#considering the last show I watched was an episode of House MD it would be the same

[sunnycitymac]

House MD hot takes

-Transmasc Chase > Transfemme Chase. Obviously everybody's headcanons are VALID AF but I feel like the only reasons people give is that "he likes to be pretty" when trans dudes can be pretty too :(. I can see both sides but transmasc chase just makes a lot more sense to me. I could write an essay.

-Wilson isn't autistic. He didn't "match House's autism UwU". Don't get me wrong there's definitely something going on up in that man's brain, but I'm thinking more on the mental health condition/personality disorder range than autism/adhd/etc.

-Foreman is sort of the least compelling member of the original team? I'm almost to the Taub/Thirteen/Kutner arc and so far I just haven't seem that much from him? I think House only hired him out of genuine respect as a doctor, which great obviously but not as interesting. He remains the same stoic, respectable doctor the whole time which is fine but not as interesting to watch as Cameron and Chase, with their "moral compass so strong it explodes" and "opportunistic traumatized yes man attitude" respectively. He's great as a guy, but just okay as a character. tbh I think the Euphoria episodes were made for the sole purpose of adding interest to the character.

-House was probably exactly the same before his injury, just not high all the time. I feel like that actually been emphasized in the show, but I always hear people talking about how he was probably much sweeter and a more lighthearted asshole beforehand and I think he just wasn't? People are allowed to have congenital jerkassery. I think he would still be a jerk even if he had a perfectly normal childhood.

-In a similar manner, I don't think House is as manipulative and cunning as people who view him as an edgy sigma tumblr sexyman like to think. I mean, obviously he is, but I think some of the stuff he says isn't with manipulative intent. I think he just genuinely lacks a social filter. He isn't Light Yagami for gods sakes.

-I doubt House and Wilson have ever fucked. SORRY. I'm a huge Hilson shipper but I just don't think it happened. pre series ending (yes I do know how it ends), even when they were living together, there was more important things for both of them, both in and out of their relationship. Also, at this point I'm guessing they both considered themselves heterosexual. It could have happened after the series ended I suppose because at that point I'm pretty sure they realized they were in love with each other, but Wilson was probably too busy dying of cancer.

-Start with Chase, end with Chase. I don't think Chase was very religious after he left the Catholic church. I mean he still sees himself that way which is valid and on the wiki and stuff, but I think most of his actions that point to that, like delivering last rites to a dead baby, are a byproduct of trauma if anything (trust me because religious trauma)

[thealogie]

hello thea! incidentally there is a spn fic, famous to me at least, in which dean drives to maine for cas if u even care

thoughts on spn? sorry to tarnish ur askbox with this but im curious, feel free to ignore

also i've also just started mash with season 4 last week and am now in season 6 its proving very addictive! its both easy to watch but also soooo compelling

wish you the best!

oh the spn girlies have going to Maine fic? Fantastic.

I would consider myself a big spn ally. I’ve never seen another group of fans have such an appropriate level of whimsy and humor while still being completely earnest about their interest. As someone who also has a lot of whimsy and humor and earnestness I truly tip my hat to them. Nobody on this site is doing it like them. Thank you for the memes.

However I personally was not even able to finish one single episode. I tried season 1 episode 1, got bored. I tried the episode where they introduce cas (season 4?). Still no luck. I think the version of the show people are watching in their heads is fantastic. I get that because when I watch house md I’m also watching a far superior show in my head. The difference I think is that Hugh Laurie was doing some of the bast acting ever put on our tv screens and Jensen Ackles was simply…not

[impostoradult]

I finally figured out why it feels like Supernatural murdered a unicorn (AKA why you need to STOP telling me to watch Black Sails)

I’ll start by saying, everything everyone else has been saying CERTAINLY bothers me: 

- the queer-baiting - the bury your queers - the undermining of Dean’s character arc  - the wasted opportunity for a certain kind of overall narrative closure - the flat out disrespect to Misha Collins and Jensen Ackles

 All of that bothers me tremendously. 

But there has been something else rather ineffable about this that has left a horrible taste in my mouth that I couldn’t quite pin down until last night. Bear with me, if you will, because this will require some set-up. 

*** This is not the first show to ever disappoint me in a spectacular fashion, nor will it be the last, I suspect. And one of the ways I’ve always coped with that disappointment was to remind myself that there will be other stories, other characters, other chances to get it right. (”It” being any number of things from just pure narrative emotional coherence to not burying your queers to not stringing along your queer audience and then yelling fuck you to them on the way out) 

But somehow that assurance -- that there will be other stories, other characters, other chances to get it right -- has rung particularly hollow in this instance, and I couldn’t quite put my finger on why until yesterday. 

I kept asking myself, why do I still have this feeling, deep in the pit of my stomach, like something was lost here that can never be recovered? 

Because something was lost here that I am doubtful can ever be recovered, and I don’t think I’ve seen anyone else talking about this aspect of it at all. 

***

A few months ago, TV critic Maureen Ryan did a great interview piece with Mike Schur (of Parks & Rec/The Good Place) discussing the death of long-form TV in the streaming era. They explore how the longer seasons and longer runs of traditional broadcast/cable TV provided an opportunity to tell particular kinds of stories that you simply can’t when seasons are 8-10 episodes and series typically run 2-4 seasons (thanks Netflix).

One key thing we’ve all lost in this new era of highly condensed TV storytelling (and of prestige TV narrative styles)? The traditional (several season’s long) slow-burn/will-they-won’t-they romance. Not only is there simply no longer the time or space to write such romances, it has also come to be seen as hacky, manipulative, cheap, artistically impoverished, low-brow, a embarrassing vestige of the era before TV became art™. 

Everybody is trying to be Fleabag now. No one wants to be Frasier. (”It’s really more like a 10 hour movie” they all like to brag)

Obviously TV still has romances, even ‘drawn out’ romances. But ‘drawn out’ in 2020 is like 2-3 seasons, maybe. More commonly it’s like half a season. Take Schitt’s Creek. The number of episodes between when David and Patrick first meet and when they first kiss? Seven. Seven episodes. Half a season. If you watched it live, it took less than 2 months for them to move from introducing that dynamic to consummating it. And I’m not bagging on Schitt’s Creek; I think the David/Patrick’s story is very lovely and well-written. 

But Niles & Daphne (Fraiser) had to wait 7 years and over 150 episodes before they finally got there. Josh & Donna (The West Wing) had to wait 6+ years, and 145 episodes. Mulder & Scully (The X-Files) had to wait 7 seasons and 143 episodes. Booth & Bones had to wait...you see where I am going with this. 

And my point is (and I can’t believe I never realized this explicitly until now): there has NEVER been a queer slow-burn/will-they-won’t-they romance of that type on TV ever. EVER. 

I’m going to say that again, because I think it bares repeating:

There has never been a queer, slow-burn/will-they-won’t-they romance that fits the 100-150 episode paradigm of delayed gratification on TV. 

Not ever.  

I can’t think of ONE example  Not a single, solitary one. And I know queer TV pretty well. Arguably the closest we’ve ever come is Legend of Korra, and that ran 50 episodes, a THIRD of the length of old school will-they-won’t-theys like Booth & Bones or Josh & Donna. 

Queer people have had a fair number of canonical romances on TV by now, even fairly long running ones. But we never got a primary/front-and-center romance that you had to root for for 100+ episodes before you got any kind of canonical consummation.

That is a particular kind of TV experience that queer people and queer characters were just 100% shut out of until it was too late. And because of how the TV landscape has changed in the last 10 years, I don’t know that that opportunity will ever come back around in our lifetimes. 

***

Dean and Castiel are/were a legacy of an earlier era of TV, an era that still contained the possibility for a will-they-won’t-they of that particular mold. There were other shows that could have also filled this gap at one time - Rizzoli & Isles, OUAT, House MD, etc. But one by one all of them were killed off, their queer romances unrequited, until Supernatural was the only one of its’ generation left standing. 

And they should have acknowledged that they were a species about to become extinct. 

There are plenty of other valid and compelling reasons Supernatural should have gone full Destiel, don’t get me wrong.

A) It would have been the most emotionally satisfying ending to the series and to those characters (and that would have been reason enough). 

B) It would have stopped the manipulative queer-baiting of the (disproportionately queer) fanbase (and that would have been reason enough). 

C) It would have been queer representation of middle-aged men, of bi men, of queers who came to their queerness later in life (and any/all of those would have been reason enough). 

D) It could have been a glorious subversion of the bury your queers trope, considering how often they’ve died and been resurrected (and that would have been reason enough). 

But point E) on this list is the reason this one hurts in a singular way that no one even appears to be acknowledging. 

Almost all of the other wrongs and missed opportunities contained in this Supernatural debacle have the possibility of being rectified (at least to a degree) elsewhere. I can and I likely will get more bi male characters from TV as time goes on. I can and likely will get more middle-aged queer characters. I can and likely will get more queer characters coming to their queerness later in life, and starting queer romances later in life. I can and likely will get more queer characters who aren’t killed cheaply and prematurely. I can and likely will get more genre TV shows with sprawling myth arc plots that are resolved in a coherent, satisfying way. I can and likely will get Misha Collins and Jensen Ackles involved in other projects that value their work and their talents. 

All of those other things are at the very least POSSIBLE, and many are even likely. 

But a queer 100-150 episode slow-burn romance a la Mulder & Scully or Niles & Daphne or Booth & Bones? That is the one baton Supernatural dropped spectacularly that no one else even has the possibility of picking up again for the foreseeable future. (They don’t even write those types of romances for heterosexuals anymore!) 

Seriously. It was a TV unicorn. And rather than letting it run wild and free, they stabbed it with a rusty nail. 

***

Given the monumental shifts in the TV landscape that have occurred in the last decade, I don’t know that TV will ever go back to the slow-burn/will-they-won’t-they romance spanning 100-150 episodes. Today it is a miracle if you can get ANY show to last longer than 50 episodes in the first place. 

And that is the piece of this that makes it feel (to me) like they murdered a unicorn.  

Because queer people have gotten a lot of things from TV, and they will get a lot more as time goes on. But that one? That one could very well be a totally extinct species.

That is the larger missed opportunity here that has left this feeling especially hollow and destructive. That is the thing that makes me balk when people tell me to go watch Black Sails or Pose or whatever other prestige TV show is doing this representation ‘better.’ Because that’s not really the loss I am mourning here. I KNOW there is ‘better’ representation elsewhere.  

But the will-they-won’t-they/slow-burn romance is a qualitatively unique thing that queer people literally just never got. Ever. There is no substitute, no alternate, no other show I can turn to with that kind of build-up and pay-off for a queer couple, and there probably won’t be in my lifetime. Not unless the TV industry undergoes another monumental evolution similar to the streaming revolution that shifts the incentives back to telling those types of stories again. 

All those shows you want me to displace Supernatural with? None of them can give me the one thing I uniquely wanted (and could have gotten) from Supernatural. THAT ALTERNATE SHOW DOESN’T EXIST. It doesn’t exist. And I have no reason to hope it will ever exist in my lifetime. 

So stop telling me to look somewhere else; you don’t understand what made this one a unicorn. 

***

Addendum: The only other possible show that could perhaps fill this gap is It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (re: Mac/Dennis). But I’m hesitant to say it exactly meets that criteria, for a number of reasons:

1 - It’s far less serialized relative to Supernatural and (except for a handful of stand-alone episodes) very little of the story is grounded specifically in Dennis/Mac’s romantic dynamic (unlike SPN, where it is absolutely central to much of the narrative)

2 - IASIP is fundamentally satirically in nature/tone which makes it much harder to have genuine romantic pathos (not impossible, but harder) 

3 - All the characters on IASIP are fundamentally crummy people who you aren’t exactly supposed to root for. Which doesn’t mean a romance between two of them can’t have its value/charm/worth but it’s not the same as when it is between characters who unequivocally deserve nice things/happy endings

[illumynare]

How the Enneagram explains all of Ford and Stan’s problems

….well, most of them, anyway.

So in my ongoing quest to learn all personality typing systems ever, I’ve recently started reading about the Enneagram, and it struck me that Ford and Stan both fit extremely neatly into the system, and it provides a great framework for analyzing why these two idiots can love each other so much and yet continually hurt/trigger/drive each other crazy.

(descriptions taken from the Enneagram Institute website, not linked because apparently that means this post won’t show up in the tags??)

Stan: Type 2, “The Helper”

The Caring, Interpersonal Type: Generous, Demonstrative, People-Pleasing, and Possessive

Twos are empathetic, sincere, and warm-hearted. They are friendly, generous, and self-sacrificing, but can also be sentimental, flattering, and people-pleasing. They are well-meaning and driven to be close to others, but can slip into doing things for others in order to be needed. They typically have problems with possessiveness and with acknowledging their own needs. At their Best: unselfish and altruistic, they have unconditional love for others.

Basic Fear: Of being unwanted, unworthy of being loved Basic Desire: To feel loved

This is Stan in a nutshell: somebody who loves deeply and unconditionally, sacrifices himself without a second thought, but also easily becomes possessive, and whose “helper” actions are often in some way an attempt to earn people’s love. He rescues Waddles from the pterodactyl so that Mabel will stop being mad at him, and he rescues Ford from the portal hoping that will restore the relationship they had as children. It’s not that Stan doesn’t genuinely care about Mabel or Ford’s suffering, it’s just that, on some level, he’s always trying to earn the love of the people he cares about.

Ford: Type 4, “The Individualist”

The Sensitive, Introspective Type: Expressive, Dramatic, Self-Absorbed, and Temperamental

Fours are self-aware, sensitive, and reserved. They are emotionally honest, creative, and personal, but can also be moody and self-conscious. Withholding themselves from others due to feeling vulnerable and defective, they can also feel disdainful and exempt from ordinary ways of living. They typically have problems with melancholy, self-indulgence, and self-pity. At their Best: inspired and highly creative, they are able to renew themselves and transform their experiences.

Basic Fear: That they have no identity or personal significance Basic Desire: To find themselves and their significance (to create an identity)

Feeling vulnerable and defective, yet disdainful and exempt from ordinary ways of living: if you looked up “Stanford Filbrick Pines” in the dictionary, that’s the first thing you’d see. People have argued a lot about whether Ford is arrogant and how much, but I don’t think that’s actually the most helpful way to analyze his character. Ford has, at different times, considered himself a genius, a fool, a hero, a puppet; but what never changes is that he’s obsessed with the question of his own identity, and driven by the fear he’s either a freak or a non-entity. Even at the end of Journal 3, when he finally starts to chillax, he doesn’t abandon the question of his identity and say, “Who cares if I’m a hero or not.” Instead he chooses a new identity: “I’m a hero’s brother, and I’m okay with that.”

So how does this explain their problems?

Because, as much as these two dumb idiots love each other, they have primal fears that are often at cross-purposes, and that make them hypersensitive to each other’s worst tendencies. Stan fears being unloved and alone, and at his most desperate he is willing to do anything—including literally immolate his identity—to keep his loved ones around him, or bring them back. Ford fears having no separate identity or personal significance, and at his most desperate he is willing to do anything—including cut his twin out of his life, and summon unknown spirits of insane power—to grasp that identity.

This is why I think that, even if the whole science fair debacle had never happened, they would have still had some kind of major rift. They both grew up bullied by other children, emotionally abused by their father, and without any kind of support network or healthy relationship models; I don’t think either of them had the resources, at that point, to deal with their issues in a healthy way. Stan would have tried to cling to Ford no matter what, without realizing Ford experienced it as suffocation; Ford would have tried to strike out on his own no matter what, without realizing that Stan experienced it as complete rejection.

And this dynamic is also what drives their conflict after Ford comes back through the portal. I’m thinking, particularly, of their scene at the end of “Tale of Two Stans”:

Ford: Okay, Stanley, here’s the deal. You can stay here the rest of the summer to watch the kids. I’ll stay down in the basement and try to contain any remaining damage. But when the summer’s over, you give me my house back, you give me my name back, and this Mystery Shack junk is over forever. You got it?

Stan: You really aren’t gonna thank me, are you? Fine. On one condition: you stay away from the kids; I don’t want them in danger. Cause as far as I’m concerned, they’re the only family I have left.

A lot of people have interpreted this scene as Ford planning to kick Stan out of his life and onto the streets (and written angsty fanfics accordingly). This may indeed be how Stan saw it, but I don’t think that’s a fully accurate perception. A moment before this, they’re laughing about being old men. Ford’s voice in delivering his ultimatum doesn’t read as angry or cold so much as somebody trying to put his foot down.

I think the key to Ford’s speech is the implicit link between “you can stay here the rest of the summer” and “I’ll stay down in the basement.” Ford is primarily thinking about the issue of his stolen identity: there can only be one Stanford Pines, so while he’s willing hide himself away and let Stan keep playing the role for the rest of the summer, he wants to be Stanford Pines again. He wants his own identity, and to have a say in what goes on in his house. Which is completely reasonable!

But of course, Stan is approaching this conversation from a completely different direction. He’s spent thirty years trying to save Ford, not just because of his own guilt but also because he wants their relationship back: think of how he throws his arms wide and shouts “Brother!” when Ford steps through the portal. From Stan’s point of view, Ford is saying that everything Stan suffered and accomplished is still not enough to earn his love. Which is why Stan lashes out, having finally reached the limits of his willingness to martyr himself. Objectively, it’s kind of terrible to disown your brother for not saying “thank you,” but in context it completely makes sense for Stan to react this way. (And honestly, it’s really good that he has managed to discover ONE boundary, even if he’s being petty about it.)

….but of course, Ford still doesn’t understand what’s going on in his brother’s head, so he interprets Stan’s anger as something along the lines of “how dare you want to make decisions, you should just live in my basement for the rest your life to make me happy.” Which in turn drives his hostility and posturing in later episodes (like the DD&MD game—yes, Ford was swept away by enthusiasm, but I think he was also very much trying to mark his territory when he covered the TV room in graphs.) And that just escalates Stan’s hurt and anger, creating his determination Not To Care even when the world is ending and Ford is a prisoner, and culminating in the Zodiac Fight which is hands-down the pettiest thing either of them has ever done.

What saves them is Dipper and Mabel, who remind them it’s possible for two radically different siblings to work together—and who give them something to care about outside their own tumultuous dyad. Threatened by the loss of Dipper and Mabel, they find they can still trust and understand each other well enough to pull off a desperate, last-minute con. In one way, their final gambit seems to echo their earlier patterns: Stan burns up his identity to save his family, Ford grimly makes a choice that will cut him off from his brother. But there’s an important difference: Stan doesn’t expect to get anything back from this, not admiration from the kids or love from his brother, because he doesn’t expect to be himself after. He burns the dream of the Stan-o-War along with all the rest of his memories. Ford, on the other hand, gives up all claim to being the hero, The Man Who Killed Bill Cipher; more than that, he trusts Stan to carry out that role for him.

And that’s how, after everything, they’re able to reconcile and be at peace with each other.

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

Can we have the tea on why firefly getting cancelled was a good call tho?

My confidence on this website grows in direct proportion to my follower count, and thus the opinions I post get steadily more controversial.  I actually got a mostly-positive response to my pro-Twilight post, so [glances around nervously] [dons fake beard] here it is:

IMHO, the producers were right to meddle in Firefly after its pilot, and they were right to cancel it after 12 episodes.

I enjoy Firefly.  I’ve rewatched “Safe” and “Out of Gas” over a dozen times, I had a Serenity poster on my wall in college, and I’ve got Mal’s quote about statues as an epigraph in my current NaNoWriMo project.  However.

First: they were right to kill the pilot.  (And I don’t mean Wash.)

The biggest problem with the first first episode, in a nutshell, is Mal.  He’s a potentially intriguing character, but he’s not likable, he’s not competent, and he’s not entertaining.  No antihero has to be all three, but every antihero has to be at least one, right off the bat.  A couple examples of antiheroes that got whole shows:

Dexter Morgan (Dexter) is a literal serial killer, so definitely not likable, but the pilot showcases that he’s terrifyingly competent with cellophane and also has an entertaining interior monologue.

Greg House (House MD) is questionably competent, and not that likable, but he’s highly entertaining because he immediately makes us laugh.

Jed Bartlett (West Wing) is largely incompetent at social matters, and he’s not funny at first, but he’s immediately charismatic and likable.

Frank Castle (Punisher) isn’t classically entertaining, and he’s not likable, but he’s shown as highly competent from minute one.

Malcolm Reynolds isn’t funny at first.  He responds to insults by punching Simon in the face or throwing Jayne out of the room, barely tolerates Zoe’s fond teasing, and doesn’t joke around much.  Malcolm Reynolds isn’t likable at first.  He acts openly contemptuous toward Book’s and Inara’s chosen professions, seriously considers killing Simon for trying to protect River, loots corpses, and ignores Kaylee.  Malcolm Reynolds isn’t competent at first.  He fails twice to find a fence for the protein blocks, fails to detect either Simon’s or Dobson’s lies, gets himself and his first mate shot in a bad deal, and barely escapes with his life.  He tells Simon that any day where he manages to keep his ship in the air counts as a success.

I don’t want to watch an entire show about this guy after seeing just the pilot, and I sympathize with anyone who feels the same way.  The only moment in 120 minutes of screentime that intrigues me is the smash cut between Mal announcing to Simon that Kaylee died and Mal roaring with laughter with the rest of his crew over a prank well-pulled.  It’s competent, funny, likable, and enough to make me want to tolerate this guy long enough to see what he’s going to do next.  I don’t blame the producers for demanding that we see Simon-pranking guy more, Simon-punching guy less.

The other tone or setting inconsistencies in the pilot — the characters riding horses when they’ve got a faster-than-light ship, the dirt and platinum constructions, the Chinese vendors offering street meat made out of dog, the heroic depiction of the vainglorious Confederate Browncoat cause, the crew all being fluent in Mandarin but not having a single Asian character in the whole cast* — make it hard to get a sense of what the show is meant to be.  The different elements just don’t make sense together.

Contrast that with “The Train Job,” the second first episode.  There are undeniably Western and sci-fi elements, but they actually make sense together: instead of characters inexplicably swapping land speeders for horses, there’s a spaceship swooping low over a bullet train.  Crow uses frontier weaponry, but it’s an intimidation tactic, and he does own a blaster.  The Asian-influenced elements make a lot more sense, appearing mostly as background details that hint at a melding of cultures.  Mal is warm and affectionate with his crew, willing to joke around to entertain the audience, and at least 43% less misogynistic toward Inara.  Niska plays an important role in plot and character, setting up the possibility that we haven’t heard the last of this plot and also acting as a foil to the Serenity crew, who might kill the occasional unarmed prisoner but at least do their best not to poison entire towns.

Is “The Train Job” as unique an episode as “Serenity”?  Nope.  Does it do a better job at getting someone who’s never heard of this show before to want to tune in next week?  I think so.

And then the cancellation.

Obviously, we’ll never know if people would’ve kept on turning in, because the series got less than a single season.  And I think that was the right call, from the producers’ point of view.  Firefly as a show might not have had the budgetary demands that, say, Game of Thrones did, but even an amateur like me can take one look at that series and go “damn, that looks expensive.”

There are NINE (9!) main characters, with series-regular salaries.

CGI was a lot more expensive and time-consuming in 2002, and literally every episode includes some exterior footage of the ship.

Every single episode involves the characters, or at least the cameras, leaving the ship and going to different phantasmagorical settings.

Even “Out of Gas” and “Objects in Space” had to take the time and money to build the junkyard and Jubal Early’s ship, respectively.

“Trash,” “Serenity,” “Jaynestown,” “The Message,” and “Heart of Gold” each introduces (and requires a build for) an entirely new fake planet.

Every single episode involves minor characters, and over half of them involve crowd scenes that require hundreds of extras.

Horses.  And cows.  Cost money.  As Wash says, shoulda gone with the counterfeit beagles.

The Serenity set itself was built to scale.  That’d save money in the long term, but in the short term required more camerawork to actually film in partially-enclosed locations.  When you add in the fact that the on-planet shots always required dollies, cranes, and similar equipment, it adds up.

On a similar note, “the Firefly shot” (as it became known) requires days of planning followed by hours of shooting to include all of the characters in one single extremely long camera pan (almost five minutes long, the second time it happens).  As a stylistic choice, it was a pricey one.

If Firefly had been spectacularly successful right from the start, it might have been able to justify its enormous budget.  The fact that it was modestly successful didn’t justify the amount of money it was sucking from other projects.  Over 90% of shows that make it as far as network deals never even get a pilot; over 90% of shows that go so far as shooting a pilot never make it past that first episode.  The network decided to spread the love (and the budget) around, rather than sinking it all into a single project currently taking the place of maybe a dozen other potential shows.

Not only that, but Firefly didn’t have a ton of options for cutting its budget down.  It could use fewer camera tricks, but that wouldn’t change the need for CGI just to convey the basic premise of the show.  It could cut a character or two, but the cast would still be unusually large.  It could have fewer on-planet scenes, but there’s only so much one can do with the characters if they’re cooped up inside their ship the whole time.  Firefly was also leeching resources away from that team’s two other enormously successful projects – Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel — and the low ratings of Buffy’s season 6 and Angel’s late season 3 into season 4 reflect that fact.  If it’d been allowed to continue, Firefly ran the risk of killing both those golden geese without ever getting to the point of producing eggs itself.

Do I wish there was more of the show out there?  Yes.  Do I wish the show had had time to evolve, hopefully into something with fewer problems of casual racism?  Hell yes.  Would I have pulled the plug as well, if I’d been in the room when it happened?  Probably yes.

*I am aware of the theory that, given the heavily Asian-influenced settings in the “Safe” flashbacks, the popularity of “Tam” as a Chinese last name, the choice of dark-haired light-skinned actors, and specific elements of the family’s pressure to excel but conform, that the Tams are meant to be Chinese.  Given that all four actors are white, and that there are already ample problems with anti-Chinese racism in this show, I strongly prefer not to ascribe to that theory.

[missjackil]

4th Anniversary

Today marks 4 years that I have spent with the Winchester boys. 

I remember the day clearly, as Leap Day has always stood out to me as some sort of magical kind of day. I know it’s only to keep up with the Earth’s rotation so that June doesn’t land in winter eventually but as a kid, I thought of it as a special day, like a “gift from above” kind of thing. So I have no trouble remembering I started watching SPN on the Leap Day. 

The day itself had nothing to do with why I started watching, It had been a very cold, very snowy winter so my friend Dawn, my daughter and I, got into binge-watching stuff on Netflix like House MD and Nurse Jackie. When it was Dawn’s turn to pick, she said we should watch Supernatural, she had been watching it since day one and we would probably like it. 

At the time, it was live in S11 and there were 10 seasons on Netflix and I was like “11 seasons is a huge commitment” and she said “Yeah but I think it’s the last season, and if it helps any, it stars 2 hot dudes that just keep getting hotter every season!”  So I listened to her pitch, she knows I love bromance, and assured me if I enjoyed House and Wilson’s bromance, I would LOVE Sam and Dean’s, and it has a lot of religious elements which she knew I was interested in. So we watched the first 2 episodes.

I will admit, I wasn’t sold. Sam and Dean were cute and they had interesting interactions with each other but they were too young for me to consider “hot” and I didn't think they were very good actors. Not only that, but the color was nearly black and white which bothered me, and made the dark scenes almost impossible for me to see and low budget horror isn’t my thing at all. 

Dawn was disappointed and didn't think I gave the show much of a chance, Sarah kinda liked it, she was about the same age as Sam and he was her favorite. So I agreed to watch the first 2 seasons, but if I still wasn’t sold, we move on.

I’d say the first episode to really impact me was Faith. Until that point, I didn’t think Sam cared all that much for Dean. I felt like Dean was (forgive me y’all) whiney, clingy, and too immature for me to believe he was 26-27 yrs old. I thought Sam was snobby and Jared, as an actor, was trying too hard.  However, Faith changed my mind about Sam. It showed he really did love Dean. This was very important for my love of bromance. If one seems to want to get far away from the other, then that’s not very bromantic., but the scene in the Hospital when Dean says “I’m gonna die and there's nothing you can do about it” and Sam says “Watch me” made me go “hmmmmmm” 

Season 1 did get better, but the first half of season 2 still had me thinking I wouldn't want to continue watching. Playthings was the next episode to impact me. No, not really because of the Wincesty-ness of it because TBH drunk Sam was cringy to me LOL but I loved Sam’s rescue scene in the pool! After that episode, S2 was better and by the time we got to All Hell Breaks Loose, I knew I was hooked!

I never would have thought such a show would become so much a part of my life that I'm literally heartbroken that it's almost over., I wonder where I'll be the next time Leap Day rolls around. I wonder if I will still have such fond memories of that one time, the Leap Day was literally, Supernatural.

[fizzingwizard]

I reread the Sherlock Holmes stories at least once a year. Every time, I’m impressed with something new. I’ve really got to start a Holmesian side blog.

For now, enjoy what is basically me live-tweeting “The Problem of Thor Bridge,” although I actually read it a few days ago. Holmes is in his late 40s.

The story in short: A woman has been killed, and the family’s governess is accused, because the woman’s jackass husband is totally into her.

It was a wild morning in October, and I observed as I was dressing how the last remaining leaves were being whirled from the solitary plane tree which graces the yard behind our house. I descended to breakfast prepared to find my companion in depressed spirits, for, like all great artists, he was easily impressed by his surroundings.

We start off with an image of the moody, artistic, disconsolate Holmes, and a depiction of Watson, the guy who knows everything about him.

On the contrary, I found that... his mood was particularly bright and joyous, with that somewhat sinister cheerfulness which was characteristic of his lighter moments.

"You have a case, Holmes?" I remarked.

"The faculty of deduction is certainly contagious, Watson," he answered.

Every. Little. Thing.

Also, please note, sinister cheerfulness.

Watson: Holmes, you’re... happy. Good Lord, who’s been murdered!?

"... We may discuss it when you have consumed the two hard-boiled eggs with which our new cook has favoured us. Their condition may not be unconnected with the copy of the Family Herald which I observed yesterday upon the hall-table. Even so trivial a matter as cooking an egg demands an attention which is conscious of the passage of time and incompatible with the love romance in that excellent periodical."

Ooh. Victorian burn!

"I am getting into your involved habit, Watson, of telling a story backward."

Holmes’s pastime - casually insulting Watson.

Watson’s probable reaction:

By the way, let’s keep track of Holmes burns, shall we? So far he’s roasted both Watson and the poor cook at Baker Street.

"... A revolver with one discharged chamber and a calibre which corresponded with the bullet was found on the floor of her wardrobe." His eyes fixed and he repeated in broken words, "On—the—floor—of—her—wardrobe." Then he sank into silence.

Sherlock Holmes abruptly cutting off, repeating himself in staccato, then getting lost in thought and forgetting he was talking to someone. Just a day in the life of Dr. Watson.

When this sort of thing happens for a prolonged time, Watson has a habit of... falling asleep. Lol. Not that I blame him

Enter Bates, who is a manager for today’s client, Gibson, a gold mining magnate. Bates does not like Gibson.

"Those public charities are a screen to cover his private iniquities."

A breakdown of big business if I ever saw one.

Holmes doesn’t like Gibson either.

"What the devil do you mean by this, Mr. Holmes? Do you dismiss my case?"

"Well, Mr. Gibson, at least I dismiss you."

Holmes Burn Count: 3.

I sprang to my feet, for the expression upon the millionaire's face was fiendish in its intensity, and he had raised his great knotted fist. 

Gasp! Someone makes a threatening gesture at Sherlock Holmes, something that surely happens with regularity!

Watson:

We learn Gibson has a crush on his governess, who is accused of killing his wife.

"I could not live under the same roof with such a woman and in daily contact with her without feeling a passionate regard for her. Do you blame me, Mr. Holmes?"

"I do not blame you for feeling it. I should blame you if you expressed it, since this young lady was in a sense under your protection."

Holy cheese whiz, Batman! Don’t hit on your employees! See! Even in a world without bills against sexual harassment in the workplace, this was understood!

"I've been a man that reached out his hand for what he wanted, and I never wanted anything more than the love and possession of that woman. I told her so."

"Oh, you did, did you?"

Holmes could look very formidable when he was moved.

Sherlock Holmes:

"I said that money was no object and that all I could do to make her happy and comfortable would be done."

"Very generous, I am sure," said Holmes with a sneer.

Holmes Burn Count: 4

On a side note, more Holmes actors should sneer.

"Some of you rich men have to be taught that all the world cannot be bribed into condoning your offences."

PREACH IT BROTHER.

"And women lead an inward life and may do things beyond the judgement of a man."

I love how this is just accepted in this time period. Gibson is speaking, and Holmes and Watson are gentlemen, but no one’s going to contradict this statement.

Man: does something completely against his character. Everyone else: How strange! There must be some reason. Meanwhile, Woman: does something completely against her character. Everyone: Well, she’s an illogical woman, what do you expect?

I mean dude. They talk this way in the original Star Trek, which had female character working in high-level positions (albeit not starship captain). And the “illogical woman” line appeared pretty much every time a plot involved a woman. It’s crazy how persistent a stereotype this was. At least “female hysteria” was still considered a Thing in Holmes’s time - by Star Trek’s time it had been dropped since the 1950s.

Anyway, I can’t understand a thing men do.

"[My wife] was crazy with hatred and the heat of the Amazon was always in her blood."

Whenever a character isn’t English, they are assigned some ethnic trait that usually makes them more passionate and unreasonable than English people. The English don’t escape critique, but foreigners definitely feel the burn the greatest. If an excuse can be found to blame something on a character being “tropical” or “fiery” because they’re from the Mediterranean or overseas, it will be used. And it’s usually a female character. (Though probably the one who gets it the worst is the poor Andaman Islander in The Sign of Four, who is a man, but barely even afforded humanity by the text.)

Holmes and Watson travel out to investigate. They meet the local police, who’s grateful to work with Holmes.

"And your friend, Dr. Watson, can be trusted, I know."

This is just how you react when Holmes shows up with Watson, since Holmes’s modus operandi is “Anything you say to me will eventually get back to Watson anyway.”

"Well now, Watson, suppose for a moment that we visualise you in the character of a woman who, in a cold, premeditated fashion, is about to get rid of a rival..."

So there’s an episode of House MD where House asks Wilson to envision himself as his patient, who is a middle-aged Chinese woman. Wilson is like “ok” and House says “Say it.” So Wilson says “I’m a middle-aged Chinese woman.” And House is like, “good.” And clearly it’s from “Thor Bridge” bwahahahaha.

"Your best friends would hardly call you a schemer, Watson, and yet I could not picture you doing anything so crude as that."

Watson Cannot Lie. It Is Known. At least, he cannot lie convincingly for more than a few minutes. Also, he is a Good Guy, Whom Holmes Trusts Implicitly.

(The Casebook has quite a few Watson-validating moments.)

"I can see now that I was wrong. Nothing could justify me in remaining where I was a cause of unhappiness, and yet it is certain that the unhappiness would have remained even if I had left the house."

^This is the governess, Ms Dunbar, teaching us all that a good deed never goes unpunished. I disagree with calling Ms Dunbar the “cause” of unhappiness, as the cause is clearly the husband. Ms Dunbar’s one bad decision was in not putting some form of distance between herself and Gibson. She seems to have thought they were safe as long as they were not being physically intimate, but other forms of intimacy were okay. And, to be frank, it seems not unlikely by the end that for all Gibson’s lack of morals, and in spite of her own, Ms Dunbar loves him back.

At the same time, she’s also right that no matter what choice she made, Gibson and his wife were not going to be happy together. It’s completely Gibson’s fault though. And the fault of a society where leaving a marriage left a black mark.

"How do you know [the murder weapon wasn’t already planted in your room]?"

"Because I tidied out the wardrobe."

"That is final."

Who is she, Marie Kondo?

Holmes did not answer. His pale, eager face had suddenly assumed that tense, far-away expression which I had learned to associate with the supreme manifestations of his genius. So evident was the crisis in his mind that none of us dared to speak, and we sat, barrister, prisoner, and myself, watching him in a concentrated and absorbed silence.

More of Silent, Pensive Holmes and his Rapt Audience. Watson won’t fall asleep when others are around, so instead they all stare at Holmes. Literally. That’s what it says. No one dares speak and they all just stare at him.

Suddenly, as we neared our destination he seated himself opposite to me—we had a first-class carriage to ourselves—

I like that Watson feels compelled to explain this to us this.

and laying a hand upon each of my knees he looked into my eyes with the peculiarly mischievous gaze which was characteristic of his more imp-like moods.

The body language in this passage. Holmes getting all silly and excited. Watson still just staring. This scene is probably the most Guy Ritchie-like it gets.

Also, please note imp-like.

Watson: Get your hands off my knees Sherlock Holmes you adorable fucker.

"Watson," said he, "I have some recollection that you go armed upon these excursions of ours."

It was as well for him that I did so, for he took little care for his own safety when his mind was once absorbed by a problem so that more than once my revolver had been a good friend in need. I reminded him of the fact.

"Yes, yes, I am a little absent-minded in such matters."

Holmes: Hey Watson, are you packing heat?

Watson: Well YEAH, you careless bastard. Someone’s got to prevent your death, since you won’t.

Holmes: YOLO

(Although, it’s more like YOLT, in this specific case.)

"See, Watson, your revolver has solved the problem!"

^After using Watson’s revolver in an experiment which results in the gun falling off the bridge into the depths of the river.

Watson: Thank you, Holmes. I liked that revolver.

Holmes: Psh, quit your bitching, we’ll drag the river for it.

In the end, it turns out the wife concocted a plan for her own suicide that would make it look like the governess murdered her. Although this story would definitely have been better without the racism and sexism, one thing that I can’t help but appreciate is that Gibson, a Generally Bad Guy, is not The Bad Guy, and gets to continue living his rich and ruthless life. On top of that, he’s even rid of his wife who wasn’t beautiful anymore, and potentially going to marry the beautiful younger woman. So he gets no consequences for treating his wife terribly, putting the moves on his employee, or just for being a jackass. Instead, he gets even More. It’s hyper realism. ACD ain’t pulling his punches with this one. /cynicism

And that’s it for “Thor Bridge!” This was very fun for me to do though I doubt anyone will read it! But I’ll almost definitely make more so I can continue to share the running inner monologue that goes on in my head whenever I read Holmes stories. I enjoy snickering to myself with or without an audience.

Our Holmes Burn Count was only 4, though I could have included a few more barbs he threw at Gibson.

This probably doesn’t need mentioning, but all the Sherlock Holmes stories are in public domain so y’all should go read them.

[mdwatchestv]

The Magicians 3x03: Witches and Hoes

Happy another week has gone by since the last Magician's episode! I am very tired and once again banging this out on the Tuesday before the new episode, so I'm going to launch into in a lazy and unoriginal introductory device that is partially plagiarizing someone else's  thoughts and feelings. Sorry, here we go. My friend g-chatted me this week to talk about the Magicians. "Did you like it?" I began. "Nothing happened in it," she replied. "What are you talking about?" I rejoined, "Penny DIED." "That did not feel permanent" Not to be thwarted by Penny's astral projection, I came back with, "Tom Amandes DIED!" "Yes but he is like a guest character so whatever."

Whatever indeed.

Frustrated by her lackadaisical, yet impenetrable argument, I struggled to come up with more things in this episode that had actually...you know...happened. Although there were many fun set pieces, there was not a lot of forward momentum in the plot. This is mostly noteworthy because the Magicians usually tears through plot with reckless abandon, speeding through storylines at the speed of light. It is strange, mildly confusing, and completely glorious. To see them tread water and take time for some light set up, while commonly seen in other shows, is a bit jarring here. Like we didn't even get a key this episode? Penny did die though. I mean, sort of.

Once again we see our magic heroes broken up into little task forces, perfect bite size pairs for us to crunch right through. Alice is back on her cat-murdering bullshit as she snatches a fuzzy babe up out of the woods. Rude as hell. She then returns home to find her parents opulent manor, and her parents themselves, in a state of disarray after the loss of magic. Possessed Quentin also follows her there in a creepy, totally non-terrifying way. I kind of love how none of Quentin's closest friends (Julia, Alice) noticed any change in his general disposition when possessed by a slug monster. At the house, the lamprey fux with Alice, eventually possessing her father (the aforementioned Tom Amandes) and forcing Alice to electrocute him. Alice's dad isn't the only thing that dies in this storyline however, as Alice also puts her relationship with Quentin to bed. That's right, Old Alice can't come to the phone right now. Why? Oh because she's dead. New Alice has also abandoned her peter pan collar a-line dresses, but now wears shirts in a clingy material I can just FEEL my underwire getting caught in. By far the most stressful costuming in any show. 

Elsewhere on Earth, Kady and Julia gather some random household items in order to summon a demon to cure Penny. Oh also a mysterious old lady lays down a warning to Julia. Is this lady a Cassandra-like sage? Or is she being possessed by a larger force to speak to Julia? What's clear is that Julia is not as far in her magical development as *someone* wants her to be. Anyway with the help of Mayakovsky's battery, Julie and Kady are able to summon A demon, if not necessarily the right one, to help Penny. The demo sucks up all of Penny's cancer (nom nom nom), but is too late to save him! Yes Penny's bodily form is dead, but his astral projection is alive and kicking. I like Penny most when something terrible is happening to him (see: no hands), and look forward to his invisibleness.

We got the most action this episode in good ole Fillory. King Eliot's quest is briefly halted when his ship is overtaken by pirates! While cowering in his cabin, Eliot espies a keyhole in the hull of the ship. This is a timely find considering he just got a magical key last episode, and what do you know it's a fit! After revealing a magical mystery door, Eliot, Fen, and Fairy Daughter disappear for the rest of the episode. Their absence was missed. However there were other beloved characters to take their place as Margo swept in with the help of the Fairy Queen to save Eliot from the pirates! Margo has a brief flirtatious parley with the FABULOUS AF Pirate King whose too-short appearance on the show was simply not enough. Honestly I would watch a series about Margo and Pirate King sailing the high seas together, killing men, and getting into sexy trouble.

In the less fun department, the Pirate King reveals she wants her ship to essentially rape Eliot's ship, and seeing how the ships are sort-of conscious, this is a morally difficult request. Margo can't force the ship to undergo the trauma and instead asks her (the ship) what she wants to do. The Fairy Queen is moved by Margo's consideration, and dispatches of the pirates in quick, bloody fashion. RIP Pirate King, we hardly knew ye. Earlier Tick pick-pocketed Margo's eye back from the Fairy Queen (since he can finally see her), which obvi the Queen notices almost immediately. Not sure what the long game was there. Her Royal Fairiness demands its return, but Margo chooses to smoosh it, rendering her permanently mono-sighted. What a badass. 

So that's where we stand, not too much farther ahead than last week. Alice has successfully vanquished her lamprey stalker, Penny is dead-ish, Eliot is in another world (or maybe just a magical broom closet), and Margo still maintains a tenuous truce with the Fairy Queen. I'm hoping for big shake up crazy next week, perhaps a transformation? Introduction of five new minor characters? A shocking revelation? Hit me baby, I'm ready!

I mean at the end of the day this is still a show where a girl crushes her own eyeball into the hand of a vengeful fairy queen, so i’m not complaining THAT much.

XO, MD

[firelxrdazula]

I was tagged by @prinsesseazula

1. What’s your favorite character ever?

*screaming into the void* AZULAAAAAA

2. Can you dance anything?

Well, no. Because first of all, I don't want to xD

3. What’s your favorite holiday?

Christmas when I was a kid. But now? Not really, since I can never spend Christmas with my family because of school. I can't go to where my family lives because I'm too busy tbh

4. Do you live by yourself?

Nope, but I might as well be because it's so quiet at home. It barely feels like anybody is home.

5. What’s your new years resolutions?

Uhhhh, I've given up on myself and resolutions. Although, HYPOTHETICALLY, it would be to start managing my time better. I always end up not finishing what I'm supposed to do because I run out of time. Or to study more, and complain less(which is like almost impossible. gotta set more realistic goals)

6. Cats or dogs?

Dogs. Cats are cute, but dogs are just way more friendly.

7. Have you ever been to another country?

Yep, I've been to China, Hong Kong, Qatar, UAE, and Saudi Arabia.

8. How many languages do you speak?

Three. In my country, there's a main language which I know how to speak, and the main dialect in my region of the country.

9. What was the last show you have watched?

The last show I binged was Broad City which I enjoyed a lot. It was hilarious. Although, if you mean like a show in general, I watched an episode of House, MD. It's like my go-to show.

10. What is your favorite book?

I can't remember the last time I ever read a novel, nor do I even have any novel I consider a fav nowadays so... My favorite book is Henry's Clinical Diagnosis and Management by Laboratory Methods, since I hold that book like the bible. XDDDD

My questions:

What's the thine you've always regretted yet ended up loving it in the end?

Can you say that you are happy right this moment?

Would you call waffles just pancakes with abs?

Would you eat that thing Bato of the Water Tribe made with sea prunes?

Do you agree that clapping is just weird? Like, who decided it was nice to just put your hands together to... Express amazement?

How many fries is okay for your friend to take before you tell them to order their own?

What material (besides swords) would you want your throne to be made of?

Do you agree that pigeons are just rats with wings?

Is croissant the best bread?

If you have any siblings, which of them do you love the least? If you don't, which parent do you love more?

I'm tagging: @citrusrealm @tamanthud @focusas @madshape @fanwright @seyaryminamoto (im tagging u back just bc) @prinsesseazula (im tagging u back too) @scarletspimpcane

[abumblebeeat221b]

Sherlock and the Female Gaze

If anyone asked me to point them to the most revolutionary piece of media ever created I’d probably show them Doctor Who (because guys - nothing beats a show that is basically Sherlock Holmes in space and keeps reinventing itself every other year).

But the second thing would be Sherlock. Not Doyle’s original, not the Rathbone, Granada, Soviet, new Russian adaptations (even though they are dear to me). Just 13 episodes of a TV show that was only ever meant to win some obscure film award in Eastern Europe and became a success over night instead.

The fandom that does its research has spent seven years trying to pinpoint its secret and the only thing we can agree on are three little words: it looks pretty.

On a more serious note: it is probably the first thing which made male eye-candy unashamedly mainstream. It is the millennial version of Pride and Prejudice, of Mr. Darcy, only that this time society doesn’t expect the story to bore our boyfriends to death.

And I’m not even sure that was something Mofftiss and Co were aiming for.

You see. It is a truth universally acknowledged that men have no idea what women like. They confuse it with male power fantasies ALL THE TIME because that’s what the media tells them we are day dreaming about. They are shocked to learn that we think Loki to be the sexually most appealing hero villain in the Avangers, that we consider Rodger from the original 101 Dalmatians to be perfect boyfriend material, that yes, we’d happily choose a dog loving, kind individual (with great hair) over most more manly super heroes out there.

And Sherlock ticks all the right boxes for women to find him attractive, while most guys wouldn’t think that lanky nerd to be much of a competition for them.

The cherry on our metaphorical fandom-cake is that Sherlock  is pretty much the first thing produced for a main stream audience I know of* which treats its leading male character as if he was a woman in order to cater to the female gaze (because the lgbqt+ community was not the only reason why the name Cumberbatch has showed up on most versions of the sexiest men alive lists since 2010/11).

Women look at Sherlock and think ‘sexy’ because we’ve been conditioned by the media to recognise this is what ‘sexy’ looks like.

And this my friends is where the magic happens.

You want the list? Here have the list:

A well-tailored suit is to women what lingerie is to men. And let me tell you Sherlock wearing suits doesn’t look like a coincidence from over here.

The coat. It’s like a cape. Only way cooler.

The buttons which deserve their own award™. We all know the story behind the coat™, but I’m not aware of the official one explaining why Sherlock couldn’t buy the purple shirt of sex™ in a bigger size (lucky us he didn’t). On a sidenote: too small dress sizes and strained buttons are exactly what actresses are expected to wear in front of the camera.

The white sheet of possibilities. Sherlock Holmes visits Buckingham palace wearing nothing but a sheet BECAUSE THE SCRIPT SAYS SO and I can’t be the only one feeling reminded of the long standing tradition of women having to take off their clothes for very important plot reasons™. Two series later, Moffat does it again, and while IMHO Sherlock should have kept his hospital gown on in His Last Vow, I’m aware that is a pretty problematic™ thing to say given how it belongs to the most beloved (i.e. gifed and photoshopped) bits of that episode. (While at the same time, apart from Irene Adler, we have no idea what the Sherlock ladies wear underneath).

The cheekbones. Oh. The. Cheekbones. It is shocking exactly no one that Carrie Fisher was asked to lose weight every time she played Princess Leia (yes, also that one). Benedict Cumberbatch lost weight for series 2, then went to play the villain in Star Trek: Into Darkness, came back to series 3 having to lose those muscles and some weight - which goes against the *typical* male beauty standards in the industry, just saying. (NB: I’m pretty sure he did it again for TAB and series 4, but series 2 and series 3 are the only instances I’m aware of him mentioning it).

The weapons of a woman. When was the last time the male hero was allowed to lose? James Bond gets the girl because he is the best agent out there. It’s always the best knight who slays the dragon and saves the princess. I agree today personality matters - but that just means that now he needs to slay the dragon AND be charismatic on the top of it.

Heroes aren’t damsels in distress, they don’t get favours because of their looks and smiles, they don’t rely on other people or need emotional support. They are lone wolves, strong and self-efficient in every possible sense of the word and they have more than just their muscles to show for it.

Not in Sherlock.

Odds (*literally odds*) are Sherlock wouldn’t have survived the first episode without John.

Here we have someone who manipulates Molly (and clients alike) using his charm to get what he wants. Sherlock relies on his social network all the time, his adventures are about showing us how being the Cleverest™, the Best™ does not equal success.

He gets saved, beaten and drugged by Irene Adler, and just in case we’d still have some illusions left, the script for that scene describes the leading male character with the words ‘weak as a kitten’. I leave you to draw your own conclusions.

In the same episode he wins a fight because of pepper spray.

He relies on his brother’s help to beat Moriarty. He shoots Magnussen because even Mycroft’s long arm doesn’t end up being long enough. The only reason he makes it out of that mess alive is his freaking sister he isn’t even aware of.

The point is. Sherlock is right when he points out the obvious: he is no hero, but a mess who solves crimes as an alternative to getting high. Yes, he is phenomenally good at what he does. But he also needs an assistant, someone who takes some part of the responsibilities off his not-so-bulky shoulders and helps him to win those victories.

The fairytale of the high-functioning sociopath. For some baffling reason, sometime between now and the dark middle ages humankind decided that European culture only ever allows men to seek companionship when somehow sex (or bragging about sex) is involved.

This is why “being friendzoned” is the worst that can happen to the modern man™. This is why they honestly don’t get the concept of just friends™. To a good deal of them female friends are like unicorns in that they don’t exist. To them the age old “if I’m not getting sex out of it then why should I bother?” argument works on both sides: “if you are not getting sex out of it then why should you care?”.

(Before you spam my inbox yes, I know Scrubs exists, I’m more than just familiar with House MD *laughs uncomfortably for ten years*. But. For every single piece of media that happens to get it right there are 10 AU remakes of Fifty Shades of Grey being published).

Now. What on Earth does this have to do with Sherlock?

NOTHING.  We see Sherlock having more healthy relationships in every single episode (yes even that one) than Bond will have in a lifetime. And no matter how much Sherlock insists on being a sociopath, the hero in this story has friends, imperfect friends, and whether he likes it or not they do care about him. And he cares about them too.

Otherwise Mycroft wouldn’t need to tell his little brother that caring is not an advantage and Sherlock wouldn’t meet those words like an old friend.

On top of it, the writers never code Sherlock and John as gay. No, they don’t. To be fair, they also don’t say he’s straight. However, they do make him canonically fall for Irene Adler (FYI: if him going ALL THE WAY to Karachi for her sake wasn’t a big enough clue, then MP!Sherlock keeping a picture of her in his pocket watch should have been).

And while we do see Sherlock invested in plenty of typical male stuff (he fights, he wins, he plays the rude smart arse, the hero, the brilliant detective) at the same time he also accepts it when in TEH John decides he wants to keep his distance, and Sherlock leaves the matter in Mary’s capable hands, John’s love interest, the woman who should be traditionally the mortal enemy of male friendships.

We had a whole episode which was basically Sherlock helping Mary with wedding preparations and not (just) having a bad time.

The next episode has him do his best to save his friends’ marriage. It also has him fake a relationship with a woman (who ends up owning a cottage in Sussex that comes with bees). But he never takes advantage of her even though she wouldn’t mind being taken advantage of. And when she gets her well deserved revenge he admires her for her agency. That boy is so smitten by Janine Hawkins that the original shooting script for His Last Vow  had them agreeing to marry each other should they end up without anyone else by the time they are old end grey (page 72, you’re welcome).

Sherlock gets his support system and it doesn’t ask for anything in return. He is allowed to struggle, to become emotional, to not deserve his victories and still be the hero of the show. Those 13 episodes have Sherlock stumble from one failure to the next but every single time we learn it doesn’t matter. He gets to learn from his mistakes, he gets to grow.

Yes, he has his ghosts and demons but he never needs to face them on his own, which is something I’ve only ever seen on this stupid show

_____ * If anyone wants to point out the masterpiece that’s George from the Jungle then yes, I’m aware of it (also, surprise surprise another film that was pretty popular with the LGBTQ+ folks). However, generally speaking it never became mainstream. Which is what I’m talking about here. And while Marvel’s Loki is mainstream, he is not the main character in The Avengers.

[the-organizing-principle]

‘Twin Peaks as Fugue’ Theory, Part 4: What Does Part 8 Mean?

Continuing with the theory that all of Twin Peaks takes place inside Dale/Richard’s mind, I’ll now explore how “Part 8″ could be interpreted from a psychoanalytic perspective. 

I you haven’t already, I recommend reading my earlier posts first for some context: theory summary, Part 1 (The Log Lady), Part 2 (The Black Lodge), and Part 3 (Diane/Naido).

In the eighth part of TP:TR we see Mr. C nearly die before he is reanimated by the Woodsmen, a Nine Inch Nails performance at The Roadhouse, the advent of nuclear warfare, the spiritual conception of both BOB and Laura Palmer, and the hatching of a frog-moth that finds its way into the mouth of an unconscious girl. It seems like a lot to unpack, but I think that in a nutshell this episode provides a glimpse back into Dale/Richard’s psyche at the moment it shattered, when the traumatic incident (involving Judy) occurred. This incident—hereafter referred to as “The Event”—is being compared to and represented by the Trinity nuclear test at White Sands, New Mexico in 1945. Let me explain.

Presumably, David Lynch considers the Trinity nuclear test to be a major turning point in history: an event that would have disastrous ramifications, and the harbinger of a new kind of evil in the world. Likewise, Dale/Richard’s traumatic episode involving Judy (again: “The Event,” for brevity) marked a major turning point in Dale/Richard’s life and, by extension, in his consciousness. From this Event, BOB was born: BOB is a personification of what Dale/Richard considers to be an evil and destructive force (’the evil that men do,’ etc.), but ultimately BOB is really just a projection of Dale/Richard’s psyche. I mentioned before how I think BOB personifies the Id aspect of Dale/Richard’s tripartite psyche (i.e. his repressed, dark, unchecked impulses). BOB is so ‘evil’ because Dale/Richard has repressed this aspect of himself so severely that it/he has taken on exaggerated proportions.

Sometimes used interchangeably with the Id, the Shadow persona can also be attributed to BOB, especially when he/it inhabits Dale’s evil doppelganger, Mr. C (an Id-possessed Shadow self of Dale/Richard; see previous post).

“Everyone carries a shadow,” Jung wrote, “and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is.”

Mr. C and BOB are both products of Dale/Richard’s unconscious Shadow. “Dale”—as in the Special Agent we know and love—is so good-natured that it stands to reason that his Shadow self would be bad-natured in equal proportion. Remember how Dale runs away from his doppelganger in the second season finale? His inability to confront his Shadow self with “perfect courage” in the Lodge resulted in the Shadow’s takeover: the “good Dale” became the repressed persona (technically, the Shadow) while the evil doppelganger took his place in the ‘real world.’ I’ve discussed this concept before, but bring it up again for some necessary context to Part 8.

Back to the Trinity explosion: David Lynch has us not only witness this explosion, but enter it. We get a depiction of what is going on inside the blast, both on a molecular and surface level (the engulfing flames, etc). In a sequence reminiscent of Gaspar Noé’s post-death visuals from Enter The Void, we travel through a visually and aurally intense, abstract expressionist journey into the heart of the explosion. Along the way, we see two very important, parallel events.

First, the Convenience Store. In order to understand what’s happening in this scene, we first have to figure out what the Woodsmen represent. I don’t think there’s an easy answer to this one, but it’s possible that there’s a clue in another work by Lynch: in Mulholland Drive, we see a character commonly referred to as the “Evil Hobo” both in Diane’s dream (as witnessed by the character, Dan*), and in the real world. I think we can use this recurring motif (i.e. the scary, dirty hobo with otherworldly powers) to speculate on what the Woodsmen might represent. There has been a lot of speculation on what the Evil Hobo from MD represents, but one theory I’m particularly interested in posits that s/he represents—in a literal sense—the discarded, neglected members of society, and so by extension, s/he represents a discarded and neglected aspect of Diane (note I’m referring to the Diane from MD, not TP), specifically her schizophrenia. The bum is powerful because its repression made it dangerous. Ultimately, it “controls everything.”

Likewise, in TP:TR the Woodsmen—whose faces are covered in the same black soot as the bum from Mulholland Drive and who also move between worlds and possess the power to manipulate the ‘other’ world—might be interpreted as repressed and neglected aspects of Dale/Richard (his psychoses). Remember, according to this theory, Dale/Richard is actually institutionalized somewhere. He doesn’t recognize that he has mental issues (e.g. that he’s psychotically depressed, probably schizophrenic, etc), and lives in a fantasy world / fugue state wherein he is the good-natured hero, Special Agent Dale Cooper.

In Part 8, we see the Woodsmen appear as a result of The Event. The way this scene plays out is very telling: we watch what resembles out-of-sync time lapse footage as smoke and flashing lights precede the appearance of the Woodsmen; when they appear, the score cuts out and the sound becomes very glitchy, as do the images of the Woodsmen shuffling around outside the convenience store. To me, this reads as a depiction of the shattering of Dale/Richard’s psyche, as all kinds of psychoses result from The Event. The heavy distortions signify the way his mind is being distorted: events are being rewritten, and time is not advancing in proper sequence. Then the Woodsmen vanish and the convenience store goes in and out of focus; the scene seems to be imperfectly rewinding before we travel through a brief tunnel and find:

The Experiment/Mother of All Evil. The event that plays out here parallels the last: we see The Experiment floating in a dark void before she vomits a cloudy, plasma-like substance containing eggs and the black ball that houses BOB. Here is another glimpse into what is going on in Dale/Richard’s psyche following The Event. From a faceless, phantom-like female form, BOB is born. This is Dale/Richard’s ‘origin story’ of how this ‘evil’ entered the world, happening at an unconscious level (I’m leaning toward the notion that all black-and-white scenes take place in the unconscious).

After entering this plasma, the scene transforms and we are back inside the atomic explosion, linking these events (i.e. linking the traumatic Event with the emergence of a new form of evil). The scene shifts as we come to a kind of ‘eye of the storm’ where we find a nebulous golden metallic substance; entering it, the score picks up with a rapid string arrangement as we move quickly past red-tinted, suspended particles which then fade away to reveal the great purple sea [of the unconscious; see previous post]. We soar over this sea until arriving at a mountain projecting out of it, on top of which sits the enormous, silvery structure that houses The Fireman. This transition is important, because it suggests that the world that the Fireman inhabits is accessible through the center of The Event, i.e. that the unconscious realm where the personified Superego resides is central to Dale/Richard’s psychotic break. The Fireman resides behind/beneath it all, and attempts to resolve it from ‘behind the curtain’ (the subsequent theatre imagery is significant, as is the understated nod to Lynch’s beloved and oft-referenced The Wizard Of Oz.

The scene plays out like so: we enter the structure through a relatively small opening and travel through darkness for a moment as phonograph music plays, then we see the Diva in the parlor room seated near the bell-shaped electrical transformer. Eventually an alarm goes off and the Fireman emerges, who looks around with apparent concern before disabling the alarm. We then follow him into the theatre where he summons a projection to appear on the screen; we see the atomic blast at White Sands, the convenience store, and the Experiment’s projection where BOB appears. Pausing on the image of BOB’s face, the Firemen gets into position and levitates in front of the screen. The Diva shows up to watch as a sparkling gold light emerges from the fireman’s head (while the screen now shows moving stars), forming an apparent galaxy of golden light; from this astral projection, a golden orb appears; the Diva pulls it down from the air, takes it reverently into her hands, gazes into it and smiles as she sees the face of Laura Palmer. She kisses the orb before releasing it back into the air, where it floats toward a funnel; the orb is taken up by the funnel, which deposits it onto the screen where an image of the Earth is projected. The orb travels through the screen and into the projected image, where it is finally seen floating over North America (ostensibly headed for Twin Peaks).

So what did we just watch? I believe that the alarm is a signal to the moderating aspect of Dale/Richard’s mind (here, the Fireman/Superego) that something is wrong. To compensate for the trauma’s effects, the Fireman/Superego dreams up the character of Laura Palmer (presumably a stand-in for Judy). It is around this character that Dale/Richard will build the entire Twin Peaks narrative; this was necessary in order for Dale/Richard to survive after The Event occurred, but eventually we will see The Fireman/Superego gently try to steer Dale/Richard toward an understanding of the truth (when he needs it / is ready for it). Note that the Earth appears as an image on the screen: I think this hints at the artificial nature of the world Dale/Richard inhabits in Twin Peaks. We also see this screen in Part 17: first it shows the Palmer house, then the Sheriff’s Station where Mr. C is deposited. This seems to indicate that all of Twin Peaks is a projection, which is how Dale/Richard’s alter, Mr. C, is able to travel there via the unconscious apparatus.

Finally, we see an image of a dark desert landscape: the year 1945 starts to count up before stopping at 1956 (we have advanced in time). It is “AUGUST 5, NEW MEXICO DESERT.” We watch as an egg hatches to reveal the frog/moth creature that will eventually inhabit the sleeping girl.

I’ll briefly summarize the last act of Part 8 by noting that the black-and-white cinematography likely represents another unconscious episode in Dale/Richard’s psyche. Canonically, this is supposed to occur about two years after “Dale Cooper” is born: could the sleeping girl be Judy herself, or Judy’s mother? Will she eventually give birth to a girl possessed by the frog-moth, who will later became a central figure in Dale/Richard’s life? The timeline would be out of sync, since the frog-moth hatched from an egg that resulted from The Event (which should properly take place in the future, though it is being metaphorically linked to the Trinity test in 1945). Is this how “the past dictates the future”? It would be a Möbius strip of a timeline, and we already know how much Lynch loves those. I’ll leave you to ponder that one, since this seems like more of an intentional mystery than anything else.

A clue might be found in the lyrics to the NIN song that we are treated to in the Roadhouse scene in the second act:

You dig in places till your fingers bleed Spread the infection, where you spill your seed I can’t remember what she came here for I can’t remember much of anything anymore She’s gone, she’s gone, she’s gone away She’s gone, she’s gone, she’s gone away Away Away A little mouth opened up inside Yeah, I was watching on the day she died We keep licking while the skin turns black Cut along the length, but you can’t get the feeling back She’s gone, she’s gone, she’s gone away She’s gone, she’s gone, she’s gone away…

Hint: try to interpret these lyrics from Dale/Richard’s point of view, where Judy is the “she” referred to.

That’s all for now; if there’s anything from this episode or any other that you’d like me to elaborate on, feel free to ask!

*Patrick Fischler also appears in TP:TR as Duncan Todd, whose character could conceivably be an extension of Dan… They each live in fear of similar dark entities that will eventually kill them

[divorcedfiddleford]

i know this is random, but do you have any tips on writing ford and fiddleford? you do a really good job on their characterizations and even though i'm very familiar with their characters i always write people out of character when i'm writing, lol! thanks !!!!

ghhhgg i Kid but anyway im like super distracted so i just made a list of a bunch of common mistakes i see when people r writing themedit: i was so wrong i made such a long fucking post im sorry this was a Mistake (rip mobile users)

first things first everything in the journal was Fake

fiddleford:

“fiddleford is a poor precious cinnamon roll who is helpless and did nothing wrong uwu” fuck off he built all those robots and probably killed a bunch of people in the process he isnt some innocent sunflower he’s more like a rowdy dandelion

yes this applies even if you’re writing young fiddleford he was just more patient and less open with his life of crime because he didnt want to go to jail

his eyes are blue. theyre fucking blue. theyre fucking b

“he doesnt like swears/he’s soft-spoken” wrong he’s literally the only character to have sworn on-screen

“he started the society because he was traumatized by what he’d seen” no, where did you get that idea. he literally says he invented the gun because he was “haunted by the thoughts of what I’d done” >literally stating that it was guilt not fear that was bothering him. eventually yes he used it for erasing scary memories but that was not his initial intent

he’s not bald anymore

really any idea that fiddleford is pathetic is grossly ooc i can think of one situation in the show that he wasn’t able to get himself out of and thats because he was turned into a fucking arras

what is this southern belle bullshit… he chews tobacco and wrestles pigs please stop woobifying this force of nature

a banjo is not the same as a guitar. a banjo is not the same as a guitar. a banjo is not the same as a guitar.

if youre going to write accents don’t be obnoxious about it

EX: “How are y’all doin’ this fine evening?”NOT: “Hower y’all doien’ this fain evenin’?”you don’t have to use the mannerisms in every sentence and you don’t have to drop the g in every -ingphonetic spelling is a pain to read like at the most you should be using apostrophes not respelling words (“Stanferd” more like kill me now)

also make sure your mannerisms are geographically accurate he’s not from texas i never want to see him say “sugah” again

his accent isnt even that strong in the show …what……….

tip: fiddleford is salty as FUCK he has NO MERCY and holds onto grudges like a lifesaver in a storm

tip: he loves being around people and will talk to them about fucking anything such as his multiple cases of manslaughter but doesn’t usually open up about his insecurities unless prompted

further reading: 1 2 3 4

stanford:

“everything that happened to fiddleford is ford’s fault” did ?? you even watch the show??? fiddleford did all that shit himself ford had nothing to do with it

“ford was manipulating dipper and con-” im gonna stop you right there. ford loves his niece and nephew. he agreed to leave the kids alone because stan thought he was too dangerous to be around them. stan only let dipper hang out with ford after dd&md. ford loves dipper and mabel equally and never wanted them to split up or anything. bill fucking knew this hence why he threatened ford with killing them. he made the proposal to dipper about the apprenticeship because he genuinely thought that was the best thing for dipper. he was wrong but he didnt know that

in fact while we’re at it - ford literally always does stuff with the best of intentions he’s just dumb and unlucky as shit

deal with the devil? he thought the devil was his nerdy buddy not the devil. he just was so happy to have a friend who appreciated him he didnt realize he was the fucking devil

abandon your brother? he thought his brother had sabotaged his dreams and that the only person he’d ever trusted had betrayed him. he was wrong but it’s not like stan apologized or denied it. also what was he supposed to do? challenge his dad? in case you didn’t notice filbrick was a fucking terrible dad

building a doomsday device? too bad you’re literally being manipulated and abused by Lucifer The Triangle

“ford didn’t want to make amends with stan” um, no, like obviously he’s still mad and stuff but in dd&md he stops himself from getting super mad and asks stan if he wants to play with him and dipper

“ford wanted to kick stan out” ?? when did he say that??? the closest thing he said to that was that he wanted his house back and while i GUESS you could interpret that as he wanted it back to himself he follows it up directly with “this mystery shack junk is over forever” so its pretty obvious he means he wants the tourist trap that makes a mockery of his entire life’s purpose out of his house

“fords a grumpy guy” he is the opposite . he is overflowing with love and pride for those he holds dear. he might be a little gruff but who wouldnt be after living in hell for 30 years

remember that one asshole whose kink is “ciphord abuse”. dont be that guy. dont write kink shit

just. don’t make ford the villain. dont do it.

this may come as a surprise to you..but….he DOESNT have to bring up his intellect all the time! a shock i know

tip: ford is very excitable he loves getting up and doing things and going on adventures!! he loves interacting with the creatures around gravity falls like the gnomes and steve (see: every gotdamn episode)

he’s also very sympathetic; if someone he knows/cares about is struggling he does whatever he can to help them and comfort them (see: the last mabelcorn, damvtf)

he tends to think more big picture as opposed to worrying about individual details. the priority is always solving the larger problem unless a loved one’s life is ostensibly in danger in which case that takes priority (see: damvtf, wmg1, wmg3)

tip: ford is gay

tip: he’s also anti-social and wouldn’t be very forward with romantic notions like it would take him months before he even THINKS about kissing someone and even then its like a 10 hour loop of beach boys’ wouldn’t it be nice

tip: he is the king of infodumping and explains everything in excruciating detail

tip: he likes to have a good time! don’t be afraid to let him have fun!!

further reading: 1 2 3

for both:

enough of the angst. enough. enough

if you’re going to make them trans don’t milk the dysphoria

tip from my pal rudy @blue-dipper​ (im not trans)

same kinda goes for if youre doing romance dont overplay the internal/external homophobia i made that mistake so many times its just clunky and gets in the way of the characters

the whole idea of “the innocent one” vs “the sinful one” is garbage. abandon it. you will feel a weight lifted from your shoulders

realistically if it’s a reunion thing don’t make them hook up automatically this shit takes time

in general avoid stereotypes. some examples being “the hippie” or “the nerd” just write them like they act on the show its easier and more enjoyable for everyone involved

ALEX HIRSCH ≠ WORD OF GOD only the stuff in the show needs to be considered 100% canon you can pick and choose all the other stuff or ignore it entirely

in conclusion all fiction is subjective and writing someone “in character” all depends on how you perceive the character. these are my perceptions of the character and yeah i get really frustrated when people don’t agree because i believe mine are those that make the most sense and that good representation of neurodivergent and lgbta+ people is important also im petty and annoying. the most important thing is that you be consistent with your portrayals (unless your perception of the character is inconsistency in which case good luck)

[omegaqueencas]

For the ask meme: 9, 17,19,21,25, 48,50,59, 127, 150?

show your face, anon, be my friend, t a l k to me.

9. If you could turn any activity into an Olympic sport, what would you have a good chance of winning a medal for?

Sleep, probably. Although my family (parents + brothers) might also win, so idk.

17. What songs do you have completely memorized?

Damn. So many. I really enjoy reading song lyrics, so I get to memorize them quite easily. Mainly when I listen to them in a loop, like I’ve been recently doing with some of Lauren Aquilina’s songs. How would you like it, King, Sinners and Kicks are already completely memorized, and aside from King, all the others I heard for the first time last Wednesday. 

19. What do you consider to be your best find?

Idk if this makes any sense, but actually learning that I should put myself first. As a friend of mine (who’s also a psychologist) said “You can’t kill yourself for the well-being of others”. It means that if I need to put some distance between myself and a friend/family/job/city/whatever, I will. My health comes first. It’s so damn hard to follow through with this, but I’m trying.

21.What pets did you have when you were growing up?

We’ve had had a tortoise for the longest of time (he’s still alive and here). My parents had a huge lizard that I was terrified of when I was younger (I was like 3, of course I was terrified of that thing that was as big as me). There was a dog called Zeus, but he was already old when I was little so I don’t remember much about him. Then when I was ten I got a dog called Thobby and in all honesty, we didn’t get along. I’m not a dog person, I’m super awkward with dogs to this day and dogs knew it, so dogs are often awkward around me as well. So even though he was ‘mine’, we didn’t hang out or anything. At first I was sad, but then I gave up. Then when I was 15ish I had the first cat and I understood why I was so awkward with dogs. 

25. What would be your first question after waking up from being frozen for 100 years?

“Is the world a better place already or should I go back to sleep?” or “I’m hungry, what is there to eat?”

48. What could you give a 40-minute presentation on with no preparation?

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s life. I mean, I had studied him at length due to my final paper at University, but it’s been four years since the last time I researched about him. And yet, I’m sure I can easily give a 40 minute presentation on him (with the added bonus of Sherlock Holmes).

50. What is something you think everyone should do at least once in their lives?

Look, I’m the most boring person in the world tbh. So I’m gonna be cheesy and say: follow a dream, as wild and as impossible as it may seem. You might have many dreams and give up on them easily because it’s hard, but don’t. Just follow it til you’re satisfied with it.

59. What piece of entertainment do you wish you could erase from your mind, only to experience it for the first time again?

Omg. Idk. Maybe House MD? Ever time I watched, I was 100% certain it was the gayest tv show of all time. I know for a fact that I’d react the same way as I did the first time I watched a random House episode (”wow, this is so gay. What’s this show’s name so I can watch it later? I need to be more aware of the LGBTQA+ shows/movies. ..... wait...... house md? It wasn’t supposed to be gay, was it?”) and in the end I’d be like “yep, completely gay, I was absolutely right”.

127. What are you really good at but embarrassed to be good at?

I’m not really embarrassed at it, but I’m really good at sticking my finger in people’s bellybuttons without even looking. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

150. What is the most memorable gift you've received?

Damn, idk. All gifts I receive are memorable and I cherish them with all my heart. I mean, my ex gave me the titanic necklace after I told him my dream was to have one; my best friend gave me a pillow before she left for the USA; another friend is bringing me a Jessica Jones funko from her trip, since I’m the Jess to her Trish (and the Dean to her Sam, and I have given her a Sam Winchester funko). So idk, every gift has a meaning and is always laced with more than just the obligation to gift someone, y’know? Because when they get me things, it’s because they reminded themselves of me, and how can I not remember them when I see the gifts? I love all of them and I know that’s an awful reply, but I honestly can’t think of only one gift that is memorable.

[missjackil]

One Year.... One year ago this month, I was introduced to these AMAZING gentlemen, and life has never been the same! I don’t recall the exact day it happened, but I do know it was March, 2016, 

This is how it started... It was a very cold, snowy winter here in NJ last year, so my life long friend Dawn, my daughter Sarah, and I started binge watching different series on Netflix. Dawn first suggested this show Supernatural, which I had only heard of in passing a few times over the years, but she had watched since the beginning. She said I would love it, the brothers  are hot, they hunt monsters and demons, delve a lot into Religion, which is a big interest of mine, I even have a degree in Theology, and am legally ordained. I checked the title on Netflix and saw it had 10 seasons available, and I said  “Nah, that’s a pretty big commitment, I dont think I could stay interested in a show that long” then Dawn informed me, that it was still on the air and in season 11. Not my cup of tea, so I declined. She next suggested Nurse Jackie, which was really good, but so easy to burn through. I got the next pick and picked House MD which had been mine, and my daughter Sarah’s favorite series to date.  This was a longer series than Nurse Jackie, 8 seasons instead of 7, and hour long episodes, as opposed to half hour. This took almost 2 months to get through. While watching this series again, I would keep commenting how much I loved the bromance between House and Wilson, to wish Dawn would always reply “The you will LOVE Sam and Dean!!” So since she had next pick, I agreed to give Supernatural a try.  And this is what happened... *CRASH BOOM BANG  <heavy flop>* “Wooooaaah easy tiger” “Dean?” Yeah, these boys are freakin adorable, and Im gonna love this bromance. I thought Dean was hot, and Sam was cute. Too young for me to think he was hot (me being 49 at the time) but I felt like the monsters and a lot of the horror was pretty lame, and sometimes even cheesy, though I did enjoy the chemistry the boys had with each other, and found Sam’s psychic visions to be an interesting element, I didn’t think I would stay interested for very long.  For a while, we were only watching 2-3 episodes at a time, a couple times a week when Dawn would come over. Near the end of S1 I told her I didn’t think I wanted to continue. She asked me to PLEASE give it to the end of season 2 and if I still didnt like it, we could find something else. As promised, I did become more interested in S2. The humor was funnier, the acting got better, and the bromance was hotter, and the emotional moments were even more heart breaking. The first episode that left a really big impression on me was Born Under a Bad Sign. Until then, I knew Sam had psychic powers, and his father was worried he would turn dark, and left it on Dean’s shoulders to save him or kill him (good idea John, what the hell) and this episode was probably showing Sam go bad. I didnt want that, I liked the boys and I wanted to like both of them and not have to start thinking of Sam as evil, but he was soooooo creepy in that episode! I was so afraid he was going to rape Jo, fortunately he didn’t, but that “My daddy shot your daddy in the heeeaad” thing gave me the willies! I was so uncomfortable with this “Dark Sam” I thought maybe I couldnt continue. Dawn didnt want me to stop just yet, but didnt want to give me spoilers, she told me “Don’t worry, Sam and Dean are the GOOD guys and Sam is a REALLY good guy” so I continued. When it was discovered that Sam was possessed, I found that very interesting, I didn’t think the boys would ever succumb to the evil things, just kick their asses all the time, though I assumed theyd have their own asses kicked sometimes, I never thought the show would allow the heroes to really suffer.... boy was I wrong huh??  I recall my first noticing that Sam was hot and built like a truck, in Heart, and it was also the first time I really cried. I remember telling Dawn, I will watch it when she comes over but Im watching it on my own too, because now Im much more interested, but I also said “it’s kind of a bummer knowing the boys wont die, that will take away from the suspense and emotional moments when it’s feared they might die, and I remember her giving me this look... she said “trust me, you know nothing”. She was right ... All Hell Breaks Loose 1 & 2 had me sobbing! When Sam dies in Dean’s arms and Dean sobs into his neck, I dont think Ive ever seen such intense, realistic  grief on a TV show. And then Dean goes and sells his soul for Sam!! This turned what I thought was a “My brother is my best friend” love into a “Id willingly spend eternity in fire and torment, to have one more year with my brother” love. That was a big turning point for me. I new Id watch it till the end and couldnt wait for those long days off when I could just binge all day long.  Then Season 4 happened... I dont know when exactly it happened, or which episode it was, but somewhere early in S4, I discovered the most amazing thing. I woke up one day and realized I am madly in love with Sam Winchester! And to top it off, I was hopelessly addicted and obsessed with SPN! I wont give a rundown of how each season hit me, but its been a crazy, emotional, tragically painful, beautful roller coaster that I have no intentions to ever get off of. By the time I got to S9 and started seeing the episodes dwindle away, I didnt want to finish too fast, yet I wanted to keep binging, so thats when I decided to start rewatching. ration out the newer episodes so I dont finish too fast, and binge the ones Ive already seen, and Ive done that continiously since then, and that was in May. By the end of June, I had watched everything on Netflix and purchased all of S11 On Demand and just kept finishing and starting over, rinse, repeat.  What I have learned... I mean no disrespect to Dean, I love him... but, if he ever says “As long as Im around, nothing bad is ever gonna happen to you” ... just RUN!! He said this to Sam in S1 and things just unraveled fast for poor Sam. I dont think there are many bad things LEFT that haven't happened to Sam, and we still have at least 2 more seasons to go!!!  To me, Sam is the most beautiful, kind, selfless, brave character ever. Yet, he can be a little selfish on occasion, but if you needed any of the duct tape and safety pins that hold him together, he wouldnt think twice about giivng them to you. He is scared fairly often, but it’s never stopped him from facing any big bad monster life could hand him.Season 10 was definitely not his most attractive season (that hair?? WHAT??) and if you piss him off, he can viciously sting with his words at the very least, or be brutally lethal with his hands when need be. He is a full on nerd, but not the least bit pretentious about it. He doesnt think he is better than anyone, and maybe even not as good as most. He is brilliant, but wont ever make you feel stupid. He is the sweetest, kindest gentleman you’ll ever meet, but 100% badass as well. But most of all. he loves Dean with everything in his life. He will never leave him (again) for anyone. If he ever finds a significant other, they will have to accept him and Dean as One person. Package deal and thats it.  To me, Dean is a rock. He rarely ever changes, This isn’t a bad thing. This compliments Sam, who is ever changing. Dean doesn’t live inside his head. He expresses his feelings more physically than with words, though he isnt one to mince words if you need to hear it. He’s emotional, not afraid to cry, but maybe afraid of who he allows to see it. He’s not perfect, he has made a lot of poor choices for himself and for Sam as well, but never with any ill intent (other than when influenced by a Supernatural force) He is a sweetheart, who unfortunately carries too much baggage. In Regarding Dean I feel like I met the REAL Dean that is lost under decades of pain, lossm and never ending violence. He can piss me off big time, but I forgive him because Sam does, and the most important thing in his world is Sam. There is nothing he wouldnt do, nor lines he wouldnt cross for Sam, and I believe he would give Sam anything in his power if Sam would simply ask.  What I think of the side characters  Cas, Crowley, Rowena, Bobby, etc.. all good characters who bring a lot of interest to the show, but none are strong enough characters to have their own storylines apart from Sam and Dean. Their side stories arent very interesting. I would watch a show that was only Sam and Dean (which is what I prefer) but I wouldnt watch a show that was only Cas or Crowley or whomever. They should support Sam and Dean and thats it, in my opinion.

What I have learned about the Fandom... Supernatural is the Holy Reaches of Heaven to them and they are Religions. Separate groups of individuals, expressing their love for the show and the characters in different ways. Some SPN religions are open and accepting, and some are vicious and hateful. Everyone gets different things from different parts of the series, but some of these religions, think their thoughts are the best and only True Canon even when sometimes, their thoughts are not canon at all. There are some fun, silly, kind loving fans in the SPN Family, and I have met a few, but Ive also seen some unnecessarily hatefull, mean spirited individuals who I cant consider family. SPN belongs to me, and it belongs to you. Take from it what you take from it... blog your blogs, go meta crazy, ship your ships, and write the shit out of fan fic... but please dont belittle and berate those who think differently. It is a ficitonal show, no one is going to go to Hell or be arrested for their views on it. If you don’t like it, dont watch it, but let those who do still love it, like myself, enjoy it while they can. Don’t go trying to hurt our feelings with “It should end!!” because someday it will, we know this, but we want it to live on for as long as J2 are happy to do it, and even then, it’s gonna hurt like the death of a loved one to see it go, so try to be more considerate okay? If you stayed to read ALL of this, You are precious to me :) and thank you!

[wendyimmiller]

‘Martha Knows Best’ Is Not Great. It’s Not Even a Good Thing.

So, it’s come to this.

As a nation, we are so starved for American garden programming that we are willing to accept that a woman worth over $620 million dollars, stuck for 82 days on her 153-acre estate in Bedford, NY; with her gardener, one of her housekeepers, and one of her drivers; and joined as needed by groundskeepers and their foreman, is going to fill that need and leave us hungry for another season of down-to-earth gardening advice.

So starved, that we are willing to accept HGTV promos that tell us that this immaculately dressed and fully made-up celebrity, sans sweat, sans grimy hands, and sans, apparently, a production assistant to create some small illusion of same, is relatable; and “puts the G back in HGTV.”

So starved, that we are willing to overlook her frequent – and historical – transposition of the pronouns “I” and “they” when discussing the nitty-gritty of projects undertaken on that 153-acre estate.

So. Starved.

Six episodes worth of gilded crumbs. And I’m afraid this gardener has lost her appetite.

It’s not about the money…

Perhaps the best way to launch into my review [and accompanying visual aids] of the first season of HGTV’s Martha Knows Best, (which I watched in its entirety after Susan’s recent review here) is to make it perfectly clear that I have no problem with the [legal] accumulation of wealth.

What wrestling a tiller really looks like.

I have no problem, as it were, with the wealthy.

You earned it. You spend it.  Martha Stewart is not just an extraordinary business woman, but a talented creative with an expert eye sharpened over many years.

She also has the genius to recognize, nurture, and promote that spark in other creatives.

If she insists that the 1000+ containers on her property be of the same color family (stone, concrete or marble), and never wishes to see an artistic vegetable in a flower arrangement, and lines utilitarian pathways to peacock enclosures with cut blocks of granite, who am I to criticize her from enjoying the whims that whacking great wads of cash can indulge?

I’ll have to tell my insanely talented friend Louisa Zimmermann-Roberts at Thanksgiving Farms in Frederick, MD, that her summer arrangement of Swiss chard, sweet pea, red raspberries, grapes eggplant, okra, chives, black-eyed peas and banana leaves is not officially sanctioned. She’s going to take it really well.

If I lived across the street as one of her “very many fancy neighbors” I would raise a glass to her abilities at the neighborhood block party, and conscientiously ask her advice when it came to pairing champagne and stemware for a well-lubricated celebrity crowd of twenty on a Saturday night.

I might even ask which echeveria to use in the tablescape.

Wickedly, I’d also try to tempt her hardworking gardener, Ryan McCallister, to cross the street and become my personal gardener.  My current gardener, Cutout Andy (though versatile and well-traveled), doesn’t have the same twinkle in his eye.

Cutout Andy and I discussing plans for the garden.

All this to say, I respect what she has achieved and have no desire to set up a mini-guillotine in the exquisitely designed cobblestone courtyard of her horse stables. I won’t even debate aspects of her gardening advice.  Susan did that already.

I also respect the fact that she is a 79-year-old woman who is a damn sight more active than your average 79-year-old American.

Let Them Eat Cake

What I don’t respect however, is this laughable attempt to appear ‘relatable’ as someone who is just like me, or like 99% of the gardening public.

I don’t respect the producers of this show having so little awareness of the current suffering going on throughout the country that they felt that a conspicuous display of fabulous wealth could feed the public’s very real (and in many cases, economic) need for gardening advice.

At a certain point it goes from being laughable, to being downright offensive. From the intro:

“I’ve lived on this farm for about 17 years. And like you I’m spending more time at home than ever before.  So I’m going to take you behind the scenes as I do my gardening projects. I’m going to help my celebrity friends. And surprise new gardeners.”

Here’s one of my gardening projects ��� Endlessly Weeding. On my knees. On my own. And I’m one of the lucky ones.

It must be horrific to spend 82 days on 153 acres. With a modified staff.

What about 82 days on a tenth of an acre (like my last house)?  What about 82 days in an apartment with a philodendron?

Uhhh….there’s a pandemic going on?

We have been six months at this pandemic.  After years in cramped quarters, I now live on ten beautiful acres in a four-bedroom house. And I’m ready to bury my husband’s work-from-home body in a remote corner of the property at this point.  It might even be classified as a COVID death.

And no doubt my husband feels the same way.

And yet, every evening of this mess, when I watch the news and see cities in such turmoil, I think of my 10×12′ apartment in New York, when I was 100% dependent on food service jobs and student loans to make my bills.

Each and every morning when I walk through the garden I think of our little upstairs flat in Southeast London when my son was a toddler, and how desperate I was for more than a window box and a few pots by the door.

My very first vegetable garden – a 2x17ft unpaved strip in the parking lot outside our tiny apartment in Southern California. (Photo from Big Dreams, Small Garden, 2017)

And each morning I am deeply grateful for the space around me, and painfully aware that others are struggling in this pandemic under terrible conditions with no end in sight.

No awareness from Hollywood apparently.  Or from Bedford.

“When the pandemic started and quarantine became de rigueur,” says Stewart, “I invited Ryan, my gardener, I invited Carlos, one of my drivers, and one of my housekeepers Elvira, to stay with me during this time.”

Quarantine.  De rigueur.  Alrighty then. So is a floor length gown at a debutante ball Martha. But okay, we’ll just go with it.

Lost in Translation

And if you didn’t study French in high school and are currently running to Google Translate – keep the tab open. To Martha, soil that is ready for planting does not resemble a palm full of pastry dough, but pâte brisée.

It’s actually an excellent analogy that falls short in its delivery. As does dropping mise en place to describe setting gardening tools in place for a project.

While you’re at it, you might want to check out  Île de la Cité, where Martha gets “all her seeds.”

No Chanel or Dior for this everyday gardener when she arrives in Paris, she tells us, but straight to those lovely little seed markets.

I didn’t want to bring Marie and her cake into this, but damn.

My husband and I on our way to the seed markets. Regrettably he had to drive us due to some staffing issues.

I remark upon these Gallicisms as someone with five years of French under her belt, a fair amount of experience in the kitchen and garden, and an unfortunate history of dropping sans into conversation, but a young, beginning American gardener doesn’t know her pâte brisée from her pot of ease-ay.

99.9% of low or middle-income gardeners are not jetting to Paris for their seeds and will probably see what’s available at local garden centers before they consider even splurging on shipping fees for online sources, no matter how wonderful they are.

I know I did.

And here. Here is the issue.  Pretending that this is a gardening show instead of a celebrity reality show.

The wonderful thing about Cutout Andy is that he is so incredibly portable.  Here he is on his way to help my mother in her garden in California.

Just Ask Martha

A few moments of FaceTiming Mitch in Lemoore, California about soil preparation for his carrots; or telling Maggie in Mississippi that she needs “ferns” for the north side of her shady house; or letting Karlin from Florida in on the not-so-little secret that she needs a coop for her ducks to keep them safe from predators; does not constitute ‘hanging with the little people.’

Especially after each performs the requisite sycophantic prelude before speaking to “the Gardening Queen Herself”

Maggie:  “I almost started crying but I did keep it together.”

And then there are the celebrity cameos.  Hailey Bieber needing dog grooming tips. Jay Leno showing us the kitchen in his garage and asking what a pomegranate is. Zac Posen telling Martha he’s been gardening since March in Bridgehampton.

“Well. It’s SOOO easy to garden in the Hamptons” she laughs.

I’ll just leave that right where it fell.

Cutout Andy taking a few moments away from digging out a new pathway to enjoy a warm tomato from my mother’s garden.

I made my life-long gardening mother watch two episodes with me.  When Martha begged Snoop Dogg to join her in Maine on her 63-acre estate, Skylands, for her next party post-COVID, Mom turned to me with a puzzled look on her face. “It’s like digging your heel into somebody’s face.” She said quietly.  “I’d be embarrassed to say that.”

Even if I gave millions of dollars to charities each year – as no doubt Martha does – I would too.

To his credit, a tee-shirted Richard Gere sat cross-legged and underneath a tree in his father’s average suburban garden where he grew up – even if they spent the entire time discussing the shade beds at his exclusive Relais & Châteaux establishment, The Bedford Post Inn.  He almost seemed a little embarrassed.

Perhaps we have his friendship with the Dalai Lama to thank for that.

She knows her stuff. But she’s forgotten her audience.

Martha’s smart. She’s exceptionally talented. She built an empire.

But she is not the person to put the G back in HGTV.

Those are people like Joe Lamp’l on Growing a Greener World, or Nan Sterman in A Growing Passion, or or down-to-earth influencers like Erin Schanen (www.impatientgardener.com) or Doug Oster (www.dougoster.com), or Ron Finley (www.ronfinley.com) who show you the trials, tribulations and glorious successes without the catchy music and celebrity friends.

Ron Finley of South Central L.A., an activist gardener who has changed thousands of lives by inspiring people living in the food deserts of inner cities to garden (Source: www.RonFinley.com)

For advanced gardeners who have yet to watch ‘Martha Knows Best,’ do. I’d like to know what you think.

But if you’re a brand-new gardener – look to the shows, feeds and podcasts of those who garden with the resources and in the region that you do. I guarantee you there are hundreds on YouTube.

Or, depart these shores altogether and take advantage of UK programming that still respects its population enough to provide polished and professional gardening programs to inspire everyday gardeners, such as Charlie Dimmock’s new endeavor, Garden Rescue, classic episodes of Ground Force, or Monty Don and others truly getting their hands dirty in BBC Gardener’s World. (Please leave your suggestions in the comments for excellent gardening programming in other parts of the world.)

Martha Knows Best is not a gardening show. It’s a celebrity reality show that takes place outside. And in the middle of a pandemic, when millions are out of work, businesses are shuttered, and large segments of the population are watching their future dreams for even a modest home and garden sabotaged by something completely out of their control, we deserve better.

Let’s hope HGTV digs a little deeper and finds it.

  ‘Martha Knows Best’ Is Not Great. It’s Not Even a Good Thing. originally appeared on GardenRant on September 10, 2020.

The post ‘Martha Knows Best’ Is Not Great. It’s Not Even a Good Thing. appeared first on GardenRant.

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[turfandlawncare]

‘Martha Knows Best’ Is Not Great. It’s Not Even a Good Thing.

So, it’s come to this.

As a nation, we are so starved for American garden programming that we are willing to accept that a woman worth over $620 million dollars, stuck for 82 days on her 153-acre estate in Bedford, NY; with her gardener, one of her housekeepers, and one of her drivers; and joined as needed by groundskeepers and their foreman, is going to fill that need and leave us hungry for another season of down-to-earth gardening advice.

So starved, that we are willing to accept HGTV promos that tell us that this immaculately dressed and fully made-up celebrity, sans sweat, sans grimy hands, and sans, apparently, a production assistant to create some small illusion of same, is relatable; and “puts the G back in HGTV.”

So starved, that we are willing to overlook her frequent – and historical – transposition of the pronouns “I” and “they” when discussing the nitty-gritty of projects undertaken on that 153-acre estate.

So. Starved.

Six episodes worth of gilded crumbs. And I’m afraid this gardener has lost her appetite.

It’s not about the money…

Perhaps the best way to launch into my review [and accompanying visual aids] of the first season of HGTV’s Martha Knows Best, (which I watched in its entirety after Susan’s recent review here) is to make it perfectly clear that I have no problem with the [legal] accumulation of wealth.

What wrestling a tiller really looks like.

I have no problem, as it were, with the wealthy.

You earned it. You spend it.  Martha Stewart is not just an extraordinary business woman, but a talented creative with an expert eye sharpened over many years.

She also has the genius to recognize, nurture, and promote that spark in other creatives.

If she insists that the 1000+ containers on her property be of the same color family (stone, concrete or marble), and never wishes to see an artistic vegetable in a flower arrangement, and lines utilitarian pathways to peacock enclosures with cut blocks of granite, who am I to criticize her from enjoying the whims that whacking great wads of cash can indulge?

I’ll have to tell my insanely talented friend Louisa Zimmermann-Roberts at Thanksgiving Farms in Frederick, MD, that her summer arrangement of Swiss chard, sweet pea, red raspberries, grapes eggplant, okra, chives, black-eyed peas and banana leaves is not officially sanctioned. She’s going to take it really well.

If I lived across the street as one of her “very many fancy neighbors” I would raise a glass to her abilities at the neighborhood block party, and conscientiously ask her advice when it came to pairing champagne and stemware for a well-lubricated celebrity crowd of twenty on a Saturday night.

I might even ask which echeveria to use in the tablescape.

Wickedly, I’d also try to tempt her hardworking gardener, Ryan McCallister, to cross the street and become my personal gardener.  My current gardener, Cutout Andy (though versatile and well-traveled), doesn’t have the same twinkle in his eye.

Cutout Andy and I discussing plans for the garden.

All this to say, I respect what she has achieved and have no desire to set up a mini-guillotine in the exquisitely designed cobblestone courtyard of her horse stables. I won’t even debate aspects of her gardening advice.  Susan did that already.

I also respect the fact that she is a 79-year-old woman who is a damn sight more active than your average 79-year-old American.

Let Them Eat Cake

What I don’t respect however, is this laughable attempt to appear ‘relatable’ as someone who is just like me, or like 99% of the gardening public.

I don’t respect the producers of this show having so little awareness of the current suffering going on throughout the country that they felt that a conspicuous display of fabulous wealth could feed the public’s very real (and in many cases, economic) need for gardening advice.

At a certain point it goes from being laughable, to being downright offensive. From the intro:

“I’ve lived on this farm for about 17 years. And like you I’m spending more time at home than ever before.  So I’m going to take you behind the scenes as I do my gardening projects. I’m going to help my celebrity friends. And surprise new gardeners.”

Here’s one of my gardening projects – Endlessly Weeding. On my knees. On my own. And I’m one of the lucky ones.

It must be horrific to spend 82 days on 153 acres. With a modified staff.

What about 82 days on a tenth of an acre (like my last house)?  What about 82 days in an apartment with a philodendron?

Uhhh….there’s a pandemic going on?

We have been six months at this pandemic.  After years in cramped quarters, I now live on ten beautiful acres in a four-bedroom house. And I’m ready to bury my husband’s work-from-home body in a remote corner of the property at this point.  It might even be classified as a COVID death.

And no doubt my husband feels the same way.

And yet, every evening of this mess, when I watch the news and see cities in such turmoil, I think of my 10×12′ apartment in New York, when I was 100% dependent on food service jobs and student loans to make my bills.

Each and every morning when I walk through the garden I think of our little upstairs flat in Southeast London when my son was a toddler, and how desperate I was for more than a window box and a few pots by the door.

My very first vegetable garden – a 2x17ft unpaved strip in the parking lot outside our tiny apartment in Southern California. (Photo from Big Dreams, Small Garden, 2017)

And each morning I am deeply grateful for the space around me, and painfully aware that others are struggling in this pandemic under terrible conditions with no end in sight.

No awareness from Hollywood apparently.  Or from Bedford.

“When the pandemic started and quarantine became de rigueur,” says Stewart, “I invited Ryan, my gardener, I invited Carlos, one of my drivers, and one of my housekeepers Elvira, to stay with me during this time.”

Quarantine.  De rigueur.  Alrighty then. So is a floor length gown at a debutante ball Martha. But okay, we’ll just go with it.

Lost in Translation

And if you didn’t study French in high school and are currently running to Google Translate – keep the tab open. To Martha, soil that is ready for planting does not resemble a palm full of pastry dough, but pâte brisée.

It’s actually an excellent analogy that falls short in its delivery. As does dropping mise en place to describe setting gardening tools in place for a project.

While you’re at it, you might want to check out  Île de la Cité, where Martha gets “all her seeds.”

No Chanel or Dior for this everyday gardener when she arrives in Paris, she tells us, but straight to those lovely little seed markets.

I didn’t want to bring Marie and her cake into this, but damn.

My husband and I on our way to the seed markets. Regrettably he had to drive us due to some staffing issues.

I remark upon these Gallicisms as someone with five years of French under her belt, a fair amount of experience in the kitchen and garden, and an unfortunate history of dropping sans into conversation, but a young, beginning American gardener doesn’t know her pâte brisée from her pot of ease-ay.

99.9% of low or middle-income gardeners are not jetting to Paris for their seeds and will probably see what’s available at local garden centers before they consider even splurging on shipping fees for online sources, no matter how wonderful they are.

I know I did.

And here. Here is the issue.  Pretending that this is a gardening show instead of a celebrity reality show.

The wonderful thing about Cutout Andy is that he is so incredibly portable.  Here he is on his way to help my mother in her garden in California.

Just Ask Martha

A few moments of FaceTiming Mitch in Lemoore, California about soil preparation for his carrots; or telling Maggie in Mississippi that she needs “ferns” for the north side of her shady house; or letting Karlin from Florida in on the not-so-little secret that she needs a coop for her ducks to keep them safe from predators; does not constitute ‘hanging with the little people.’

Especially after each performs the requisite sycophantic prelude before speaking to “the Gardening Queen Herself”

Maggie:  “I almost started crying but I did keep it together.”

And then there are the celebrity cameos.  Hailey Bieber needing dog grooming tips. Jay Leno showing us the kitchen in his garage and asking what a pomegranate is. Zac Posen telling Martha he’s been gardening since March in Bridgehampton.

“Well. It’s SOOO easy to garden in the Hamptons” she laughs.

I’ll just leave that right where it fell.

Cutout Andy taking a few moments away from digging out a new pathway to enjoy a warm tomato from my mother’s garden.

I made my life-long gardening mother watch two episodes with me.  When Martha begged Snoop Dogg to join her in Maine on her 63-acre estate, Skylands, for her next party post-COVID, Mom turned to me with a puzzled look on her face. “It’s like digging your heel into somebody’s face.” She said quietly.  “I’d be embarrassed to say that.”

Even if I gave millions of dollars to charities each year – as no doubt Martha does – I would too.

To his credit, a tee-shirted Richard Gere sat cross-legged and underneath a tree in his father’s average suburban garden where he grew up – even if they spent the entire time discussing the shade beds at his exclusive Relais & Châteaux establishment, The Bedford Post Inn.  He almost seemed a little embarrassed.

Perhaps we have his friendship with the Dalai Lama to thank for that.

She knows her stuff. But she’s forgotten her audience.

Martha’s smart. She’s exceptionally talented. She built an empire.

But she is not the person to put the G back in HGTV.

Those are people like Joe Lamp’l on Growing a Greener World, or Nan Sterman in A Growing Passion, or or down-to-earth influencers like Erin Schanen (www.impatientgardener.com) or Doug Oster (www.dougoster.com), or Ron Finley (www.ronfinley.com) who show you the trials, tribulations and glorious successes without the catchy music and celebrity friends.

Ron Finley of South Central L.A., an activist gardener who has changed thousands of lives by inspiring people living in the food deserts of inner cities to garden (Source: www.RonFinley.com)

For advanced gardeners who have yet to watch ‘Martha Knows Best,’ do. I’d like to know what you think.

But if you’re a brand-new gardener – look to the shows, feeds and podcasts of those who garden with the resources and in the region that you do. I guarantee you there are hundreds on YouTube.

Or, depart these shores altogether and take advantage of UK programming that still respects its population enough to provide polished and professional gardening programs to inspire everyday gardeners, such as Charlie Dimmock’s new endeavor, Garden Rescue, classic episodes of Ground Force, or Monty Don and others truly getting their hands dirty in BBC Gardener’s World. (Please leave your suggestions in the comments for excellent gardening programming in other parts of the world.)

Martha Knows Best is not a gardening show. It’s a celebrity reality show that takes place outside. And in the middle of a pandemic, when millions are out of work, businesses are shuttered, and large segments of the population are watching their future dreams for even a modest home and garden sabotaged by something completely out of their control, we deserve better.

Let’s hope HGTV digs a little deeper and finds it.

  ‘Martha Knows Best’ Is Not Great. It’s Not Even a Good Thing. originally appeared on GardenRant on September 10, 2020.

The post ‘Martha Knows Best’ Is Not Great. It’s Not Even a Good Thing. appeared first on GardenRant.

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