#South Burning

[athena-gunpla]

HGUC 1/144 E.F.S.F. Mass-Produced Mobile Suit RGM-79N "GM Custom"

Another entry to the GM collection!! Joining the 2001 GM, 2003 GM Cold Districts Type, 2012 GM Sniper II, and 2023 GM Missile Pod, 2011's GM custom is part of one of Bandai's best runs, with pleasing balance between sticker detail, molded detail, colour separation, cost, and option parts. Of note is the inclusion of 7 whole pre-posed hand options, with 2 closed fists, 2 open hands, a special hinged open left hand to get around the poor shoulder articulation, and special right-handed weapon holding options that accomodate the large square forearms.

The kit overall is a welcome upgrade from the 2003 GM Cold Districts Type, with shoulders on pegs that rotate forward, and better ball-jointed hips. The shoulder and leg connections are nicely secured and have a lot of detail, and the single colour style of the kit allows parts to be cemented together to hide the panel gaps you often get with older kits.

This kit comes with the older light trans-pink beam saber effects (rather than the deep pink you'll see on newer kits) and an extra beam saber hilt, as well as a really nicely detailed bullpupped "GM rifle" and a post-0079 style shield.

All of the red vents and booster nozzles, as well as the grey inside the shield, need to be painted on, which was a little annoying in terms of cleaning up. Like other recent kits I've done, I added some gold as well.

This kit came with a nice set of detail stickers with complete freedom on how to apply them. There's plenty of EFSF lettering, lots of numbers, and a badge for the spaceship "Albion". I chose to number this "120", after the kit number, as the suit didn't appear to have any canon number. Combined with spare stickers from my other HGUC kits it looks really nicely detailed. Unfortunately there's no foil stickers with this kit, so I used my green metallic Gundam Marker for the sensors.

Just like my GM Cold Districts Type I also used some black sponged paint, as well as Tamiya weathering sets C and D for heat discoloration, oil stains, and paint damage. I tried to limit the degree of weathering here to save time, and I think it also helps let the base kit shine through.

I also picked up a set of custom resin weapons as a promotion from the hobby store I use. I painted the shotgun for display with this kit, and it looks really fitting. I like how the company name also looks like an in-universe logo.

I had a lot of fun with this kit, and I definitely think that's it's a more fun building experience than the other older GMs I've built.

[sammaggs]

3x01 Burning Down the House | Continuous

THIS IS ALL ONE SHOT!!!!!!!!!!! THIS IS ALL. ONE SHOT.

A nearly two-minute walk and talk in the precinct set with NO CUTS. For TWO MINUTES.

This is TWO FULL YEARS before The West Wing, which popularized the long hallway single shot walk and talk.

Genuinely hard to convey how difficult a shot like this is to choreograph with so many different moving pieces. As one continuous take this shot is WILD. It means everything—including the push in to Ray and Elaine, the pull back out to include Fraser stepping precisely back into frame, the ACTUAL LIVE DOG, the walk into the bullpen with all the extras cutting in front of camera, the gag with the ink—all of that is in ONE GO, NO FUCK UPS.

INCLUDING!! One of the best pieces of acting in the ENTIRE SERIES right here:

THE love at first sight moment. In the MIDDLE of all this.

My favourite thing about this is imagining Gordon Pinsent standing patiently in the bullpen waiting for his moment for the 45 times it took to get the first ninety seconds of this shot clean.

Oh I will never be done being obsessed with this show. The level of stagecraft involved here alone is insane. Paul Gross the man you are,

Happy 27th birthday today, Burning Down the House (Sept. 14, 1997)!! You are still iconic🇨🇦🍁

due South Long Shots [one] [two] [three] [four]

[roostertuftart]

Thinking about them again

[doodlesnoff]

Remember the five minutes in Oleander Sword where everything was fine, and then nothing devastating ever happened to these characters 🙃

[jinmepark]

The entry I did for a Style fanzine last year. It's based on the wrestling "W.T.F." episode (one of my all time favorites!!)

[skepticdoe]

cartman reading fanfiction is the most canon thing I’ve ever heard

[moxiepoxart]

South Park beach episode

[gayvecchio]

[syrupmap]

The parallels between the first and last episode with Ray Kowalski are so good.

"You know who I am, Fraser. Everyone here knows who I am."

"Do you ever feel like you don't know who you are? Like if you weren't around somebody, or that someone wasn't around you, then you wouldn't be you, or at least not the you that you think you are. You ever think like that?"

[pershing100]

Dalmeny Estate

[flownwrong]

Partners, Fraser. Partners.

3x01: Burning Down The House

[sammaggs]

1x02 Diefenbaker’s Day Off // 2x08 One Good Man // 2x13 White Men Can’t Jump to Conclusions // 3x01 Burning Down the House | Normalized

due South does a main character re-casting better than any other show on TV, and they do it by playing with television's own accepted meta-narrative.

Recasting a character has a long tradition in television, creating a viewership that knows and understands the storytelling short form at play. As viewers, we realize that sometimes actors aren't available to reprise a role (or simply aren't interested in it anymore); but, for the sake of the story, sometimes the show needs that character to come back. So we lean hard into suspended disbelief and just go with it. After all, the characters in the show accept the parareality of it—why shouldn't we?

Of course, the most famous example of a character recast would be the Dick/Darren disaster on 1960s sitcom Bewitched, when Dick York was unceremoniously replaced by Dick Sargent in the role of Darrin Stephens. ("The Dick Wars" would have gone absolutely insane).

it was... not successful

But they weren't the only ones to do it. Aunt Viv from Fresh Prince, Becky from Roseanne, Daario Naharis from Game of Thrones, Greg Serrano from Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (pain, agony)—recasting characters but maintaining the fiction is a storied tradition in TV. New actor, same character; totally normalized.

And shows continue to do it, even today, with a—uh—similar dedication to fucking it up doing it poorly.

why must we be punished like this

due South even engages in this trope itself in season 2, when hard-hitting investigative journalist Mackenzie King is recast and they don't even try to find an actress who looks similar. In 1x02 Diefenbaker's Day Off, she's played by brunette Madolyn Smith-Osborne; in 2x08 One Good Man, she's been replaced by blonde Maria Bello, and nobody talks about it.

yeah i'm absolutely the same person, obviously

Everyone diegetically (within the world of the show) is just like, oh yeah, that's hard-hitting investigative journalist Mackenzie King. Totally. Only non-diegetically (outside of the world of the show) does the viewer go "No, that's not the same person." Internally, the fiction proceeds as usual.

So what would happen if, say, Samantha Stephens turned to Dick Sargent and said "You're not Darrin," when everyone else in the show continued to treat him as though he was? Or if Jaskier told Geralt that he knows he's not actually Geralt, and everyone treated him like he was delusional?

Or if Fraser, even, had recognized Mackenzie King as someone entirely different, and everyone treated him like he had a hole in his bag of marbles because of it? Of course that's Mackenzie King; even her boss knows it. No, she's never been a brunette. What are you talking about?

And that's exactly what happens in Burning Down the House.

the rays vecchio

Diagetically, everyone else treats Callum Keith Rennie's character as though he is Ray Vecchio. "Oh, good, you found him," says Det. Huey. Elaine, Franchesca, literally everyone else both at the station and outside of it treat Callum Keith Rennie Ray Vecchio as though he is David Marciano Ray Vecchio. They're acting exactly as any other TV character would in the face of a recasting: as though absolutely nothing had happened.

Except for Fraser.

Fraser's specific brand of parareal Canadian plot magic means that he's immune to the recasting blindness; he's acting as an agent of the viewer, voicing our non-diegetic concerns. Fraser is (as he so often is) a character with one foot outside of the narrative. He's just always been like this and he doesn't know why.

oh this man is infuriating and hot, fuck. shit.

And for a character who already thinks he is likely insane (he sees the ghost of his dead father! He communicates with his deaf half-wolf! He is instantly committed to a mental institution upon voicing the actual true story of his life!), this is very extremely distressing. Fraser thinks he's actually lost it this time, because everyone else in due South is acting like a TV character, and Benton Fraser is acting like a viewer.

This is so brilliant on so many levels. They just fully lampshade the damn thing. It allows our protagonist to speak for disgruntled or confused viewers. It engages at a postmodern level with television as a medium with a storied history (and due South is incredibly postmodern; nearly every episode is or contains a reference to another piece of media). It's written from the perspective of someone who loves and is knowledgeable about TV tropes.

And it gives us an entirely new Ray while still maintaining respect and loyalty to the original, something no other straight (lol) recast could ever do.

Genuinely one of the most clever, witty, well-crafted hours of television ever made. I could write essays about so many different parts of it. And I guess I will!!!!!!

It’s Burning Down the House week in our dS Stacked Rewatch!

[mortmere]

I never paid much attention to what this guy was doing (which is exactly what the production crew wanted).

But now I looked. The S3 budget was apparently so low they couldn't afford a tiny little screw for the guy to work with. He's just happily zooming around with his screwdriver in an area where the fictional screw wouldn't even be if this sign had screws. Heh. Hard to keep that thing in one spot on a smooth surface.

[doodlesnoff]

unleashing all the Jasmine Throne drawings that have sat 95% finished for months

[andragoras-in-vanity]

i think im about to get to watch my government shut off the americans power and like....this whole situation is stupid and dangerous but its also just so fucking funny.

put tariff on us? okay we'll stop selling american beer and also new york and Pennsylvania can deal with the dark

[moleshow]

the 2020s political argument for unionization is that the only activity/location that rivals the phone in terms of time spent is the workplace. once they clock out they are lost to phone