TV Musings

[thehefner]

In the ten minutes of show I caught while on the treadmill, GILMORE GIRLS featured Shakespeare trivia about how many plays Falstaff was in, a girl in a Dead Kennedys shirt, and a rebellious-teen-girl character who rebels by dressing up in a bunny suit for kids' parties and stalking Tom Waits. Shit, I'm going to have to watch this show now, aren't I?

Watching DARIA re-runs when they air at 3 am. Is it just me, or does Sandi have the same accent as Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons? I wonder if that's some sort of regional California elitist accent or something. I can so hearing Sandi saying, "That is the worst... outfit... ever. Rest assured I will be registering my disgust to the entire Fashion Club."

I looked up DARIA info on tv.com, and wow, the insight these people give to the shows. It's amazing, it really is. Why, do you know what they had listed under "Episode notes" for the final episode of the show? It read, "This episode is sort of sad." **headdesk** I really do wonder why so many Daria fans are people who Daria would hate. Not that there's many people who Daria likes, but you get my point.

As for James Marsters as Brainiac, I just hope they actually CALL him Brainiac. It's important that they do. Sure, I'd be very happy if they'd give him the green skin, head-circuitry, and of course the purple booty shorts, but let's at least give him the name. No more things like "hot exchange student Mr. Mxyzptlk."

Half the cast of FIREFLY does voices for JUSTICE LEAGUE UNLIMITED. You people need to watch this show. It's as brilliant as anything Whedon has ever done. I'm not even kidding.

Also, what's with the aversion to FARSCAPE? I'm serious, people, you would all love it. Especially FIREFLY fans. How come this space opera masterpiece is getting short-changed with a good show that only lasted one season? Blows my mind.

Ok, this post was as much an excuse to use this new icon as anything else. Yes, it's a real panel. The first appearance of Catwoman, oddly enough. It never fails to bring me joy.

Comments

[yancentric.livejournal.com]

Who has an aversion to Farscape?

It does start off a bit slow, but so does Firefly. I think with Firefly, even though the characters (like all first season characters, really) weren't terribly established, they did have Whedon-y characteristics that resonated with his massive fanbase. Yes, I know you don't care for him, but you can't deny that A) he's got a pretty large legion of fans and B) he's gotten more women into the genre than almost anyone.

I don't know anyone that's gotten to season 2 of FS that hasn't loved it, though.

Oh, I know another thing that's hurt Farscape -- their DVD season packaging. Worst ever. Sell all the DVDs as single DVDs first, then have the box set be an enormous collection of the individual ones boxed together. That way it costs significantly more than any other TV show and takes up 2-4 times as much space on your shelf taboot! Genius!

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

So far, two people have, based on what seems to be after seeing only parts of a couple episodes, expressed distaste. Yet they are huge geeks, fans of Firefly and everything we like.

As much as I didn't want to, I really loved Firefly and Whedon's X-Men. I'm big enough to admit that. I guess I just can't take Whedon with the vampire/teenager stuff. It makes me want to smash.

It also frustrates me, though, that while sure a lot of women have been brought into the genre by Whedon and Gaiman, how many women actually explore BEYOND Whedon/Gaiman/their interest? Not bloody many. Mark Waid once lamented at how the vast majority of women at one convention were Gaiman fans. These women don't really read comics. They read the odd creator-specific comics. I can't tell you how many people came into the comic shop to buy Kevin Smith's Green Arrow, and I could tell these people would never buy or have any interest in buying another comic book in their lives.

And yes, the people behind the DVDs of Farscape need to be strung up by their toes. Thus is why I don't own the bloody DVDs yet.

[covenhouse-cat.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm a rarity who came into comics at a very early age (3), reading Archies, Caspers, Mad, and any horror comics I could get my hands on. I had amassed a huge collection by the age of 8, when I started picking up the occasional superhero issue. I read Elfquest because I lucked into finding it sometime in the early 80's, and then checked out some other superhero or horror books, irregularly, because I liked the look of the characters (Blue Beetle or the Question)or because a particular cover caught my eye (Daredevil, Moonshadow).
I picked up a few issues of Sandman, and remember being the hit of the store when number 8 came out, as the new character, Death, looked and dressed like little gothic me. But I think it's a trend of lots of hard-core fans to follow a particular writer as much as some people follow a particular character. For example, on my pull-list at the local comic book store, I am down for "everything Blue Beetle" and "everything Neil Gaiman". And although I was a fan of Green Arrow during the Grell years, I had stopped picking up the series for a long time, and only picked it up again to see what Kevin Smith would do with it. (And dammit, I'm still reading it.)
And I really enjoyed Firefly, and I might browse something else written by Whedon in the same way that I might browse something else written by Ben Edlund (sp?), the guy who co-writes/co-produces Firefly and used to do the comic and animated cartoon, The Tick, which I loved.
Anyway, I ramble on.
My point is basically, that there are a lot of women out there who do read stuff outside the creator-specific stuff. Women seem to basically go after what amounts to a good story with a strong characterization, complex relationships, and lots of personality details. Shocking, I know.

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

I am just going by what I've seen from working in a comic shop for eight years. The number of straight women into general superhero comics is very, very, very small. Maybe elsewhere in the country it's different, but man, some days at work it gets frustrating when the only women coming in are the girlfriends and the wives of the guy readers, who sit in the corner and wait for their boys to finish shopping so they can get the hell out of there.

And all those attributes you describe are exactly what I love in good superhero stories. You clearly understand this yourself. See, there's no good reason for anybody not to appreciate good comics, even and especially superheroes. Thus the frustration kicks in.

Edlund does indeed rule. But damn it, he still needs to do issue 13 of the Tick god-fucking-damn-it! RRARGH! 15 years is too long to wait!

[covenhouse-cat.livejournal.com]

The similarities between us continue to surprise me. I too worked at a comic shop for 7 years.

[tankgirl88.livejournal.com]

i miss Daria, thankfully my roomate is a fan, we are going to have a marathon at some point.