Category: tv

Truth & Consequences: The VK-a-thon continues

~ Nancy E. Shaffer ~ 15 Comments

Oh, hey! Check it out…I just popped my Netflix DVD into the player this a.m., and it’s the VK episode of ER! My ancient reruns television motif always brings up something interesting.

Fucked-up Vinnie: He’s broody and sensitive, a tormented artist. He eats his own paints, and he does drugs! I take it back. *This* is his *real* screen test for AtS!

Brat Quotient: 5/10. He’s actually kind of sweet. He loses points for being high-maintenance at the end, refusing out-patient detox when the cute med student can’t get him into in-patient detox.

The hair: Of course he has greasy hair and is yakking all over himself! He doesn’t need to be an emergency room patient to do that!

Bottom line: I didn’t rent season 6 of ER just to see Vinnie, but I was looking forward to his appearance. It was better than I expected, too, in terms of screen time and characterization. Vintage Vinnie.

Just saving the world…I think

~ Nancy E. Shaffer ~ 11 Comments

Finally got done season 2 of “Lost” last night and can start watching my season 3 tapes and get caught up with everyone else.

Damn, this show is written by Whacked Existentialists smoking of the crack, no? I love it. Just when you think it can’t get more Absurd and Meaningless*, they throw a little reality at you just to keep you running the hamster wheel.

This is just gonna be how it is with me and TV, I think. I can’t be bothered trolling through all the new shows waiting to see what’s worth watching and what isn’t going to be cancelled. I’ll just let all of *you* do that, make recs, then catch the good ones on DVD a year later. ‘Cause of course I have to watch a show from the beginning and in proper order. Seeing a story unfold the way it was intended is Important.

I get caught up eventually, assuming I remember to set my VCR.

*Totally Existentialist technical terms, not criticisms.

ETA: watched the opening scene of season 3, ep 1. Forgot to add above that this show also threads in a healthy dose of Surrealism as well. Fun, fun!

What counts as new canon?

~ Nancy E. Shaffer ~ 16 Comments

I’ve been puzzling over additions to the Buffyverse canon post-TV. There is a lot of Buffyverse stuff out there. I’m dismissing the novels as fan fic some people get paid for (i.e., non-canon). If they make a movie with any of the actors in it reprising their original roles, I assume that will be canon.

But what about the comics? Which are canon? Which are not? It would be cool to, at some point, expand ATPo to include canonical works, but I don’t want to bother if isn’t canon.

X-posted to ATPo.

Forever Knight

~ Nancy E. Shaffer ~ 7 Comments

Ooof…I’d forgotten how hot this show was. Erotically, of course, but also in terms of action, and hitting the emotional nail on the head with the exploration of human complexity and darkness.

Before the vampire Angel ever drove his convertible through the noir city streets, righting the wrongs of Los Angeles in order to redeem for centuries of evil, Nicholas Knight drove his convertible through the noir city streets, righting the wrongs of Toronto in order to redeem for centuries of evil.

I remember complaining when “Angel” first aired about the similarities. But they were superficial. Angel wasn’t a cop (and could never be one with that invitation problem), Darla wasn’t La Croix, Natalie wasn’t Cordelia, Janette wasn’t Buffy (or Darla), the Raven wasn’t Caritas, and the whole tone and emphasis of the shows were very different.

I love both.