#did i go back and watch entire seasons of a cancelled show just for him?

[volatilememory]

#dominic copeland #holby city #david ames #did i go back and watch entire seasons of a cancelled show just for him? #you bet #my gif

[sykokilljoyy]

hi lovely!! I absolutely love your writing, I was wondering if you could please write somethin fluffy about dating ksi? maybe just having a cosy night in with him or something. hope you're well!

a/n: hi darling <3 thank u for the req! i thought this would be better done in a headcanon style? hope that's okay! <3

DATING KSI - headcanons!

you were both childhood best friends - you, jj and simon growing up around the same place, going to the same school. you didn't end up picking up youtube yourself, but there's rarely been a video that you weren't behind the camera, helping somehow.

simon was tired after years of you both secretly (not so secretly) pining for each other, refusing to admit you were both in love.

he waited until after high school, set up a nice posh meal with the 3 of you, then cancelled last minute - basically forcing you on your first date

jj gave simon the biggest hug when you both returned hours later, hand in hand

as much as he would be absolutely obsessed with you, he would be insanely protective

all the fans knew about you, he posted you often, and would actively block or denounce any single bit of hate towards you

jokes about you in basically every reddit video

his hands would never ever leave you, especially somewhere like a youtube party or boxing celebrations

speaking of boxing–

you were SO proud of him and his boxing, literally more than anyone and anything, but holy shit it scared you–

early boxing days, he would come home with bruises and cuts on his face, sheepishly creeping his arms around you from behind whilst you were doing something, nuzzling his head in your neck in hopes you wouldn't notice

you did

"jj!"

"i'm sorry! it's not as bad as it looks"

"shut up and let me clean you up"

says he's sorry, but secretly loves when you're propped on his lap, face knotted in concentration as you tend to the cuts on his face

he loves knowing you care for him, knowing you're there

and he supports your passions 1000%

sometimes he seems more excited about your goals than you are – he just loves how expressive you get when you talk about it all

you both make sure to save one night every week free for each other, to either go out on a date or stay in and spend time with just the two of you

jj's favourite is quiet nights in, which surprised you at first

for a man who spends his entire life in flashy clothes, concerts, fights, audiences of millions, you'd expect him to adore taking you out to expensive restaurants or snazzy nightclubs

but no

he always said he spent half his life in front of an audience, his favourite moments are when its only you there to witness him

his person

most weeks find the two of you curled up, passed out, snoring on the sofa with a tv show playing like white noise in the background, empty takeout boxes on the coffee table, you on his chest and his arms wrapped around you tightly

waking up with back pain and noticing you slept through like 3 entire seasons of the show you wanted to watch

"do you remember what episode we were up to?"

"um the one where the main character was talking to that other character..."

"ok so every episode, thank you jj"

"you're welcome, baby"

coming home from a shoot without him one night, you were tired and your social battery was nonexistent

dropping your stuff at the door, heading towards your shared bedroom

he's at his pc, editing or playing overwatch or something

notices you and how tired you are

"come here, baby"

shifts his chair to give you room and gestures towards you, you walk up and sit on his lap, wrapping your arms around him softly and pressing your face into his neck

he always smelt really nice

kissing you gently on the forehead, he carried on with what he was doing, occasionally stopping to rub your back or play with your hair

you were so tired

"i love you, y/n" you hear before you fall asleep there

"i love you, jj"

waking up the next day, tucked into bed with his strong arms around your waist, chest pressed against your back, legs intertwined under the covers

"good morning, baby"

"morning, jj"

he was just so happy to have you, all the time

a/n: oh em gee headcanons are so fun what to anon, if you wanted a full imagine version, lmk!! i just liked the idea of trying a headcanon style for the first time with this request! thank you darling <3

harry smut out this week!

#ksi #ksi imagine #ksi x reader #ksi fanfiction #jj #jj olatunji #olajide olatunji #sidemen #sidemen imagine #sidemen fanfiction #sidemen fanfic #sidemen imagines #wroetoshaw #behzinga #miniminter #tbjzl #zerkaa #vikkstar #fanfiction #writing #ksi vs faze temperrr #headcanon #headcanons #sykokilljoy

[cookinguptales]

some feelings about wwdits under a cut, for negativity

WWDITS... I don't know. I don't think I've found the writing entirely fulfilling for a while now. s4 had its problems, but s5 was... let's just say not nearly as funny or cohesive as I would've liked, and the characterization has been... wandering, to put it kindly. Seeing it end now feels a little less like losing my favorite show and a little more like stopping it before things really start to spiral.

I remember someone asked me once post-s3 what (if anything) would make me stop watching the show, and I said Guillermo leaving for good or the characters becoming less supernatural. (i.e. Nandor becoming human for good or something.) I really hate shows where the characters become "normal" as a happy ending, so that's really my nightmare scenario. I'm not exaggerating when I say I think I'd literally rather the characters die than lose the spark that makes them interesting.

Honestly, I feel like that's probably a lot of what's made it hard for me to move forward with writing fic for wwdits after the s5 finale. It felt not only OOC for Guillermo but just... such a boring direction to take it. I feel like there were so many ways they could have made non-vampire Guillermo interesting and IC and they just. did not do that. Instead they ignored a lot of previous canon in order to cancel out an entire season while also trying to make us believe that Guillermo choosing humanity is a happy and fulfilling ending for anyone.

And when you look at characters like Laszlo... like they keep giving him plot lines that go absolutely nowhere. The poignancy of his adventures in fatherhood and his depression over losing his child were basically nowhere to be seen in s5. (I kept expecting them to tie it back to his loss over Baby Colin, like he was making Guillermo his new project because he wasn't coping well with losing his son, but they never really went there.) And then they have him doing all of these experiments in s5 that don't really amount to anything other than making it canon that he can't even remember what happened in s1.

(Or... the writers can't, at least...)

I don't know. When none of the plot lines they write are given weight, it's hard for me to give them weight. If none of the characters' choices matter because they'll just be reset anyway, why do I care about their choices? If entire plot lines are just going to go absolutely nowhere (when they're given endings at all) why should I get invested in them?

They set up a lot of interesting themes about found family, the supernatural world as a haven for those who are queer or otherwise socially othered, etc. and then had Guillermo outright choose the human world and his human family over the found family they'd been setting up for five seasons. Having Guillermo be okay with killing vampires but not humans (which... again, makes no sense with his behavior towards humans in the past, but I digress) basically explicitly tells us that he sees vampire life as lesser than human life and like ????? then how are we supposed to interpret the relationships and themes you've spent all this time building???

When you have Guillermo coming out as being gay and also wanting to be a vampire in the same breath and then have him reject that world, when you give these interviews talking about how making Guillermo and Nandor have [gay] sex would lessen their relationship... I don't know! It almost feels like they can't even keep track of their own themes and really do not care if they shit on the audience that's loyally followed them even through some really questionable writing decisions!

I guess at this point, I only worry that they really do see becoming human and leaving the supernatural world as being a happy ending for all these characters. Are they going to make the other vampires human, too? Are they going to have Guillermo leave for good and choose the human world?

Like it's literally my nightmare scenario. lmao.

I guess I just feel like I've been cutting wwdits a lot of slack because I assumed that the writers were going somewhere really interesting with these seemingly incomprehensible choices, but now that I've realized that they're really just... not great writing choices...

It'll be easier to let go, I guess. I don't have nearly the same emotional connection to this show that I did even six months ago, much less a year and a half ago. If you told me even a year ago that my reaction to my favorite show's cancellation would be "...oh..." I wouldn't have believed you. But. I guess here we are.

I keep trying to make myself feel the same love for this show that I did during the first three, three and a half seasons, and I'm just not sure I can do it. I've been going around in circles over this for months now, but I just feel kind of hollow when I reach for the joy that this show used to inspire in me. And now that I know it's ending soon, I guess my mind is just kind of going "well, I guess it'll all be over with soon, one way or another, and I'll finally be able to choose a way to feel about it all."

I think... honestly, I think the only way I can be happy writing fic going forward is if I write fic that actively ignores a lot of the canon developments. It's literally too fucking difficult to eke out coherent characterization from what they've been putting out lately, and maybe it would feel more fun and less like homework if I just stopped trying.

I really, really hope that the last season of this show is beautiful and gorgeous and funny and makes me remember exactly what I love about it just in time to mourn it forever. I hope that I will happily be able to write fics incorporating every ounce of canon and feel fulfilled by that. But... honestly speaking, at this point I'm just hoping that the last season doesn't actively piss me off. lmao

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

#wwdits tag #to prevent it from going into the main tag lmao

[episodeoftv]

Prelims, Vote 5 of 8

The top 4 finales will move on to be included in the main bracket

Propaganda is under the cut, may include spoilers

CSI: NY - 9.17 Today is Life

CSI was always copaganda and admittedly NY got cancelled midseason but jesus fucking christ. Weird semi-bottle episode of cops trapped inside their station because people are protesting the shooting of a Black man as the others desperately scrabble to prove he was armed as if that automatically makes it okay. No closure for any characters other than making previously sympathetic characters look like racist dicks.

Faking it - 3.10 Up in Flames

This series finale was so underwhelming that I didn't even realize it was the finale and not just another episode. Yes, the show was cancelled early but it didn't even read as a season finale...

Imposters - 2.10 See You Soon‚ Macaroon

Ok listen so no I wasn’t expecting much from this show like I knew what I was getting into. But oh my GOD the way you could FEEL how rushed this finale was. Early cancellation‚ I believe there was meant to be one more season. (Also personally did not enjoy it bc I did not find myself compelled by Ezra’s storylines this season but he is the main character so the last scene of the entire show was something I thought was SO stupid). Also broke up the found family. Unsurprising but I’m dying out here and they couldn’t have thrown me one line? The actual structure of the majority of the episode was pretty tight‚ like if it were a normal episode it would be fine. But then they had to go and try to wrap everything up before it was meant to be wrapped up and nothing has ever been less satisfying

Jane the Virgin - 4.17 Chapter Eighty-One

context: back in season 3 the protagonist jane was married to michael. he died in a heartbreaking and brilliantly done episode, and then the series jumped forwards 3 years in time. michael, his relationship with jane and his death was always treated with respect, even as jane slowly began to fall for her old flame and friend rafael. in the season 4 finale, it seemed like rafael was going to propose to jane, which was lovely. but then the very annoying drawn out villain told rafael ""something"" that made him withdraw and lash out at jane for reasons she and the audience didn't understand. they still had sex which was disturbing considering his anger and drunkenness, and then at the end of the episode it was revealed that the information he found out was that michael was alive. he'd been alive this whole time. the last moments of the episode are jane and michael seeing each other again. this made NO SENSE considering he died in a public place from an aortic dissection (a sudden blood pressure spike from a pre-existing injury) and they had a casket at his funeral - but apparently the villain has been keeping him alive all this time!! for some reason!!! this finale not only ruined the main romantic relationship between jane and rafael for pointless drama, it also spat upon the memory and fans of michael, and michael and jane's romantic relationship. not even to mention the ridiculous drama that another fan favourite petra was put through this episode. the entire thing was full of cheap shock value moments and cliffhangers to try and get audiences to watch for the final season.

My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! - 2.12 My Graduation Ceremony Happened...

incest

True Blood - 7.10 Thank You

so much wrong (really) with this show (which i love) but that final fucking image just does me in! sookie, our protagonist, who's been battered back and forth between stubborn heroine and hapless waif for 7 seasons seems spends her final (on-screen) moments sitting at her table surrounded by loved ones - which would be heartwarming if tara (abused for 6 seasons and then fridged, thanks alan ball) wasn't missing, a woman wasn't sitting next to the groomer she married (they meet near the beginning of the show when she is 17 and he is almost 30, they start dating immediately), and sookie were sitting at the head of her own fucking table. it's nice that sookie gets what she wants - she's tough but pretty milquetoast (don't get mad at me! i love our twee fairy vixen!), and she really has wanted to just be cozy and settle down this whole time. it makes sense to close on her enjoying a semi-mortal evening with the people she has left. but to leave on her tropily pregnant (even if it's in character - if it were just the pregnancy it wouldn't irk me so) and centre her nameless, faceless husband in the final frames of 7 seasons that have been (for better and way worse) about nothing but sookie? despicable! it's the series finale i've hated the most, but in some ways it's almost perfect because it totally exemplifies the political identity crisis true blood has for 7 years. edge vs. wholesomeness, agency vs. damselhood, change vs. status quo. it's such a disappointing result of the struggle that not only sookie (a character so many fans hate for her simultaneous stubbornness, ditz, and naivete - and who i love btw!) but the writers struggled for (sorry) 7 seasons. it's like witnessing your dear, baby faced, precocious & clever kid relative exit an intense emo phase only to become corporate law student. it's the cold fear that can only be induced by a white teenager with a briefcase. it's the slump end to a potentially fruitful struggle. in this sense it feels inevitable...but does it HAVE to be?...at least bill died.

The Who Was? Show - 1.13 Julius Caesar & Bruce Lee

the show got cancelled before season 2 released EVEN THOUGH it was certainly meant to have a season 2 so i will never see my silly blorbos ever again, nor will we be able to see who ate those grapes. It has been 5 years and I am still not over it :'(

#prelim #wfprelim #wfpoll #poll #polls #csi: ny #faking it #imposters #jane the virgin #my next life as a villianess all routes lead to doom #my next life as a villainess #true blood #the who was? show

[look-how-they-massacred-them]

Preliminary Poll

Max Headroom

Submission reason:

There is a youtube video which does a much better job at explaining this than me, but I will do my best to get it all down. I'll link it at the end, though, if you're curious. (The TLDR of this whole thing is: imagine if Portal 2 had come out, but GLaDOS was genuinely super nice, and no one died, and there's no mention of her or Chell ever having tried to kill each other, and there's no conflict or drama or story at all. Now imagine there's even a Portal 3, but it's made by a different studio and GLaDOS only gets like 2 lines of dialogue and they're both super annoying, and also the game doesn't even have portals in it, and instead of a puzzle game it's inexplicably a cop drama about Caroline. This is what they did to Max Headroom.) The original movie and show were called "Max Headroom: 20 Minutes Into the Future" and "The Original Max Talking Headroom Show" which came out in the 80s. These portrayed Max as a nice, trustworthy, funny guy at a glance, but a greedy, angry fuckwit under the surface. This was a DELIBERATE CHARACTER CHOICE, because he was created to be a cautionary tale about not trusting the constructed personas of celebrities (and in particular, talkshow hosts). He was often shown yelling at staff and supporting conservative ideas (or even just going so far as flat-out saying stuff like "I think we should dump more pollution on penguins") before going right back to his usual "lovable hijinks." This was the entire point of the character. This was the core of his identity, and his creation. Even in-universe, the creation of the character was explained as TV network execs trying to stop a good, ethical reporter from hurting business, by scanning his brain and turning him into an AI that THEY controlled. The network execs cut all the honesty out of him, and replaced it with lies and greed, all so they could keep pushing their bullshit. This is what made the character work. Here is what ruined him: The original show ended, and a different team of showrunners tried to make sequels and spinoffs. It was all new writers, new directors, even new stations. And NONE of these people understood the actual point of the character. The point of the character was a cutting satire of the 1980s misguided love of fake, corporate-controlled talking heads... by making the fakest, most-corporate-controlled, most LITERAL talking head they could. But every person involved with the sequels thought the point of the character was "haha funny computer boy go brrrr!" Sequels and spinoffs cut out any hint of evil. They cut out every little inkling of negativity and reduced him to nothing but playful teasing. He became boring, and most of these spinoffs were cancelled quickly. The most egregious (and most findable) of these is the American show just called "Max Headroom" which is for some reason a crime drama following the guy whose brain they scanned to make Max. Max is in the show a decent amount, but is always either boring or annoying, so by season 2 they mostly cut him out entirely aside from a couple annoying quips now and again. Despite the show literally being named after him, he is hardly in it at all, and then it got cancelled partway through the season anyway. There are some details I might have fucked up but I'm pretty sure I hit the major points 95% accurately. The video that inspired my rant is called "On Max Headroom: The Most Misunderstood Joke on TV" and can be found here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GsDrXc94NGU&pp=ygUUbWF4IGhlYWRyb29tIHZpbGxhaW4%3D

#look how they massacred them poll #look how they massacred my boy #max headroom #the original max talking headroom show #max headroom 20 minutes into the future #wait #isn’t this the character in that tv hijack

[steve0discusses]

Episode 47 S5: Mana Runs too Slow and it Kills 2 People

Tumblr decided to change the way it does image posts so this is going to be my hell. I can only have max 30 "blocks" of images (yikes) and uploading all your images at once and then just adding text in between is actually not possible! (least it's a nightmare on browser. I have not figured out how to drag my text in between images, so I'm just uploading every image one by one and hoping I don't forget one)

thanks, I hate it!

Peeking up at us over the horizon, our end of the world apocalypse has reached the next step of his rampage: which is to shoot glowing missiles out of it's Dragon crotch until Egypt is destroyed.

Seto is doing his best to look productive, but unfortunately this is Sad Seto, who is still buffering.

Just uh...give him a minute. He has to remember how to be Seto.

(read more under the cut)

I'm pretty sure Kissara told him straight up to call her whenever, and considering how few words they've ever said to each other, you'd think he'd remember the words she said like half an hour ago. Then again, he was kind of...sleeping when that happened. Or hallucinating, or dreaming, or all three.

Bakura and Yami are watching this pan out from the Shadow Game Zone, Bakura kind of nodding slowly while Yami becomes overwhelmed with embarrassment over how much everyone around him is screwing it. This is not meant to be funny, but it was very funny to me.

I have brought this up before, but Bakura does bring up a good point, that this entire arc was kind of against the grain of who Yami became over the course of the last 4 seasons.

+++++STAND BACK I'M GONNA RANT, FEEL FREE TO SKIP++++

Don't get me wrong, Yami LOVES to make bad choices that end the world. But why would he continue to go back here and destroy the world of the future he knows and loves so much? Especially since it already went SO south with Dartz the last time he opened pandora's box?

He has a new identity now, he has so many friends, last arc was just so many women throwing themselves at Yugi. His life is really good! I think they could have developed more of a line of logic between last arc and this arc, but like with a lot of things in this arc, it was rushed.

So him giving up his newfound modern identity that he made all himself through hard work and friendship first off feels kinda bad. Like I'm OK with him being a new guy, he worked hard for that! Lets not go backward now.

And then him coming here to regain his old identity is sort of like the show knew what it must do, but the characters were like "nah." and then went and did it anyway seemingly at gunpoint.

And I kind of wish there was any contrast between who Yami's new identity is in the future and who Yami was in the past. It would be fascinating to dive into the fact he's now two people yet again, even though Yugi is no longer in that bean. but eh save it for the fanfiction, because they needed to end Yugioh in a certain number of episodes.

And that happens sometimes. Stories are character driven, and when you try and drive the characters, they become less like people and more like iconic symbols. Here's our hero. He must do this because he's the hero. That's it, that's the reason. Welcome to Shonen Jump.

+++++++END RANT AKA THIS ARC HAS COOL IDEAS AND I WISH IT HAD ENOUGH TIME TO DO THEM BETTER++++++++

Problem is, Yami isn't that meta. He's dumb though, so in a way it does make a little sense why he had to open the box. He dummy thin.

Dummy thin and still can't read.

And like in case you've jumped in here after my accidental hiatus (hello!) and not realized this, I had to binge watch the rest of the season before we cancelled our Hulu subscription. There was the option of watching it for free on the Yugioh website, but I didn't want to change my Photoshop actions.

So get ready for me to talk about how the ending of this show bothered me, for like 8 episodes. I'll try to keep it in, so we can get there when we get there.

But you can't say lines like "We were meant to be together." in the context of this arc, you can't DO that, show.

Apparently the creator of Yugioh got hospitalized while he wrote this arc, hence the dick king demon. But also it got....messy. We have like 3 seasons of development in like 8 episodes, buckle up. They did the best that they could do with the resource's given, and we'll even get to meet my favorite character a few times before it's over (the Storyboarding God that occasionally guest stars on Yugioh, love that guy)

Back on the playing field, Yami is running out of options, when Isis informs us we can just go to McDonald's and get more McGuffins.

Out of basically no where, Mana zips onto the screen because she's ready to have at least one girl's night before the end of the world. The contrasting energy from both Mana and Isis is peak goth babysitter vs the parrot that hides behind the couch and bites your feet.

Back near Pharaoh's tomb, Yugi is still dueling over a deathpit with the child who these kids think is Ryou bakura.

This is not however, Ryou Bakura. It's sideways adjacent evil Bakura.

And it didn't really matter that this plot point ever happened because it's not like Yugi, Joey, or Tea ever catch on that this isn't Ryou anyway. But at least I, the audience can feel a little bit better about the weird twist by the dub there.

Ryou is still passed out on some stone steps. He's fine.

You might be wondering "Oh so what asinine thing is Isis going to have to do to get the items back?" and uh, you're wrong actually.

Turns out we could have just picked up the items in the desert at any time but I guess we forgot. I'll blame it on Shadi.

Joey Wheeler, who can punch out probably anything but a ghost, chooses to hide behind Tea because he knows she can punch a ghost and I believe it, too.

Back on the surface, is a scene that would have been emotional if it hadn't been 3 minutes. it was NOT enough time to give a proper send off to our girl Isis here, and they tried, but if you imagine the Yakety Sax song playing under this death here, that's about the speed at which this girl biffed it.

speaking of Yakety Sax theme, this is what was happening while Mana was crying her eyes out.,

And you may ask, was it really that goofy? and yes, yes it was.

and like I get it, animation and pacing are really, really hard. Parts of me wonder if maybe on paper this seemed OK. If maybe even as a storyboard this seemed OK. But something you learn quickly when doing any sort of narrative art, is that you need like 2x as much space as you think you do. Pause is an underrated godlike skill that takes a lifetime to master.

However, it still had good stills going on, it still had some lovely direction just...I mean they dropped Isis from top to bottom of that frame so freakin fast it was like she was a dropped banana hahaha.

They still have to carry these items physically to the Pharaoh, and so becuase Mana is a slow runner, 2 people freakin died this episode distracting Zorc. Which is also the title of this episode because I want to send home howfreakin funny that is to me.

Ah, back to Episode 1.

So how breathtaking and epic is the Kaiju fight you ask? Well good thing for you, I capped it.

The look on Seto and Yami's faces about sum it up.

And as quickly as he showed up to do a few silly punches, the great Exodia was cut exactly in half. Don't ask me how the card logic works for that, I have forgotten how this game works already.

Mana finally makes it to Yami, cursed puzzle in hand, and that ends this episode.

Can you imagine adding 7 characters to a story knowing you have to kill all of them individually before the anime arc is over? Breakneck deaths going on here.

Sorry for all you people that were so deeply attached to Shimon, the guy who isn't even Grandpa, by the way. A moment of silence for all 4 of you.

And we get back this thing. This horrible thing made out of thousands of dead people's souls. The thing that trapped him for 5000 years and launched him into the future. The only thing that can save mankind.

(If I have used this Mokuba joke like this before forgive me it was like a different lifetime before I caught covid, and I will not be able to regain those memories because I cannot curse myself with a rude ass puzzle.)

The abusive relationship with the Millennium Puzzle is a whole anime college essay I would write if I had half a brain, but alas I have the immune system and fatigue of a sickly gerbil or a goldfish that feels a little bit chilly. So I will not be writing that in depth episode but like...

Think about how far we've come with this jackass puzzle. And yet, I'm supposed to forgive it? Nah I don't think I have yet. Go to hell, puzzle.

This puzzle can go straight to hell.

Anyway, if you just got here you can read these recaps in chrono order at the link here:

https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yugioh/chrono

PS I had to do so much assholery to get that to go to my chrono link and not my main link. They would just. Change my link. They would just change my link every time I pasted it. Tumblr you have GOT to give me my old post editor back omg.

#yugioh #YGO #yu gi oh #photo recap #yugi muto #joey wheeler #tea gardener #seto kaiba #priest seto #demon king bakura #bakura #yami muto #shimon #mana #isis #exodia #S5

[seriouslycromulent]

More thoughts on The John Larroquette Show

OK. So I've finally finished rewatching The John Larroquette Show, and I'm back with additional thoughts and commentary about the series. My first post about my rewatch can be found here.

I just want to point out that I couldn't watch every episode because the media player that I downloaded wouldn't play back all the files unfortunately. So over the course of the 4 seasons, I would say I got to see about 85% of it. Unfortunately, the majority of the episodes the media player wouldn't read were in the final season. ☹️ I hope I will get to watch those episodes via another media player in the future, but I didn't want to hold up my commentary waiting for that to happen.

So from what I got to watch, I really liked the show and it made me sad that the series couldn't really find an audience because there was some solid comedy (and drama) in those 70+ episodes.

Enough of the intro, let's dive in to more thoughts ...

I'm so slow. It took me until the 2nd season to realize the cops' names, Hampton and Eggers, are a play on the combo Ham & Eggs. Don't judge me.

Throughout season 2, you can tell the showrunners were really trying everything to get the ratings up with different guest stars and celeb cameos. It's almost to the point of being really obsequious and sweaty. Like it starts somewhat subtly with cross-promotion of other NBC series and celebrities who are mildly connected to the show, like Joey Lawrence from Blossom playing Carly's brother and David Cassidy, who sang the opening theme song for the show. Then, it was like: "Hey! Here for no reason is the '60s singer Deon, actor Joe Pesci, and Boys II Men." (Not all in one episode, mind you). Now, I love me some BIIM, but they basically shot an entire music video in the bus station in the middle of an episode, and it just did not fit the tone of the show at all. The most obvious cameo/guest star was the random appearance of the late and sorely missed Matthew Perry as a character that didn't even get a name. But Friends was already a hit by then (1995), so I'm sure NBC thought his appearance on TJLS would help with the ratings. I don't mind any of these guest stars generally, but it all began to feel a bit forced, as opposed to something organic like most of the guest stars from season 1.

Now guest stars who have worked with Larroquette in the past or were related to him were perfectly fine by me. What can I say? I like it when people I know who are friends or family get to work together. Case in point: It was great to see JL act alongside his lovely wife in an episode of his own show. All I know about Elizabeth is what JL has mentioned occasionally in interviews, which is essentially she has the patience of a saint and that she's English. With so little to go on, it's no surprise that I didn't recognize her right away. But she did a fine job, and I bet it was a real treat for them to work together on something that others (especially their kids) can watch years later.

In s2e17, "Whipping Post," Joey Lawrence guest stars as Carly's brother, Sonny. During a scene where nurse Catherine (played by the highly underrated Alison LaPlaca) is dressing a bad cut on his arm at the hospital, Sonny keeps hitting on Catherine while she's working. In a quick back and forth, he tells her how attractive and funny she is. She responds by saying something to the effect, "Thanks for that. It's nice to hear, but I've been on 5 cancelled sitcoms. Nobody gets me." The comment gets a huge laugh from the audience because it's obviously a 4th wall break. I remember LaPlaca being on a number of sitcoms in the '80s, but I just wanted to fact check to see which 5 cancelled ones she was talking about. According to IMDB, they were: Tom, The Jackie Thomas Show, Stat, Open House, and Duet (which to be fair, lasted 3 seasons). Personally, I love it when shows break the 4th wall, and I appreciate that they let the audience laugh for a long time here because it really was a funny surprise that I think deserved the response it got.

Going back to the general setup of the show, you can tell that the producers or the network is still fiddling with the formula throughout the series. They moved away from the steady references to John Hemingway's recovery in AA, and tried their best to make it more like a "regular" sitcom about the life and work of a particular group of people. This was fine, I guess. But I feel like in doing so, the show lost a little bit of what made it unique. They tried to make Hemingway a normal-ish guy surrounded by a cast of dynamic characters, and he was simply reacting to their shenanigans. But that in some ways stunted the development of John's character, in my opinion.

Speaking of character development, I also felt like the show was probably getting notes from week to week telling the writers to be more appealing to "Middle America." So as a result, the writers did the following: had Hemingway talk less about racism with Dexter; gave Hemingway a steady girlfriend & a more middle class-looking flat; made Carly more "respectable" by giving her the bar at the station to run; had Gene meet someone & get married; and kept the commentary about the cops to mostly punchlines about them specifically (compared to a commentary about police, in general). Most of these changes happen in season 2, but it doesn't stop the show from being funny. However, it does change the humor a bit. I felt like the humor only really starts to falter when they changed the canon bus station hours where we see our cast of characters go from an overnight shift (aka 3rd shift) to a late shift (aka 2nd shift). The change is subtle, but it's there. And it was definitely better when the show had a 3rd shift background. I don't know why, but it just did.

In happier thoughts, I counted guest stars from Night Court coming over and joining Larroquette for an episode on his show at 6. First, there's Bumper Robinson playing a teenage thief/would-be shakedown artist in "Jumping Off the Wagon" (s1e7). Then, we see Marsha Warfield playing Dexter's sister in "Date Night" (s1e22). Next, it was Charles Robinson playing a bookmaker that John mistakes for a bookie (aka someone who places gambling bets). That episode, "John's Lucky Day," (s3e11) was great especially because of the scene in the bar where John has this back and forth with the bartender, who thinks John is this menacing gangster who's going to hurt Charlie's character and he's trying to keep John in his good graces. The bartender is played by popular voice actor Kevin Michael Richardson, someone we rarely get to see onscreen much these days. And of course, we get a guest starring episode featuring Harry Anderson, who played a plastic surgeon trying to convince John to get a lot of unnecessary work done. That episode, "Cosmetic Perjury," (s3e14) also gives a nice little shout-out to Markie Post in a quick back and forth between the two. And last, but not least, we get to see a small reunion between Dan Fielding and Phil Sanders with the guest appearance of William Utay in the episode "Independence Day" (s3e20).

Oh, and I shouldn't forget the small role that John's youngest son, Ben, plays in "An Odd Cup of Tea," (s3e7). It must've been trippy to play your dad's much, much younger brother on your dad's own TV show. Although, they do get to argue with each other and tell each other to shut up like brothers yelling at each other often do, so maybe it was a bit cathartic.

If I had to pick my favorite episodes of all 4 seasons, I would say it would be the following, in no particular order: "Grit" (s1e21), "The Book of Rachel" (s2e8), and "Rachel Redux" (s2e21). I can't say exactly why those episodes are my favorites. But I can say those 3 episodes made me either laugh so hard I had to rewind to hear the dialogue I missed while I was laughing, or delight at the chemistry JL shared with his main costars in those episodes. "Grit" features Hemingway's relationship with Eggers, and I think they played so well off each other that it makes me sad that Elizabeth Berridge doesn't get more work. She's just absolutely hilarious throughout the entire episode. As a matter of fact, I would say that she and Darryl "Chill" Mitchell probably had the most chemistry with Larroquette when it came to comedy on the show. And Mayim Bialik as Hemingway's daughter was just pitch perfect in terms of chemistry. They worked really well together, and I'm glad we got to see her appear on the show 3 times. My favorites were "The Book of Rachel" and "Rachel Redux," but the 3rd episode she's in isn't bad though. Sure, it was a chance to cross-promote with her show on the same network, but these 2 definitely caught lightning in a bottle with their timing and delivery. Who knows? Since Mayim has worked with both John and Melissa Rauch, maybe she'll turn up on the new Night Court. I know I wouldn't mind seeing that.

I have more thoughts on the show, but I'm going to stop here for the sake of everyone's sanity. Thank you for reading if you've gotten this far. Feel free to share your thoughts on the show if you like. I hope to share a few more of mine in the future.

#the john larroquette show #john larroquette #fandom

[abbzworld]

Devotion

This was written for a Secret Santa event over on Tumblr. I hope you enjoy your present, @snorpy-fizzlebean! Sorry that it’s late. ^^;

Also, a minor disclaimer; I’ve never seen Twin Peaks and know basically nothing about it. So I was just making some things up at some parts of the story. Lol

Anyways, please enjoy!

-----------------

Grump Peaks was a show that could be very confusing for Chandlo.

It wasn’t necessarily that he didn’t enjoy it. The special effects were usually quite good, especially in the later seasons, and in his opinion, the characters with their struggles and relationships with each other were the best and most interesting part of the show.

He just had some trouble following along with some of the story.

For example, he didn’t understand why the bad guy was planning on unleashing a bunch of supernatural horrors onto Grump Peaks. Sure, he’d had a terrible childhood when he lived there with his alcoholic father and this was his twisted idea of getting revenge. But why didn’t he realize that his plan would also put the entire world in danger? He was supposed to be an intelligent grumpus, after all!

When he asked about it, Snorpy explained to him, “Grizby’s problem isn’t that he’s unintelligent. His problem is that he winds up getting hyper-focused on his goals to the neglect of everything else, including any common sense. Or rather, his lack thereof.”

Chandlo could understand what Snorpy was telling him, but he was still confused as to why the bad guy let things get this bad.

“Unfortunately, that happens sometimes. Take Floofty, for example. They’re trying to help grumpus kind so their goals are obviously much different from Grizby’s, but in a way, Floofty also struggles with seeing whether what they’re doing is a good idea or not. That’s why they take so many risks and don’t always foresee the consequences of their actions. I mean, just look at what happened on Snaktooth! They almost decapitated themselves just to see if their head would come back like their leg did!”

Chandlo gently wrapped an arm around his shoulders to silently comfort him as Snorpy sighed. “I am glad that they’re getting better, however. They still have a long way to go, though.”

Chandlo nodded and said, “Yeah, but that’s probably true of all of us.”

Snorpy silently nodded before he glanced at the television and got excited. “Ooh, I love this part! It’s when Aless and Ozwin join together to stop him!”

Chandlo softly chuckled, keeping his arm around Snorpy’s shoulders as they both continued to watch what was going on in the show.

In all honesty, this was the real reason he watches it despite it not entirely being his thing. He enjoys seeing how invested Snorpy always gets despite having already seen this show dozens of times.

Ever since they were kids, he’s loved Grump Peaks. He meticulously analyzes every frame and shot of the show, has very little he actively criticizes, and even though the show got an abrupt ending because of the Grumpinati, as he believes, it’s still his favorite show of all time.

Chandlo might not fully understand it sometimes, but hey, if it makes Snorpy happy then he’s happy.

Besides, Snorpy was always so adorable the more interested he gets in something. His eyes go wide with excitement, he gets a little smile on his face and Chandlo can tell that he’s committing everything to memory.

Even though he already knows what’s going to happen.

Eventually, the credits of the final episode started to roll and Chandlo yawned as Snorpy began to rant, “I still cannot believe that this show got cancelled! I mean, we never really got a conclusive answer about Aless’ and Ozwin’s relationship, and the overall conclusion was incredibly rushed! They needed at least another season to properly conclude the story but the Grumpinati wouldn’t allow that, would they?!”

Chandlo chuckled as he rubbed his boyfriend’s back. “Easy there, Snorpy-dawg. You don’t want to get too worked up, right?”

Snorpy sighed. “No… I’m sorry Chandlo. I don’t mean to get so emotional; it just really bothers me that Grump Peaks wasn’t given the finale that it truly deserved.”

Chandlo smiled at him. “No need to apologize, bro. I know how much this show means to you. It might not be my thing like it is yours but I can understand your frustration.”

Snorpy sighed again and smiled at him. “Thank you Chandlo. Truly.”

“Aw anytime, Snorpy!”

Snorpy then yawned himself before stretching a bit. “Ugh, what time is it?”

Chandlo looked at a nearby clock. “It’s almost 10 pm.”

“My word, I didn’t realize it was getting so late. We should probably head to bed then!”

Chandlo nodded. “Yeah, I agree. We both have to go to the gym in the morning so we can’t afford to be too tired.”

Snorpy agreed and so they stood up, yawning again, before they shuffled over to their shared bed.

Once they were settled in, they cuddled together and said their good nights.

About five hours later, however, Chandlo awoke to Snorpy softly whimpering.

Groggily, Chando quietly asked, “Snorpy? Hey, are you alright?”

Snorpy didn’t answer and now the whimpers were getting louder.

“No… No! Don’t eat them!”

And then it dawned on Chandlo that he was having a nightmare.

Unfortunately, they both got them frequently ever since they escaped from Snaktooth. The knowledge that the bugsnax they were eating were actually parasites that could’ve – and would’ve – killed them was quite traumatic for them.

Chandlo had no idea what would’ve happened if he’d lost Snorpy. And he was sure that Snorpy had those same thoughts about him. And considering he was already anxious even before he went to Snaktooth, said trauma and anxiety often manifested in the form of nightmares.

And unfortunately, despite how much he wished it, Shellsy was unable to concoct an herbal solution to make the nightmares go away because such a thing didn’t exist. She only knew how to allow someone to go to sleep easier, not actually banish dreams altogether.

So both Chandlo and Snorpy, as well as presumably the rest of the Krew, just had to wait and hope that the dreams would eventually fade on their own.

But regardless of that, Chandlo wasn’t going to just lie there and let Snorpy suffer on his own. He would never do that.

And so, he gently wrapped an arm around Snorpy’s waist, pulling him close.

“Shhh… It’s alright, Snorpy. I’m here.” He gently murmured into his ear, kissing his forehead. It took a few minutes of gently caressing his back, but eventually the whimpers stopped and Snorpy began to breathe easily again.

Still, Chandlo didn’t let go as he once again drifted off to sleep.

-----------------

The next morning, they were at the breakfast table, debating on what to eat that wouldn’t remind them too much of the bugsnax. Apples and bananas were off the table, as well as anything like a cinnamon bun. They eventually settled on cereal.

As they ate, Snorpy said, “Thank you, Chandlo.”

“Hm?”

“Well…” He sighed. “I was having a nightmare last night. But I soon felt a warm and comforting presence enter my subconscious. And the nightmare left me afterwards.” He then smiled. “That was you, wasn’t it?”

Chandlo smiled and chuckled. “Guilty as charged.” He then sighed. “I know how intense those nightmares can get, so I didn’t want you suffering through one alone.”

Snorpy nodded. “Well, thank you. It’s been tough, but I’m glad that you’re here. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“Same here, Snorp-dawg.”

After they’d finished their breakfast, they settled down on the couch as they had half an hour before they had to leave.

They didn’t watch anything, though. They simply cuddled against each other and talked about their plans for the day.

“…and I’m learning how to do pull-up’s better. It’s killer on the arms and abs, but I’m slowly but surely getting there.”

Chandlo smiled as he hugged Snorpy. “I’m proud of you, Snorpy. You’re doing such a good job.”

Snorpy blushed. “Ah, heh heh… Thank you.”

“And I’m really impressed with how fit and healthy you’ve gotten as a result of working out more!” Chandlo continued, finding it adorable how flustered Snorpy was getting. “I’m really proud of you, bro!”

Snorpy giggled, blushing even harder. “Awww, stop. You’re making me blush…”

Chandlo smirked at him. “I know. And I think it’s adorable.”

Snorpy made a bunch of flustered noises as Chandlo chuckled and kissed him on the cheek. “I love you.”

Snorpy giggled again before saying, “Ah, yes. I love you too.”

They both smiled at each other before Snorpy cleared his throat and asked him, “So erm… what do you plan on doing at the gym?”

“Well, I plan on shooting some hoops. It’s fun competing against the other grumps there.”

Snorpy chuckled. “That’s nice to hear. I hope that they don’t get too competitive, though.”

“No, they don’t.” Chandlo reassured him. “It’s all in good fun.”

Snorpy nodded. “Good. I’d hate for someone to get mad at you over a basketball competition. I’ve heard how defensive grumpuses can get over sports and related events…”

“I understand what you mean, but that hasn’t happened.” Chandlo smiled at him, giving him a reassuring squeeze. “And besides, I was taught to always have good sportsmanship. My mother always made sure to teach me that as a kid.”

Snorpy nodded. “Yes, I remember that.”

“Also, it’s important to know your limits. I was always pushing myself too hard and I still struggle with that now. But rest is just as important as how many push-ups you can do in one sitting. Eggabell taught me that!”

Snorpy smiled. “I’m sure she did. She is a doctor after all!”

Chandlo grinned. “Yeah, bro! I owe a lot of my know-how to her! And to you, of course. You’ve always been there for me and your inventions are really helpful!”

Snorpy giggled again. “Heh, thank you.”

For the new few minutes, they simply sat there, cuddling each other as Snorpy listened to Chandlo’s heartbeat.

Eventually, however, they had to get up to go to the gym.

-----------------

“Let’s see… water bottles?”

“Check.”

“Towels?”

“Check.”

“First aid kit?”

“Check.”

“And we’re both dressed in our workout gear… Awesome dawg! We’re ready to go!”

“Right behind you, love.”

-----------------

The End

-----------------

I hope you enjoyed this story. If you did, feel free to tell me! And if you have any constructive criticism for me, you can tell me that, as well. Thank you!

#bugsnax secret santa 2023 #fanfic #bugsnax #secret santa #snorplo

[mandatory-blog-stop-asking]

Star Trek Is A Failing Theme Park

Much like many others I used to be a bonafide Star Trek Discovery hater, and even though I thoroughly enjoy it now, I honestly don't regret that time in my life.

I think Discovery season 1 and most of season 2 were a little ashamed of having to be an old sci-fi show, so they kept trying to be a show about violent, impulsive, very special unique people that happened to go to space every once in a while. Which Star Trek has been, on occasion, but never in a way I personally find better than what it usually is -- philosophizing and talking about real world or allegorical drama for 40-50 minutes until a solution arises that doesn't really make anyone super happy and not everyone comes out unscathed, but the compromise means there's hope for a better solution tomorrow, and the day after that, until it works.

The personal dramas usually related to their reactions to storylines, but were ultimately secondary to the bigger pictures, and acted as bows you tie the narrative with at the end. If Kirk did not make it through the episode unscathed, that's cool, but the episode was rarely only about his demons. It could heavily relate to his demons but that wasn't the whole source of the spectacle. The Naked Time works as a way to examine characters in crisis, not necessarily as a Kirk episode where it's all about him.

Because of that, I was basically the audience for seasons 3 and 4. While Season 3's ultimate plot wasn't the most interesting thing in the world, the idea that they were now dealing with their "own version" of the galaxy, writing their own plots that didn't have to come before everything else and figuring out their own threats that didn't have to eventually connect back to Star Trek canon was a massive improvement.

The decision to interweave character drama into storylines as opposed to making the storylines about the character drama also greatly expanded upon people's roles in the ship, and you finally got to see people like Detmer or Owosekun doing shit and being useful, instead of just being on the bridge nearly unnamed. I genuinely think Season 4 of Discovery is one of the best seasons in modern Star Trek; even if it trips and falls sometimes, I think it's well worth the creative risk and I was left very satisfied after watching it.

So when Discovery season 5 turns around and tells me it's about an episode of TNG I watched once, and then they start going to a planet from an episode of TNG I watched once, and then here comes another episode where they go to an episode of DS9 I watched once, and there's more 24th century-specific stuff that's gonna happen, it's...

It's very hard to feel like we're not regressing? I realize at this point the show is very, very cancelled -- they weren't even told it was happening until they were filming the finale, but at the same time, is this really what the plan was? To not boldly go into something original, instead picking up threads from episodic shows released decades ago? What are we, Star Trek: Picard?

Now for the sake of transparency, I feel like this is might be more of a personality problem than a media consumption problem for me, because I am genuinely allergic to nostalgia. I have no respect or attachment for media whose only mission is to remind me of things that existed, and franchises that have made that their entire MO have basically died for me. Like, I can't watch Star Wars anymore. It stopped mattering how good or bad it is for me because all I see in stuff like Mandalorian season 2 is pilots for shows I'm not gonna watch, and cameos from characters I don't want to see right now. The stories are no longer the point, the point is the brand and how easily recognizable it is.

So when Discovery tells me that their last hurrah is going through the Star Trek theme park, pointing at rides I've already gone to and saying "Isn't it cool we get to say these words again? That we get to see this thing again?" I'm left cold. I don't want to see the Progenitors again. I don't want to see the Promellians again. I like seeing the Trills again, it's one of my favorite species in the franchise, but we have seen so much of the Trills between DS9 and DIS, I really feel like this is... not the way forward. This theme park is not the reason why I think about Star Trek.

It reminds me of why I stopped caring about Star Trek Online. The practical reason was me not liking the minibuys and the combat, and the game's only mode of operation being to attack -- it's a fine ship combat game and a mediocre but working third person shooter, I just don't care enough to play it forever. But the secondary reason, and the reason I think about the most, is because every single storyline is less a story and more a Star Trek reference.

It's always someone coming back, or an alt universe version of a character being introduced, or picking up on a random episode that I already watched, making the action figures fight instead of anything else. Instead of using fanservice to broaden the appeal, the only appeal is the fanservice; there is very little to Star Trek Online that isn't just the equivalent of going to Star Trek Land and looking at the Harry Kim bust again.

I keep looking at Burnham, a character I have come to like in spite of her place in the franchise, in spite of the fact that her entire conception was made to connect her to Spock, and to Sarek, and to Pike, and to all these characters I already know, in spite of the shortcomings of her original character arc -- I look at her and I see a character who has built her own path after being allowed to exist separate from the others, after being given the same chance everyone else was to be more than a Star Trek reference, and then she just knows to go to the planet of the Booby Trap aliens because that's Star Trek, we're going on the ride.

I'm so sick of going on the same rides. Specifically, I'm sick of going on rides after they just proved that they can do something different, that doesn't need Star Trek references to exist. Please I am begging you stop showing me Picard's face, I get it, I like TNG too. But I tuned in to watch Discovery. I am not into this brand because I am into the brand, I am into this brand because it's fucking good, stop acting like I'm here for nostalgia's sake.

"Hey, what about Lower Decks? You love that show!" eh Lower Decks can do it, don't worry about it.

#star trek #discovery #star trek discovery #star trek spoilers #discovery spoilers #discovery season 5 #michael burnham #it is simply impossible to dislike aspects of discovery without sounding like an old man yelling at a cloud #at least i don't think i'm coming off like i'm just a hater on this one #but if that's not the case then eh fair enough #i've been worse

[tarisilmarwen]

1, 3, 6 for Teen Titans. :) Gimme the salty Tari takes!

1. the character everyone gets wrong

Red X. No one seems to understand that his identity wasn't the point. It didn't matter who was underneath the mask. He wasn't anyone. He wasn't supposed to be anyone. Not anyone significant or familiar anyways.

He was just a random ass kid who liked the thrill of the heist, decided on a whim to break into Titans Tower, and lucked into the biggest score of his career. He doesn't need any more deep backstory than that.

People always go the laziest stalest most boring route and make him Jason Todd anyway, despite how that would absolutely never work in the TT continuity.

3. screenshot or description of the worst take you've seen on tumblr

It's a good thing we're limiting this to Tumblr because boooooooooy did I see some bullshit back in the day, lol.

Probably the worst bit of fanwank on Tumblr for the TT fandom is the mindless endless, "BBRae is abusive and toxic!!!!" whinging.

No they're not, they're friends whose personalities can sometimes clash very abrasively but when the chips are down they'd do anything for each other, it's fine if you don't like their dynamic but not every tiny bit of conflict or disagreement or not getting along between characters is automatically a toxic relationship.

Oh and there was also the time RobRae shippers tried to kickstart their own Zutara-esque, "We were supposed to be endgame the whole time guys, the creators totally said so, promise!" conspiracy.

And the time fandom tried to incorporate Teen Titans into the "Cartoon Network cancels superhero shows because too many girls watch them!" nonsense.

6. which ship fans are the most annoying?

[See aforementioned previous note about which shipper base tried to start a Zutara-esque "We were the original endgame!" conspiracy.]

It's a lot less now, now that they've essentially been subsumed and absorbed almost entirely by the DamiRae shipbase (and that's a rant for another day lololol) but the TT fandom was baby Tari's first shipwar and introduced me to so many ~*wonderful*~ concepts like:

Slutshaming the female rival is a totally valid argument, and not base misogyny at all.

Reducing the rival ship to its most surface level characteristics is okay when we do it.

Canon ships having any kind of relationship progress or development is "forced".

"Chemistry" means "the ship dynamic I like".

Wanting to pull someone out of their clearly-narratively-depicted self-destructive habits is bad actually.

Shipping fanon is a subversive act of rebellion and revolution against oppressive unfair norms. (AKA "Shipping is Social Justice Activism" before that was a thing.)

Fanon shippers are just naturally smarter and better than people who enjoy the canon romance as presented.

And many other highlights!

Yeah, I don't miss that drama and that's one of the reasons I don't want a revival or a Season Six, because then I'd have to deal with these idiots all over again.

Choose violence ask game.

#askbox #Teen Titans #red x #fandom wank #ship wars #tari's raging inner shipper bitch #(been a while since I busted that tag out seemed appropriate) #meme #anti robrae

[thislovintime]

Photo 1 by Bill Chadwick.

“‘Actually, I wanted to leave the group over two years ago when the first season ended, but the guys convinced me not to. I didn’t care about all the things that were happening, all the acclaim. I hated the work! It was tough, and I didn’t like it. I just wanted to record for all my life. 
Also, the pressure was awful. We were working in an incredibly new environment. Half of the crew on the show was young and had very little experience at that level of work. Many of them were getting their first big break. 
Actually, after the TV show was canceled it was easier for me to leave. Doing the TV show was the worst. Then came the movie, and I couldn’t forego the movie, so I did it. You know, there were moments here and there — lots of good, funny stuff happening throughout — but the only time that I was really happy was when we were recording the ‘Headquarters’ album. The concerts were fun, but during the concert tours you are removed from your friends except for the guys. And even when we did take a few friends along it was only a mild relief. This last tour of Australia and Japan wasn’t fun because I felt hideously under-rehearsed. I was constantly pushing for rehearsals, and they were constantly saying well, like later. We couldn’t get together. Also, we didn’t play any new music this last concert tour. It was all old tunes, nothing from our newer albums, and it was a bore. But I think they suspected I was leaving anyway. For me, a lot of the pressure was off. When I felt a part of the group every time someone said something that jarred my sensibilities, I’d raise a huge ruckus and everybody thought I was out of my mind. While we were making the TV Special, knowing I was not going to be there any longer, I just thought to myself — I don’t have to worry about this thing — and I just let everything slide off my back. They must have though something was screwy. Then I finally told them, ‘Gentlemen I’m in negotiations to resign from the group.’ And they said, ‘Okay, well, there’s not much time, we’d better get to work on this Special.’ So we taped the thing and that’s the last I saw of them. The last day of the taping they gave me this little testimonial memorial watch.’ From his pocket Peter drew out a silver, antique-looking timepiece with the back side engraved, ‘To Peter Tork, from the guys down at work.’ ‘I’m free, I don’t know what I’ll be going. I’m actually a little apprehensive, because there’s no doing that there are three other incredibly talented fellows out there. They’re very talented guys. 
Mike is one of the funniest people I’ve ever known. Micky is even funnier and Davy is just cute as a button. Who could ask for anything more? Davy dances so great, did you see him dance in the film? I’ve not seen dancing like that on the screen except from Fred Astaire. The only other thing is that I’m both really relieved and really, really apprehensive. I’m terribly glad and also terribly sad.’” - NME, January 25, 1969

Q: “Why did Peter leave?” Michael Nesmith: “He just finally collapsed. A lot of people asked us, ‘How did you get through the whole thing without going stark raving mad?’ Well, the point is we didn’t. He was a lot less stable than any of us — I was probably the most. I’m a street fighter, always have been. I grew up with hot rods and fists. Peter just finally went crazy and wanted to quit. He was a very tired person.” - Hit Parader, February 1972

“To tell you truth… I… I never was able in those days particularly — I’m getting better at it these days — but in those days I was almost entirely unable to fight for what I saw as quality. If I didn’t get somebody fighting on my behalf then it didn’t, just didn’t come to pass. [...] I just basically think that I wasn’t feeling a part of anymore already by that point, I’d already felt like I was odd man out, and of course I quit almost immediately thereafter.” - Peter Tork, Headquarters radio, 1989

“I’d always had deep doubts, ever since the session for ‘Last Train To Clarksville.’ I walked in there with my guitar and Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart looked at me with derision and scorn, like, ‘Guitar in your hand, you fool!’ That was the end of it for me. Right there I was done with The Monkees in large measure. I struggled against it with some success at one point. But after Headquarters nobody wanted to be a recording group anymore. I did what I could, but I didn’t feel like there was any reason for me to be there anymore. I wanted to be in a rock group.” - Peter Tork, Head 1994 liner notes

“Headquarters was by far the best album in the sense that it was us. It was honest, it was pure, and we had a great time. Peter says that the reason he quit was because after we did this album, we decided we weren’t going to be a group anymore. It broke his heart, because Headquarters was the whole reason why he’d become one of The Monkees.” - Micky Dolenz, Headquarters 1995 liner notes

#The Monkees #Monkees #Peter Tork #Tork quotes #1960s #33 ⅓ Revolutions Per Monkee #Michael Nesmith #Davy Jones #Micky Dolenz #60s Tork #70s Tork #80s Tork #90s Tork #<3 #long read #1968 #1966 #1967 #so much respect for PT #bearded Peter #Peter deserved better #NME #Headquarters Radio #Headquarters #can you queue it

[casasupernovas]

Here it is. My commentary for 'Human Nature' and 'The Family of Blood'. Part 1.

Whew. I have been putting this off for a while because I have a lot to say. Lots of missed opportunities, questionable choices and more. Without further ado, here are my thoughts.

Let me preface this by actually saying what the story is, or was. This story is written by Paul Cornell, based off of his book of the same name from the 90s Virgin New Adventure's Doctor Who book series. After the show had been cancelled, it was this material amongst Big Finish that kept the fandom going. The story featured companion Bernice Summerfield and the Seventh Doctor and is basically the same plotline: the Doctor becomes a human teacher named John Smith in the early 20th century. Due to being a book, it's a lot more detailed and the villains are a lot more intense but that's the basics. I'd also like to note that despite Cornell's credit, showrunner Russell T Davies made it clear in 'The Writer's Tale' that he contributed/edited and signed off on stories for Series 3, even going so far as to not have his name on some, something he did not have a grudge over. So bear that in mind when I discuss some choices the episode makes.

So, off we go and in a pretty solid and gripping opening scene, we are thrown right into the middle of a pretty intense scenario featuring the Tenth Doctor and Martha Jones. They are being chased by something and the Doctor has to make a pretty quick choice to throw them off. So, the Doctor chooses to so something that entirely depends on Martha. His life depends on Martha. Hands out the watch. I'm invested immediately. It then cuts off to a different scene where confusion. What. Where. How? The Doctor is speaking funny, saying he dreamed of being a traveller. Why is Martha dressed as his maid? Why is she calling him Smith? Why is she saying he's human. Why on earth are they in 1913. We the audience are left to ponder what the hell is going on as the credits roll to reveal the title: 'Human Nature'. One thing I do really like about this story is how it doesn't immediately answer questions, but trickles through, and uses flashbacks to weave it all together.

We learn pretty quickly that this isn't a conventional Doctor Who story, and for the first time in the series, the Doctor is largely absent for TWO episodes, which is quite a bold decision to make. But a great way to ensure that the audience understands his importance and want him back. I read somewhere that David Tennant was actually sick during the filming for this, which added another layer of the Doctor being gone, due to him being obviously less like himself and quieter, something observed by the crew.

So, this is not the Doctor, but John Smith, a history teacher, who notably in the only lesson we actually see him teach, tells the class about battle, combat, the Battle of Waterloo, 1815. Remember this episode is set in 1913, November 1913 to be exact.

I do remember wondering if Martha had also changed, but being convinced that it was a story where she was the only one who knew the truth, due to her being the one to dismiss John Smith's dreams and tell him he is human. And we see her once more, performing the role of a maid. Martha Jones. Brilliant Martha Jones is having to be a maid. In 1913. Wow. I wasn't mad at this at first, mainly because this just reinforced to me how deep in trouble the Doctor and Martha must have be in. The stakes are high. I had already realised he has changed into a human to avoid these advesaries, just not known why. Martha clearly wouldn't have had to do this without good reason. To be placed in such a hostile environment as we begin to see, only fortifies the idea that this is the most dangerous scenario the Doctor and Martha have faced.

We are also introduced to Jenny, Martha's only friend in 1913. People have spoke of the 'Doctorfication' of Martha Jones this season as she has to take the reigns multiple times in ways many companions never do. So, like the Doctor, she gets her own companion in Jenny. Jenny who points out Martha's Londoner accent and admires her boldness. Because she's clearly the first person to challenge the roles they both are placed in, as women but also as a black woman. Martha and Jenny is then patronised and talked down to by Baines and Hutchinson, two boys attending the school in the most snooty, pompous, blood boiling way possible.

One of the positives of this episode is how it does not shy away from calling out just how arrogant and downright vile the attidudes of the country could be, especially during this period of time in British History. Baines and Hutchinson were not born that way. We see later exactly what kind of education these two are getting. Hutchinson then makes a racist remark to Martha, comparing the colour of her skin to filth before laughing and leaving. Martha is clearly riled by it but chillingly and accurately says (more to herself than Jenny) after Jenny points out the bleak apparent truth that boys like that would be the leaders of the country, that that may not be the case, knowing in the next year, a whole generation would be killed in a bloody, unnecessary and tragic war.

It's at this point it's made crystal clear that Martha Jones knows. Whatever is going on here, why she is here, with the absent minded John Smith, who flits by, 'head's in the clouds' says Jenny, Martha is the one who is in the know. And knowing the war is coming and being in this environment has to be so emotionally draining, especially as she knows there is nothing she can do to stop it. Not that they would listen to her, according to Martha, Jenny and Mr Smith are the only people who show her kindess here. Which is interesting, because John Smith doesn't seem kind to Martha at all in these episodes. Just polite. There is a difference. Not once does he ever defend her from condescension from the staff. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

We are then introduced to a character that also was in the original book - Nurse Joan Redfern. In some typical cutesy/awkward banter between her and John, it's pretty clear what is going to happen in this episode. I remember literally saying out loud "NO!" When Joan said "we make quite a team." Because I knew that I was gonna get a love story and I didn't want it. Mainly because it would take time away from the main companion, Martha, something that happens far too frequently this season. In fact, Martha is not just mainly reduced to the woman pining on the outside, but the woman pining alone. Martha Jones is seperated from the Doctor for most of this season, no doubt to reflect his literal emotional distance but all this achieves is a isolated companion. Which, as a viewer who is always excited to see who the Doctor meets next and how they interact, is a huge disappointment. And kind of maddening. Especially as this new woman is a racist. The scene before literally told us bold faced that this school has racists in it. Baines does not call out Hutchinson for his comments but laughs with him. The school is clearly full of racially prejudiced people and no doubt the staff. Which includes this lady. So I immediately knew she was going to be one so I automatically didn't like her and certainly was not going to invest in whatever love story they were going to push. I've seen many people say making her 'complicated' by showing her accurate prejudice for the time period is a good thing because it makes for a complex chatacter reading. Which I only agree maybe 10% with. Because it's true. People are complex beings. We see with Joan in her first scene that she is capable of being empathetic, polite and helpful. But we are later confirmed that she's also a racist. And as a black person, I am quite frankly tired of having to give characters like this grace. Because that courtesy is never extended the opposite way. I've made up my mind and being a racist is a pretty good reason to not like someone. Anyway, during this scene John Smith falls backwards down the stairs.

Martha bursts in as Joan tends to his wounded head because of course she does and Joan pointedly reminds her of her position, saying it is rude to enter "a master's study without knocking." To which Martha hilariously, mockingly, knocks on the already open door and comes back in. As Martha queries what happened, John Smith looks away and mumbles that it wasn't that big a deal, probably embarassed because it only happened because he was flustered by Joan. Again, even though what Matron is saying is accurate for the attitude of the time, the person that Martha says is 'kind' to her doesn't exactly defend her from Joan's little rebukes. Doesn't say "it's okay it's only Martha." When she enters his study, doesn't say "she's just wants to make sure I'm okay" after Joan cuts Martha again after she asks if she's checked for a concussion. And most cutting of all, Martha can't even use her medical knowledge to help because Joan knows more than her. Yeah, 20th century Matron knows more than the 2007 medical student. It's not just because Joan is older, or because Martha is a servant either. I'm sure Martha wanted to scream in frustration. We are immediately shown just how difficult Martha's role here is. We know she's clearly looking out for the Doctor here, but how is she supposed to do that when she is looked down on by everyone, so much so her voice is not heeded as useful or needed but borderline impertinent.

John Smith changes the subject though, and tells Martha how he was telling Matron about his impossible dreams and we get another plot twist. The biggest indicator that the Doctor is an alien are his two hearts. So the shock when Matron confirms only one heart. The Doctor is indeed human. How? We don't know yet, but we know it's tied to the watch. In another hint, John Smith says he dreamt he was hiding.

We then get John Smith showing Matron the journal showcasing classic Doctor Who villains, old faces officially making the 8th Doctor canon and of course, a callback to Rose Tyler, the sixth direct mention this season in episode 8 oh joy. I made a post before about what a missed opportunity it was to not show Martha's page. It does exist. I don't wanna watch John and Joan go all 'ooh' over his apparent 'fiction'. I want a moment where Joan finds the journal by mistake or purpose and finds Martha's page, because the journal doesn't just show crazy things but John Smith's lingering fears that something is not quite right. They're not just dreams, they're nightmares too. And in Martha's page he is clearly simultaneously disturbed and intriged by her. It's also an intriguing peek into the residual thoughts the Doctor has on her. That he doesn't know her too well (who's fault is that?) and that she wants to help. This is never addressed in the show and the page is never shown. Once again, Martha's character takes a backseat.

It's not lost on me that in this racist period, even with a rewritten brain, Rose still gets a poignant emotional beat and Martha is left in the wings. Again. I'm tired of Martha getting the backseat in her own damn season. In 1913. An era where white people are supposed to be superior. Does this ever get addressed? No. It gets worse. And it's painfully clear that there were no black people in the writers room because the optics of this are crazy.

Martha is concerned by the book of course, they need to be HIDDEN. Can't very well stay lowkey if he's writing the sh*t down can they? I think it's also the first time Martha has seen the journal. It's probably the first time he's began to speak about it openly. Maybe he's only just begun to dream about his true self. We found out that they've been there for maybe a maximum of almost three months. This seems to be a new development, or maybe he has been writing all the time. So Martha tries to downplay it, lest Joan get too curious. But Joan rather alarmingly confirms to Martha that she knows something is wrong with him, "it's like he's left the kettle on." We also get the Doctor and Martha's cover story - she arrived with him and he got her a job as a maid, and they know each other because she used to work for the Smith family, he 'inherited' her. Yikes. And Joan, in a 'sorry not sorry' brusk manner says for her to back off essentially; "you sometimes seem a little familiar with him. Best remember your position." A loaded statement. Not just pointing out her being a maid. But a black one. Remember your place. He's not just a man but your superior.

Throughout most of this season, there definitely feels like there's a vendetta out against Martha. In her debut she's clever, brilliant, beautiful and confident. And for some odd reason, it feels like the show feels like that is wrong. So we need to pull her down a couple pegs. Have the Doctor aggressively reject her at the end of the episode. And in the next. Take her to the slums with drug addled versions of her human race. Then the Great Depression where we have remind the audience that she is only just a unrequited love interest. Separate her from him so they can't bond as a companion/Doctor duo. Have him dump her back home then return immediately because she is apparently something he can pick up and drop off like a doll whenever he fancies. Then, in the episode where we are supposed to get headway, we tear him away from her in the early 20th century.

Martha Jones is brilliant, but it sucks that she has to do so much alone.

I'm barely through the episode but this post is already too long, so this is part 1. Part 2 will be up soon!!!!!

#doctor who #martha jones #tenth doctor #10th doctor #tenmartha #joan redfern #baines #hutchinson #jenny #rocastle #tim latimer #doctor who commentary #dw analysis #paul cornell #russell t davies #90s doctor who #series 3 #rose tyler #8th doctor

[blackgumball]

whats ur thoughts on toh? out of pure curiosity

aaaaaaalright so. the short of it is that s1 was mid, s2 was pretty great imo, and s3 SUCKED.

the long of it is that when i found out Dana Terrace was making a cartoon, I was excited. I admired her work on GF (which changed my life when I first saw it), and was looking forward to the Owl House.

when I started watching it, I figured it just wasn't my style. I had graduated high school found that i wasn't really into the 'school' element of stories anymore (which I remember hearing that Dana herself not being too interested in as well, but execs forced the crews hand). I also just don't care about witches very much. Luz didn't move me in any particular direction, nor did Eda. The animation was cute at points. I would say the best ting about the first season was the fight scenes, specifically the ones between Eda and Lilith. other than that the show was just fine.

season two. I loved season two. I thought it got a million times better. they introduced Hunter, who was probably my favourite character in the show, the stakes got higher, as did the quality of the storylines and arcs. I don't know! the show just became so exciting to watch. I had to drag myself through the first season but I was locked in on season 2 and very excited whenever new episodes were coming out.

so natch this is when disney decides to cut their legs out from under them.

look a huge part of me feels horrible for the cast and crew of the owl house. they had a decently popular narrative show that was being talked about WEEKLY and that still wasn't enough to save them from the axe.

so unfortunately I was watching rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles at around the same time I was watching the owl house. these shows were both canceled before they really got to end their narratives, and were given a shorter season/tv movie to wrap things up. I might've been 100x more forgiving to the owl house if rottmnt didn't EXCEL. granted, they're very different kinds of show, but rise really used what it had and made a heartfelt ending that insinuated the continuing adventures of the turtles. It really fucking worked (i love rise, everybody go watch rise)

so owl house gets three forty minute episodes to end its story, and the crew promised that just because they were short on time doesn't mean the show would be any worse. and I believed them.

the problem was, everything they chose to focus on in these episodes felt like the wrong choice.

so, context. the villain of the show since season one has been Emperor Belos. he's this big, creepy looking fascist dictator who wants everybody to be learning ONE kind of magic. he gives people special tattoos on the inside of their forearms to make sure they can't use more than one (which draws some uncomfortable parrallels to the holocaust considering we learn that belos wants to commit genocide against the witches)

so that's our villain but at the end of season two a new villain is introduced. a little creepy jester God Baby (heretofore known as GodBaby.) GodBaby wants to play. GodBaby destroys belos in one fell swoop and literally kills all the tension of the season two finally with a twitch of his finger, then GodBaby enslaves the planet as his playthings. Luz and her friends escape to the human world, but find they can't return.

When they DO return to the human world, they literally just explain to GodBaby that you have to ASK if people want to play with you and GodBaby immediately stops being the villain. The villain is now, again, Belos, who has been crawling around as a rather pathetic piles of deer shaped goo. There's your narrative context.

I found this was a huge waste of tension. they destroyed their villain, taking away all his credibility, his power, everything that makes him threatening to introduce this NEW guy, the new guy is convinced to the good side in a four minute conversation, all so you can bring this entirely non-threatening guy back for five seconds. this might have been alright if it didn't take place over the course of two and a half episodes. it wasnt DRAMATIC nor was it SATISFYING.

so that's the villains, now for the protagonists. Willow and Gus, our two side characters of colour, are underfocused on (as they have been throughout the entire show). Hunter, my favourite character, has basically the entire first episode dedicated to his suffering. i guess im biased cause I love that kid, but forty minutes of him getting infected with UncleGoop, slowly becoming paranoid and losing his mind, and then turning into some kinda (POORLY DESIGNED) deer beast, and then trying to KILL HIMSELF and THEN his first friend and beloved pet bird sacrificing itself to save his life..... hoooooooooooo. it was farrrrr too fucking much in my opinion. my man just wanted to cosplay. but i guess that's more of a personal thing.

Luz is in her depression era. she's upset because she thinks that everything is her fault, completely understandable. was i moved by it at all? noooooo.

amityyyyy. exists to be a good girlfriend. and that's OKAY. i'd probably like her way more if they hadn't turned the cunt beam down. she used to be a real bitch and that's when she was at her most interesting TO ME. IMO.

the most egregious thing to me is episode 2. that episode focused HEAVILY on side characters and stories I have no interest in when the stakes were supposed to be at their highest. they give boscha (fucking boscha?) a redemption arc when I was moe worried about hunter killing his uncle and luz freeing all the puppeteered slaves. and why are you INTRODUCING STORYLINES WHEN YOU HAVE LESS THAN SIXTY MINUTES OF SHOW LEFT???? it was very veryyy fucking frustrating.

last episode. i barely rememeber it. luz has he depression healed by the power of becoming a kaiju. hunter can now use magic because he ate his magic bird to survive. i was yawning.

when i talk shit about the owl house its because I was so fucking let down by its conclusion. I understand that the team had less to work with, but so did the crew on Rise, and they made an excellent conclusion to their series. because 2/3 seasons in that show were mid (TO ME!!! IN MYYYY OPINION!!!) i don't value it as much as I value shows like gravity falls or infinity train or rottmnt. if you or anybody reading this liked it, that's okay! live your truth. i did Not fuck with it though.

#she speaks #hater tag #asks #ty for asking i love asks! #long post #cartoonists listen to me TAKE STORY STRUCTURE CLASSES #omg and i just remembered it was like a carbon copy of the amphibia finale which released like three months before it #THAT was crazy

[unhingedhearties]

When External, Real Life Reasons Affect A TV Show’s Writing

I’m going to be serious for a moment.

I’m not going to post screenshots as examples because I see a ton of Hearties on both sides bringing this up and I don’t want to pin it on just a few, specific people. 

A lot of Hearties are complaining about how TPTB said there were real life reasons for why they wrote Season 10 the way that they did. They didn’t specify what those reasons were and people are naturally speculating. Some people are getting really vicious with their speculations so I want to take a moment to talk about another TV show that had it’s story drastically re-written because of (at the time) vague real life reasons.

Babylon 5 was a TV show that aired from 1994 to 1998. It was created by J. Michael Straczynski (JMS). Unlike most TV series, JMS plotted out the entire show’s story and planned for it to be told over 5 seasons. After the first season, the lead actor Michael O’Hare left and was replaced. No reason was given besides some vague “it was mutual and we’re all on good terms” and O’Hare still did some convention appearances for a few years. 

Some fans were understanding, some were furious. Some people who worked on the show had nice things to say about O’Hare, some had stories about how terrible his behavior was. Some fans who saw him at conventions had positive things to say, some fans who saw him at conventions said that he seemed drunk and rude to fans.

Michael O’Hare died in 2012 and almost a year later, in 2013, fifteen years after the show ended, JMS finally spoke about what happened and why the lead character of his show had to be replaced. While filming the first season Michael O’Hare began to show severe mental illness and had paranoid delusions and hallucinations. JMS offered to put the show on hiatus so he could get treatment, but O’Hare didn’t want to risk the show being canceled before it even aired and risking everyone’s jobs, so he held on as best as he could and finished the first season and JMS wrote him out. JMS kept his illness a secret from everyone so that it wouldn’t affect O’Hare’s career and said he’d take it to his grave, but O’Hare said he didn’t need to do that and after he died JMS could tell the fans. You can watch JMS finally tell this story here and see how chocked up he gets:

Do I think the reason they broke up Elizabeth and Lucas is as serious as this? No. Maybe it was something boring and mundane like a contract or pay dispute. Maybe one of the actors requested less screen time. Maybe Lindsay really was a secret Team Nathan fan that wanted to destroy the greatest love story ever told or Erin just wanted to kiss other men like what a certain ragepig idiot I’ve featured on here insists.

Or maybe someone involved on When Calls The Heart is going through a personal tragedy that they can’t or won’t talk about publicly and they don’t want to cost people their jobs. Maybe that’s something to keep in mind when you’re hurling insults at people on their social media pages. Maybe that’s something to keep in the back of your head before you tell the cast and crew that you hope they lose their jobs.

I don’t know. None of us do. We weren’t told. And maybe there’s a reason we weren’t told. When Calls The Heart is a show about Faith. Maybe it's time to start having some.

#wcth #when calls the heart #hallmark #hearties #fandom drama #Youtube

[fallenrocket]

#OurFlagMeansDeadloch Watch Party - Episode 6

(crossposted from my twitter)

Aleyna really came out here like, "It's been 24 hours since the last murder, the Feastival is back on!"

***

Somehow, bright bubbly Cath is just as much of a problem as why-is-my-police-officer-wife-too-busy-for-"us-time"-during-a-murder-investigation Cath. James still has her beat by a mile, but yikes.

***

Did James really just tell his fiancee she sounded crazy and that he was taking her home for "some much-needed beauty sleep"? Where's a serial killer when you need one???

***

Is McGangus incapable of referring to a female professional without gendering it in a gross way? First it was "Inspectress" Eddie, and now "Mayorette" Aleyna. He really enunciated her last name too, just to hammer home the fact that she's brown. What a dick!

***

"[Kevin the seal] thinks this island belongs to him. He's one of many!" teehee, a colonizer says what?

***

"Why does Margaret Caruthers get to decide who deserves what? She doesn't know better than us about what we need"

Speak the truth, Miranda!

***

Kudos to Abby for telling James she wanted to cancel the wedding, even if he's too self-absorbed to understand what she meant!

***

"This murder investigation's been entirely about what *you* need." Yep, those words actually came out of James's mouth. I swear, whoever winds up being the serial killer will only be the second-most loathsome character on this show.

***

Side note: Abby is just the best combination of competent and cringefail. Like, even after she accidentally poisons herself, she's still getting the job done.

omg, is Abby Matsuda the Stede Bonnet of Deadloch?

***

As hilarious as Madeleine Sami is, her dramatic acting is really good too--lovely work in this scene with Ray. We saw a little of that from Archie in the run-up to the mutiny, but we need more!

***

@PrimeVideo, I'm loving Madeleine Sami's comedic and dramatic range on Deadloch. Won't you #AdoptOurCrew so we can see more of that on a third season of Our Flag Means Death?

***

"You know what? I don't wanna run a damn dog hotel!"

"Let's not start saying things we can't take back!"

An important difference between Cath and James is that Cath is hilarious. She doesn't make my blood pressure go up every time she's onscreen.

***

"I'm not good with nice things, Ray, 'cause when I get 'em, I break 'em."

Someone give Eddie a hug, stat!

#our flag means deadloch #adopt our crew #save ofmd #fallenrocket #our flag means death #ofmd #deadloch #madeleine sami

[westworldparty19]

Strange New Worlds: A Broken Circle

SPOILERS BELOW

I can only enjoy this show if I pretend it’s completely disconnected from TOS so that’s what I’m going to try to do this season

Truly and honestly Spock and Chapel together repulses me. I physically couldn’t watch the scene where he’s trying to revive her on the transporter pad.

I am coming around on Chapel as an individual. I like the back story with her and M’benga. I think it’s sweet that they kinda stuck together after serving in the war together. And their final words to each other before jumping out the airlock made me tear up, no matter how mindblowingly stupid the concept of that scene was.

I like that Spock is developing his mutinous charms but hate that he was given command and pulled it off so early.

Love La’an and Ortegas and enjoyed whatever they were doing.

Uhura is always a stand out to me. Really loved seeing her stand up for her station. A little peeved at the rapidity that she can translate seemingly any language but Celia is so charming that I don’t really care

I think this might be controversial but I LOVE the new Chief Engineer! I don’t know anything about that species but I’m excited to see more of her and I just love that actress and her goofy voice. I do HATE that there’s more Spock family lore ahead…I do want to learn more about Amanda Grayson but I would prefer like a one off comic or Short Trek that is completely disconnected from any main plotline.

M’Benga is another standout to me this episode. The pain from the war is really evident.

However, THE GREEN FIGHT JUICE?? Please. If they ever put something so stupid on my screen again I’m canceling my Paramount+ subscription. At first j thought it was more gene manipulation and that they were disguising themselves as Klingons. As eye roll inducing as that may have been I think that would have been so much better and more in line with the theme of TOS and with established lot of SNW. Why introduce that in the pilot and with Chapel especially if it’s never used again?? The whole fight sequence was so stupid.

Honestly glad that Pike was MIA the whole episode. I really can’t stand him. And why doesn’t he open his mouth all the way!! He looks like the person who controls a marionette doll. Like you know it’s him speaking but he’s not moving his mouth. Interested to see who the lawyer he’s chasing after is. If it’s Areel Shaw I’m gonna be pretty pissed. Actually if it’s any legacy character I will be annoyed.

Pretty over the Badmiral stuff.

I HATE SNW GORN. The yell I let out when the Gorn ship detected came on screen…surprised my neighbors didn’t call a wellness check. I’ve posted about this before but SNW Gorn are the anthesis of Star Trek.

To be immediately followed with a memorial to Nichelle Nichols felt a bit cruel. That did make me tear up though.

Overall, not a bad episode entirely. I had fun watching most of it even though I did audibly groan multiple times. Feels mostly like a silly space adventure show and not specifically Star Trek. Premise was a bit too outlandish for me especially because they face absolutly no consequences.

Also have to pretend that this Spock is not my Spock to keep myself from going insane.

#star trek #spock #snw #strange new worlds #snw spoilers