Birdwings

I was gonna hide this post entirely. Then I decided I'll just hide it with a cut tag, since it's about my emotional state, as regards tv, and that way it can be skipped as needed. ( Read more... )

So I watched 'Sunday.' It took me a while to figure out my thoughts on it and put them into words. Best summed up in the phrase "snatching defeat from the jaws of victory" because this was actually close to being great, except for all the rampant stupidity and something vaguely akin to sadism with Carson being so nice to everybody who refuse to go fishing with him. So, this made me angry but since I like to lead with the positives...

Various old show spoilers and some degree of profanity behind the cut. ( Read more... )

This was supposed to be a short sales pitch, but I haven't had anyone to talk to about this show, so I kind of went nuts.

American Gothic was a short-lived attempt at an HBO style supernatural horror show, with an ensemble cast, pitch dark humor, philosophical depth, religious themes, depraved villains, questionable heroes, kinky sex and a slowly advancing epic plot centered on the battle of good and evil... airing on CBS. In 1995.

Honestly, the shock isn't its cancellation after a 22 episode run, but the fact that it made it that far. American Gothic is amazing, and I fell in love with it very quickly, mainlining it in two weeks. It sits in my top five, right alongside Buffy/Angel, Highlander, Jeremiah and 12 Monkeys and I'll be singing its praises in as vague a fashion as I can in this post, but I'll also directly cover some of the stuff making it a tricky show for me to recommend. ( Read more... )

We've just finished watching Better Call Saul, which I was never invested in to the extent of needing to write about the experience. It was, of course, of inarguable quality once we got past the first season or so, but I don't think I've struggled so much with a show in a long time, partly for personal reasons (the entire Chuck storyline was hellish). I was hoping the ending would turn it around for me the way it happened with Breaking Bad, but it didn't. The finale, though low-key and thematically fitting, really didn't do anything to lessen the pain and discomfort of six seasons of toxic relationships, bad life choices, petty cruelty and cringe-inducing cons.

Anyway, since this one didn't pull a rabbit out of a hat and Breaking Bad oddly enough did - transforming my experience of the entire show which came before - I got to thinking which other shows actually pulled such eleventh hour victories and went ahead and made a spoilery list of the endings which have most impressed me for one reason or another.

( Read more... )

A nearly perfect storm of concepts I love, the effect being spoiled by a pair of ugly scenes in the middle. ( Read more... )

I'm mashing these two eps together because the first is a mixed bag and the second is a major downer. ( Read more... )

The Xander Berkeley two parter arrives. My man in the Booth! (I realize I am possibly the only human being fannish about The Booth at the End). ( Read more... )

Having now completed my set of four linked Jeremiah stories with a plotline nobody ever in a million years wanted, here's my taking stock post to go along with it.

Life in Death. Sort of a 50/50 split of Gen and F/M. Two chapters, 13,000 words exactly. This was accidental and when I saw that number after my final edit it felt like fate (though what fate is a good question).

At some point I will probably give in to temptation and write an entire post gushing over how much I love (not love to hate, I'm talking pure empathy here) Jeremiah's six episode villain Gabriel Sims, but today I will stick to the major things I learned while writing this story about him.

Note to future self: Nonlinear structure is a pain in the ass and not to be undertaken lightly. In this case it worked, because otherwise an entire chapter would have consisted of Sims brooding, and breaking that sequence up created a more dynamic flow (I think) but it comes with significant drawbacks. For one, repetition crops up all over the place (this is the first story I've done where final wordcount actually went down instead of up), and for another, it requires chapters to be split along thematic lines or it doesn't make any sense to have them. I envisioned this as two chapters long, and despite my usual exploding wordcount it had to remain that way. Linear structure is much more straightforward! Shocking.

Also learned: Epigraphs! Not something I'll make a habit of either, but this story let me air all manner of post-apocalyptic pretensions so I just went with it as befitting the character.

Shipping! This one I have no idea if I really conveyed well or not, but once I got into it it became rather fun (in an angst-filled road to hell way). Next time (there will definitely be a next time) I'll aim for something a little lighter - probably just as obscure, since I've never been great at picking ships. Maybe I'll make a list.

Lastly, to create the near-death experience that opens both chapters, I revisited the Highlander episode Courage for the first time since learning that John Pyper Ferguson portrayed the character of Brian Cullen as well as Sims. I was unable to conjure the image of someone as obsessively put together as Sims crawling along the ground for days post-beatdown, and watching Courage gave me the required material. It was also one of the most depressing episodes of Highlander and getting the chance to envision what amounted to a reversal of Cullen's deterioration (minus the drug aspect, of course) was rather cathartic for me.

Courage is also the only Highlander episode that has ever made me hate Duncan MacLeod. Not for taking Cullen's head in the present day (that was sadly understandable, even if I really wanted them to collapse in an exhausted heap a la Angel and Faith, with Sanctuary to follow) but for whatever happened after the flashback when Mac learned Cullen was in the early stages of falling apart and his reaction appears to have been some variation on "get a hold of yourself, man" and losing track of his dear friend for a hundred years. To be fair, I doubt Mac had any real experience in dealing with those kinds of psychological problems at that point in his life, and it's not that far off my own reaction to a close family member's depression - which is a big part of the reason the episode hits so much harder than it did on my last viewing of the show, when said family member was still alive. All in all heartbreaking.

So yeah. Taken all together, Life in Death is the most emotionally charged story I have written, it took a lot out of me and I'm incredibly proud of it.