geekent’s stuff’n things

I blazed through Buffy Season 3 in five days. That’s 22 episodes in one concentrated dose. I would say that was a tremedous accomplishment, but I actually made it through Season 2 in less time.
In a blog entry from June 23, 2002 I state

Season 2 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on DVD… I watched 16 episodes in 24 hours… now, that doesn’t equal 16 hours of straight Buffy watching (not only because I fell asleep for 7 of them, but because they’re only 44 minutes long so it’s really only more like 12 hours… that makes me feel better)

Now to be fair, I was unemployed at the time, and a practicing shut-in.
I don’t know what my excuse is now.
I actually repeated this great feat of 16 episodes within 24 hours this past Sunday/Monday, and I polished off the rest on Wednesday. I finished off the rest of season 2 on June 24, 2002.
All I can say is the Buffster is a damn addictive show, and the legion of fans already know what I’m talking about. But there are those that shun Buffy for one reason or another, people like Emma, who came downstairs and said “You’re actually watching this?” to which I replied “Yep” and she snickered and went back upstairs.
A few days later I was saying to her that it was the same creator as “Firefly”, which she really enjoyed.
“I know,” she said, but she still wasn’t interested.
“I’ve dated two types of guys,” she said “those who play hockey, and those who watch Buffy.” She was being dismissive of the show and I’m not sure if she was insulting me or not… I guess what she was saying is that other guys have tried to get her to watch the show before and that she hadn’t caved yet… either that or she’d rather play hockey. I dunno.
If it’s for the “cute girl” factor - which I imagine is why most women whose boyfriends try to get them watch the show would be turned off by it - I really don’t find Sarah Michelle Gellar all that attractive. But Allison Hannigan… she’s awesome, major crushage there.
Granted, it’s a silly show… but it’s an incredibly well done silly show. The acting is note perfect, and the writing is sharp. I have some problems with it, notably:

• 1) the action sequences - the obvious cut-to-stunt-double action sequences are tough to swallow at times. I’m proud of the actors on Alias who go as far as they can to do all of their own action work, the duke out between Buffy and Faith was a really great fight made awful by cheesy deceptive editing. And, notice, in almost every major fight sequence somebody’s going through the glass (window or door it don’t matter).
• 2) the implausabilities - don’t any other students use the library? All that death and nobody really questions it (they do an okay job of touching upon this in Season 3, but it’s still hard resolve in my rationalogical brain how people can just ignore all the weird stuff that happens (like zombies trashing a party or vampires taking over the Bronze) and go back to regular life. Really, Buffy and Willow and Xander should have had an army of help long before Graduation Day.
• 3) Is it just me or is Angle able to tolerate sunlight a lot better than most vampires (except maybe Spike).
• 4) The final episode of season 3 was the worst episode of Buffy yet. The action was lame, the effects were weak, the direction was awful, the drama was cheesy (and that’s the thing they always get right) and the comedy was obvious (the other thing they always get right)… and for all the build up, it seemed to end rather easily, very anti-climactic… it stank of TV show production values. And this was a Whedon episode…!

All that aside, as I said, they get so much right, the comedy and the dramatic aspects… the soap operaticness of it works so well, and its addictive nature is scarcely replicated. Six Feet Under would be the only show currently running that comes close to the same level of “oh God I can’t wait for the next episode… I just can’t..” feeling (although Desperate Housewives is certainly trying but it’s not quite as intriguing and the characters aren’t as well developed).
Season 4 would make a nice Xmas gift……..

and in other realms

I was watching the second disc of Lexx season 4.
I know a lot of people can’t stand this show because of its flagrant and open use of double entendres and the perpetual sexual gutter it finds itself in… not to mention the budget special effects and some pretty bad acting from not-so-good-on-the-English German actors (Lexx was a co-financed Canadian/German production). I always found this to be rather endearing. Though formulaic in its own right Lexx really broke all the Star Trek wandering-spaceship conventions, mostly through mass destruction and gratuitous sexuality. Subtlety not a strong suit of the show, but that’s its whole point. It brings out the more basic human qualities to contrast against the less obvious ones.
Season four brings the crew of the Lexx to Earth, an alternative Earth to ours, but barely any different. The president is a sham president (hmm, sound familiar) being controlled by a more malicious, evil party (hmmm?). The planet is obsessed with celebrity and entertainment (no way!) and everybody’s just a little less likeable than they would be on our real planet (the planet was infected with the tortured souls of the Fire planet at the end of season 3).
Episode five kicked off this disk was a Survivor parody (perhaps one of the first) where 10 burly guys (okay, 9 burly men and Stan) competed for a chance to sex up Xev. Of course things don’t go smoothly as the island is infested with robotic alien carrots
Episode six dropped the gang in Newfoundland, which earlier in the season the sham President had given Stan the lordship over. The rock finds not only Stanley’s evil double, but Father Pickle portrayed by Frank Kelly (he played Father Jack on “Father Ted”). In the end, Newfoundland is nuked by the President, let the nihilism continue.
Episode seven and eight round out the second disk with Kai dragging the gang to Transylvania. Here they naturally get involved in dispelling the legend of Dracula, which the writers wrap up nicely into the Lexx folklore… and really kick the piss out of goths along the way.

what are you?

I was never a routine follower of the Batman cartoon from the early 90’s. Oh, I liked it all right, and I would have watched it on a regular basis if it ever aired when I could watch it on a regular basis. Without access to the WB, the only venue I had for the show was either YTV or the local TBT (Thunder Bay Television) station - I don’t remember which - and they aired it during school hours. I was in high school back then so it was a little more difficult to skip class than it had been in university… oh, and our VCR at the time really sucked on reliability.
I’ve probably only ever caught two dozen episodes of the show, but I was always floored by it. Solid storytelling, amazing visuals, great score… it was a mature show that kids could enjoy, and it treated the characters with respect.
Now, thanks to DVD I can start at the beginning (not that it really matters where I start as the show had no overt continuity). And I have… actually, only watched the first episode.
It surprises me how different the first episode was compared to the rest of the series. Reminding me more of 1940’s animation, with muted colours and a fluid, if rushed, character movement, the story was told in a very noirish fashion. Very much inspired by the Fleisher Superman animation, the sensibilities come through. It has a vintage feel to it in every respect, almost like watching a half-century old unearthed treasure from the Warner Brothers’ vault.

The voice actor for Batman/Bruce Wayne (Kevin Conroy) is so perfect, and is so entrenched with the character after almost 15 years that not only do I find it hard to accept another person as Batman, but Conroy is Batman (even in a recent Justice League Unlimited episode where Batman belts out a beautiful tune to save Wonder Woman’s life, I believed it, because the voice is key). He does a great shift from Bats to Bruce Wayne, from husky to chipper without effort. That’s acting. The characters of Bullock and Gordon don’t seem as properly defined as I know they will be later in the series, but the voices are already there, no rough growing pains like the first season of the Simpsons or the first few episodes of King of the Hill. The same can’t be said of the voice actor for Alfred, as he’s snide and annoying here instead of sarcastic but sincere as he is for the remainder of the show.
One of the most amazing things is the show kicks off assuming that the audience knows Batman. They don’t need to explain him, they don’t need an origin story, they just hop right into the adventure. This is how comic-book characters to other media should be. We know the story, give us something new.
It’s going to be interesting watching as the show transitions out from it’s 40’s influence to how it regularly presented itself… I’m curious to see how long it takes. Still, it’s easily one of the best and most accessable cartoons ever.

there’ll be no more nappin’

I realized while watching the second episode of Pee Wee’s Playhouse on DVD that Michael Jackson was trying to transform himeslf into this man-child/human cartoon.
Pee Wee is the modern-day Peter Pan, the boy that never grows old, he’s too child-minded to discriminate and he’s friendly to everyone, even those he doesn’t like.
He’s got all the toys a boy could want and he knows how to have fun, the show is one big allegory for imagination. Claymation brings to life the contents of the freezer, the window and the chair can talk, and there’s a giant beat box robot that spits out the secret word of the day. Visitors are cowboys and beauty queens and kings of cartoons, and a trio of multi-culture pals who come to play and watch the dinosaurs that live in the mouse hole.
There’s something so completely non-threatening about Pee Wee’s Playhouse. The theme song invites you in and you’re glad to be there amidst all the wacky characters that turn up. Claymation, puppetry, computers and cel animation breathe character into everything, and Paul Reubens is as rubbery and herky-jerky as everything else around him.
I loved this show a tremendous deal as a kid, and watching it again for the first time in easily 15 years, I still love it. It’s as vibrant and active and visually enjoyable as it ever was. Though the 1980’s beatbox robot threatens to firmly place it in that era, the 1950’s beehive hairdo, the old west cowboy, the vintage cartoons, the ’60’s beatnik jazz band and really everything about it put the Playhouse firmly into the spectrum of time. Pee Wee is as much a pop culture icon as Alf or Crockett and Tubbs, the only difference is the Playhouse which planted him in the world isn’t quite so dateable. Pee Wee’s Playhouse didn’t try to do anything cutting edge in terms of television and visual technology, instead it relied on well worn, old fashioned technologies and an innovative sensibility to forge its ways into annals of great children’s programming.
Though hardly the same as heavily marketed kidstuffs like Blue’s Clues, these Pee Wee episodes I’m sure could still engage and entertain kids. The attitude is right and the visuals are still unique even by today’s standards.
Whie it would truly be a bit overwhelming to take in a marathon’s worth of the show, I’m looking forward to slowly watching the 50 or so episodes (5 seasons in two boxed sets) over the next few months. I seem to wake up perkier the next day having watched an episode the night before, arising with Cindy Lauper’s theme song gleefully bouncing around in my brain.

BANJO!!!

Though still relatively unknown in Canada, the Adult Swim lineup of 15-minute zonko cartoons and imported Anime is a huge deal amongst the indie/college crowd in the US.
We’re just beginning to get some Aqua Teen Hunger Force here, and Harvey Birdman and the Brak Show pop up from time to time, but the concept of 15 minutes of surreal animation still hasn’t caught hold. But for those that get it, that have jumped on board the Sealab 2021 repurposed animation bandwagon Space Ghost: Coast To Coast was the first to take animation from old cartoons and resequence them with some new animation to make wonderfully fresh and strangely compelly cartoon comedies. Only Space Ghost went a little further, and became the first ever cartoon talk show host… to interview real people.
I’ve been hip to the SG:C2C vibe since I was given a third generation videotape from a friend of a friend back in ‘98. This was some grand stuff, b-list (and below) celebrities like Adam West and Bobcat Goldthwaite sitting down for heavily edited interviews with a cartoon character. It blew my mind.
A handful of years later, it still does. I’ve been following the show and it’s spawn since then and it’s still impresses me, and entertains me like few other shows do. The DVD sets that are coming out every four months are allowing me to get reaquainted with all these show on a larger screen, as up until now I’ve only watched them as crappy .mov or .avi files on my computer downloaded through a half dozen different sources.
I just polished off Space Ghost: Coast to Coast volume 2, which really shows the progression of the series. Whereas volume 1 presents, for the most part, the idea of “cartoon talk show”, volume 2 expands upon that, adding character and chronology to it, as well as in many cases, a bit of a storyline (such as “Jacksonville”, a delirious spoof on 1970’s tv action dramas… “Space Ghost… I think I’m pregnant”). The odd throwback to a previous show may escape the casual viewer but to the faithful they’re highly amusing, and some of the most rewarding aspects. Like any bit of pop culture, SG:C2C is infinitely quotable, the type of thing that gets people in the know snickering when you drop a reference.
This volume set features a bit more spoofing, kicking off with a 2001 inspired episode where a gigantic computer takes over Moltar’s producer as host of the show. Another episode “Late Show” is a direct riff on the David Letterman show of the same name (actually written by two Late Show staff writers). As enjoyable as these are, it’s when the show gets off kilter with its own inspired mania that it gets really good, such as “Woody Allen’s Fall Project” where a team of amateur actors in costumes reenact favourite interviews from Space Ghost’s past, and they do it shot for shot.

And then sometimes it’s the guests that make the episode great. Jonathan Richman gives a delightfully obtuse interview which was so odd it got it’s own full episode… and television history was made when master chef and tv pitchman Martin Yan “relaxes a chicken” (it has to be seen to be believed).
If you’ve been curious about Space Ghost, but aren’t interested in the growing pains, volume 2 is the place to start. While all the bugs aren’t worked out yet, the groundwork has already been laid so the cast and crew seem freed to do more and more crazy things (episodes don’t stick to any format and they rarely stick to any time restrictions). This sets up SG: C2C volume 3, coming summer of 2005, which will present the 1997 season of Space Ghost when Cartoon Network gave a mandatory 26 episode directive where they really get their foothold into the format and deliver the perfect mix of story and interview. Plus, as the years wore on, Space Ghost’s infamy spread and bigger and better guest stars were booked, and available to do more interesting things.
The audio commentaries here are a vast improvement over volume 1 as well, with guest stars, some tomfoolery, and a good group dynamic, as well as some real insight into the technical difficulties of producing a live-action/cheaply animated cross. There’s never been anything like this.

Mr. Wendell

There are only a handfull of truly great shows on network tv and very few of those are comedies. Really great comedy isn’t usually appreciated by the masses. Great comedy provokes and questions, it’s deceptive and defies expectations. We get stuck with what are called sit-coms… situation comedies where the same thing happens over and over again only in different degrees of severity. This can work, but more often it’s regurgatative tripe that doesn’t really amuse anyone but the laugh track (you don’t hear a lot of “…was filmed before a live studio audience” these days anymore for good reason).
There are shows that arise from time to time that spoof the formulaic tendencies of sit-com land, like Chris Elliott’s “Get A Life” or Parker and Stone’s “That’s My Bush”, but these fail because most people don’t get the joke and they don’t last.
Sitcoms are tired because they stick with a status quo. They don’t progress at all and every episode is a new start. But if that’s your structure, you can have fun with it. The Simpsons and Seinfeld were the first to really explore the concept that you can put your characters through the ringer every episode and then start afresh the next week as if nothing happened (then gain comedy and confusion by adding nuggets of continuity via throwback comments to previous episodes).
On the other side, you can have an ongoing drama within the comedy, bringing in relationships and storylines that carried over a season. Cheers was the first sitcom to establish this, making next week’s episode a must-watch to see what happens with Sam and Diane. As funny as it was, and still is, in retrospect it’s not as well done as they are today by other shows. Friends picked up where Cheers left off and generated a formula for friend-and-romance comedies that we’re going to suffer with for another decade at least.
The best comedies on tv pick up and advance the concepts Cheers and the Simpsons brought to life (oddly enough Fraser fell back into old-school sitcom patterns, and Simpsons has become a tired imitation of itself).
Malcom In The Middle was the first live action family-sitcom to take the Simpsons challenge. It could not only separate each of the characters from the situation in the situation-comedy but it could tear them apart without consequences in the next episode. While I stopped watching the show a couple years ago, I did really quite enjoy it. It’s the first American show I can recall that made use of the quick sidestep… you know when a character mentions something that happened in the past (not an old episode) and it quickly flashes back to show you what they mean, usually some insanely goofy thing the character did, provoking a “what the?” kind of laugh. Corner Gas also works using this technique and is the first Canadian sit-com to do so.
Scrubs grabbed onto this technique and has mastered it. Not only do they do the asides, but they also have narration, which isn’t the easiest thing to do in comedy - the last successful narrated network tv comedy was Doogie Howser M.D. - but Sex and the City made it work and so does Scrubs.
And then there’s Arrested Development, which is the next step up from Scrubs, taking the narration and the sidesteps one step further, as and serialized family sit-com with a storyline and continuity. Each episode segues into the next and yet they remarkably stand on their own. Each character gets their spotlight, every couple of episodes, and the show is smart enough to realize it doesn’t need to have each key player in every episode. This is one fearless program that’s not afraid to mess with convention.
It’s everything television should be, provocative and insightful, equal parts educated and ignorant. It bursts out of the stereotypical comedic character molds (the slut, the dumb guy, the smart one, the sarcastic one) and instead plays with their nuances, bringing out aspects of greed and fear and joy and reservation and any and every emotion that will be useful for the situation. These characters don’t feel trapped by the situation but instead they feel trapped by their own character.
The cast of AD is note perfect, and they seemed to have their incisors in the flesh of their roles from the first episode. Jason Bateman is an easy leading man, and has familiarity on his side… even though he’s hardly been on tv for a decade. He’s the everyman amidst a house of fools. Jeffry Tambor is always a delight, stepping into the dual role of twin brother, one incarcerated for corporate fraud, the other a shifty hippie. And then there’s scenery chewing guest stars like Carl Weathers as a thrifty parody of himself and Liza Minelli as the chief rival and mirror image of the mother of the clan.
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There are no growing pains from episode 1 to episode 20. The first episode is just as funny as episode 12, and they’re all as consistently equal to each other. They smartly know it’s not the situation you throw at them that’s funny but how they react.
The DVD is a wonderful collection of the complete first season, with some deleted and extended scenes which I can only imagine were cut for time and story issues, as they’re just as funny as the rest of the episode. There are some commentaries which I haven’t had the chance to explore, but if the ensemble interview is anything it just seems everyone is extremely happy to be working on such a great show.
The only downside to releasing season 1 on DVD so soon after it wrapped was waiting for season 2 to start, and then realizing you’d have to get your dose of AD on a week-by-week basis instead of whenever you want.

and finally

from TVShowsOnDVD
The third and fourth season sets of Six Feet Under are being prepared for DVD release next year as the fifth season of that series debuts. That final season will be released within a year of its debut.