Remains

Music video for Maurissa Tancharoen's "Remains" by the creators (and actors) of Dollhouse to celebrate the release of the Season 2 DVDs.  The comment that I saw over at Whedonesque was that it is pretty but has nothing to do with Dollhouse.  I completely disagree!  It is clearly a metaphor for the show.

And also Maurissa Tancharoen is awesome and multi-talented.

Epic Comic Con Crash

This is from the end of the Joss Whedon panel at this year's comic con.  The awesome part begins at about 5 and a half minutes in.  Love it!

I got this video from the Buffyfest blog, where you can also see the whole session.

Mouth Jewelry!

Have you ever heard of My Stepmother is an Alien?  I know I hadn't before today.  But the movie includes this delightful scene featuring an adorable 13-year-old Alyson Hannigan and an adorable 13-year-old Seth Green, nine years pre-Buffy.



What a gem!  [I originally saw this one on io9 (which I also hadn't heard of before today).]

Giant Black Holes

So in my previous post on Genre, I mentioned suspension of disbelief.  How a show establishes the rules of its world and then all is fair after that, as long as it stays within those boundaries.  But what about when an otherwise fantastic show breaks that rule?

The most glaring and recent example that I can think of is the whole time travel storyline on Lost.  I buy the polar bear on the island.  I buy the smoke monster.  I buy the mysterious, whispery "others."  I buy the mystery of the island as a whole.  But when you spend a season establishing what that mystery entails, it's not fair to suddenly introduce a Giant Rule Change in the fifth season.  Now time travel?  And what about that whole "we're moving the island" deal?

Now, I love Lost.  And I will definitely talk more about it a lot (and likely have a FAVES edition on the topic), but this is just the sort of jump-the-shark sort of nonsense that I have problems with.  It doesn't cause me to hate the show.  It ruins some of the literary magic behind it -- makes it slightly less analyzable from a literary perspective.

There are examples of this on every awesome show.  Buffy.  So when she dies, another slayer is supposed to be called right?  [Spoiler Alert:  if you haven't watched Buffy and may some day partake in its excellence, please skip this paragraph.]  And when she dies at the beginning of Season 1, that happens.  But what about when she dies at the end of Season 5?  No new Slayer!  Which is extra annoying in Season 7 when they keep talking about how Buffy has to die for a new slayer to get called.  Really, though, I think Faith would have to die, according to the rules that have already been established.  And how did Angel get into Giles' house to set up that macabre death scene when he'd never been invited?

I think that the reason that this happens to shows is that, unlike other forms of literature like books and movies, television shows have indefinite time horizons over which they tell their stories.  When you establish rules at the outset, it is hard to know how rigid to make them because really, you're trying to make it to next season without getting hacked.  You define the rules and tell the story for the first season, and if you make it to next season, you work with the universe that you created for the first.  And sometimes you have to tweak it.  If you want to see an awesome example of how a show can do this brilliantly without losing credibility, check out Dollhouse Season 1, Epitaph 1 (written when the creators were almost certain they were about to get canceled), and then Season 2 and Epitaph 2.

Dollhouse: Season One (here it is on Amazon, if you're interested!)

So I think that this can at least partially get at why Alias went all supernatural a couple of seasons in, Lost began to randomly jump through time (also perhaps to tell portions of the story they couldn't figure out how to tell otherwise), the ubervamps suddenly became killable in the end of Buffy etc.

But some things are always certain.  Don't doubt Buffy when she tells you someone is a demon.  Don't mess with Veronica Mars.  And in Angel, anything can happen (although there is definitely an interesting discussion here on the overlapping but separately ordered universes of Buffy and Angel).

In the comments:  What plot black hole bothers you the most, in what show?  I know there are so many that I didn't touch on, and I'd love to find out what you are thinking!

Turtle and Cat

I want to be friends with this turtle, but this cat apparently does not.  (As seen on Jezebel)



(not related at all to TV lit, but just really cute)

FAVES: Veronica Mars

Several of my favorite shows came and went too quickly.  Veronica Mars is another show with a somewhat cringe-worthy premise which perhaps contributed to its untimely demise.  But it is actually a wonderful example of quality tv lit (again, introduced to me by the enlightened Phil).  Here it is:  the life of a smart-as-a-whip high school private detective investigating the mystery of her best friend’s brutal murder.  Along the way, alliances shift, friends come and go, new cases-of-the-week arise and are resolved, and everyone learns a valuable lesson.

Sounds kind of silly or cliché, right?  Now here is what makes it awesome:

1.  It is smart, fresh, and unique.  There really isn't anything else out there like it!

2.  One of my favorite things about Veronica Mars is character development.  People on the show change dramatically over the course of a season, but remain consistently who they are so that it doesn’t seem ridiculous.  People you hate at the beginning become heroes, while others you liked and trusted let you down.  It seems to happen organically.

One of the writers' main challenges on the show is making believable high school characters likable, relatable and interesting.  And they succeed.  Veronica herself is extremely engaging so you really care about what is going on in her life.  At the same time, she is flawed, and makes serious mistakes along the way.  But because you really get to understand her motivations from the beginning, you are always pulling for her, even when her chronic trust issues are bungling up the whole operation.

3.  You just don’t know what’s going to happen.  Like my mom, I can generally predict what is going to happen on a show, and where story arcs are headed.  Predictability and common conventions can become really boring in literature, especially on television where the story needs to have a high degree of longevity to work.  But on Veronica Mars, I can very rarely predict whodunit or how a dilemma will be resolved, either in the main season mystery or in the case-of-the-week.  They always manage to keep it fresh and interesting, which makes the show consistently engaging. 

4.  It’s got a wonderful mix of comedy and drama.  The characters are all so sassy, which keeps the vibe fun even as their worlds are often in complete disarray.  But they are also amazingly capable of displaying deep and genuine emotion.

5.  The best daughter-dad relationship on television.

6.  Fabulous celebrity guest-stars (Charisma Carpenter!  Jane Lynch!  Alyson Hannigan!  Laura San Giacomo!  Joss Whedon!!!)

I recently purchased the first season (super cheap from Amazon), and started watching it with my mom, and she loves it too (so far anyway)!  If you decide to give it a go, don’t be put off by the amazing quantity of flash-backs in the pilot episode.  They’re just setting it up for you so that when the show hits its stride you won’t be bogged down about back stories. 

So if you want to give the show a go, check it out here: Veronica Mars: The Complete First Season (also the whole series is available on Netflix!)

Favorite Episodes (Season 1 heavy, probably because I haven't seen 2 or 3 in a long time):

• "The Wrath of Con" (Season 1)
• "Like a Virgin" (Season 1)
• "Silence of the Lamb" (Season 1)
• "M.A.D." (Season 1)
• "Trip to the Dentist" (Season 1)
• "Leave it to Beaver" (Season 1)
• "Green-Eyed Monster" (Season 2)
• "Ahoy Mateys" (Season 2)
• "The Rapes of Graff" (Season 2)
• "Not Pictured" (Season 2)
• "My Big Fat Greek Rush Week" (Season 3)
• "Mars, Bars" (Season 3)
• "Un-American Graffiti" (Season 3)

I look forward to seeing your comments about how much you love Veronica Mars, which clutch episodes I left of this list, or how I got it right/wrong.  

So You Think You Can Be Unbiased?

Disclaimer:  I realize that So You Think You Can Dance is not exactly TV Lit according to my own Criteria.  However, I was annoyed about this issue so I thought I would talk about it anyway.  If you are interested, read on!

Last night’s episode of So You Think You Can Dance continued this season's trend of female eliminations.  The pool of contestants has now been whittled down to 6 men and 2 women, due to the judge's ongoing bias.  

I know, I know what you're saying now -- it's about how America votes and if they like the guys, so be it.  But as Cat Deeley reminds us, those votes are heavily influenced by the judges, who also have the final say in who goes home, after all.  And they have seriously favored the guys this season, starting from the beginning.  All during auditions and Vegas Week, we were told (again and again) that this season there were going to be only TEN finalists -- not the normal 20.

[side note:  I would also like to insert a discussion here about what else is bad about this season, such as the speechy judges and super distracting stage, but I will restrain myself and stick to the topic at hand.]

But then the judges just couldn't get it down to 5 guys because the guys are just so good this year.  So they simply HAVE to have 6 guys.  (Oh, and they managed to find 5 passable ladies too.)  So right away, there is an imbalance.  If they were starting with 6 guys, why not also start with 6 ladies, to make it balanced?

Then the actual competition started and was immediately biased for the guys.  Yes, Alex is a prodigy and Kent is all back-country and kind of adorable and Billy is amazing too.  But the judges just couldn't stop raving about every guy and meh-ing the ladies.  All three weeks so far the judges have generally praised the guys and focused on their performances, while saying very little about the girls' performances beyond their (often ugly and/or inappropriate) costuming, assigned choreography, or butt appeal.  

Let's compare Jose and Melinda for example.  These two individuals are definitely the worst dancers (across genres) of the season.  When Jose goes out there and botches a Bollywood or Samba number, but does it with a swagger and a smile on his face, he's charming and they eat it up.  When Melinda goes out there and tries equally hard, equally enthusiastically, and equally skillfully, they nail her.  They tell her she should have already been gone.  (Although they did compliment her on her outfit, which was of course extremely revealing and unflattering.)

Nigel even admits frequently that they don't judge Jose on his skill.  Which is great for him, because outside of his be-bop tricks, he has precious few.  Instead, for him, it's all about personality.  For the ladies, it's about scandalous outfits and very near breast-exposure incidents.  

And about that "wardrobe malfunction": how much of the judging consisted of Nigel being pervy about that rather than judging her actual performance?  I don’t know if this is just me, but I hate it when he ogles the girls.  Mia said at one point that she wasn’t buying Lauren as a lady throughout the dance, until her breast very nearly popped right out of her costume.  Come on, Mia.  She actually has to show you her lady parts to be convincingly female?

For the sake of the remaining two lady contestants and the legitimacy of the show, I seriously hope that the judges throw out their preconceived notions of who is wonderful and who is just a pretty decoration on the set.