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Fannish5: Teasers
Name the five best "cold open"/teasers (the scene of a TV show before the opening credits)
Tricky to narrow it down to five, as nearly always. However, here are five teasers that definitely made an impression so strong that I can recall them at once when hearing the question:
1) A Tale of Two Cities, season 3 of Lost. Lost of course did good teasers galore, and far more shocking ones, but here's why this one sticks with me even more than the others: It was something of a minor game changer. We start the new season with what appears to be a flashback of a character we haven't met before, Juliet, listening to the Petula Clark song Downtown, argueing in her book club about Stephen King, having a mildly unhappy suburban life - and then comes the noise of an air plane, we look up, see said air plane go down, and realise we're actually watching the plane crash from the pilot, from the point of view of the people on the island, and that the book club crowd in their ultra normal suburban homes are none other than the previously perceived as half-savages "Others". (The Others Are Us, indeed.) It's teaser, shock revelation and black humour all at once, in addition to being a good character introduction to Juliet, and while not as huge a shift as in the final episode of the same season when the show proceeds to use flash forwards instead of flash backs, still signalled that some of the "Others" would now become as important characters as the Castaways.
2) Samson and Delilah, season 2 of The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Season 1 ends on a cliffhanger; the teaser starting season 2 resolves that cliffhanger as far as immediate circumstances are concerned but at the same time sets up, in only a few minutes and basically without dialogue, some of the big issues of season 2 (as well as the suspense situation for the season opener) - Cameron, after a season as a firm ally, falling back on her original programming, Sarah's and John's reactions to that, John killing for the first time after his previously infallible saviour figure, his mother, is temporarily helpless, and the emotional fallout between Sarah and John that will ensue from that. And all of this to the tune of Shirley Manson singing a gospel. It's magnificent.
3) Kobol's Last Gleaming I, season 1 of Battlestar Galactica. Speaking of great music, here Bear McCreary, as he will in the tag scene of part II, brings on his symphonic skills in a big way. The teaser of part I combines several season 1 themes - Boomer's struggle against her Cylon identity and increasing depression, Roslin's Chamalla-induced visions, the relationships between Kara and Lee as well as Kara and Gaius Baltar - in one wonderfully scored sequence. (Sidenote: as a Kara/Lee anti-shipper throughout the show who had really hoped they wouldn't go there I probably had an atypical reaction to a certain scene, but independent from that, I can't deny it was skilfully done.)
4) The Body, season 5 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Of Joss Whedon's four most experimental episodes in this show, Hush, Restless, The Body and Once More, With Feeling, which I think are four of the best hours of tv ever, Restless is probably my overall favourite but The Body is the one which affects me most deeply. As a depiction of the immediate aftermath of death, I find it devastatingly accurate, and the teaser, where Buffy goes from cheerfully teasing her mother about Joyce's recent date and offers to pick up Dawn from school to finding Joyce on the sofa sets that up. Watch SMG's body language and voice change from relaxed adult to child. That sudden little girl voice. "Mom?" And that's when you know, already, this is real, irrevocable, and forever.
5) The Sam Tyler Jacket, Ashes to Ashes season 3, episode 5. I didn't want a "real" appearance by Sam on AtA - he had his own show, you know? - and thus was not disappointed we never got one, but this use of John Simm footage by way of Alex' brain was great and cracks me up to this day; competing with that for my favourite AtA teaser is the "Uptown Girl" sequence, also from season 3, which YouTube won't let me link. I ♥ Alex Drake and her dreams, I tell you.
Tricky to narrow it down to five, as nearly always. However, here are five teasers that definitely made an impression so strong that I can recall them at once when hearing the question:
1) A Tale of Two Cities, season 3 of Lost. Lost of course did good teasers galore, and far more shocking ones, but here's why this one sticks with me even more than the others: It was something of a minor game changer. We start the new season with what appears to be a flashback of a character we haven't met before, Juliet, listening to the Petula Clark song Downtown, argueing in her book club about Stephen King, having a mildly unhappy suburban life - and then comes the noise of an air plane, we look up, see said air plane go down, and realise we're actually watching the plane crash from the pilot, from the point of view of the people on the island, and that the book club crowd in their ultra normal suburban homes are none other than the previously perceived as half-savages "Others". (The Others Are Us, indeed.) It's teaser, shock revelation and black humour all at once, in addition to being a good character introduction to Juliet, and while not as huge a shift as in the final episode of the same season when the show proceeds to use flash forwards instead of flash backs, still signalled that some of the "Others" would now become as important characters as the Castaways.
2) Samson and Delilah, season 2 of The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Season 1 ends on a cliffhanger; the teaser starting season 2 resolves that cliffhanger as far as immediate circumstances are concerned but at the same time sets up, in only a few minutes and basically without dialogue, some of the big issues of season 2 (as well as the suspense situation for the season opener) - Cameron, after a season as a firm ally, falling back on her original programming, Sarah's and John's reactions to that, John killing for the first time after his previously infallible saviour figure, his mother, is temporarily helpless, and the emotional fallout between Sarah and John that will ensue from that. And all of this to the tune of Shirley Manson singing a gospel. It's magnificent.
3) Kobol's Last Gleaming I, season 1 of Battlestar Galactica. Speaking of great music, here Bear McCreary, as he will in the tag scene of part II, brings on his symphonic skills in a big way. The teaser of part I combines several season 1 themes - Boomer's struggle against her Cylon identity and increasing depression, Roslin's Chamalla-induced visions, the relationships between Kara and Lee as well as Kara and Gaius Baltar - in one wonderfully scored sequence. (Sidenote: as a Kara/Lee anti-shipper throughout the show who had really hoped they wouldn't go there I probably had an atypical reaction to a certain scene, but independent from that, I can't deny it was skilfully done.)
4) The Body, season 5 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Of Joss Whedon's four most experimental episodes in this show, Hush, Restless, The Body and Once More, With Feeling, which I think are four of the best hours of tv ever, Restless is probably my overall favourite but The Body is the one which affects me most deeply. As a depiction of the immediate aftermath of death, I find it devastatingly accurate, and the teaser, where Buffy goes from cheerfully teasing her mother about Joyce's recent date and offers to pick up Dawn from school to finding Joyce on the sofa sets that up. Watch SMG's body language and voice change from relaxed adult to child. That sudden little girl voice. "Mom?" And that's when you know, already, this is real, irrevocable, and forever.
5) The Sam Tyler Jacket, Ashes to Ashes season 3, episode 5. I didn't want a "real" appearance by Sam on AtA - he had his own show, you know? - and thus was not disappointed we never got one, but this use of John Simm footage by way of Alex' brain was great and cracks me up to this day; competing with that for my favourite AtA teaser is the "Uptown Girl" sequence, also from season 3, which YouTube won't let me link. I ♥ Alex Drake and her dreams, I tell you.