And speaking of DR. HORRIBLE...

[thehefner]

Y'know, ten minutes in, I was already composing my LJ entry. I was already thinking of how I was gonna have to write in, "Oh fucking hell, all right, fine, you win, DR. HORRIBLE'S SING-ALONG BLOG is utterly delightful." Try as I might, I couldn't help be won over by virtually everything involving the title character and Captain Hammer. But not because of Joss being Joss, but rather... well, I'll get to that in a second.

But then, halfway though around part 2, I started realizing I wanted to bash in my own head/mind. And again, not because of Joss being Joss, and how his style generally makes me want to tear out my eyeballs and shove them in my ears... but because I realized that I hated Penny. I hated her acting, I hated her singing, I hated pretty much everything about her. I kept waiting for Joss to make her more interesting, to give us a character twist of some kind...

... shit, y'know what? Much as I hate the trademark Joss Whedon Spunky Female Characters, *that* would have been a vast improvement over what she was here: a typically boring and boringly typical ingenue.

Now, first of all, I think the ending is perfect.

But it could have been... perfecter.*

Really, after hearing how controversial the ending was (considering my how entire f-list has been consumed by Horrible-Mania befitting the show's mastermind, "perfect" was the immediate judgment that popped in my head. And yet, did anybody else really like Penny? If most others felt the way I did, then the ending kind of loses some of its emotional power.

I mean, really, as it is, that ending is kinda the most satisfying out there. I dunno, maybe if I did like her more, it would have been more distressing, and would have felt more like typical Whedonesque cruelty in storytelling. As it is, it's just tragic enough to feel slightly meaty but satisfying enough that I don't feel depressed.

But I dunno. Maybe it should have been more.

And ending which should be more powerful and tragic feels, honestly, like the best ending under the circumstances. And while I still love the ending, I can't shake the feeling like it could have been more. No, correction, the knowledge of how it should have been more.



That said, how many of you fans of DR. HORRIBLE don't watch THE VENTURE BROS? Because you need to. It's one of the very best shows on TV right now, I absolutely shit you not, and my dislike of Joss was overwhelmed by my love of VENTURE BROS and THE TICK (as well as musicals, but as musical numbers went, they were cute but little more).

I mean, really, I *know* VB is a cartoon, and I *know* it's not Joss, but it's brilliant and I would love to see the day when the latest VB episode gets talked and raved about as much as a delightful bit of entertaining fluff from the "Master." Especially with supervillain/henchman exchanges such as this:

MONARCH: I hated him so much, I just... I just wanted to kick his ass! I wanted to build a machine to kick his ass! I wanted to create an empire to house the machine to kick his ass!"

HENCHMAN NUMBER 24: Then by god... LET'S GO TAKE A DUMP IN HIS POOOOOOOL!!!

And on top of being hilarious, they're increasingly pulling off rich character depth and even poignancy on a regular basis. So, yeah... watch VENTURE BROS now.

I can probably guarantee that it's better than DOLLHOUSE will be.



*See, folks! I can talk in cutesy Whedonese as well! Aren't you amazed? WHY AREN'T YOU AWESOMED BY ME?!

Comments

[sabine42.livejournal.com]

My brother made me watch plenty of Venture Brothers, and I agree, good stuff, you won't get arguments from me...

I won't go on a tirade about Joss (except, despite how much I love you, I tend to avoid all your Joss-related posts out of your sheer hatred for the man)* but...

I agree I don't see what all the fuss was about regarding the ending. I mean, it made me kinda sad, but it was the right motivation for a villain, I agree she was a little vapid, but still sweet in a world where everyone was a charicature.

However, most the f'list bitching about the ending wasn't from the uber Whedon fans except maybe a few that had only watched Firefly (and if you make a Browncoat remark here, I may have to slap you, love ;)

Just sayin'...

And you are not going to stop me from being VERY excited about Dollhouse, sugar pie. 'Specially, Tahmoh...


* because, love, for someone who has some serious fanboy obsessions of your own, you are very hard on people for theirs in this dept. Almost, one would say, judgmental of their taste as people are of comic book fans. Just because we like Joss, does not mean we don't like what you call good tv or good comics. My new comic read is one I picked up spontaneously when I was there picking up my *gasp* Buffy/Angel books. :P

But then, methinks we've had this chat :)

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

You will have hopefully noticed that I virtually never use the wonderful term "browncoating," even when I've really, reaaaaally wanted to. I might have used it a total of twice since you expressed your dismay. I DO care!

[sabine42.livejournal.com]

And, my love, I appreciate that greatly *HUGS*

although, I may have to give you a firefly icon now... :)

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

Don't push it. :)

[sabine42.livejournal.com]

Buffy comics, mayhaps?

;)

[chickenhat.livejournal.com]

I absolutely LOVED Penny. Not just because she's a mousy redhead, but because she represents the unconditional hope and optimism that I identify with more than either our hero (Dr. Horrible) or the villian (Capt. Hammer).

We need more Pennys. I really wish we did have more around, we could save the world.

And, yes, I have watched Venture bros. and... I feel more satisfied having purchased the DH episodes from iTunes than I would have spending more late nights watching Cartoon Network [adult swim] instead of Animal Planet or Food Network. It hasn't satisfied me yet, and I get bored with VB; whereas I completely grok Dr. Horrible on all it's levels from the music/acting/story, to the low-budget, to the experimental distribution.

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

... god, it's a disillusioning thing to suddenly realize that I don't identify with that kind of character anymore. Ah well, at least I still love Superman.

How far into VB have you gotten? Past season 1 at least? Particularly into the first two or three episodes of season 2? For one thing, as the first season aired a number of times before coming out on DVD, I came to discover that it actually improved with repeat viewings (ever found that to be true of anything? I think HOT FUZZ is another prime example). They cram so much so quickly that a lot gets lost on single viewings, as I learned first-hand.

Also, the show has actual character development. It's kinda wonderful when compared to the rest of Adult Swim's fare, and most animated comedy fare in general.

[chickenhat.livejournal.com]

But you love Clark Kent even more... especially when he has to bust Lex out of prison for his own good.

I've gotten halfway through the season 1 dvd Simon lent me, and caught it a couple of times while channel surfing... it's not that it's bad, it's that I'm too laid back. I don't have enough spastic plastic in my blood to re-watch it... OTOH, I've found I can re-watch La Femme Nikita and Amadeus OVER and OVER without getting tired of it.

[chickenhat.livejournal.com]

although i will admit, i'm more likely to keep surfing past CTN if it's not Ventur-iffic

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

On the contrary, I'm actually more fond of Superman... when written by someone who gets him. I was just discussing this with Bloo earlier today, thinking yet again of how hard it is, yet when it works, you remember why he's Superman.

But I do have a fondness for Clark Kent, true. It's just a question of which Clark Kent? The Smallville farmboy? The reserved and quiet reporter? The bumbling stuttering spineless weakling of Christopher Reeve? I never thought about it that way till just now, but man, there are many Clarks out there, yet there's only one Superman.

Yeah, trust me, keep at it. If I hadn't seen the Season 1 episodes repeated a number of times, I'd likely have thought it wasn't much to go on about either. Get to Season 2, trust me. There's one moment at the very start of the second episode of the second season that is still perhaps the funniest moment of the entire series, the one fishymcb and I have to rewind and watch about ten times in a row. Not to... uh... "shmrown smoat" things any more than I already have. ;)

[icewolf010.livejournal.com]

HENCHMAN NUMBER 24: Then by god... LET'S GO TAKE A DUMP IN HIS POOOOOOOL!!!

See, I've watched a couple of VB episodes, and it's precisely this kind of humor that puts me off it.

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

... it doesn't help that it's said with pitiful conviction by a neurotic hench-character on par with Dr. Horrible and a Ray Romano style voice, does it?

How about a gay Sean Connery adventurer who goes into a diabetic coma after drowning his sorrows in (and it's really best to say it in Connery voice), "A whole box a Mallowmars and a YOO-HOO CHASER!"

... no? Curses, ah well.

[icewolf010.livejournal.com]

Nnnnnah, sorry. The bodily-function humor just isn't my thing.

Hell, I get impatient during low-humor scenes in Shakespeare: "Yeah, yeah, farts, sex, pooping, whatever, get back to the plot." I understand their function, but I don't actually like them.

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

It's not what's being said, it's how it's said, and in the context. And regardless, bodily function humor amounts to very, very, very little of what VB is about. It's more like this:



Come on. Supervillains, comic geeks, and Gustav Holst. What's not to love?

[tompurdue.livejournal.com]

Yeah, well... the music gag at the end, pretty funny. The first 90 seconds were full of, "Am I supposed to laugh at that? It looks like it was designed to be a joke, but it isn't actually much of anything."

I guess, "This is a big evil guy whose minions aren't very competent" kinda got old after, I dunno, The Kentucky Fried Movie. Not without a little extra punch.

It's not that it's animated, but something about this particular type of animated show bugs me. The whole, "We're going to kinda improv for a while, take out the bits that look sorta funny, and then stick some crummy animation over it because nobody likes radio"... I didn't like it when they did it on Dr. Katz, and maybe that just bleeds over.

The music gag at the end was NOT like that, and it worked for me. The actual dialogue sounds like a bunch of guys who are funny on occasion put in front of a microphone and told they have to be funny RIGHT NOW.

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

Perhaps it's humor that comes with familiarity of the characters and the situation. Around season two, they stopped trying to do new-viewer-friendly episodes. You see, unlike KFM, the big evil guy and the incompetent minions aren't caricatures... oh they start off that way, but are fleshed out in fully three-dimensional characters over the series.

It really does benefit from following what they do, how they lay out the groundwork and build upon the world, as it really is a world-building storyline. After season one (more like only the first 3/4ths of season one) you can't really just tune into a random episode and see what the big deal is. Know what I mean?

That's where the "extra punch" is. Looking back at that clip and trying to imagine watching it out of context from the series, I realize that one wouldn't know why the Monarch is dressed like that, the details of his escape, exactly why his hideout is sideways, why the hell he went to prison in the first place... it's all these plot and character bits that have built up to get to that point. Not to keep flogging a dead horse, sorry.

[tompurdue.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I know. And in fact, Joss Whedon's work is much the same way. A lot of the signature gags are primarily funny in context. Somebody just tuning in and watching, say, Malcolm Reynolds going "huh" and seeing their friends fall over in peals of laughter is going to think they are stupid.

I've only caught Venture Brothers on occasion, and inferred that the things that don't work wouldn't work if I saw any more of it. That's a problem with series TV: when your time is limited, you don't necessarily want to watch the first N hours (hours!) of set-up. If you get caught right it's all worth it.

I'll stick some on the Netflix queue and see what happens, though. I'm always looking for something worth the trouble. I've got a queue with over 100 discs on it but I'm really not all that enthused about most of it.

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

Totally, that's what I mean. Good, I was worried about eloquence failing me. Over the course of things here, I've felt like I've almost backfired on my intentions and turned people off VB even more. Browncoating it, really.

Part of my Whedon frustrations is how closely it ties to the fandoms of everything else I like. I've long since resigned myself to the fact that if I ever hope to have a geek girlfriend, she's gonna love Joss and/or Harry Potter, and there's nothing I can do about it (I tell myself, "At least it's not anime...").

At the same time, there's often so little crossover from those fans into the spheres of things I follow, the things that give me as much joy and thrill as Joss' work does for them, and especially when these people are people I care about, it's increasingly doubly-frustrating.

Sigh. I know this isn't the topic, but forgive me, I needed to get it off my chest. Lord knows it'll be back on eventually, but for now...

And really, I don't know if you'll ultimately be won over by VB even if you do make it to the second season, especially to the episode where that clip originated. Did you like THE TICK? Because if so, that's the thing to keep in mind to get your foot in the door (the show is done by TICK writers, with the occasional episode by TICK creator and FIREFLY/ANGEL writer Ben Edlund). Go into it expecting a PG-13 rated TICK by way of JONNY QUEST, keep expectations low, and just let it go from there.

I will say that Season One definitely does not go to the levels that truly made me a devotee, but that the episodes to especially watch out for in terms of standouts are "Tag Sale--You're It!" and "Trial of the Monarch," just off the top of my head.

Oh ho boy, pally, I hear that; I keep maxxing out my Netflix queue, and the majority of films there are ones that I've told I *should* see, rather than what I especially want to see.

[tompurdue.livejournal.com]

I caught Disc One of The Tick, decided that it was cute (it had one genuinely memorable gag, in the opening episode) but that it wasn't getting any better. Perhaps I should skip ahead to Season Two?

I read the book, and it was somewhat more amusing.

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

Ehh, I'd say plow ahead to Season Two, if you can. Character and plot development and blah blah blah. But if TICK didn't do it for you (and we're talking about the cartoon, right?), well, my confidence, she is flagging, even though VB is far more developed than the Fox Kids cartoon ever was. Hrm.

[tompurdue.livejournal.com]

Dunno what it is. I'm not really a fanboy. Harry Potter was OK, but if all of my friends hadn't read it, I wouldn't have and wouldn't miss it. Buffy was marginal. I think very highly of Firefly, enough to watch episodes a second time, and that's something I say about hardly anything, but I can't say I really cared for the movie.

I'm hard pressed to think of anything I saw since I became an adult that I'd be willing to watch twice, which seems to be the absolute minimum requirement to say you're a fan of something.

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

Hell heck, yeah, if none of the above appeals, I wouldn't expect anything different from VB. There's still potential, particularly with FIREFLY (which I never saw more as character-driven fluff, myself), but... yeah. There you go, I guess.

What did you think of WATCHMEN, btw?

[tompurdue.livejournal.com]

(Sorry it took me so long to get back to this. I had a rather cogent response and lost it.)

I liked Watchmen. I'll admit that I cheated: I skipped to the last issue about halfway through. That's a "me" thing, and I prefer it that way. I like catching the inside jokes on the first pass.

That kind of storytelling will, I suspect, play even better in the film than in the book. There are more tools you can use (sound, lighting, tempo) to indicate the shift in time, and I won't find myself missing the story in the first six panels trying to figure out where the hell I am.

The thing one might expect me to say about WATCHMEN, especially in the context of this conversation, about over-simplicity of views on vigilantism... nope. It didn't even occur to me, as I was reading it. Because it was telling a much more interesting, personal story at the time.

As opposed to say, BOONDOCK SAINTS, which inspired me to go on a mission to track down its smug writer-director and break his fingers to prevent him from ever writing again, for the good of humanity. (I also vaguely recall that the film found cruelty to animals funny, which gets my hackles up.)

WATCHMEN found a remarkable sweet spot, just different enough from reality to allow it to engage that sci-fi "what if" aspect without wandering so far that it entered "who cares" territory.

I'm really looking forward to the film. I think it's the glimpses of Doctor Manhattan that really get me: they're "right".

I suspect I'll try to read it again, after seeing the film, and that's actually rather high praise from me; I don't have time to read anything twice. I'm hoping that I won't find it worse on a second reading. So many things that look thought-provoking actually turn out to be shallow, with shadows giving the illusion of depth. But this one seems to have deserved a good deal of the praise heaped on it.

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

Man, much like Alan giving me Ayn Rand books for when I went off to college (and when I graduated without having read them, he said, "Well fuck now it's too late!"), I wonder if I saw BOONDOCK SAINTS at the exact perfect time in my life, because wow, while I never thought it was brilliant, so rarely have I heard of such loathing directed to a movie. Have you seen OVERNIGHT? I haven't, been meaning to.

Anyhoo, WATCHMEN. I'm really glad you liked it, and that it did strike those chords with you. I wonder what you'd make of V FOR VENDETTA? I've found that when it comes to those two books--generally considered Moore's masterpieces--most people adore one and dislike the other. For me and Alan, we're firmly on the side of WATCHMEN.

And that's a great observation on the "more interesting, personal story" aspect. There have been a lot of superhero satires and deconstructions in WATCHMEN's wake, most of the loud, crass, broad, and ugly ("Hey, guess what? Superman's a rapist! Brilliant!") that as I've started to reread WATCHMEN, I see all the crap it inspired. And yet, even at the start, there are hints that there's something deeper going on here. Similarly, I have wondered if the ideas of WATCHMEN, once considered profound, don't also basically amount to Freshman Philosophy 101 (not to mention that I wonder how much--if any--of WATCHMEN suffers from that damn "illusion of depth"). But the more I read, the more I'm reminded of that personal aspect, and how that's the real key and heart to the story that holds everything together.

A comic writer named Chuck Dixon recently said of WATCHMEN, "It is a brilliant tour-de-force of comics storytelling and features a great example of Moore's greatest talent; the ability to let his readers congratulate themselves for being smarter than they are." I've been pondering that one lately.

While I'd normally sputter, "You SKIPPED?!" you might actually be in an ideal place to revisit the book after you see the film, if that's when you choose to revisit it. For my part, I'll say that I've started reading it again, like I do every year or two, and was honestly surprised that there were still things that I hadn't caught before. I think there are enough levels and layers that some become more relevant to one as they get older. That's pretty damn cool.

[tompurdue.livejournal.com]

I had no idea that anybody else felt the same way about BOONDOCK SAINTS that I did. I've never heard anything but gushing about it.

I also had no idea that people would be divided between WATCHMEN and V FOR VENDETTA. I agree with Dixon's comment, but it risks being too glib; there's more to Moore's writing than that.

The most interesting thing about WATCHMEN, I think, is the way the reader participates in the telling: it's about comic books. Vigilantism is only the surface meaning (and a Phil-101 at that), but our fantasies _about_ vigilantism are more interesting. Going through the history of comic-book heroes is the history of the readers.

It's the places where the reader actually DOES have to apply himself, like the implicit connections between Comedian in Vietnam compared to the Superman/Captain America World War II stories, that make the book really work. And the more identifiably human early BATMAN starting in "Detective Comics". They kind of had to put that back, after an age of heroism brought on by WW II jingoism, and it did so in oddly clunky ways. WATCHMEN is a pretty good story, all by itself, but without a cursory knowledge of the history of comic books you're missing the real story.

(It doesn't hurt that I just picked up Alan copy of "Golden Age Tick", to put me in mind of it. Perhaps I was more tickled by that than I should have been, because there was a period-looking cryptogram in one issue containing something like ZZZ.WERJDCNRLKDFKJNCN.ULK, which is such a giveaway and anachronism that it made me laugh.)

Both WATCHMEN and V FOR VENDETTA used a nonlinear style that in my opinion works better in film than in comic books, and it worked out about equally well for me in both. I've said it before: I think that there are a lot of pacing cues and other language bits in comic books that I don't understand.

The page puts extreme strictures on storytelling pacing, and that's a problem for me. For what it's worth, I thought WATCHMEN did a better job of using that than anything I've ever read. That may have less to do with WATCHMEN than the fact that I read other books first.

[tamburlaine.livejournal.com]

Joss Whedon reminds me of the nerdy-assed guys who drool all over me and get into fandoms I like just because I like them, then who text me at 3 AM saying "I JUST WATCHED ALL OF SERIES THREE OF DOCTOR WHO AND IT WAS SO AWESOME" and try to engage me in conversation but just agree with everything I say because they so desperately want to lick my feet and have me treat them badly.

He creeps me out. Don't like much of his work but Firefly (which yeah, I fucking loved), and his fans drive me crazy though sometimes they can be cute (but only the browncoats).

I watched Dr. Horrible because I want to be in a sweaty situation with NPH and Nathan Fillion, but yeah, the girl was annoying. Didn't watch the third act. Apparently it was tragic? *Wikipedias that shit, reads* Oh, that sounds like the best way to create a pretty good villain. What's the problem, guyzzz?

And I liked Venture Brothers' first season but this season is a little too pretentiously meta and annoying. Plus, I used to be in contact with the guys who did the show and once the show took off they became total douchenozzles. Sunday's episode was okay though.

[leiacat.livejournal.com]

We are too awesomed by you, especially now that you're slowly getting to see the light. :)

Anyhow, I actually happen to at least somewhat share your dislike of Penny - to me she was a girl-token rather than an interesting character. To me that actually did not in any way reduce the impact of the ending, because I didn't need to like her to accept that for whatever reason Billy does, and _that_ is the importance of her. I'm perfectly content to be impacted by _his_ tragedy without experiencing the least of it personally.

I also happen to agree that the ending was perfect-ish, and I believe that anyone who wanted a happy ending wasn't watching the same show that I was. Some people on my flist seemed to think it was a light-hearted comedic piece rather than a supervillain origins story. They were understandably displeased to discover otherwise, and got impressively rantish about the pointless cruelty of the ending, leaving me to boggle at the vitriol.

As for VB vs. Dollhouse, say what you may, but I bet none of the characters have the hotness of Eliza Dushku.

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

As for VB vs. Dollhouse, say what you may, but I bet none of the characters have the hotness of Eliza Dushku.

Then you, my dear, have not yet met Dr. Girlfriend nor Molotov Cocktease.

[leiacat.livejournal.com]

I am, in some ways, specieist - I prefer live women to animated. (I know, nobody's perfect.)

[angrylemur.livejournal.com]

I wanted it to be revealed that Penny was also a supervillain.

Then they could have killed Captain Hammer together, and eventually ruled the world side by side. She could have been the velvet glove to his iron fist. Tell me that would not have been more fun.

The ending as it was... I don't know. It wasn't so much how it ended as it was that it felt rushed to me. Like what happened only happened because they needed to wrap things up quickly. I was JUST starting to like Penny - that bit with her waiting for Dr. Horrible in the Laundromat with the frozen yogurt was where I started to think, "Oh, here we go, she's finally going to do something." but then... she didn't.

Meh.

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

Oooh, that would have been a truly happy ending indeed. AND it'd have made her more interesting rather than simply being a metaphorical stand-in for his own goodness and light.

But I do like the ending, because as tamburlaine above observed, that's a pretty good way to make a villain. Taken as an origin, I rather like it quite a bit.

Of two minds, as often happens.

[leiacat.livejournal.com]

To me that would have been a major gigantic cop-out, or at least a very different story. It would have to have been set up from the beginning to work, to show some subtle glipmses. She would have to be playing Captain Hammer far more overtly rather than putting up with him and looking uncomfortable. She would have to be something radically other than what she was presented as from the very start for that to ring the least true.

I don't advocate killing off characters gratuitously, but Penny's death was there for a narrative reason. The supervillain switcheroo would be Disneification at its worst.

It was kind of a bait and switch...

[american-arcane.livejournal.com]

All the initial buzz about the whole Dr. Horrible thing made it out to be a light and funny musical wannabe villain fest.

Most people don't pay enough to attention to realize where it was headed by the middle of the second part. Heck, even I got caught up in the fun end of things and was surprised how things went. Until I took a step back... then the story structure and where it was heading was pretty clear.

And Penny was kind of a flat character, but I see that more as an illustration as to how both male characters saw her--more as an object than as a person.

Even still, I was sad to see how things went for her. Not that they could have gone any better and still fit with the story arc.

Of course, there are some who think it could have gone worse... and that would have been better. :)

(And, for the record, Venture Bros. does, indeed, rock.)

Re: It was kind of a bait and switch...

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

I don't have it in me to read the comments, but an evil part of me kind of likes that ending too. I still wish she was less of an object in our eyes as well, or perhaps that's just how I saw her ("beloved"? Really? Hrm).

Re: It was kind of a bait and switch...

[leiacat.livejournal.com]

The linked-to scenario might, I think, have been better, even if I don't quite buy it that Billy would have the ability to make the choice without Penny dying first. I'm _willing_ to buy it, far more than I'm willing to buy any chain of events in which Penny lives.

But generally I'm pretty content with a plain, simple "accidental death with just enough guilt and blame as catalyst for transformation to true evil". That worked for me.

"You're all, 'Go Team . . . boo-BOOBIES!'"

[frumple.livejournal.com]

Also: "Oh my GOD, I almost f*cked a were-o-dile!"

Yeah. Frumple and Mrs. Frumple are VB fans. :)

Also, from the Mrs.: I was shocked -- then satisfied -- by DHSAB. Yeah, Penny was kind of a smarmy goody-two-shoes, but I immediately adored Dr. H and wanted him to succeed at getting what he so very badly wanted (even though he had no real idea what she was about). I was bummed for Dr. H, but couldn't have cared less about her. She was a two-dimensional plot device (object of desire), as were Captain Hammer and his penis (obstacles to object) -- and for the story Joss is telling, it worked.

--K (per J's request)

Lacy, Gently Wafting Curtains!

[adaptor.livejournal.com]

Glad you got a kick out of it! I felt all the characters were a little thin for anything other than silly internet fun so I wasn't let down by Penny or the ending at all.

I don't have tv access (no cable or reception, but plenty of Netflix), so I'll look up some Venture clips on-line.

BTW, Perfecter is a tad Whedonesque, but for me Whedonesque is more like "It was like a nightmare! It was like a plague! It was like a nightmare about a plague!!!"

Re: Lacy, Gently Wafting Curtains!

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

Well, if'n you have Netflix, check out the first couple seasons on DVD! That way, you can watch it in proper order, because eventually it actually starts to establish a continuity with character development and other things usually unseen in most animated comedies.

And yeah, evidence has shown that it may take some warming up for some, but trust me on this. I am not kidding when I say it is my very favorite show out now, and one of my all-time favorites series (but that feeling did not emerge till midway through season 2).

Nah, that's not the Whedonesque that kills me. It's more exchanges like, "I positively throb when he says that." "Yeah, your not saying that would be nifty."

[cephiedvariable.livejournal.com]

Hrm. I've been avoiding Dr. Horrible because- even as a lover of Firefly and a long time Buffy fan- Whedon drives me nuts and I've been taking in too much GOOD media lately to deal with another series that drives itself into the ground because its writer thinks that having bad things happen is the only way to turn a good drama. Ugh. And from what I've heard, Dr. Horrible goes that direction in the end? *shrugs*

... and the afore-mentioned "good media" definitely includes Venture Brothers. XD OH man, I wish that show got more accolades. I tried to sell a close friend of mine on it this week, but I'm not sure if it went over so well. :P It's a little bit of a tricksome swing since it mixes equal parts low brown toilet humour and absolutely brilliant comedic timing and nuances you only get if you're involved in the experience. And it doesn't really work unless you're tuned in to both levels.

But it has hands down some of the best character development I've seen in ages. ♥

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

It does, but I think it actually serves a much better purpose than Whedon's usual happiness=boring. At least, for those of us acquainted with better supervillain origins.

Yeah, totally agreed on VB. It might well be the star of Adult Swim's line-up, and yet it's pretty much little more than a cult hit in the bigger picture. Sadness.

Oh, I'm hard at revising the novel and am currently on page 64. I've cut out six whole pages so far in the name of tightening up and streamlining, turning three scenes into one powerhouse scene! I feel so accomplished!

But I dunno how much progress I'm gonna make after the next week, especially since the actual Two-Face parts are gonna get an overhaul, and there's still several chunks of Gilda revisin' to go. But I would like to take advantage of your free time in August. Wouldja be up for checking out the first revised half at least? Or just wait for the fall for the whole monster?