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7 December 2019 at 08:15 #684686 December 2019 at 01:49 #684624 December 2019 at 01:22 #68447
@bluesqueakpip Very good. Thank you.
Also, my silly comment above: “the French invented kissing, you pillock.”
It was *invented not invited. Aaaand, just ignore me. I had a bad night prior to me watching the trailer & then commenting. Not clever.
4 December 2019 at 01:14 #68446Great to see you back! I really hope all is well with you? Thank you for the links. There’s been a few on this page in the past month but I hadn’t kept up. So thanks to @bluesqueakpip @blenkinsopthebrave @geoffers @pedant @cathannabel for links & nudges.
Indeed:
Noor Inyat Khan – I’ve been borderline obsessed with her since reading stuff about the women of SOE. I ran a history taster session on the French Resistance and Occupied France with a group of Year 10s a couple of years back and when I talked about her, you could see the reaction from (esp.) the girls in the room. Quite extraordinary.
That sounds brilliant Cathannabel. I think, equally, your own enthusiasm, knowledge & teaching ability would’ve impressed your students -the way we go about things as teachers, the paths we storm or gentle navigate – have an enormous reaction. I’m saying all this with an eye on young Thane’s teachers. Not all had knowledge or the capacity. So from one teacher to another, a job well done, Cath.
The new series is nigh…..I am excited.
Old Puro.
3 December 2019 at 03:32 #68443Riight.
So, big crisis! And, sorry is that NY only? I got the impression it’s more than one episode or have I truly lost the ability to interpret a trailer?
I’m not sure about the “it’s French that, isn’t it?”
I get that….it’s this Doctor. But it’s exactly the sort of thing a ….I’m going to get trolled now, I can feel it…..a …..companion would say & the Doctor would say, back “oh, yes, the French invited kissing you pillock!” Which is the funny bit.
2 December 2019 at 06:10 #68439Finally. I watched Resolution.
I HAD seen maybe 10 minutes (Dalek on Lin & she was very, very good) -but not the first 2-3 minutes as the 3 soldiers bury their Dalek pieces.
Some bits were odd. Doctor: “I’m going old school. Using lights, street cameras” etc.
Dalek then shoots them out and Doctor says: “it’s shot them out!” But I aint no writer. It seemed a tad repetitive.
But. The angles, the new lenses, the TARDIS was very real & totally confident. I didn’t realise, til I watched the Special Features, just how exy it was. How enormous in colour & movement & tone, too.
But the audio? That was probably the best balanced voice/music/sound FX we’ve had in Who. Adegboyega’s voice was superb & the music was beautifully balanced except one slightly odd drum kick suddenly ‘oops’ cut to flying Dalek didn’t work. Very minor thing, obviously. The skill sets where you see Charlotte/Lin driving the car & yet it’s a pod car? blew my mind.
What I liked, & only thinking about it later, looking back at Season 11, is how the Dalek plot was handled. It killed everything in its way, immediately. But it was still weak, with Lin’s personality set up with sufficient subtlety that it made sense for her, like Aaron, but for different reasons, to defeat the uncased Dalek. Normally Dalek episodes are sombre, horribly scary, the worst of the worst of squid enemies out there but this was differently toned?
Perhaps the lenses? The movement between people & the on-going conversations created a different mood? Less of the “you will be exterminated” & more room for Ryan’s & Aaron’s chat. A still camera. Elongating those moments.
Liked it. I might watch it again. After I’ve had some pickled onions. If it’s one thing I like with Daleks, it’s microwaved spinach & pickled onions. With ‘corn.
30 November 2019 at 23:22 #6843830 November 2019 at 09:13 #68436Finally I can say I understand who Jonathan Miller is! I have Kulture! But he’s died? I’m too late, again. And very sad. I worry that there will be so many great, learned people -writers, directors, producers, playwrights & bands I’ll barely know. I don’t know, entirely, if we are creating fantastic new ones? We should be. My generation. Our gen has a lot of ‘stuff’ -we have food, clothing, rooves & clean water. I’m talking here -not in every part of Australia. Poverty is endemic but I know one thing, sportsmen & women are being lauded waay too much. Some sporting person I won’t name said “the Australian fires are a punishment from god.” Urgh. They can say it but it’s being reported a lot which is the problem. I think.
I’ve also heard of The Mikado @bluesqueakpip ! All on “me own” which are words which must never be said together. Or written, but still are.
Syzygy
30 November 2019 at 08:52 #68435Mum didn’t understand. a word. you. said. 😀 Geddit? The Master when he’s speaking to the Doctor in the speech about kindness! 🙂
I think I do, though? You’re saying you’re like the Doctor. You relate, you dress like him…which must be awesome. I’ve met some smart people in my life but none are really old. None have travelled outside the universe. Or even finish his sentences.
What’s that like?
I think the other Syzygy was just including you in the conversation? She mentioned you because it was polite to do so. It was a conversation you’d been part of so sorry about that. It’s nice to see your name, to be tagged, when it’s a light or even a serious conversation. Kindness is all it is so she apologises profuselly, or profuseishnessly. One of ’em.
Enjoy the new trailer. Always good to look forward to something in our future as well as our past.
Siggers the Young.
28 November 2019 at 03:03 #68430@winston @pedant and anyone with approaching or passing winter colds.
For anyone feeling under the weather with partners very unwell including Mr @missy.
I had a tear for Miller & James (sounds like a sketch act which both may’ve loved).
@whisht good to see you back on the music boards! Don’t leave them -you make these boards hum & tingle -all the boards & forums. I should probably write “fora?”
From a musician’s point of view, I knew of Miller before Clive James. But I tweeted something today except I have only 2 followers 1 of whom (or is it “which” as a follower isn’t a specific human person? @mudlark !!!! ‘whom or which?’) I mentioned in this post. I loved Miller & my parents – who despised irreverence loved James (he was just ‘Clive’ to us, though broadly sounding it would’ve been “Clooaghfe”) @blenkinsopthebrave would be able to remember those diphthongs easily. They’re music to an ex-pat’s ears. And you know the ‘whom & which’ too. 🙂
@pedant dead right on d’other thread
The Syzygys
21 November 2019 at 23:28 #6839921 November 2019 at 04:49 #68395I had to read that twice.
“the birth of the reader must be required by the death of the author.” I had to Google this & read IT twice too. 🙂 I couldn’t cope with Derrida or Foucault so I stopped at ‘F’ 😉
If you think of the Doctor’s speech with Missy & the Master on kindness, that really sums up Barthes’s idea beautifully. Well no, I don’t understand that, but it sums it up. I’m very certain of this 🙂 And that particular speech, showing the range of Capaldi’s ability & tonal control, breaks my heart every time I hear it.
I think however one interprets the ‘text’ it breaks one’s heart.
18 November 2019 at 07:26 #68389Full of ….it? Ah some NY grog! Well that’s perfectly acceptable: delicious, legal, delicious, legal, fun, in the spirit of the new year god of all ….Sun Ra…
You lost the channel? Where’d it go? 🙂
You have a good son who earns some cash. Thus you’ll get the episode. It’s annoying that it’s not on the DVD with all 12-13 other episodes. It’s not as if it’s a 22 episode wonder like dem ol’ days.
No. No. I haven’t seen Emily yet. I imagine the music is not really in it? It just hits the teenage-ballade-vibe? Love the “dude, no, the other room.”
I can imagine the angry virgins….. You should patent the phrase…
Syzygy.
16 November 2019 at 22:46 #68385Oh Gawd. That was on Hell Bent. Jeepers. I read that page. It’s all me. Blabbing. Mind you I was pretty ….well …you know…..lots of pain relief. ….High as a kite.
Blabbers.
16 November 2019 at 22:43 #68384@pedant @janetteb Gawd, do I? I thought it was just the once. I thought this: “it took pedant probably hours to find that!” Except it didn’t, did it? 2 minutes & I’m blabbing about something I haven’t seen yet. Jeepers. Senility isn’t it. I hope. It’s random stupidity.
After being woken up by Devil Spawn “I’m going on a grad trip you didn’t fill in the registration permission form but you did all 11 others wake up wake up” I feel pretty crap about the fact he’s leaving us for 4 days.
Janette, do you know of the whole Schoolies Drunk Fest? Thane’s not going to that. But to an island, Tangalooma: where it’s alcohol free but requires a million forms. All of them. ALL OF THEM on line. Unfriggingbelievable.
So, I am going to buy the Resolution thingy today from JB-Hi Fi for $9. For myself. Because I am having a little sulk. The rest of those episodes I have ….in some other….watchable …..form.
Puro or Syzygy or The Old One.
16 November 2019 at 12:20 #68381if not senility, it was the other thing.
16 November 2019 at 12:19 #68380@bluesqueakpip thank you for this…
@pedant “dear oh dear” my ass. 🙂 I commented but didn’t (‘ahem’) watch it. I read some comments, thought (potentially a thought) I’d watch it forthwith.
But it never happened. I totally missed it.
Senility approaches
16 November 2019 at 11:23 #68377welcome back. The Pippettes! Or is it ‘Pipettes?’
I love the ice cream chord structure: Chord 1, chord vi, iv, v and repeat….
Bowie’s blonde hair & Spray Tan Era was a tad …odd. But yes, his impeccable timing, no over-doing it on the stage gave hints of the performer he would eventually become, I think. A more approachable stage act with a genuine connection to the audience from 1998 (to 2013).
@pedant I heard the Jona Lewie song for the FIRST time in 2007. The guests at the café were horrified it was on a Christmas album put together by the ABC.
16 November 2019 at 09:48 #68375@craig ??
Please sir, we need a new Sofa, I think. I can’t find things. There’s old wrappers from sweeties in 2017. And now I’ve gone & lost a whole memory thing. It’s been swiped. No Resolution. How could this happen? Did it have the Daleks? It had to, right? All the requirements et. al etc etc.
16 November 2019 at 09:46 #68374Okaaay.
I’ve missed something. Resolution….This was an episode airing…..when? ‘This’ year as in Dec 31 2018/2019 (NY day)?
I MISSED IT.
How is this possible?
Is it on the DVD of the Whitakker series?
Syzygy.
16 November 2019 at 08:07 #68373…over appreciating old and new Who as works created by, and reflecting, and being reflected by, the contexts in which the episodes are made? …
Oh good Lord! The intertextualposttextual-analysis would age me. But I can imagine a dalek-y ‘voice’
you are not pro-gress-ing inter-textually speak-ing & so exter-min-a-tion is the final anal-y-sis. Ex-ter-min-ate.
@pedant Yes! we did discuss ATCs. For a second, I was madly attempting to uhm, gee, ‘work out’ what it stood for. 🙂 But that came easy.
The fluidity of say, a performance by a dramatic coloratura of The Queen of The Night or a beenindruckend fundamental of a 100Hz demonstrates the tessitura of female and male vocals we talked about before. My thoughts beyond that specific area of expertise are lacking in spirit: My learned brain knows what femininity or masculinity is but maybe a tiny portion of that mind is broken. So I seek other’s opinions. In reading comments on the other thread, it’s a good thing to seek!
The link by @toinfinityandbepond is a thing of beauty.
Thanks for Dickinson. It’s so beautiful & like everything you’ve ever suggested it will affect me deeply (I remember the excitement from Buffy & The Leftovers and 13 RW)
But 1st I need to get the iphone. Or an ipod: forces me to walk without my old CD Walkman -yet the latter has better acoustic. I’m under strict instructions to NOT buy Spawn a gift. The hide of the little s*it! I arrived home with the shopping & I got the look. Not THIS look. But this: “you bought THOSE chocolates. Why did you buy these drinks? Or these lollies?”
My answer? Because I survived high school. Twice 🙂
15 November 2019 at 09:15 #68366@miapatrick, Fantastic! And agreed it’s displacement or just thought driven in every way & thus actual study contributing to real-life core learnings and core values. 😉
After all, the weasel words of the QLD public service aid you in their service -they’re good for that. But you do real study which truly benefits many others.
Actually on the ‘squire’ definition; the book I consulted regarding female and male attitudes across time, did refer to gallant gentlemen, but in that case (I think it was in Babbletower) with decent dramatic irony and a bit of fury mixed in….I hope you can take time off for Christmas -you and your partner?
15 November 2019 at 07:47 #68364@miapatrick thank you. Excellent and good to see you ’round these parts. Strap on some armour….
15 November 2019 at 07:45 #68363Well, fucking hell people from @missy to @bluesqueakpip to @pedant and @gamergirlavatar @nerys @toinfinityandbepond @whisht (well, HELLOO you!) you’ve all expressed feelings on sexism, political correctness and cooking. I missed the whole darn conversation! Exciting stuff. And a bit sad, to be honest. That there exist people who think that “PC means an extreme reaction to people who are socially disadvantaged.”
I read that 3 times @roger429 or 666 or whatever: that we must not be ‘too kind’ to people who are disadvantaged. In other words, we need to stay mean. My mind’s blown! It’s been there all the time, just waiting. Mean-ness is right, folks. People who can’t walk, have a visual impairment, who’ve been sexually abused & tell their story with tears & shakes are apparently “snow-flakes” who can’t “handle life.” But we have to be patient now, us mean people, because it’s “all PC.”
It’s sad.
Aaand I’ve stuffed up some of the name handles which is pretty sad of me considering I’ve changed mine constantly. Never content, always worrying at something…. Not mean enough. Not bitter enough.
OK. Here’s this bit from The Summer Before The Dark (Lessing)
“…No, she must step back…and confirm that there stood in front of her a pleasant looking fashionable woman on the verge of middle age. Still on the verge…She could say that her shape, her attributes, limbs, waist, breasts, mouth, hair, neck, were not different from the equipment with which she had attracted a dozen young men nearly a quarter of a century ago…perhaps even better since so much chemistry and medication and dieting and attention to hair, teeth, and eyes had gone into this artifact -what would she look like now, if, for instance, she had been born into a slum in Brazil?”
Lessing’s character speaks of “the spirit” -the state, or the condition of the emanation of attractive availability: “come and sniff and taste.” It leaves a bad taste, now, doesn’t it?
Then this from Mantel’s Giving Up the Ghost
“Dr G, the psychiatrist, was remote and bald. He had as much chance of understanding a girl like me as he had of rising from his desk and skimming from the window on silver pinions. He soon diagnosed my problem: stress, caused by over-ambition. This was a female complaint, one which people believed in, in those years, just as the Greeks believed that women were made ill by their wombs cutting loose and wandering about their bodies….”
One thing worried the ‘real me’ (the mean me was obviously fake news) and that’s that a person’s femaleness or maleness doesn’t matter. At all.
I think it does? Is it sexist to acknowledge a woman? Simply, as a woman? Not in a job-unrelated-to-woman-role.
I was a captain once (briefly) & that didn’t have a gender attached. But I’m still woman.
I was sexually abused by a man. An old man; for maybe 10 or 13 years. That was definitely because I was a girl-child, and he a strong, large man. It may’ve started when I was two, or even one. I don’t want any sympathy here -this isn’t “attention seeking” (the previous paragraph in Mantel’s book). It’s a fact. It happened. I couldn’t stop it. I didn’t know ‘it.’
When I did know, and I could tell, I ended him.
Syzygy the Old
15 November 2019 at 05:48 #68361Sooo…., the word “squire” – where does it hail from?
(Ignore my dreadful grammar)
15 November 2019 at 05:45 #68360About which tanks do we speak? Armoured or Dartank?
11 November 2019 at 23:29 #68344to those who imagine.
I was saying to a friend that Bowie’s comment about make-up & Lennon was used a lot. But it was made known here.
“Made known” sounds a bit biblical
11 November 2019 at 23:26 #683437 November 2019 at 09:11 #68308limos? I know. Same here. The lady who I’m taking (can’t take guys from other schools -and she has a b/f so I don’t wanna do anything that will cause problems). is wearing white & I have to get a white corsage.
A limo I aint doing. No way. I’ll catch a bus. But the guys drive so I might hop a lift. I think the girls are going with us or some of us to a special pre-drink as much alcohol as you can formal for an hour. But the guys won’t. I think they’ll drive to the post-formal (get it all?) & get fairly pissed. I’ll be home well before. Photos with family I can handle although I’m calming mum down . If she can’t leave the house I do have a dad so that’s good. Although we had a massive row today. Wow. That’s a thing.
7 November 2019 at 08:07 #68307Hey guys & thank you. I really feel like I was walking to the gallows every time I moved from class to class. Didn’t know which teacher was going to get all “personal” & say “mate, you haven’t opened up to me recently. In fact, at all? Please tell me everything about your life!”
Why? I’m not really interested in theirs. Sounds rude, though. So I learned to say “OH YEAH! Sure, and how are YOU?”
Endless parties? A gap year? Working your way around the world as a short order cook on a tramp steamer prepatory to writing the Great Australian novel?
Oh, parties 🙁 I was explaining to @pedant and also dad & mum that parties are awful. Binge drinking. Shit music. I have a mate turning 18 in 2 days & at least (he’s a Western movie fan like dad about “which I have trouble coping” unless it’s The Man From Laramie . And the other one with J. Stewart?) he’s having a proper party. We’re dressing like cowboys or cowgirls, I think? I’m going to use mum’s makeup to create a scar.
See? That’s what I’m up to. No great novels or small ones. Maybe back packing but mainly learning common sense things . I can’t drive. I can cycle a bike & run like hell but not driving & it’s really expensive.
Oh, and I can’t really cook. Apparently lessons start next week where I’ll be given $20 & have to buy food for meals for 4 days. I don’t know where they keep meat in supermarkets. This is why I need ‘other learnings’.
I’ll keep you all posted. And thanks again for being a great site.
Syzygy.
I had all your names up & then got masses of code. 20 lines I think. So I deleted all your names . Sorry!
3 November 2019 at 03:54 #68289I loved the Banshees! I thought Bootsy was born in Wisconsin? I remember that a boyfriend used to always tell me silly stories about who the head of different bands were -I had zilch knowledge at 16 of The Who, ACDA, Midnight Oil, & hundreds of other headlining acts like Led Zeppelin…
For the lad.
3 November 2019 at 03:36 #68288@ at all. A big thank you to everyone. How so many of you have given ideas/outlines to young Syzygy about various topics. A wonderful lady, whose name has vanished into the vacant & shallow areas of ma brain, offered wonderful suggestions on R & Juliet back in 2017; which films to watch/ignore; the importance of personification. She’s a terrifically thoughtful forum poster & teacher who I haven’t seen here in a year. I WILL locate her name….
Thane’s school has weird records* showing that Thane has accompanied me to the hospital 132 times in the last 6 years. So, in 4 days, he’ll graduate (I always thought that happened at uni? Am I nitting, as it were! No way!) 😉
But I’m in a few chopped messes. In 2 weeks he has the Formal (or ball) for graduation to which, being Spawn, he’ll catch a bus. His date said “hire a navy suit, I’m wearing white & I need a white corsage.” Golly, women today, eh? The gall!
His last History exam is on “ISIS & our war on terror” test with a variety of sources speaking to American involvement creating the very mess these countries are in. They don’t however mention the role of the U.S. in Afghanistan prior to 9/11 & many teachers confuse the region (as some Americans also do) having no general understanding of who the people are & which countries make up this ‘Axis of Evil’: how a war in Iraq is not a war against the “Russians” in Afghanistan; and who/what had WMDs.
There’s a running list of legendary errors by those in authority such as the Taliban in Afghanistan run the capital which is Baghdad; Al-Qadea is led by Obama bin Laden from a poor family from Pakistan; in answer to a question Spawn got this: why would this be relevant? Ahktar Mansour’s a Jewish soccer player, isn’t he? Then, The Uzbeks are orthodox Jewish people from Slovakia or Slovenia; The Sunnis are a band. You need to remember the Shias; Wahhabi is a strong chilli kebab flavour in the Phillipines. This state is heavily funded by Arab Muslim groups.
*I’ll head over to the music thread to embarrass the child as his love of Aerosmith grows strong, like The Force. He can sense Aerosmith…when sitting meditatively a brief fragrance of Steven Tyler’s cologne will waft on the breeze & “om” can be heard at 254Hz
De Ol’ Puro
2 November 2019 at 23:32 #682872 November 2019 at 23:31 #68286thank you. Yes I recall this, now. Tennant was very good at this -if that’s the right word
Also @jimthefish @craig when I click on a user’s name or on the discussion thread I notice we go right back to page 1? From 2017. Do we need a new place?
Syzygy.
2 November 2019 at 22:57 #68282Amazing. I loved the “erm, the bit with the headphones? but not the bit with the noise?”
Gorgeous. Also everyone & I mean everyone was saying they wanted Phoebe to be the next female Doctor? I had no idea who she was! Her name was distinct, though, which is why I’ve remembered it.
Oh yep @pedant Tennant did 500 miles (terrifically good song. A brilliant one) . I think I said Children in Need started with Tennant. Gawp. What I meant to write was that it was the first Doctor Who involved with Children in Need unless I’m totally wrong about that?
1 November 2019 at 06:42 #682671 November 2019 at 06:30 #68266@winston @janetteb and youse all 🙂 @blenkinsopthebrave the “youse” is for youse. 😉
We had kids around from 4 pm but by 6 pm when it’s still light, they’d gone. I normally do have choccies but forgot about them. Thane asked his mates (most drive) if they could go out by they were without spirit as well & thought as they’re 18 a bunch of tall ghouls on Halloween could end with door knocking coppers. Or those dressed as some…
Hah, @pedant knows what I’m going to post next……
So, after the 4 pm kiddies, I had to close up front doors & unusually for me, turn off the outdoor lights which, considering the sexual harassment by a cabbie the other day, I was very glad of. I even had Thane’s hardly-used- in- 4- year’s cricket bat… All good. Bat wasn’t needed.
Yes agreed with 4 wheel drives. In the 80s for Halloween as well as the prank time for uni students, the rocket scientists & engineers took apart the vice-dean’s car. And put it together several stories up, on the top of the university’s main building.
They carried bits of it up. I didn’t follow this. No-one really followed anything because no-one thought to take pix. Now it would be all over twitter! And that would have been a fun thing to see.
1 November 2019 at 00:31 #68261*34
1 November 2019 at 00:23 #68260Beaut, just beaut. Boy, one thing to say (I’m never ever nit-picky!) but if she’d drop her chin on the high notes, her palate would open up & it would open up the head voice. Small thing. But I’m saying it anyway. Anywaaay.
She has a gorgeous voice, she’s a beautifully sensitive person. How do I say this? She comes across as a ‘person’ not an ‘actorr’?? I’ve seen all sorts of people interviewed – I remember Jolie interviewed & it was awful. Same with M. Ryan -but Whittaker is genuine. That’s the word. How great for Coldplay & for this to be for Children in Need.
I think Tennant did the first? or first-ish? I saw it on the DVD set with him & his 1st season. Contains a video diary. You can see how he ages. Whittaker is 34? Has a maturity of someone older but is still thrilled at everything as if she’s much younger. 3 cheers: she’s amazing. Her repetiteur was pretty good too
31 October 2019 at 01:02 #68256@mudlark @pedant and @winston this is a SPOILER so please look the other way.
Dickens was an extraordinary perfectionist, and a man of the people. On many occasions he would repeat, “I had at one point many stories I could tell, but, here & now, this is the only story I feel I can tell.”
He was repetitive at times & acknowledged a level of difficulty with his weekly installments. Mistakes were made, characters disappeared, some were forgotten & narrative arcs lost. Still, with his public readings, his specific answers to questions written to him by fans, he was perhaps the first modern ‘rock star’ of the literary world.
Whedon had it much harder -though admits Dickens is his favourite writer of the modern era, having a fondness for Greek comedians or satirists -& by his early 30s, the tragedians. Someone wrote that if “Great Expectations is a novel of growth , so is Buffy, but one of emotional realism with complex issues Dickens never faced.”
Marti Noxon went on to say “emotional realism is what we strive for every week.” Even Whedon, who acknowledged the problems of Season Four, believes it’s not the best series & yet contains the best set of individual episodes except for one in Season Five.
Pickwick Papers had characters with limited intentions; Great Expectations’ Miss Havisham was up for hanging but experienced a period of redemption. Like Spike, Havisham was “slated for an ignominious death” & whilst Season Three is one of Whedon’s favourites, Spike appears only once. But Whedon admits “he stole the episode. His speech about how love is blood was delivered in a way that blew out my expectations. I was pretty happy for him to drive away with his ‘pet’ but I saw something. But Buffy fans saw it first. They always do.”
TV series are fast becoming some of the most eclectic art available for mass consumption. Dickens wrote with a long arc in mind but left things open -he reacted, quickly, to his reader’s complaints; & his career grew when the artist for The Pickwick Papers died suddenly. Dickens had to re-create his serial issues using more figurative language, stressing metaphors & adding characters.
The serial TV artist has to move faster. Sudden changes of situation, as with Seth Green (Oz) & ASH (who had flown back & forth to the States from the UK for several years) are jarring & that’s a platform for critique despite those interior pressures. The TV artist is like Puro’s membranophones: they must stretch & flex. The long arc, as well as the individual episode, still requires serious respect for every character. Other than Hill Street Blues, in the 1980s, the mid to late ’90s is the point where serialised artistic TV drama, with Whedon as catalyst, becomes ‘serious.’ And ‘serious’ art involves a many layered approach with just as much focus on quantity of production.
Artists and TV critics find in Buffy something easy to hate: its genre [fantasy], medium, youthful characters, tough female heroes, complexity, comedy, & length. But Le Guin said, in defence of fantasy that it’s “true, of course, it isn’t factual, but it is true.” Hilary Mantel and Margaret Atwood also defend fantasy’s texture & “liveliness.”
The medium of TV doesn’t loosen the grip Whedon had on the development of arc & episodes. New fictional forms or media, are usually treated disrespectfully by critics. Ben Jonson popularised the comedy of humours but struggled for recognition. Thomas Carlyle laughed sarcastically patronising Dickens, saying “he’s worth a penny, so give it.”
Donna Tartt relates to this progression of “expectation” by alluding to various publications from 1960 to 1980 where African American art & novels at Ol’ Miss, her alma mater, were sternly judged. She went on to say that the form of art most suited to any generation will produce its best work but also “hit the wall, at times.” Aaron Sorkin agreeing with this point of view, added that such works of art produce the best work, the worst work, everything in between and the most work.”
Sorkin elaborates that “a lot of bad episodes and arcs are going to be written & shown just because of the statistical reality & ignoring that fact will turn viewers off.” Bradley Whitford quipped “some say we don’t want those viewers, but actually we really do, because they lead to prestige. Whether that’s good or not, I don’t know, I’ll leave that to Aaron, but just last week [speaking in 2018] I was told there were thousands of scholarly papers written about the medium of TV as approached by Sorkin, Lindelöf and Abrams [Lost], I mean look at Lindelöf & his other work….” At which point Richard Schiff stepped in with “Perrotta & Peter Berg in Leftovers. Or is The Leftovers [some laughter, & confusion -this was a comic-con anniversary of The West Wing]?”
Goodness, gotta run for bus. Again!
Laters guys,
young Syzygy
30 October 2019 at 01:04 #68252Fair point about “the problem” Buffy satirised. I think satirical is the correct word, for this. Or would it be irony?
Mum & I were talking about this yesterday. Dracula, as written, was old, corrupt, skin like paper, with bad breath. Nothing sexy about the dood. In Buffy (Winston, spoilers ahead*****) Drac was old, with skin like parchment, dark eyes, greyed face. He was able to use the thrall (or the “thrill as going out of our relationship” – as B pronounced it) to “suuuck your blut.”
Mum & dad saw a Dracula film with Keanu Reeves -after an hour they left as it was basically soft porn (or was it just porn?). I saw an hour with mates & left.
With Buffy’s Drac the references were deliberate & connected to the finale in Prophecy Girl. Part of the slayer is the history -the seemingly necessary act to insert in the slayer, something ‘scary.’ The first ‘watchers’ forced a girl, under 18, to accept the part about “who you really ARE” so, in between Drac’s mental prowess & his ability to make B “suuuuck hiz blut” was a story of how the slayer has to recognise what’s within & in that moment, referring back to B’s enthrallment by the Master years before & now, with Dracula, you have a 4 year long call back & a reference to how the first slayer, from the previous season’s conclusion in Restless, is mute or uncivilised.
Part of the slayer is the darkness, the other part, B’s alone, is The Gift. In Season 1, once she’s tasted the darkness & knows it for what it is & then dies, the prophecy is fulfilled. In this season opener, she needs to know what HE knows & tastes him, but she also wants to know what the Scoobies know. She’s growing up here (but there’s more real life soon). But we need a balanced season so this is a distraction: a surface, campy, “suuck your blut” episode designed to throw us off -not immediately but suddenly. I hope the Moffat version will reference female power.
Young Syzygy
29 October 2019 at 00:23 #6824829 October 2019 at 00:21 #68247OK, I’ve just recognised writing in French when a soon to be Scoobie is in Canada is kinda redondante.
@pedant agreed.
29 October 2019 at 00:16 #68246@pedant @mudlark. The other soon to be scoobie (OK, Winston) look away 😀
I never listened, 2 years ago, to this particular TPN guide. Only at about the 5:44 mark did I latch on to that dude from above. The echoes are brilliant. And this may make you yell with frustration but I think this is the best of the Season openers closely followed by Season Sept, une.
28 October 2019 at 23:56 #6824428 October 2019 at 23:19 #6824228 October 2019 at 08:46 #68239@pedant Now, w/o a brain *don’t read this Winston spoilers might be ahead.
So, pedant. you said something about the erm, ahem, most unsolved mystery in the world (possibly).
OK, so a) who are the brin***s or the Fir**? No, not that.
b) why does one vampire have a hint/sniff of hu*an*ty & the others not? See Ame*** in ….. I think this is it?
c) oh. Hang on, the character who is a doctor while on his erm, days off, another character appears to be…*im?
THAT! It’s that, yeah? Tell me (cheer squad) Tell Me!!
Or is it (run out of letters) a connection with the other show & its conclusion-thing. Which leaves us thinking….some pe**** are either *ea* or n**? It’s THAT. I know it IS!!
Is it though? You said “mysteries.” I’d say it’s “unsolved” but mysterious, I don’t think so because, rationally, they are facing a squadron of scary goons & the odds are pretty bad. So, what’s the THING?… I’ll bring the cheer squad…
This is gonna be fun.
28 October 2019 at 02:12 #68238David Arnold and Price have scored the series. Their use of violins & violas, used in Sherlock to great effect, can be heard in the teaser above.
Niiice
Syzygy the Elder.
28 October 2019 at 02:07 #68237@pedant @blenkinsopthebrave “they are coming.”
Whoa!! I hope we end up accessing both….sounds good
27 October 2019 at 10:56 #68230 -
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