Day 11 - A show that disappointed you

Well, it happens. It doesn't necessarily mean I quit watching - most shows have their ups and downs, and sometimes saying "oh, show, you used to be better than this" doesn't mean it can't be again; there were several shows in my fannish past which recovered from a low. Sometimes, though, my degree of fannish dissappointment gets to the degree where I have to stop watching because I get no more joy out of the show in question at all, and I never saw the point in staying around only to growl and annoy myself and others.

Which is why I'm a bit uncomfortable with the reply to this question. I mean, whichever of the few shows I stopped watching altogether I pick, the show used to mean something to me, and while at the point of quitting I may have been incensed enough to go on at length about why I'm stopping watching, temporal distance means I tend to remember more of the good than the bad (even though I won't go back).

However, to get on with the meme, I have to pick one, so: Carnivale. Which had a great first season. Incredibly atmospheric, a rich ensemble of characters and complicated relationships (this included same-sex relationsips as well as het ones, friendships and family relationships), lots of shades of grey, mystery, excellent actors. And....then there was season two. Some of the characters were still being written as layered. But so much suddenly became black and white, and with the loss of ambiguities came some not sense making retcon and eminent predictability. Clichés abounded. It was just terribly dissapointing, and when the news came it had been cancelled, I must admit I was sorry it hadn't happened after season 1, because the s1 finale would, if necessary, served as a show finale as well, and then I would only remember a show which was, like American Gothic, really well done, just short lived. It's been a few years now, and the fact I could read some of Daniel Knauf's (that was the show runner responsible for the s2 changes) Marvel comics with interest proved to me I was over my fannish angst and the grrr, argh stage. But I still wouldn't reccommend to anyone more than that first, great, great season.



( The rest of the days )

I've been wrestling this past week with a decision that wasn't easy for me to make: breaking up with a show that is still ongoing. But I've always believed that once the joy and/or fascination you take from something you're fannish about doesn't outweigh the elements that cause you anger or boredom anymore, it's time to move on, rather than being bitter week after week. The first time this happened to me was with Earth: Final Conflict. It would have happened with Carnivale had Carnivale not been cancelled after the second season anyway, and it probably would have happened with Alias if there had been a sixth season, given events in the fifth (i.e. I would not have continued watching, but then again, the events in the fifth I'm referring to would not have happened had it not been the last season; at any rate, the fifth season had elements I enjoyed but I stand by my claim the fourth season would have been the perfect final season). What all of this taught me is that it's possible to separate and still remain fond of the show(s) in question. The first season of Carnivale was an awesome achievement. I hadn't watched Earth: Final Conflict for eons, but the other week I came across a favourite first season episode which was shown on tv and thought, yes, I remember why I liked that show so much back then. And I've never stopped loving Alias, fifth season grudges notwithstanding, and am delighted when finding new fanfiction such as this one.

Now it's Heroes turn. It's not that the third season doesn't offer stories I like; I love Claire's development in particular. But what I dislike is, sadly, a central storyline ( which necessitates a spoiler cut ). Moreover, let me play devil's advocate about the recent Tim Kring interview which caused much fannish ire: I think he's right as far as he himself is concerned. Not everyone can do serialized tv, plot out arcs beyond one season, and it probably would have been better if he had stuck to his original concept of rotating ensembles for each season. It's always better if you stick to what you're good at and are fond of, and if you love origin stories but aren't that interested in long-term developments, well, then you should stick to origin stories. I'm very much reminded of Chris Carter. The X-Files happened just when tv shows with longer arcs started to take off and capture the viewers' imagination, with Babylon 5 leading the way. This caused Carter to add a myth arc to his monster of the week show, and to be frank, it sucked. Not every episode of the myth arc - I'm still fond of the s2 finale and the s3 opener - but it quickly became a convoluted mess which stopped making any sense at all because a) it clearly hadn't been thought out in advance, and b) Carter wasn't good at improvising, either. (Which by contrast JMS was in Babylon 5; some of B5's most memorable developments were the result of having to improvise, as when the network demanded a change of leading man after the first season, but he pulled it off, and the result still feels like long term planning if you watch it in execution.) The X-Files would have been better if they had remained a monster of the week show, or if Carter had handed the show over to someone who could actually plot and/or improvise arcs. Tim Kring appears to have the same problem Carter did, and so unless there is a change of show runner, I don't see how a similar result can be avoided.

What all of this doesn't mean: wailing, ire and expressions of eternal hate on my part, or vows never to return to the Heroesverse again. (Or, for that matter, never to watch something created by Tim Kring again. Trust me, I was absolutely furious with Daniel Knauf about season 2 of Carnivale, but what did I do two days ago? I bought the trade collection which has just been published in German that collects the entire Iron Man: Director of SHIELD run he wrote with his son. Because I enjoyed reading it. I suppose feuds with writers just aren't for me.) I've written
about 30 stories set in the universe of Heroes; I am profoundly grateful to have watched, to have fallen in love with the characters who inspired these stories. And who knows, maybe in a year or two I'll hear that my big s3 problem has been solved in a satisfactorly manner, or that amazing things happened in subsequent episodes, and I'll buy the dvds and will return to watching. But till such a thing happens, I'm saying a fond goodbye, or rather, Auf Wiedersehen, as the farewell in my native language implies the possibility of a reunion, meaning, literally, "till we meet again".

fannish5: What are the five best tv opening credits sequences?

1) Six Feet Under. Because it indicates the death/dysfunctional family/quirky humour elements of the show, in a cool and slightly disturbing way. I always like to think that Claire could have come up with this collage and Olivier would have called it pretentious, inwardly seething with jealousy.

2) Carnivale: from slightly to full disturbing, using the Tarot themes and mixing them with 30s America footage and, well, carnivale elements. The music fits perfectly, too.

3) I, Claudius: Rome sort of paid homage to this one, but nothing beats the original snake crawling over the mosaic, and the music going with it. My hearts beats a little faster each time I hear it.

4) Babylon 5, season 5: B5 had a different opening credits sequence - and different music - for each of the five seasons, going with the concept of them as chapters in a novel. I actually like the music for season 3 best, but as a credit sequence in its entirely, the one for s5 is my favourite. It manages to deliver a short summing up of the entire saga without doing the "last time..." thing, sounds suitably epic, and provides endless rewatching fun when trying to match soundclips to episodes and speakers. (Sometimes, it's easy, as with "you have a hole in your mind...", but it took me a while to identify "weapons supplies" (Bester says it in Ship of Tears)

5) Dexter: back to black humour territory, as we see Dexter go through his morning routine in the credits in a way that teases the first time watcher by making him think he's doing something sinister, but no, he's just cleaning teeth, making breakfeast, etc., complete to whimsical music. The whole credits sequence gains a truly vicious bite and slap in the face in the last episode of s2, though, as it is played out for real. To say more would be spoiling.

***

Now, this weekend, the remixredux08 stories will be revealed, and as I've written two of them and am curious about the one I'll get, I'm impatiently looking forward to it. Meanwhile, there was the reveal of a ficathon I didn't participate in, so I could just enjoy the results as a reader; remixthedrabble!

Here are my favourites:

Harry Potter:

Taking Sides: The Brothers Black, Sirius and Regulus. The genius of both original and remix is that you can't tell who is who, and yet the characterisation is perfect.

Doctor Who:

Paleolinguistics: this remixes the fantastic vignette of astrogirl2 with the same name and slays me. I have a soft spot for fanfiction that uses language and what it means for the characters anyway, and Astro's short take on the Doctor last year this way was genius; this remix presents the Master, and in short form captures his relationship with Gallifrey and with the Doctor as well as his nature. I'm awed.

Threads: is a deceptively light-hearted piece about the Doctor and Martha, and manages to ingeniously explain something in the (lovely) original as well. Enjoy!

Randomly, while watching a season 3 House episode: so, does House get an incest case at least once per season? If so, are we sure David Shore isn’t the alias of a fanfic writer? (Come to think of it, the only time House has been wrong about suspecting incest was the case with the teenager having nightmares. This strengthens my suspicions about Shore.)

Which is as good a place as any to do the obligatory “my take on incest in multifandom” post which everyone seems to write sooner or later. I’m afraid mine will be a bit boring, but here it goes. (Oh, yeah: spoilers for Carnivale, Twin Peaks, Jacobean drama and Romantic poet drama of the rl variety, no spoilers for Heroes, Supernatural and three shows created by Joss Whedon beyond basic character constellations.)

( Now you see it, now you don't... )

A supernatural glitch in your DVR occurs. At first you panic, hitting lots of random buttons on your remote control, but then are RELIEVED to discover that no, your entire series recording of Golden Girls has not been deleted! But then, just as things appear to be back to normal, there's a puff of smoke, and a fairy appears! You have apparently freed the TV fairy from a televised hell in which she was made to watch endless reruns of Are You Hot?, and as fairies tend to be when freed, she is very grateful and wants to grant you magic wishes.

Now, the fairy has only TV-related powerz, and so she offers you the chance to go back in time and retroactively CHANGE the history of your favorite TV shows with 3.5 wishes!

You can go back in time and erase from the fabric of TV history THREE individual episodes of any TV show you want! The rest of the series(es) will not be altered. What do you choose?

1) A View from the Gallery, Babylon 5, season 5. The annoying thing is that the concept - grunts' view on an avarage day of the station - could have been done very well (see also: TNG, Lower Decks) and entertainingly. The thing that makes me want to wipe this from my memory is thet self congratulatory smugness and the horrible mistake of letting our pov characters be such fawning toads to the main characters. You know which alternate pov on B5 works wonderfully well, in the very same season? The Corps is Mother, the Corps is Father. You know why? Because the the pov brings in something new, intriguing and NOT self congratulatory.

2) Harvest of Kairos or Power, which Blake's 7 atrocity by the horrible Ben Steed to choose? I think I'll go with Harvest of Kairos, because while both are horrible and sexist, at least Power is in character for Avon whereas the "I Tarzan/Jarvis, you Servalan" subplot in Kairos is completely ooc for Servalan before or after, and everyone on the Liberator is just so dumb in this episode.... take it away!

3) Covenant, DS9, season 7. Aside from disliking the ZOMG EVIL!Dukat development in general (with the one caveat that I like what it brings to Winn's story line in late s7), this one, featuring him as an evil cult leader as well as kidnapped!Kira is especially cringe worthy, and can be erased without a problem for the rest of the season.

You can go back in time and revive ONE unfairly cancelled television show and return it to the annals of TV history!* *CHOOSE WISELY, because if you attempt to revive more than one show, the wish will backfire and you'll instead be treated to a whole bunch of crappy made-for-TV "reunion" movies full of replacement actors.

It's basically Farscape versus Firefly here. One got a tv miniseries and one got a movie that both wrap up some storylines and give an indication of what the broad outline of another season would have been. I'm going to go with Farscape for two reasons: firstly, a fifth season hopefully would have made me look at some of the more annoying things about season 4 (to wit, Pod!Aeryn and the handling of the John/Aeryn relationship, from gratious angst to lazy unearned reconciliation) more kindly, as well as allow character arcs for the rest of the ensemble (I'm looking at you, Chiana, and you, Sikozu), and secondly, I love Astonishing X-Men, and if Joss were still producing Firefly, he wouldn't be writing it.

Sidenote: the reason why I'm not choosing the unfairly cancelled wonderful American Gothic is simple. They got told they'd get cancelled early enough for Shaun Cassidy to come up with a great season and series finale.

To balance out the historical TV viewing schedule, you now have the power to retroactively CANCEL, at any point during the series, any one show! Alternately, you can wield your destructive might and DELETE one whole entire series from ever having been made.

It's a tough call between Alias and Carnivale and their respective last seasons. Cancelling Carnivale after season 1 would leave me with a wonderful first season, a powerful finale of same, and the memory of a lot of intriguing, ambiguous characters instead of a bitter taste in the mouth. But I think I'll go with Alias after the fourth season though I liked a lot more individual characters and developments of the fifth season than I ever liked of Carnivale, season 2. The thing is, the season 4 finale of Alias can easily work as a great show finale with two adjustments - no tag scene, obviously, and the fate of one character would have to be permanent instead of a coma, because coma spells "we get another season". The actions of all characters make sense, and yes, of course I especially prefer how it leaves the First Gen Spies.

LIFE AND DEATH! You can now bring ONE character back from the dead... and, to restore the balance, you must also kill off a character! They don't have to be from the same fandom.

I'm not going to play favourites or dislikes here, but "what would be most interesting and would work within the show". So, Sheridan stays dead after Z'ha'Dum, the season 3 Babylon 5 finale. Not because I dislike Sheridan, which I don't, but because I think his inner development ends there, and his outer functions - in the Shadow War, the Earth Civil War and later leading the Alliance - could have been carried by Delenn and Ivanova without big changes in the overall arcs. Moreover, it would have given us two women leading - and coming to terms with a shared loss, of course - which I'm always for.

Resurrected: hmmmm. The problem with picking someone from the Jossverse is that in most cases, those deaths really worked for me, and in cases like Cordelia's the writing problems predate the actual death by several seasons, which means resurrecting the character would probably result in more problematic writing. I wouldn't have killed off Jadzia Dax to begin with (though I like Ezri), but then we're going for resurrections, i.e. the death would have happened, and bringing back Jadzia is impossible due to the symbiont surviving. Then there's the entire population of Gallifrey to choose from, cruelly killed off by Rusty when he started New Who, but a) it's impossible to imagine the Who reboot without Nine's "Last of the Timelords" angst, and b) RTD might still bring back you-know-who in the future anyway on the actual show. But talking of Mr. Davies has reminded me of a good candidate: Suzie, from Torchwood. Interesting, competent, and well-acted, plus her (second) return would be a continuing challenge to the ethics of the regulars.


Bonus tradeoff: you can delete a single scene, relationship pairing or plot arc from any series that gave you hives... AND you can plug in any one [scene, pairing, plot arc] that you never got to see!

EVIL!Dukat and any arc connected with same goes, except for Winn's theological struggle, but that can be triggered differently. Either kill Dukat in Sacrifice of Angels together with Ziyal or give him Damar's subsequent storyline. As for the arc that we never got to see, Gareth Thomas does return full time for the fourth season of Blake's 7, and not just for the finale, and we get to see how Blake developed into finale!Blake in tandem with Avon going bonkers on Scorpio.

Academic Pursuit is one result from the Babylon 5 Rare Pairings story and is actually a Crusade fic, starring Max Eilerson (that's him on my icon) and Dureena. Sparkling dialogue, both completely in character, and I love it to bits.

new Battlestar Galactica: The Day I Met You: the five ways that Ellen might've met Saul. Set pre-show, naturally, no spoilers, and such a great take on my favourite Edward Albee couple not written by Edward Albee, the Tighs. Keep your pilots of any nature, these two are my BSG love story of choice. (Well, followed by Baltar/Six in all her guises.)


Chosen is a lovely Alias/Carnivale crossover ficlet written for me by kangeiko, in which those two men of faith, Arvin Sloane and Justin Crowe, encounter each other.

Now, this was written as the result of the recent relationship meme. I had written my take for kangeiko earlier, about Connor (AtS) and Caleb (American Gothic) . Now, sinister seducer that she is, she wants me to expand on that and write Connor/Caleb. But a) I can't write AG fanfic - it would necessitate Southern accents, and I can't write accents in English, b) I can't write grown up Caleb in a serious fashion as long as I have the image of the kid in my brain (perhaps checking out images of Lucas Black today would help?), c) I'm not sure the world would be save with that combination (whaddaya mean I'm a messed up relationships addict?). So clearly all of this saves me from the temptation to ignore my real life obligations for the evil lure of fanfic right now. *am ignoring that I've been writing Connor/Harry Osborn for over a year now at theatrical_muse...*

You know, instead of a proper Carnivale review, which still eludes me for I know I will be unfair in writing one, I offer this summary of the two last episodes in not quite Jacobean blank verse:

( Episode I0 )


( Episode 11 )


Thinking of it as a Jacobean revenge drama really helps. Meanwhile, Te watched season 1 - ah, season 1 - and come up with this wonderful fanfiction.

***

And two Alias fanfiction recs: A Shift in the Wind, one of the products of the recent remix ficathon, and for my money far better than the original. Sydney in season 3, literature, memory and the present falling apart. A great character vignette.

On the more humourous side of things, I just found this priceless take on Weiss in season 4,
"Paranoia and Potential Fatal Agony", subtitled: The Trials and Tribulations of Falling for the Daughter of a Diabolical Genius. Just what I wanted to read ever since seen those priceless scenes with Sloane and Weiss in The Index. Have a taste via a quote:

Weiss had used to have a whole lot of pity for Mike – because he was dating Jack’s daughter, and all. Yeah, Sydney was a great girl – probably worth all of the agony, even – but Weiss wasn’t sure he would’ve kept pursuing that particular romance, if it meant he had to deal with the looming possibility of the ultimate formidable father-in-law. He’s still a little surprised that Jack didn’t just take Mike out back somewhere and shoot him for the whole marrying-Lauren-and-crushing-Syd’s-soul deal. Maybe the wife-killing created some deep spiritual bond, or something. But the thing is, Jack seems almost (and Weiss thinks this in the straightest and most masculine of ways, mind) appealing as of right now. Because Jack? Okay, yeah, scary as hell. But at least he hadn’t been the head of an evil organization who seemed to hold a whistle-while-you-work mentality about offing innocent people.

You know, episodes 8 and 9 confirmed a strange phenomenon for me as far as Carnivale is concerned. This is the first show I like where I tend to regard the episodes written by the show's creator (as a solo effort, not the ones he cowrites with others) as sub par. 8 was a Daniel Knauf solo episode and it illustrated what kradical said at the beginning of this season regarding the opening episode - Knauf just can't do subtle. 9 was written by another writer, and I loved it.

Mind you, I still think this show never quite recovered from the loss of Ronald Moore. (And the contrast to the Moore-shepherded BSG makes that ever more obvious.) I'm buying the first season on DVD, but I'll be perfectly content with the second just on CD. This being said, there is are a lot of great things happening this season, the "good side" is getting far more fleshed out, the narrative pace has sped up, Ben simply rocks, and it's probably far more the kind of show Daniel Knauf wanted from the beginning, good versus evil. It's my own fault for having been more intrigued by storylines like Justin's from last season. But let's go into details, both good and evil:

( Of Prophets and Miracles )
***

Another show whose creator, Terry Nation, was arguably not as good a writer of its episodes as the show's story editor, Chris Boucher (Terry fans, don't devour me - he's a jewel of subtlety compared with Mr. Knauf) is Blake's 7. Gone these many decades, produced on a tiny budget by the BBC that was the leftover from some soap opera, and still alive and floroushing in fandom. Not least because it has fans like watervole, aka Judith Proctor, who maintains the best B7 site on the net and is among many other things an excellent fanfic author.

(In her spare time, she organizes conventions, trips to the theatre to watch Our Heroes on stage, and lures unsuspecting continentals into singing out loud at conventions despite the fact they can't sing, but that's neither here nor there.)

Judith has this amazing knack of being able to write the B7 characters both in their natural surroundings and in other worlds. My absolutely favourite story of hers was originally a fanzine but now is thankfully online. It's theoretical premise would have made me extremely wary if the author had been anyone else, because it's a crossover with a miniseries I had not then seen (I have since, again thanks to Judith), and it uses one of those fanfic tropes which can go badly so easily, i.e. the fact that the same actor, Gareth Thomas, played Blake and Morgan, the character we get to meet in this story.

(Sidenote here: Gareth Thomas' performance as Morgan in Morgan's Boy is amazing, not because this is a very different character from Blake but because it's one of the most intense bits of acting I ever saw on tv or elsewhere. But you can, as I did, enjoy Judith's story without having seen said performance - she gives all the necessary information you need about Morgan in her story.)

"Morgan" is set in Wales and describes the encounter between two very damaged and very different men; one of whom is Avon, and though the why and wherefore of his being there isn't revealed until the end, it makes complete sense within the B7 universe. It's a gen story with a firm sense of place and atmosphere, a credible Avon (who shares the fact of all beloved and ambiguous characters of often gettig whitewashed or, tough much more rarely the other extreme, getting demonized), and it is my very favourite PGP. (Only B7 fans know what this means.)

My second favourite Judith story uses a classic Western as its template - "Shane". It's another PGP and contains a brilliant use of Blake's clone from Weapon and the family he was about to found at this episode. Blake's clone isn't exactly unused in fanfic, but it's great to see him with his own personality and priorities, similar to Blake but definitely not identical. As for that other B7 character, if you can't guess who "Shane" is in this scenario within the first page or so, shame on you. The child narrator sounds perfectly plausible as well, no mean feat to pull off.

Another thing which endears Judith to me as a writer is that she's not only a Blake/Avon (and Blake 'n Avon) fan but fascinated by the dynamic between Avon and Servalan as well. (In my humble opinion, it's what largely drives the third and fourth season of B7.) Her story "The Third Option" describes a plausible PGP encounter between Avon and Servalan which captures everything that made this relationship so intriguing to me, despite the fact that Avon is amnesiac and brainwashed at this point. (And Servalan's reaction to that is so utterly her.)

If ever a poem was obvious to be quoted in a B7 context, it was Oscar Wilde's The Ballad of Reading Goal. Judith's story of the same name gives us Vila's point of view not just on Blake and Avon, but on Avon and himself. Again, you have something that could have gone so wrong - extensive use of poetry quotes is just as dangerous as song fic - and goes so right instead.

Speaking of songfic; as hinted at earlier in this rave, music is dear to Judith's heart, and she's the queen of filk in B7 fandom. It's hard to pick among her little masterpieces, but here are two ensemble pieces:
"Liberator Live Forever" filks the ode to joy, and "Messing about in a Space Ship" ( "Who cares that Blake is a trifle obsessed,/ As long as Kerr Avon wears studs on his vest?") takes on "Messing about on a River". I dare you not to hum at least one of them. Judith will make you. She is that way.

You know, I had a perfectly good rant going, full of complaints about lost subtlety in Carnivale's second season, and then I saw episode 2.05. The name of the writer, Tracy Tormé, rings a bill - didn't she use to write for DS9? (Or was it BTVS, but I think the writer of Something Blue was Tracy Something Else.) In any case, this person, for it now occurs to me that Tracy is one of these English androgynous names which could be female or male, made me a happy watcher. More doppelganger imagery! Great Sofie development! An actually unclichéd guest star! And, which I have to confess adressed my biggest peeve about season 2 - Return of Conflicted Justin And Sibling Angst. A content woman I, for the moment.

( That doesn't mean I won't state my complaints first.... )

More Carnivale, though I just discovered I'm missing the very last episode of season 1 and that my (very gracious, and very generous) source has just sprung to season 2. Behold the mutters of "but... huh?" a couple of times during the season 2 premiere. But enough about that.

( Asylum, Lady Lazarus and Revelations, oh, my! )


Meme from andrastewhite

If you read this, even if we don't often speak/write, please post the first fanfiction/post of mine you remember reading, and what you thought.
Then post this to your journal. See what people remember about you.