![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
TV Meme: Days 9-14
I haven't posted for ages because I've been either out in the evenings or curled up with a book, having time away from the computer. Which I suppose cancels out the whole point of posting every day? But anyway, it turns out I have a lunch break today (woohoo!) so I'm taking advantage of it to get caught up on these and have a fabulous time doing so. Ahoy for excessive embedding!
Day 09 - Best scene ever
I thought long and hard about this one, and kept going back to Babylon 5 for my favourite scenes. But then I realised that favourite doesn't necessarily equal best. And once you start thinking about the most amazing scene I have ever seen on tv, well, there is only really one answer:
Hideously spoilery for Death Mask, 2x07 ROME.
This scene knocked me right over when I first saw it. First off, we have the relationship between Servilia and Atia resolved, and yet completely unresolved. From both of their perspectives, the most spectacular parts are yet to come - Servilia's curse, and Atia's inability to cope without having someone to challenge her in the same way that Servilia had done. Livia shows herself to be interesting and intelligent, and challenges Atia in later episodes, but there is none of the sense of personal affront and a sense of being evenly matched that characterised Servilia and Atia clawing at each other.
*
Day 10 - A show you thought you wouldn't like but ended up loving
I could list any number here! I was initially sceptical about Alias, for instance, but ended up loving it. But I didn't think that I wouldn't like it, I was mostly thinking that it would be mindless popcorn with minimal emotional involvement. And then somewhere along the line that changed into something else. But it doesn't quite fit the criteria, I don't think.
Instead, I'm going to go with:
I first tried watching Life on Mars with a group of friends. Anyone who has sat around my sofa in our current house will know the difficulty of fitting more than one person comfortably in that room, let alone 4+ people, all crowded around and eating curries and chatting while watching episode 1 on the TV when it first aired. I didn't take to the show at all, so much so that the time travelling element completely went over my head. It was only going back to it several years later that I thought about giving it another try, and I was astonished at just how much I enjoyed it.
*
Day 11 - A show that disappointed you
Must I? *sigh* Shows that disappointed me and yet I persevered, or shows that disappointed me enough to stop me from watching, that's question.
I'm going to give you one of each.
A show that disappointed me but I kept watching
This one is easy, and has a happy ending (at least for me!):
Coming from a place of love for Life on Mars, I was ridiculously excited about Ashes to Ashes. Season 1, however, didn't really do it for me. I had several issues with Alex, namely her refusal to accept the A2A world as real (which then problematised it for me to an extent that significantly dimished my escapist enjoyment) and her revelling in the 1980s, and specifically Thatcherism. Maybe it didn't seem quite so horrific to others, but that - and Alex's conviction that she is right, and infallible in this world - really grated.
I stuck with it, hoping for changes - and changes came, by the dozen. Alex gradually came to accept the A2A world as at least valid if not real (which is a necessity for the viewer also accepting it and having an emotional stake in it), and Shaz, Chris and Ray all got much-needed development. And Gene? Well, you'll have to watch the end of S3 to find out. :)
*
A show that disappointed me so much I stopped watching
I rest my case.
*
Day 12 - An episode you've watched more than 5 times
This episode makes me so ridiculously happy. It puts together my favourite New Trek, with my beloved Old Trek and throws in buckets of humour and cleverness. Plus! Major questions answered, such as why Klingons changed foreheads (they don't talk about it), and why the tribbles kept falling on Kirk's head after the main bulk of them fell through the trapdoor (Dax did it, it was totes her fault). Bonus points for a former Dax making a visit to Earth and tumbling a young and pretty McCoy ("he had the hands of a surgeon!") and getting all nostalgic over the old-style tricorders, and Bashir convincing himself he was his own great-grandfather. Pure, unadulterated bliss.
*
Day 13 - Favorite childhood show
For those expecting something fannish, sorry to disappoint! My two loves during my early teens were Star Trek: The Original Series and... Neighbours:
This was during the early 90s (1992, I think) when I first started watching it. Neighbours was the thing the girls watched and the discussed in the playground the next day, and I remember being traumatised by Todd's untimely death (I wonder if at 11 I understood what 'abortion' meant; I don't think that we had covered it in school, but I strongly suspect that the older girls swiftly educated us on this topic.
Mainly, I include the above because I watched TOS with my brother and I lvoed it a great deal, Neighbours was something that was important to me in a social context as well as a viewing one, in discussing a lot of things that I wouldn't otherwise have had reason to know about.
*
Day 14 - Favorite male character
This is by no means by favourite Al scene, but it is fairly typical for him, so I'm gonna go with it.
Al Swearangen, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways. Or not, as my lunch break isn't long enough. Suffice to say that, by the time the end of Deadwood rolled around, my sole concern was making sure that Al survived the end - I could live with anything else the show had to throw at me, I just wanted to him to survive. I love his relationship with Trixie like burning, it is my biggest ever het ship. I love how protective he is of Jewel, and I love him butting heads with Bullock and Cy Tolliver and fucking Hearst. He is one of the most complex characters I know, and - unlike my other favourites, Londo Mollari (B5), Jack Bristow (Alias) etc - the writing never suffered from regrettable dips, which meant that he, and the other characters, remained on top form throughout. A consistently excellent, complex, rounded, repugnant yet strangely appealling character - what more could you ask for?
Day 09 - Best scene ever
I thought long and hard about this one, and kept going back to Babylon 5 for my favourite scenes. But then I realised that favourite doesn't necessarily equal best. And once you start thinking about the most amazing scene I have ever seen on tv, well, there is only really one answer:
Hideously spoilery for Death Mask, 2x07 ROME.
This scene knocked me right over when I first saw it. First off, we have the relationship between Servilia and Atia resolved, and yet completely unresolved. From both of their perspectives, the most spectacular parts are yet to come - Servilia's curse, and Atia's inability to cope without having someone to challenge her in the same way that Servilia had done. Livia shows herself to be interesting and intelligent, and challenges Atia in later episodes, but there is none of the sense of personal affront and a sense of being evenly matched that characterised Servilia and Atia clawing at each other.
*
Day 10 - A show you thought you wouldn't like but ended up loving
I could list any number here! I was initially sceptical about Alias, for instance, but ended up loving it. But I didn't think that I wouldn't like it, I was mostly thinking that it would be mindless popcorn with minimal emotional involvement. And then somewhere along the line that changed into something else. But it doesn't quite fit the criteria, I don't think.
Instead, I'm going to go with:
I first tried watching Life on Mars with a group of friends. Anyone who has sat around my sofa in our current house will know the difficulty of fitting more than one person comfortably in that room, let alone 4+ people, all crowded around and eating curries and chatting while watching episode 1 on the TV when it first aired. I didn't take to the show at all, so much so that the time travelling element completely went over my head. It was only going back to it several years later that I thought about giving it another try, and I was astonished at just how much I enjoyed it.
*
Day 11 - A show that disappointed you
Must I? *sigh* Shows that disappointed me and yet I persevered, or shows that disappointed me enough to stop me from watching, that's question.
I'm going to give you one of each.
A show that disappointed me but I kept watching
This one is easy, and has a happy ending (at least for me!):
Coming from a place of love for Life on Mars, I was ridiculously excited about Ashes to Ashes. Season 1, however, didn't really do it for me. I had several issues with Alex, namely her refusal to accept the A2A world as real (which then problematised it for me to an extent that significantly dimished my escapist enjoyment) and her revelling in the 1980s, and specifically Thatcherism. Maybe it didn't seem quite so horrific to others, but that - and Alex's conviction that she is right, and infallible in this world - really grated.
I stuck with it, hoping for changes - and changes came, by the dozen. Alex gradually came to accept the A2A world as at least valid if not real (which is a necessity for the viewer also accepting it and having an emotional stake in it), and Shaz, Chris and Ray all got much-needed development. And Gene? Well, you'll have to watch the end of S3 to find out. :)
*
A show that disappointed me so much I stopped watching
I rest my case.
*
Day 12 - An episode you've watched more than 5 times
This episode makes me so ridiculously happy. It puts together my favourite New Trek, with my beloved Old Trek and throws in buckets of humour and cleverness. Plus! Major questions answered, such as why Klingons changed foreheads (they don't talk about it), and why the tribbles kept falling on Kirk's head after the main bulk of them fell through the trapdoor (Dax did it, it was totes her fault). Bonus points for a former Dax making a visit to Earth and tumbling a young and pretty McCoy ("he had the hands of a surgeon!") and getting all nostalgic over the old-style tricorders, and Bashir convincing himself he was his own great-grandfather. Pure, unadulterated bliss.
*
Day 13 - Favorite childhood show
For those expecting something fannish, sorry to disappoint! My two loves during my early teens were Star Trek: The Original Series and... Neighbours:
This was during the early 90s (1992, I think) when I first started watching it. Neighbours was the thing the girls watched and the discussed in the playground the next day, and I remember being traumatised by Todd's untimely death (I wonder if at 11 I understood what 'abortion' meant; I don't think that we had covered it in school, but I strongly suspect that the older girls swiftly educated us on this topic.
Mainly, I include the above because I watched TOS with my brother and I lvoed it a great deal, Neighbours was something that was important to me in a social context as well as a viewing one, in discussing a lot of things that I wouldn't otherwise have had reason to know about.
*
Day 14 - Favorite male character
This is by no means by favourite Al scene, but it is fairly typical for him, so I'm gonna go with it.
Al Swearangen, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways. Or not, as my lunch break isn't long enough. Suffice to say that, by the time the end of Deadwood rolled around, my sole concern was making sure that Al survived the end - I could live with anything else the show had to throw at me, I just wanted to him to survive. I love his relationship with Trixie like burning, it is my biggest ever het ship. I love how protective he is of Jewel, and I love him butting heads with Bullock and Cy Tolliver and fucking Hearst. He is one of the most complex characters I know, and - unlike my other favourites, Londo Mollari (B5), Jack Bristow (Alias) etc - the writing never suffered from regrettable dips, which meant that he, and the other characters, remained on top form throughout. A consistently excellent, complex, rounded, repugnant yet strangely appealling character - what more could you ask for?