liz_marcs | Does this make me a Bad Fan?

Confession #1:

I'm approximately 1 gazillion times more excited about Mama Mia! opening today than I am about The Dark Knight, despite the fact that I can see The Dark Knight at no less than 2 IMAX theaters within easy driving distance.

Confession #2:

It appears that I will buy anything David Simon does because, as it turns out, he's my favorite author (for television) ever. I own the book Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets, all 7 seasons plus television movie of Homicide: Life on the Street, the book The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood, the HBO series The Corner, and the first 4 seasons of The Wire (with Season 5 on order for immediate shipping when it's available next month).

I am counting down to when Generation Kill will be available on DVD (I don't get HBO) so I can get my hands on it.

In short, you know how people will buy anything Joss Whedon does (even when it's total crap) and call him a genius for it (even though it's a case of the emperor walking around completely starkers)?

This is apparently how I treat productions involving David Simon, Ed Burns, and partners.

How can I put this...long before I let any of David Simon's stuff out of my hands, I will sell both my Angel and Buffy box sets.

The hell with that. I will burn my Angel and Buffy box sets before I give up any of David Simon's stuff.

(Seriously, those of you who kept looking for meaning in the "numbered shirts" of Buffy Season 6 that actually didn't have any meaning beyond, "We found a bunch of these for cheap in thrift shops?" Try The Wire, which actually has twice the meaning and twice the mythic elements of any Angel and Buffy episode without requiring you to fanwank. Best of all? The Wire actually has continuity that puts most book series to shame. No. I'm not kidding.)

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

I'm definitely not seeing anything resembling a Xander/Dawn ship emerging. (Let's just say that I've read through the comics, but haven't spent a dime on them.) Every scene that I've seen between the two screams "big brother." I'm just not seeing Xander teasing Dawn about being a centaur as anything resembling shippy. So I'm kind of mystified by the speculation of where that came from.

Actually, the Xander-hate wank is Heeeeee-Laaaarius. (Hey, I'm amused.) If you read back at the beginning of the thread, whoever WarEmblem is hung out in the corner of the 'Net where Xander is universally hated. They pretty much walked into another part of the net where Xander is either well-liked or people feel neutral about him.

Then again, WarEmblem seems convinced that Spike and Dawn had a "special relationship" that spanned the last 3 seasons (Ummmmm, no. Everyone commented at the time how Spike dropped Dawn like a hot potato as soon as he got Buffy), so I suspect his/her point of view is slightly Spike-centric.

Although I really love the part where WarEmblem would've had more respect if he was a Shaggy-style stoner. That made me go, "Whut?" Heeee!

No, really, it's pretty funny. WarEmblem seems hell-bent and determined to convince people that Xander is a Very Bad Person Who Deserves Badness Because Clearly He Wouldn't Be Fighting Evil If He Wasn't Crushing On Buffy and everyone else point out in-text reasons why WarEmblem is kinda wrong.

I have to admit that the latest Whedonesque thing that made me headdesk was some headline about how "Dr. Horrible" proved "Dougie Howser" could sing.

Soooo, ummmmm, all his musical theater work on Broadway and London between 1997 and 2006 doesn't count then?

I think this is why I'm floored when people are surprised that NPH can sing, because I clearly remember him singing Soundheim theater pieces on PBS something like 8 years ago.

Sorry. I just saw that headline today and I'm all, "The hell?"

I fully admit that "The Wire" is not for everyone. Some people are thrown off by either the swearing (and there's a lot), the sex (there is a lot), and the violence (very much a lot). Other's can't wrap their heads around the Baltimore accents and patois of the drug trade.

I'm not saying that it's an acquired taste, but it actually doesn't follow that loving H:Lots will automatically transfer to loving "The Wire." It's more likely, but it all depends on what your tolerance level is for what is essentially a televised true crime-style novel that was cablecast on a channel where there's no such thing as network standards and practices.

I watched Dexter season one and, while it's interesting, after seeing the whole thing I've decided that I'm a whole lot less enamored of it than most people. I liked the first couple of episodes, but after awhile...I got bored with it.

In short, I like it, but I don't get why people are wild about it.

As for the Wire...definitely top quality stuff and I love it, although it's far more violent that Dexter is and the characters far more morally ambiguous.

I think it's the difference between a cartoon where violence is a component (Dexter) and one where violence is part of the core issue being addressed (The Wire).

Yeah, I saw that too and had pretty much the same reaction. I think I still remember the headlines re: Doogie Howser being in Rent. But you know if there isn't a camera and a screen...it doesn't count as "real" (and PBS clearly doesn't count :oP )

IMHO, Joss Wheedon is an excellent writer...as long as there is someone standing over his shoulder with a nail-studded Editor's Stick. Once that goes away, his stuff ranges from mildly entertaining to 'pitchfork-wielding mob' bad.

Anyone who's read 'The Astonishing X-Men' under his rule and seen what he did to Kitty understands what I mean by 'pitchfork-wielding mob'.

As for comparing his writing to Homicide, that's sort of like comparing 'Shrek 3' to 'WALL-E'. (Incidentally, for those who think WALL-E is being hypocritical, consider; the only merchandising that has come out for WALL-E that I have been able to find is a computer game. No McD or BK toys, no T-Shirts, no action figures, no NOTHING)

Dexter is popular, I think, for the same reason people slow down when going by an automobile accident. Personally, I've seen one show because I don't believe in condemning a show without seeing it at least once and I don't care to root for a serial killer regardless of who his targets are.

Oh, yes. The Special Relationship of Spike and Dawn in which Dawn, when seeing Spike for the first time after learning of the Attempted Rape of Buffy, coldly threatens to set him on fire if he ever hurts Buffy again, and that was pretty much the last interaction between them we ever saw. (And that was the season's second episode.)

And since WarEmblem declared that he/she is convinced that Buffy was actually in love with Spike in Season Six, and that was the real reason why she was so conflicted about having sex with him, in spite of all the canon evidence to the contrary, I'm pretty sure we know which corner of the internet WarEmblem hung out in.

As for the comments about Xander only being there because he still crushes on Buffy, I find it to be an example of the many double standards applied to Xander as a character. Angel and Spike are both shown to be pettily and pathetically still unable to get over Buffy, and it's hailed as Twu Wuv and swoonworthy. Yet despite five seasons of solid evidence that Xander did get over his crush on Buffy, the Xander bashers just looooove to drag out the chestnut that he has always been crushing/in lust with her (note that it's never that he was "in love" with her, 'cause that would somehow make it "all right") and turn it into "proof" that he's just an unprincipled, unthinking scumbag who only wants to get inside Buffy's pants. *eyeroll*

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