry exclaims, “the hand of God!” THERE IS CURRENTLY A CGI HAND OF GOD ON THE SCREEN. THE DEUS EX MACHINA IN THIS MOVIE IS ACTUALLY GOD. Lloyd wins the entire fucking movie by pathetically screaming, “get away!!” at THE HAND OF GOD. Trash says with finality, “the fire for you,” then spreads his arms and looks to the sky. As the GIANT CGI HAND OF GOD embraces the bomb Mother Abigail’s voice says, “you done good, boys. Come on home.” Larry triumphantly sighs, “take us home,” and a pudding-faced Flagg morphs into a crow and flies away about two seconds before everything goes kablooey. No more Vegas.

Day 16 - Your guilty pleasure show.

I've been thinking of this one off and on since I first started this meme, and have finally come to the conclusion that I will refrain from answering, based on principle. I hate the term "guilty pleasure" whether it refers to TV, movies, books, or any other kind of entertainment. There's a connotation that something should be "worthy" of having attention bestowed upon it, that, for instance, a TV show should be "good," however one defines that, and if it's not, then one should feel guilty for enjoying it.

I think I first had an aversion to the term when I started seeing it in conjunction with genre shows; SF shows with small followings referred to as "guilty pleasures," as though we were all hiding in our homes, curtains securely drawn, hoping the neighbors wouldn't come by and see us watching a show about aliens or robots or monsters. Worse than just watching, enjoying. "Guilty pleasure" is just another way of expressing genre bias most of the time, whatever that genre may be - no one ever refers to a straight-forward drama as a guilty pleasure. It's always SF or fantasy or reality or silly comedy.

I figure that if something entertains you, then you shouldn't feel guilty about it. There are lots of different reasons for watching a TV show - the genre, the writing, the stories, characters, actors, mise-en-scène, the music, some combination thereof, the whole package - and whatever those reasons may be, they're legitimate enough to spend your time on. Why feel guilty about that? Why apologize for liking something? I don't watch any TV shows out of a sense of obligation - once I feel that way, I stop watching - I watch because I enjoy them. Even if one show isn't as objectively "good" as something else - which can be hard to determine - that doesn't mean it still can't be entertaining. I don't have any guilty pleasures. I'm happy to admit to everything I watch, and don't care what anyone else feels about it.

Day 15 - Favorite female character.



What's there to say? Most awesome female character ever.

The runners-up:

Day 14 - Favorite male character.



While there are plenty of male characters whom I've loved and whom I've even primarily watched a show for, I've never been invested in a character like Spike. This particular character archetype is probably my favorite when it comes to male characters, just because I think it lends itself so well to drama; there's nothing like a long redemption arc to pull you in.

The runners-up:

Day 13 - Favorite childhood show(s).



Okay, I kinda cheated; I made this favorite childhood shows instead of just show. There was no way I could pick just one, though; it was hard enough cutting it down to a top five, and leaving out shows like Get Smart and Sightings. I tried to keep myself to the years five through eight or so, and I think that the above list really does explain a lot.

When I used to come home from kindergarten, the essential dilemma that always confronted me was: would I watch The Addams Family, or The Super Mario Brothers Show? They were on at the same time, and most of the week TAF won, but on Fridays, TSMBS would have Legend of Zelda cartoons, and I ALWAYS watched those. (I actually found the entire Legend of Zelda cartoon collection a couple years ago and bought it and ran out of the store because obviously it couldn't be real, right? They couldn't actually have put THE BEST CARTOON EVER on DVD, right?) Sadly, when I think about it, Thundercats is the only show up there in which I wasn't invested in some ship (and that might just be me not remembering, and not that there wasn't one). Gomez and Morticia, Tony and Angela, Scrooge McDuck and his Lady Love Whose Name I Have Forgotten*, and yes, Link and Zelda. OMG, I remember watching the episode when Link turns invisible and Zelda gets worried and they end up kissing at the end, crouched on the floor about eight inches in front of the TV, FREAKING OUT, and guys, if I had had the ability/knowledge to tape things at the age of five, and had been able to tape that, and had been able to rewatch it whenever? IDEK.

*I still have a Duck Tales sticker book that includes a story of Scrooge and his Lady Love and it was kind of a big deal when I ended up finding the important relationship stickers. I remember my dad driving me to a couple different grocery stores and being so excited to come home and put them in the book and being so scared that I would somehow lose them between the store and the house. I am sometimes legit sad when I look at that book and see that I was only a handful of stickers shy of filling it completely in. I was so close!

Day 12 - An episode you've watched more than 5 times.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer - 5x07 - "Fool for Love."



The aforementioned episode Fool for Love was only the fourth episode of Buffy I'd ever seen up to that point, when I was a freshman at USC (oh my God, that was ten years ago). I had mostly started watching it because there was nothing else on, and after this? I was in love. With the show, and with Spike. This is just a great, great episode from every single perspective, and is definitely my favorite of the series. It's an origin story, a significant step in Buffy and Spike's relationship, and one of the most potent expressions of one of the show's most important themes: that the Slayer is caught between two worlds, that in fighting to vanquish evil cannot help but be touched by that evil herself.

(ETA: Whoa, I have, like, no Buffy icons. I need to rectify that.

Day 11 - A show that disappointed you.



Look, I really liked Heroes. A lot. I made desktops, I made banners, I read fanfiction, I read meta, I went out and bought the S1 DVDs the very first day they went on sale. I thought this might be my Next Big Show.

And...well, this show was probably hardest hit by the writer's strike. I gave it the benefit of the doubt. Waited for it to come back.

And...it still fizzled. But once Bryan Fuller came back to the show after Pushing Daisies got canceled, S3 kind of picked up and I thought maybe the show would get back to its feet and figure some things out.

And...S4 sucked. And then it got canceled. I'll probably eventually finish watching it when the DVDs come out and I can get them from the library, but I'm in no big hurry; all I really care about is seeing how Bennet and Claire turn out.

This show just...they never knew what to do after the first season. They didn't know how to evolve the characters, let them change and develop new and different relationships with each other; they didn't know that the fans weren't clamoring for season-long arcs to just be more and more dire (last season we threatened blowing up NYC, now we have to blow up THE WHOLE WORLD!), just to make sense; they didn't know how to introduce new characters without giving them the full-on Fred S3 Angel treatment (isn't this the greatest character ever DON'T YOU LOVE THEM YES YES LOVE THEM); everything that a show has to do, and usually does, to succeed past the first season, they didn't do. Most shows grow so far past what you see in S1, and change and mature, and Heroes never could. It's disappointing.

Day 10 - A show you thought you wouldn't like but ended up loving.



It took me awhile to even remember why I started watching Babylon 5. I must have been at the library, wandering around the TV section, and whatever disc I had been hoping to check out next must have been gone. I have read about Babylon 5 for years, usually in the context that it was better than whatever else I was watching. "Oh, Babylon 5 did this so much better." "I remember when Babylon 5 had a similar episode but of course they pulled it off." There was always a lot of talk about how the show had been intricately planned out from the beginning, all five seasons, every major arc and plot all ready set up and just awaiting its time to be unleashed.

And I remember always thinking...yeah. I'm sure. When this show aired, there weren't many arc shows - everyone always made a big deal about XF's mythology and they only aired four or five mytharc episodes a season. I'm sure it's the same deal with B5, and it's just not going to hold up when most shows nowadays are very arc-driven, so B5 won't be that big a deal. Besides, I doubt the effects hold up at all, and the production design won't be up to my current standards; oh, it might be okay, but that's probably it.

You know. That snobby response I have to anything that's popular independent of my involvement?

Anyway, yeah, pleasantly surprised. No, the effects haven't quite held up, although they're already miles better in S2 than they were in S1. But yeah...this is pretty much the most arc-driven show I've ever watched. Every episode bleeds into the next, builds on the next. Continuity is very carefully kept track of, and there's not an idle comment. I've already seen things vaguely hinted at in episode three or four pay off in episode thirty. Even episodes that at first glance seem to just be a stand-alone end up advancing the overall plot either by theme, individual plot point, B-story, runner, or even just what headline is on the newspaper an extra is reading.

And, funnily enough, the best actors on the show are the ones covered in alien makeup - they get the most profound and dramatic material to deal with and acquit themselves wonderfully. There have been some real goosebump scenes, some really great lines of dialogue. The other actors have occasional leaden moments, and there've been a few clunkers as far as individual episodes and moments go, but by and large I've been pretty impressed.