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calzona-ga · 3 years ago

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In her unauthorized book, Lynette Rice explores the stories behind some of the ABC drama's biggest moments, including — in this exclusive excerpt — the factors that led to McDreamy's shocking death.

In How to Save a Life: The Inside Story of Grey’s Anatomy, author Lynette Rice recounts the ABC medical drama’s eventful 16-year history, revealing new details behind some of the show’s biggest departures. Included in the unauthorized, 320-page oral history (St. Martin’s Press, Sept. 21, $29.99) is a chapter that offers new insight into leading man Patrick Dempsey’s shocking exit in season 11 of the Shonda Rhimes-created drama. In the chapter, Rice speaks with Dempsey’s co-stars and exec producers who were present during filming of his final days on Grey’s Anatomy, and reveals claims of “HR issues” that contributed to the death of his alter-ego, Derek “McDreamy” Shepherd.

“There were HR issues. It wasn’t sexual in any way. He sort of was terrorizing the set. Some cast members had all sorts of PTSD with him,” recalls exec producer James D. Parriott, who was brought back to the series to oversee Dempsey’s exit.

In more than 80 interviews with current and former cast- and crewmembers, Rice, an editor-at-large at Entertainment Weekly, also explores the show’s early days, recounts the thinking behind some of its more polarizing storylines and offers exclusive details about the show’s behind-the-scenes culture.

“After 17 seasons, fans still can’t get enough of Grey’s Anatomy,” Rice tells THR. But what went down behind the scenes was just as dramatic as what viewers saw every Thursday. I’m excited for fans to read what I learned about those early days, along with what it was like to work for Shonda Rhimes, and why the drama was so freakin’ headline-prone.”

Below, The Hollywood Reporter shares an excerpt — the full eighth chapter — from How to Save a Life, and tune in Friday to TV’s Top 5 for an interview with Rice about her book and the other big reveals she uncovered in her reporting for it.

(Reps for ABC, ABC Signature, Shondaland, and Dempsey declined comment on the reveals in Rice’s book.)

“He’s Very Dreamy, but He’s Not the Sun,” Or, How Grey’s Anatomy Loved — Then Learned to Live Without — Patrick Dempsey Ellen Pompeo may have played the titular role, but for many fans over many years, Patrick Dempsey was the real draw to Grey’s Anatomy. Some of it had to do with his celebrity: Dempsey was the most famous member of the original cast at the time of the pilot and brought with him quite a cult following from his 1987 movie Can’t Buy Me Love. But a lot of it was due to the way Rhimes wrote her McDreamy and how Dempsey depicted him. James D. Parriott I would say, “The guy would never say that,” and Shonda would say, “He’s McDreamy. He’s the perfect man. He would say that.” I’d say, “Okay. It’s your show.” Eric Buchman Shonda had a very clear idea of how important it was to keep Derek as this almost idealized love interest, not just for Meredith but for the audience. Naturally, the writers—especially writers who had been working on one-hour dramas for a while—were like, “Well, maybe have McDreamy make a big mistake in surgery and kill somebody. Or he develops an addiction of some kind. What is his deep, dark secret?” Shonda was very insistent: that’s not the character we do that with. Even when you find out he’s married, that was done in a very sympathetic way that kept him being a hero. He was wronged by his spouse and in spite of it all he was still gonna give his marriage a second chance. Stacy McKee Shonda was protective of McDreamy, but it was really with an eye toward being protective of Meredith. I don’t think the two were separate from one another. I don’t think she wanted to put something out there that maybe on the surface might seem a little frivolous. At its core, there was something really substantial that she wanted to say. She wanted to be very specific about the type of relationship values that she put out there. Tony Phelan I was in editing with Shonda once, and it was the scene where Meredith and Derek had broken up. He comes over and she’s like, “I can’t remember the last time we kissed.” And he says, “I remember. You were wearing this and you smelled of this …”

Joan Rater “Your shampoo smelled like flowers, you had that sweater on …” He described their last kiss. Tony Phelan Typically in editing you start on Derek, then you cut to Meredith for a reaction, and then you’ll go back to him. I noticed that we weren’t ever cutting back to Meredith. I asked why. Shonda said, “Because the woman in Iowa who’s watching this show wants to believe that Patrick is talking to her, and if you cut back to Meredith, it pushes them out of it.” In those special moments, we would just lock into Derek and let him do his thing. Joan Rater And he was a master at it. Patrick Dempsey He’s the ideal man, and that’s what Shonda constructed. There’s a projection [of him] onto me when you come in contact with fans, certainly with the younger and older fans. There is a certain amount of expectation. There is a responsibility to it. It made me grow, too. There were good qualities [of his] that you work on to obtain. Off camera, Dempsey was equally as charismatic to his fellow actors, crew members, and anyone who would come to visit the set. Lauren Stamile I was going in to meet him, and I remember I had this little cardigan sweater on and I took it off before I got into the room. Dempsey is one of those people—it’s almost like there’s a light shining around his body, and you feel like you’re the only person in the room. I got so hot and I remember saying, “Gosh, I would take off my sweater if I had one on because I’m so hot, but I took it off.” I was just babbling. He said, “You look nice,” and I said, “You look nicer.” I felt so awkward and he was so gracious and lovely. I was having a nervous breakdown. It’s like this “it” factor. I was like, God, whatever he has, I wish I had. I think it was very obvious how nervous I was, and he went out of his way to make sure he introduced me to everybody and made sure I felt comfortable, which he certainly didn’t have to do. But he did. Joan Rater He knew I had a giant crush on him, and he loved it. And when we’d go to table reads—I was an actress at one point in my life—they would always give me Meredith if Ellen wasn’t there. And I’d be getting my chicken tenders at craft services before the table read and he’d come up behind me and say, “Are you reading Meredith?” in my ear, like, so sexy. I’d be like, Oh my God. I mean, I could barely … I could not look at him. Tina Majorino I worked with Patrick a ton. I love him so much. We had a really great time working together. I think he’s such a great actor and he really made me laugh a lot. I feel like we had a good dynamic in scenes together, and it was always fun to play opposite him. Yes, he’s that charismatic in real life. Yes, his hair is that awesome. Yes, he is dreamy up close.

Chandra Wilson Patrick Dempsey will forever be known as Grey’s Anatomy’s McDreamy. Derek Shepherd is a permanent part of television history.

Norman Leavitt He is a big, personable guy.

Jeannine Renshaw We all love Patrick. Patrick is a sweetheart. If I saw him on the street, I’d give him a hug. I love the guy.

Mark Wilding I’ve always had a soft spot for Patrick. He really does try to do the right thing. Brooke Smith, who played Dr. Erica Hahn, remembers how Dempsey defended her when the decision was made to fire her from the show in 2008. Brooke Smith I remember calling him and saying, “Oh my God, they said they can’t write for me anymore, so I guess I’m leaving.” And he was like, “What are you talking about? You’re the only one they’re writing for.” Which at that time, it kind of did feel that way. But I guess someone didn’t like that. They gave me a statement [to release, about her departure] and I never said it. Patrick said that he actually took it out of his jacket on The Ellen DeGeneres Show and read the statement. He won’t let me forget it. He was like, “I defended you, see?” And it was true.

By season eleven, however, fans saw a disturbing break in MerDer’s once unbreakable bond. Six episodes had gone by without a peep from Derek, who was supposedly in Washington, D.C., where he had apparently made out with a research fellow. Fans began threatening to bolt if their hero didn’t return soon to Seattle. “I have never missed one episode,” wrote a fan on Dempsey’s Facebook page. “But I swear if [Rhimes] kills you off I’m done.” But there was a critical reason for Derek’s strange absence: behind the scenes, there was talk of Dempsey’s diva-like fits and tension between him and Pompeo. To help manage the explosive situation, executive producer James D. Parriott was brought back in to serve as a veritable Dempsey whisperer.

Patrick Dempsey [That] was the first year that I haven’t been in every episode. I [was] in every episode since the pilot— close to 250 episodes. That [was a] huge run. James D. Parriott Shonda needed an OG to come in as sort of a showrunner for fourteen episodes. There were HR issues. It wasn’t sexual in any way. He sort of was terrorizing the set. Some cast members had all sorts of PTSD with him. He had this hold on the set where he knew he could stop production and scare people. The network and studio came down and we had sessions with them. I think he was just done with the show. He didn’t like the inconvenience of coming in every day and working. He and Shonda were at each other’s throats.

Jeannine Renshaw There were times where Ellen was frustrated with Patrick and she would get angry that he wasn’t working as much. She was very big on having things be fair. She just didn’t like that Patrick would complain that “I’m here too late” or “I’ve been here too long” when she had twice as many scenes in the episode as he did. When I brought it up to Patrick, I would say, “Look around you. These people have been here since six thirty a.m.” He would go, “Oh, yeah.” He would get it. It’s just that actors tend to see things from their own perspective. He’s like a kid. He’s so high energy and would go, “What’s happening next?” He literally goes out of his skin, sitting and waiting. He wants to be out driving his race car or doing something fun. He’s the kid in class who wants to go to recess.

Patrick Dempsey It’s ten months, fifteen hours a day. You never know your schedule, so your kid asks you, “What are you doing on Monday?” And you go, “I don’t know,” because I don’t know my schedule. Doing that for eleven years is challenging. But you have to be grateful, because you’re well compensated, so you can’t really complain because you don’t really have a right. You don’t have control over your schedule. So, you have to just be flexible.

Longtime Crew Member Poor Patrick. I’m not defending his schtick. I like him, but he was the Lone Ranger. All of these actresses were getting all this power. All the rogue actresses would go running to Shonda and say, “Hey, Patrick’s doing this. Patrick’s late for work. He’s a nightmare.” He was just shut out in the cold. His behavior wasn’t the greatest, but he had nowhere to go. He was so miserable. He had no one to talk to. When Sandra left, I remember him telling me, “I should’ve left then, but I stayed on because they showed me all this money. They just were dumping money on me.”

Patrick Dempsey It [was] hard to say no to that kind of money. How do you say no to that? It’s remarkable to be a working actor, and then on top of that to be on a show that’s visible. And then on top of that to be on a phenomenal show that’s known around the world, and play a character who is beloved around the world. It’s very heady. It [was] a lot to process, and not wanting to let that go, because you never know whether you will work again and have success again.

Jeannine Renshaw A lot of the complaining … I think Shonda finally witnessed it herself, and that was the final straw. Shonda had to say to the network, “If he doesn’t go, I go.” Nobody wanted him to leave, because he was the show. Him and Ellen. Patrick is a sweetheart. It messes you up, this business.

James D. Parriott I vaguely recall something like that, but I can’t be sure. It would have happened right toward the end, because I know they were negotiating and negotiating, trying to figure out what to do. We had three different scenarios that we actually had to break because we didn’t know until I think about three days before he came back to set which one we were going to go with. We didn’t know if he was going to be able to negotiate his way out of it. We had a whole story line where we were going to keep him in Washington, D.C., so we could separate him from the rest of the show. He would not have to work with Ellen again. Then we had the one where he comes back, doesn’t die, and we figure out what Derek’s relationship with Meredith would be. Then there was the one we did. It was kind of crazy. We didn’t know if he was going to be able to negotiate his way out of it. It was ultimately decided that just bringing him back was going to be too hard on the other actors. The studio just said it was going to be more trouble than it was worth and decided to move on.

Stacy McKee I don’t think there was any way to exit him without him dying. He and Meredith were such an incredibly bonded couple at that point. It would be completely out of character if he left his kids. There was no exit that would honor that character other than if he were to die. Patrick Dempsey I don’t remember the date [I got the news]. It was not in the fall. Maybe February or March. It was just a natural progression. And the way everything was unfolding in a very organic way, it was like, “Okay! This is obviously the right time.” Things happened very quickly. We were like, “Oh, this is where it’s going to go.”

So that was that: McDreamy would die in episode twenty-one of season eleven, even though Dempsey was in year one of his recently signed two-year contract extension. Rhimes wrote a script that was befitting of her lead’s heroic persona: she began “How to Save a Life” by having Derek witness a car crash and helping the injured. Once it appeared everyone was out of harm’s way, Derek continues on his road trip but is suddenly broadsided by a truck.

Rob Hardy (Director) The paramedics leave. He’s there by himself. He’s having a moment. The nice music is playing, and all of a sudden, bang. It comes out of nowhere, which, you know, is how accidents happen. So as opposed to watching it as a viewer, we saw the accident happen through Derek’s perspective. Derek ends up at Dillard Medical Center, a hospital far from Grey Sloan and the talented doctors who work there. His eyes are open, but his brain is severely damaged. No one hears his plea for a CT scan; he can’t speak. To help keep the episode a secret, the scenes were shot in an abandoned hospital in Hawthorne, California, about twenty-two miles from the show’s home studio in Los Feliz.

Mimi Melgaard It was really hard on all of us because it was so secretive and we had so many different locations. We shot at this closed-down hospital that was absolutely creepy haunted. All the scenes there were so sad anyway, and in this yucky-feeling haunted hospital? It was really weird. His whole last episode was really tough. Patrick Dempsey It was like any other day. It was just another workday. There was still too much going on. You’re in the midst of it—you’re not really processing it. Rob Hardy Here’s a guy who’s immobile. Now you’re inside of his head. We were trying to make that feel scary from the perspective of a person who’s used to being in control, from a person who usually has the power of life and death in his own hands. But now he doesn’t have the ability to speak on his own behalf.

Samantha Sloyan When I went to audition, I didn’t recognize any of these doctors’ names. I assumed they were just dummy sides so people wouldn’t ruin the story line or anything like that. All we knew is that we were dealing with a man who’s been in a car accident. I had no idea that it was going to be Derek. I just figured I was going to be a guest doctor and that whoever this person was who was injured, was going to be just a character on the show. Once it became clear what we were working on, I was like, Oh, my gosh. I can’t believe this is the episode I’m on.

Mike McColl (Dr. Paul Castello) I signed an NDA before they would release the script to me. I was reading it in my house, and I was like, “Oh, my God.” I didn’t tell anyone, including my agents. I just said, “This is a really great booking. It’s a great role on Grey’s.” And they didn’t know anything until it aired.

Savannah Paige Rae (Winnie) The first scene I shot was actually the sentimental scene when I’m saying, “It’s a beautiful day to save lives, right?” I’m in the hospital room with Derek and talking to him. Even though I never watched the show, I recognized the value of the episode I was in and just really took it to heart. It was so special that I got to be a part of it.

Rob Hardy [Patrick] had a lot of emotions during the whole shoot, which evolved. I think when we first started, he was very calm and cool … the same Patrick that I remembered when I worked on the show a year or so before. With each passing day, he was a lot more emotional. A lot more was on his mind, and that would show itself in different ways. The finality of the episode and for his character was setting in. You’ve become a global icon on this show and then in five, four, three, two, a day … it’s over.

James D. Parriott Patrick was very cooperative and good.

Mike McColl When I met Patrick, he’s lying on a stretcher and we’re rushing him into the ER. I just introduced myself, shook his hand, and was like, “Man, I cannot tell you what an honor it is to be the guy to take you down.” He loved it. He could not have been nicer to me and was funny through the whole shoot. He was on the table in front of me there when I cut his chest open and all that stuff. He gave me a hug at the end. It was a real privilege to be a part of TV history in that way.

Samantha Sloyan I remember him being incredibly kind. They had his neck in a brace, and he’s strapped down to the board, so there wasn’t a ton of chatting. I remember him being really kind, but it was clearly intense for him.

Stacy McKee It was such a beautiful piece of storytelling. I knew this event was going to be a really sad, horrible event for Meredith, but I also knew it was going to be the beginning of such an incredible chapter for Meredith.

Dempsey completed his final hours of shooting on a rainy night. There was no goodbye party, no goodbye cake. Maybe that’s because some cast members were left out of the loop. James Pickens, Jr., told ABC News that the cast “didn’t know a whole lot. It was kind of on the fly. So whatever information we got, we pretty much got it kind of right before it happened.”

Caterina Scorsone (Dr. Amelia Shepherd) I didn’t get to say goodbye to Patrick when he left. I do think that helped, because I’ve been using the character of Derek in my internal landscape since Private Practice. Derek was the stability in Amelia’s life. He became a father figure after they watched robbers shoot their father. When he was suddenly gone from the show, we didn’t have that closure, so I got to play it out. She’s about to use drugs again before Owen confronts her in a way that she finally talks about her feelings about losing Derek. She doesn’t end up using.

James D. Parriott The day he left, that was my last day. There was a certain sadness to it, but I think he was relieved. I mean, I think it took a toll on him, too.

Rob Hardy I didn’t see other actors showing up and saying, “Hey, it’s the last day! Wanted to come and wish you well.” I didn’t get that. It was more the Patrick show. We were in the Patrick world, and then Ellen came, and there was definitely a lot of emotion that both of them had individually … not necessarily together. It was more so her being there on the day that he died. He had his own way of being with that, and the same thing with her. It was like two people who grew up together and … here we are. They had their own way of reflecting.

Patrick Dempsey I very quietly left. It was beautiful. It was raining, which was really touching. I got in my Panamera, got in rush-hour traffic, and two hours later I was home. Big news like this doesn’t stay quiet for long. Both Michael Ausiello—who left EW in 2010 to launch the news site TVLine—and Lesley Goldberg of The Hollywood Reporter learned two weeks prior to Dempsey’s final episode that he would be leaving the show. No reporter worth their salt wants to sit on a scoop—least of all one as huge as this—but Ausiello and Goldberg didn’t want to spoil the outcome for fans, so they agreed to hold the story until after the episode aired. I eventually found out, too, but in the nuttiest way imaginable: I was standing on the set of CSI: Cyber, watching Patricia Arquette talk about some droll techno-criminal. Unfortunately, the publicist also cc’d Dempsey’s manager and ABC publicist while trying to give me a major story, so I couldn’t immediately report the scoop. But I did use the information to successfully negotiate the one and only exit interview with Dempsey. Two weeks before his final episode, I met him and his publicist at Feed Body & Soul in Venice, California, for a story that would hit newsstands on April 24. He seemed a little shell-shocked and at one point choked up, but at the time he said nothing about how his on-set behavior may have contributed to his ouster. My editor, Henry Goldblatt, wanted to put him on the cover of Entertainment Weekly, but he couldn’t guarantee to ABC that no one would see it before the episode aired. Good thing we didn’t: some subscribers got the issue on the morning of Dempsey’s final episode— and one actually tweeted the story. Our PR department tried to get the tweets removed, but the cat was out of the bag: some fans found out early that McDreamy was about to be McHistory. Outlets like Variety reported how the story got out early, while our PR department released this statement: “We are surprised that an EW subscriber may have received their issue a day earlier than planned. We always try our best to bring readers exclusive news first. We would like to apologize to fans of the show that learned the news ahead of time.” Dempsey’s final episode was watched by 8.83 million viewers—the show’s largest audience since the premiere that season. Variety even pontificated whether the ratings boost was due to my exclusive with Dempsey.

Lesley Goldberg (The Hollywood Reporter) I’m used to working with networks to hold news as part of their efforts to guard against plot spoilers. But the way Patrick Dempsey’s exit was handled involved a layer of paranoia and secrecy that has been unlike anything I’ve seen in my reporting career. News that he was leaving, and his character being killed off, would have been a major story considering how big the show is domestically and internationally. However, it also would have meant spoiling the episode and, more important, damaging key relationships I’ve worked hard to build. At some point, publishing the news of Dempsey’s exit before the episode aired became an ethical question of what was more important—a big story and its subsequent traffic, which would have come no matter what, or the relationships and trust that it took years to craft. Ultimately, I still published early because EW subscribers received the issue with Lynette’s Dempsey interview before the episode aired.

Mike McColl The morning after Derek’s last episode aired, my daughter sent me a link that was on YouTube or Facebook or something. I actually pulled it up to look at it, and it was a Grey’s Anatomy showbiz cheat sheet. It asked the question “Who is the attending doctor who killed Derek ‘McDreamy’ Shepherd?” It included a photo that I posted from the set. I had on a bloody rubber glove and was in my scrubs and mask. I never obviously would have posted this before it aired. I posted it well after the episode aired, and I [captioned it] “McDeadly.” This writer said something like, “Kill McDeadly.” Maybe that’s why the producer didn’t choose a big-name actor to be the one who killed our beloved McDreamy! I want to be ultrasensitive to these hard-core fans because it means so much to them, and I certainly didn’t mean in that case to make light of it. It’s just, I’m an actor, and I recognize it for what it is. Is everybody clear on the fact that this is just pretend and Patrick knew he was going to be leaving the show? It was just like, “God. He’s okay. He really is okay.”

Peter Horton Derek was going to be there forever with Meredith because you went through a whole journey with them. That was incredibly fulfilling. So even if he’s not there, he’s there. I don’t think any of us really worried about that going away because by then you were so invested in it. The show can last as it has for years.

Patrick Dempsey Lots of people [miss him]. “It’s good to see you alive” is the comment I get. I’m like, “Yes, I’m very much alive in reruns.” People were really invested in that relationship. I knew it would be heavy. Very happy to have moved on with a different chapter in my life.

Samantha Sloyan The montage just killed me, when Meredith says, “It’s okay, you can go.” God, I’m getting choked up just thinking about it. The chemistry they have as a pair and the way they were able to build that and sustain it! So many of these relationships are, like, “Will they, won’t they,” and then it wears thin. They sustained it for the duration of their relationship on the show, and it’s just, I think, a testament to what those two created. It was just unbelievable.

Pompeo addressed Dempsey’s departure with a tweet that focused solely on his character, not on how she spent eleven years working side by side with him: “There are so many people out there who have suffered tremendous loss and tragedy. Husbands and wives of soldiers, victims of senseless violence, and parents who have lost children. People who get up every day and do what feels like is the impossible. So it is for these people and in the spirit of resilance [sic] I am honored and excited to tell the story of how Meredith goes on in the face of what feels like the impossible.” Meanwhile, fans futilely created a Change.org petition to reinstate McDempsey, while other, more desperate ones simply tweeted “We Hate You” to Rhimes.

Shonda Rhimes Derek Shepherd is and will always be an incredibly important character—for Meredith, for me, and for the fans. I absolutely never imagined saying goodbye to our McDreamy. Patrick Dempsey’s performance shaped Derek in a way that I know we both hope became a meaningful example— happy, sad, romantic, painful, and always true—of what young women should demand from modern love. His loss will be felt by all.

Talk about the mother (father?) of all postscripts: In November of 2020 Dempsey reprised his role as McDreamy in the season opener—but only in Meredith’s dreams. Stricken with COVID-19, an unconscious Meredith “imagined” reuniting with her husband on the beach. After talking exclusively to Deadline and saying how it was “really a very healing process, and really rewarding,” Dempsey would return for more beach-based episodes that would ultimately stand out as the best moments of season seventeen. “It was a second chance thing,” one ABC executive told me at the time. “Shonda likes a comeback. Also, they wanted him in their last season.”

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nicanario · 3 years ago

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this post is a product of its time

tw: discussion of racism, homophobia, misogyny and a short mention of sexual abuse.

ok, this is basically gonna be a very long rambling post about my not fully developed thoughts on the justification many people give to bigotry when talking about the past: "it was a product of its time"

it would be fair to say, with me being a raging SJW socialist scumbag, that I don't think this is a very good argument and is most of the time actually an excuse to not think about the problems inherent to our society, historical or not, and, by extension, the problems with ourselves. but I do think that sometimes, just sometimes, this can be a valid point, or at least one that raises some interesting questions.

I'm going to cite examples from several pieces of media, but fear not, I'll try to make this as accesible as I can.

so, let's take Star Trek: The Original Series (TOS) as our first case study. this show has, correctly, been called progressive by everyone except for clueless people who don't know much about Star Trek's history, Star Trek's crew, Star Trek's cast, or, frankly, Star Trek. because if you ignore the clear, sometimes in-your-face political history and present of the franchise, I don't think you know much about it at all. I do think you can call yourself a fan if you like it, you may have watched every single episode for all I know. but lots of mental gymnastics are needed to ignore the political progressiveness Star Trek has had since its very beginning.

episodes like Let That Be Your Last Battlefield are obviously anti-racist, at least in their intention. but the episode in question really is "a product of its time," and at the very end fails to uphold its ideals. the episode ends with the two aliens (who are LITERALLY. BLACK ON ONE SIDE. AND WHITE ON THE OTHER. BUT IN THE OPPOSITE SIDES.) fighting each other on their devastated planet, and the crew is like, "oh yeah if they both would give up on their hatred that they both share both of them equally" when it has been firmly established that one is the oppressor and the other one is the oppressed.

and that's a lot of Star Trek, not just TOS. even Discovery, one of the most recent series, has done Bury Your Gays (and Trans) TWICE (though both times literally rectified it, which is cool). there are episodes of the franchise that are overtly racist, or misogynistic, etc. TOS is lauded, mostly justifiably, as very progressive, especially for the standards of the time. they put a woman of colour as one of the senior staff, for fuck's sake. of course, when you analyse that same character, as with most of their intentions at being progressive, you'll see that she was relegated and sometimes even outright mistreated when she had the potential to be much more. but, at that time, it was a lot.

I had a friend (emphasis on "had") who, after I told him about TOS's both progressiveness and constant misogyny, told me something like "imagine feminists trying to complain about a show from the 60s." so, with unearned spite, he was, in some way, trying to make the argument that it was a product of its time.

you could say Star Trek, all of Star Trek, is "a product of its time" in the sense that it's not always perfect. uh, yes, I would agree. but that doesn't mean people have to accept it. well, I mean, the show is kinda over, you have to accept it's that way. but you don't have to accept that it's not wrong just because it was a product of its time.

H. P. Lovecraft, as another example, was a greatly influential writer whose works still shape a lot of people's ideas to this day. I have only ever read like one of his stories, so don't expect me to have an opinion on his works. but I can have an opinion on what I know about him as a person (he did have a life outside his writing, after all). and, yeah, he was a huge asshole. if you want to know more in depth about the subject, please watch Hbomberguy's video on him: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8u8wZ0WvxI

but basically, he was incredibly racist & homophobic. some people might even say, "he was a product of his time." well, there are two possible rebuttals to that. the surface level one, and the one that examines why that argument is wrong to the core.

The Surface Level Response to "it was a product of its time": um, no it wasn't. Lovecraft was more racist than a lot of people even in his time. he wasn't just a guy who carried the racist beliefs of his society like everyone else, he was a reactionary who actively thought and discussed how racist he was, and how right he was for being that way. but that's only applicable to Lovecraft. one can't argue the same for Star Trek: TOS, because TOS did try to be more progressive and more anti-racist than the rest of its society. that leads us to the next response.

The Response that Actually Deals with the Fact that No Matter How Progressive You're Trying to Be, Your Failings Can Still be Criticized: the thing is, trying to excuse Lovecraft's or Star Trek's bigotry because they were "products of their times" misses the fact that racism is still wrong, and some people knew that in those times as well. people from these times weren't all naive or stupid or whatever. they had the capacity for rational thinking. they could stop and think, "hey, maybe what we're doing is wrong." and the fact is, some people did. not perfectly, not to our standars, but they did. everyone could have stopped and think. but most of them didn't, and we can criticize them for it. racism, homophobia, sexism, etc. HURT PEOPLE. horribly. massively.

also, even if you agree with the "it's a product of its time" argument, some people aren't criticising people's or work's bigotry: they're explaining why they don't want to experience it.

The Talons of Weng-Chiang is a 1977 Doctor Who serial, and it's one of the show's more racist stories. almost all the villains are Chinese, every single Chinese person is a villain. there's yellowface, slurs, stereotypes, the Doctor speaking nonsense words instead of actual Chinese, and a general belittling of Chinese culture.

note that I'm neither Chinese nor of Chinese descent. I have been searching for hours for a few posts I've read a while ago (some by people who are of Asian descent) about this episode and I can't find them. sorry.

suffice it to say, even though I love Jago & Litefoot (the audio series and the characters), it's not an acceptable episode at all. but it's also important to remark that, because of it, some people aren't going to want to watch it. sometimes, people aren't saying "the episode shouldn't be this way," which causes others to answer that it was "a product of its time." sometimes, people are just saying, "this is an episode that attacks real people. I don't want to see it. I don't care if it was common in that era to be racist, i don't want to experience it."

however, there is an interesting point to the "it's a product of its time" argument. after all, everything is influenced by its society, for better or worse. and we can't change it anymore. TOS sometimes didn't quite understand the political themes it wanted to explore. Lovecraft was a horrible bigot. Talons was racist towards Chinese folks. and that's that. I don't think we should change the episodes/stories or anything. edit them in any way. that would be, in a sense, changing history. and we wouldn't learn anything from it, about how we can do better.

I think there are two solutions to this:

1. warnings before starting the text: this was done with The Talons of Weng-Chiang. on Britbox, where you can watch Classic Who, this serial has a content warning before the start. that's good.

2. the removal as a whole of the text from some places: I think before applying this one, there should be a lot of thought put into each case. I don't think removing a whole serial of Doctor Who or Lovecraft's stories from anything would be, well, fair. especially on tv episodes a lot more people worked on those, not just the writers and the directors. Lovecraft's writing influenced thousands. we shouldn't erase them or anything. but sometimes, for some cases, we should.

those in the US might seen a Confederate statue being taken down. that is, in a way, a form of removal of a piece of history.

but that is a good removal. statues glorify. one sees a statue and probably thinks "this was a person worthy of admiration." they should be taken down, maybe even with a permanent mark of why this was done (a plaque that reads "a statue of X was here, but he didn't deserve it because of Y" could be put in place of the statues, for example).

another example is the removal from DVDs of the short episode A Fix with Sontarans, a Sixth Doctor minisode that featured Jimmy Savile, a presenter who was later found out to be sexually abusing children.

the removal of that minisode is good, actually. it's not a full episode (it's not even Doctor Who). some might say that's "erasing history" but, like, you can still find it online or information about it if you want. this minisode deserves removal from DVDs and Blu-Rays and whatever more than content warnings. it's not an important part of the show and it prominently features a horrible person who did horrible things during that time.

so, after all that, I have explained why I don't like the "it's a product of its time" argument. it is an interesting point that deserves to be examined, but it's not very good.

I have had this in Drafts for so long I've probably forgot some of the points I was going to make, but eh, what can you do? hope you enjoyed reading this.

bye

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aristidetwain · 4 years ago

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The Shared Dalek Universe of the 1960s: A Case Study

In 2011 (a little over ten years ago!), El Sandifer cited my dearly-beloved 1960s Who Annuals as examples of stories which ended up influencing the TV series many years down the line despite making an unrepentant hash of continuity.

Her first example is that the Doctor is called Dr. Who, and that he alternates between being from Earth on one page, and not being from Earth three pages later. I would point out that TV was doing much the same thing in those days, and went on flip-flopping basically until Jon Pertwee, so it’s not a terribly good argument to begin with.

However, she spends more time pondering the Daleks of the comics. These Daleks, she notes, are very different from those on television at the time. There are hordes of them, they travel in fleets of saucers, and they’re ruled by the Emperor. This contradiction, she argues, later fed back into the TV series in the RTD era, when huge fleets of Daleks became the norm and, earlier but still well after the first burst of Annuals, in the form of Patrick Troughton facing a very different Dalek Emperor in The Evil of the Daleks.

In no way do I wish to undermine Sandifer’s ultimate conclusion that “canon” in the sense of diegetic consistency is a red herring of little importance, and what matters for any sane definition of ‘canon’ is whether a story is referenced at all, not whether it’s contradicted.

However.

Having gone back to 1966′s The Dalek Outer Space Book, I have made a very startling discovery, in the story entitled The Secret of the Emperor. The rest is after the cut; I will leave you with a delightful panel from this story, showing the “bewildered” Dalek Emperor being bullied by knights at the Battle of Agincourt. (This is one of my favourite Doctor Who images ever, and if it doesn’t put a smile on your face I am not sure I want to take you seriously.)

So, famously, when he debuted in the comics, the Dalek Emperor was not the giant, static Dalek later shown on television in The Evil of the Daleks and The Bad Wolf of the Ways; instead, he was golden, squat, and had a bulbous head; to house all the ego, one expects.

Thus, most people will point at the fact that when the Doctor met “the Emperor” in The Evil of the Daleks, he resided in a huge tower-like casing in the Dalek City, as evidence that although ideas received a first treatment in the comics which later made it to screens, no direct continuity was intended; the comics’ Emperor was an alternate, a first draft, to be discarded once a more definitive TV portrayal emerged.

And yet, of course, it is somehow appealing to think of the two as the same Dalek, isn’t it? John Peel (Dalek writer voted most likely to be a 19th century Victorian man who stumbled into a time eddy; it’s mostly the remarkable sideburns) spent a lot of time in his Dalek novels establishing the life story of the Dalek Prime, the First Dalek Ever, who transitioned from the globe-headed casing to the towery Evil one and then deeply regretted it, what with the “getting killed by his own infighting troops with no way to escape��.

But this is usually viewed as a retcon. A cute retcon, an admirable retcon even, but a retcon. My good friend and esteemed fellow canon-welder, @rassilon-imprimatur, espoused such a view four years ago:

Well, all of this is, if you’ll pardon my French, bollocks. John Peel didn’t make anything up, except for the snappy name of “the Dalek Prime” as a designation for the individual. The Dalek Emperor in Evil of the Daleks was always the Emperor of the 1960s comics, and there is a very good reason for his seemingly-contradictory change of appearance. What’s more, I am not talking about murky authorial intent: these are things that the discerning Dalek fan in 1967 was meant to have known.

Let me wind back the clock to 1966. A Dalek master-plan is unfurling, a multi-media agenda spanning several years, more ambitious perhaps than even Time Lord Victorious in its scope; for the ultimate aim of a small cabal of men including David Whitaker, Terry Nation and Brad Ashton is nothing less than spinning the Daleks out of Doctor Who and into their own non-BBC TV show — to be made in America, and in colour, if you please!

For over a year now, a Dalek story arc has been running in the pages of TV Century 21, tracking the early rise of the Dalek Empire and its early interactions with 2060s humanity. Though the Daleks encroach over other parts of the book, including the headline stories, the bulk of this story arc comes in the form of weekly one-page comics making up one long serialised history of the Daleks, under the minimalist title of The Daleks.

Also under the solo brand of “The Daleks”: Annuals, an exclusive audio story, and, of course, toys. Time for Phase Two. It is time to end the Daleks’ endless confrontations with Dr Who on television, and set the stage for a new status quo able to support the TV series Nation dreams about.

Important background: Terry Nation, famously, does not like the Dalek Emperor. Whitaker made him up without consulting Nation, who maintains that the highest rank in the Dalek hierarchy should be the Dalek Supreme. The Emperor was hard to do away with in the comics, since he was basically the protagonist of the TV21 strip, but one imagines Nation was keen to jettison him from the world of the planned TV series.

I am speculating, of course, but I picture Nation sitting in his office, pondering the two great thorns in the side of the Independant Daleks Masterplan.

Thorn one: the Daleks are entangled with the Doctor both diegetically and symbolically; unless something can be done, the Daleks will remain “the Doctor’s enemies”, and a show where they commit evil and the Doctor fails to show up would ring false with the kids watching. The Daleks must be removed from Doctor Who in a sensational and definitive manner, or the whole enterprise is a nonstarter.

Thorn two: I, Terry Nation, have foolishly allowed David Whitaker to shape the lore of the Daleks, and he has made this Dalek Emperor guy very central to early Dalek history, leading up to the 22nd century Dalek Invasion of Earth that most of the Doctor’s subsequent conflicts with the Daleks have stemmed from. But I do not like the Dalek Emperor. I wish I could get rid of him in my new status quo.

…………Aha.

A triumphant Terry Nation adds a post-it note to the ever-widening corkboard representing the multimedia Dalek Masterplan setting up the TV series, which must already include things like “convince Jean Marsh to come back as Sara Kingdom”. Notes distilled from this corkboard will form the backbone of The Dalek Outer Space Book, this year’s Dalek annual, which exists principally to set up the prospective main characters of the new TV series: Sara Kingdom and Agent Mark Seven, of the Space Security Service.

The new post-it note reads:

Construe the Daleks’ enmity with the Doctor as a personal enmity between the Doctor and the Emperor, a la Sherlock Holmes and Moriarty. Have the Doctor triumph over the Emperor on TV in a big ‘event’ story.

Result: the Doctor-vs-Daleks storyline is over; the Emperor is dead; I get everything I ever wanted.

(Except maybe a pony.)

Then he phones David Whitaker, smirking all the while like an evil genie preparing to grant a badly-worded wish.

“Good news, old chap, I’ve decided you can write a new Dalek story for the BBC, all by yourself. I promise I won’t interfere.”

*confused and delighted David Whitaker noises*

“ And you can even bring in that Dalek Emperor of yours. Yes, you heard me!”

*Whitaker enthusiasm intensifies*

“Ahhh, but there’s a catch. The Dalek Emperor must DIE.”

Of course, like all good Faustian bargains, this is irresistible even though it is ruinous and the victim knows it to be ruinous. Whitaker agrees to the scheme. He and Nation begin planning out the events of the great finale of the Dalek-Doctor confrontation, which will hit the screens in 1967 as the mildly racist, but otherwise quite well-loved, ‘The Evil of the Daleks’.

Quickly enough, it is decided that Patrick Troughton crouching to berate the short and bubble-headed Golden Emperor would look silly. If the Emperor appears on TV, alongside human performers, then it should tower over them. Besides, this is to be the archvillainous Dalek Emperor’s last stand, and certain traditions must be followed.

Hence another task is added to the bucketlist of the Dalek Outer Space Book: tell the story of how the Emperor transformed from the globe-headed dwarf to some huge and terrible towering form under the Dalek City, for the Doctor to stumble onto later. This rebuilt Emperor may be teased, but must not be truly seen or truly defeated in the book; that would defeat the whole idea.

Hence, The Secret of the Emperor, a story which sees the Emperor becoming self-conscious about his own efficiency and letting the Scientist Daleks rebuild his casing from scratch. The final page is a splash panel, a delightfully nonsensical diagram of the mechanical components of the new casing.

The almost surreal array of colours and shapes is so arresting as to obscure an important detai. Many have seen this page over and over, and yet still missed it. The recent(ish) ‘Anatomy of the New Dalek Emperor’ artwork from Time Lord Victorious clearly looked at this page for reference, in spite of the fact that the TLV Emperor is much more inspired by the old Emperor than the rebuilt one.

Let me spell it out for you: look at the Scientist Daleks in the top right and centre-left. Look at them.

The new Emperor is huge.

And what else?

That Scientist on the left is plugging huge wires snaking from the wall into the tower-casing.

He now resides in the Great Hall of the Dalek City.

The background wall is a weird checkered pattern.

In addition, the following facts are seeded throughout the earlier pages of The Secret of the Emperor.

The point of moving to the new casing was to grant the Emperor increased brain capacity (suitable for concocting masterplans).

He acquired said increased brain capacity to help the Daleks attempt to overcome humanity once and for all.

The Emperor has recently had a trautmatic but eye-opening experience with time travel.

Ignore the fact that the Emperor was here depicted with what appears to be a still fairly bulbous, and golden, head, and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that this is very, very direct setup for how the Doctor finds the Dalek Emperor in The Evil of the Daleks — tower-like, in an imperial throneroom in the Dalek City, with a checkered wall pattern, planning out a complicated scheme to harness time travel as a means of defeating humanity once and for all!

Yes, the designs don’t quite match — but how could the artist behind the visuals of Secret of the Emperor have known precisely what Shawcraft would build, a year later, based on the same basic description by Nation & Whitaker? The parallels far outweigh the minor differences in execution. (It’s worth noting that elsewhere in the Outer Space Book a different artist drew what was clearly intended to be the Golden Emperor as a large, golden, but normally-proportioned Dalek, so it’s not like the visual descriptions of these scripts were exceedingly precise…)

The rebuilt Emperor is never seen in the Outer Space Book outside of this ‘dissection’: he is heard throughout The Brain Tappers but kept carefully off-panel, and his new and dangerous new casing is pointedly not destroyed in the story’s conclusion. Well, of course not. That’s what Dr Who is for.

tl;dr: it is not a post hoc retcon, or even a secret, that the round-headed Emperor of the comics became the Dalek Emperor of Evil of the Daleks. A holistic view of the state of Dalek media in 1966-1967 shows that, in fact, it was the whole point that this be the Emperor of the comics; and that the comics had begun setting this up long before Patrick Troughton encountered Edward Waterfield on TV.

And thus, to circle back to Sandifer’s 2011 post, it is not enough to simply say that the “seemingly non-canon” comics inspired the show down the line. In fact in this instance, what appeared on Doctor Who existed for the benefit of the Daleks spin-off — not vice-versa!

#Daleks #Canon-Welding #Doctor Who #Analysis #Doctor Who Meta #Dalek Emperor #Dalek Prime #The Evil of the Daleks #Terry Nation #David Whitaker #Brad Ashton #The Secret of the Emperor #El Sandifer #Canon #Jacob Black

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gotham-pier · 3 years ago

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I said I was going to reblog with my ivy take in this post and to my surprise, ivy 1 won! definitely a pleasant surprise, since she's my favorite. I was honestly expecting ivy 2 to win, since she seemed to be well received when she was introduced and I remember seeing 'I like the new ivy, the old one sucked' posts... at least until she 'betrayed' oswald. and the when ivy 3 came along, it was mostly 'this ivy sucks bring the old one back'.

anyway, ivy 1 is my favorite for a few different reasons. most notably her existence as a fresh take on the character, probably initially one of the most divergent from the source material on the show -- up there with ed -- and that's saying something for the show known for people complaining about being different from the source material. but that's the thing about gotham, in the beginning, it wasn't really afraid to be different. not that I don't love the rest of the show, but after s2 it seemed the backlash had caught up with the writers and they decided that they should change things to appease comic fans.

ivy is a prime example of this. she started out an edgy, precocious little poor girl, later an orphan. her hair is constantly messy, she always looks sad as hell, and has that oversized kurt cobain sweater; this creates such a vivid, purposeful picture, and it's amazing. she has nothing in common with previous iterations, not even her name, except plants. and red hair. gotham haters particularly detested her as an example of the show's changes from the comics. check out this reddit comment from 2014:

(I have no idea what a "Gotham Baby" is.)

I love ivy 1 because she's different. they took a character notoriously known as a femme fatale who uses her sex appeal to do villainy and turned her into a grungy, stoic child. which is badass. I think clare foley does a great job, especially for a child actor, and her relationship with selina, allowing us to see a side of selina we don't usually when someone she cares about is in trouble, was a great dynamic that you don't often see in tv.

the rest of the reasons I like her are mostly in spite of ivy 2 and 3 (mostly 2). it's not that I hate either of them: I think ivy 2 would be one of my top characters if she was in the show for more than a season and didn't replace ivy 1. but the transition between ivy 1 and 2 is really one of the worst things I think the gotham writers have ever done -- that's counting nygmakins, the massacre of ed's chatacter, and jimlee endgame.

this post is already pretty long so I'm going to try to be more concise. they took ivy 1 and aged her up an unspecified amount of years (5? 10? who knows. clare foley was 14 in 2016 and maggie geha was 27, but it doesn't seem like aged up ivy is supposed to be nearly 30), then completely, unrecognizably changed her personality. she's optimistic and ebullient, she suddenly has a fashion sense, and is capable and willing to lure men and steal from them. where did this come from? how did a depressed 12 year old who lived on the streets for years after her father was gunned down after being falsely accused and her mother killed herself turn into this bubbly seductress? I could go on and on about how weird the implications of a preteen being put into a young adult's body and suddenly picking up men are, but we'd be here all day. I think there is a definitive answer as to why, though. simply: the writers wanted a way of playing up the "child in an adult's body" thing, while also playing down the seductress aspect. ivy explicitly says that the men she sees don't do anything to her, but we see them call her beautiful, make suggestive comments, and give her things. all the while she is apparently totally oblivious to their attraction to her, or at least she seems that way when talking to bruce and selina. there are two definitive problems I have with this: the first being the preteen being put in a woman's body so she can interact with men aspect, which was already discussed, and the fact they made what once seemed like an intelligent, subversive character into a dumbass just so they could put a preteen into a woman's body and then beat the audience over the head with that fact -- like we wouldn't know that her subconscious was that of a child unless she acted more like one, which I think is representive of the degradation of the writer's faith in the viewer.

i didn't mean for this to be so long-winded and hard to follow, and I didn't even get to touch on ivy 3, but this post is long enough and I think I've said most of my piece. I'd like to know what everyone else thinks, if you think I'm looking into it too deep by all means tell me that. I do actually love this show believe it or not.

#ivy pepper #gotham #gotham tv #gotham fox #poison ivy #pamela isley #cheese speaks #clare foley #maggie geha

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hekatekun · 4 years ago

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The metanarrative’s grand narrative: Osomatsu-san’s characterization throughout the franchise

The growing cynicism throughout the entire Osomatsu-san franchise shows itself in season 3 with more prominence than anything prior. I think that’s pretty common amongst any “long-running” gag comedy - replacing a plot with spiteful commentary that’s admittedly pretty hit or miss at times. However, it invariably creates a negative but pretty funny character growth, and I love the way the show (I’m including the movie too as “canon” material considering season 3 has referenced it way too many times for me to disregard) has set up this metanarrative across seasons. Long post ahead.

Obviously, Osomatsu-san is self-aware and has a casual relationship with itself. No linear plot (though S3 seems to be trying it out and I’ve enjoyed it - I love that they’re willing to experiment), rather a collection of unrelated skits; and so it points out its own metanarrative because of this “lack of consequences.” With comedy comes impermancy and Ososan AND -kun will always bounce back from that week’s insanity. From the Oxford Dictionary, a metanarrative is “a narrative account that experiments with or explores the idea of storytelling, often by drawing attention to its own artificiality.” Basically: a story about stories.

On top of this, is what I’m calling the “grand narrative,” which is often used interchangeably with metanarrative, but here I’m making a distinction to make it less confusing. Of course, Ososan is a story about stories, but with that comes a story it’s not directly telling, which is where most of the (little) character development is taking place. This is what I’m going to call the grand narrative of a show whose premise is being a meta-aware comedy. I’ll admit I’m by no means an expert on these subjects, but storytelling methods are something I enjoy trying to analyze. As a media format, Ososan really utilizes the fact that it’s a tv show.

Right off the bat S1E1 makes it clear what to expect: Nothing. Not a damn thing. But, the show had already been cleared for this first season, so it has to be produced. This same episode’s preview is done by Osomatsu, which I’m just gonna quote instead screenshot because there’s too many.

“...we plan on properly starting the anime the next episode.” “...you ended up with an extra minute, so you need me to do something to fill it?! Actually, is this anime going to be okay with episode one being like this? I’m getting worried about how the rest of this is going to be...” “There, I used up a minute! [EPISODE ENDS]”

Episode one is not only batshit referential, but downright mocking the state of anime in 2015. Which, truthfully, I don’t have much to comment on in that regard, as I’m not an avid anime fan. However, it does this under the premise of being indecisive about what kind of anime they wanted the Osokun reboot to be.

They’ll do just about anything to stay popular and relevant considering that is, quite literally, all they have going for them as characters in the series and just being characters in general. They may be pieces of shit, but they’re likeable pieces of shit. The dynamics they’ve built upon to be entertaining is encouraged, and they’re basically just roleplaying different skits and fucking around.

All the AUs! All the skits! They’re just playing! They’re just fuckin’ around!! They couldn’t come up with any interesting plot nor could they “graduate” from being anime protagonists and join the real world, so they just fuck around and make a gag anime!

Even if we follow both as the audience, the show makes a difference between the what’s them in their “normal life” (crazy begets crazy, no?) and what’s their “show.” But, really, that’s just one way to look at it, as they don’t really follow any rules as a show. I could say the Joshimatsus are separate characters from the sextuplets, and it’d be a “correct” interpretation. It doesn’t really matter - I’m choosing to examine it all as being the six of them just running around and playing, because being entertaining and having fun is all they know as characters. Besides, having it blended together beyond recognition reinforces how it prioritizes entertaining us, the audience, above logic. Storytelling doesn’t need to make absolute spatial-temporal sense for it to be enjoyable to fans.

In any case, that mentality really seems to be what pushes their character development negative, as they look to reinforce habits and rituals despite them being really detrimental for them in the long run. They know they’re popular characters as is, and with really everyone from staff to fans encouraging this behavior further, so they see no point in fixing what isn’t really broken.

I found this 4 year old article from Manga.Tokyo discussing the Ososan phenomenon in Japan because while the craze died off pretty quickly in American anime circles (which deserves a whole other post), Japanese fans went fuckin’ nuts.

This portion caught my attention, as it makes sense that entitled and enabled asshole children would grow up to be entitled and enabled asshole adults. The article also goes on to compare them to idols (even beyond the F6 spoof) and that they are rooted in being comfort characters above all else.

It’s worth a read, especially because Japanese fan response is what drives majority of the content post-S1, and, inevitably, ties into their character development.

They know that they’re Characters, particularly Protagonists. You know what happens to protagonists? Everything works out. Just about every single story created has stuff working out for protagonists. In fact, we have a whole genre made that separates stories with bad tragic endings from our Normal Stories. Ososan is a comedy, not a tragedy, so surely there’s gonna be some payoff somewhere along the road, especially as the seasons and other content are still being pumped out. To a self-aware, entitled, enabled protagonist, assuming everything is just gonna work out for you isn’t that far off from your narrative truth.

However, Ososan is a gag anime, and a lot of gag content (like 4koma mangas) is dropped for other projects before any emotional cathartic ending is provided for characters and fans alike. So, three seasons and a movie later, nothing has happened. It’s a great idol cash cow with a Family Guy filter, and the characters (and writers) don’t even bother to hide it anymore. And I know I’m being hypocritical concerning my definition of “canon material” but I think this portion from one of the drama cds “Choroplex” basically summarizes my point:

CHOROMATSU: Wait, don’t make this into a gag! You don’t even care about becoming employed, right? KARAMATSU: There’s no way that could happen... CHOROMATSU: What kind of future are you imagining? Is it nothing but this? [HUGE PAUSE BEFORE THEY MOVE ONTO SOMETHING ELSE]

They’re parodies of themselves and are running out of ideas. Stagnation and decay is normal, if not unavoidable, at this point in time for them. They’re just 20 somethings who’ve hit a wall but they’re too scared and insecure to bring about permanent positive change. It’s easier for them to fall back into normal patterns and joke off the rest.

They have an antagonistic relationship with expectations. They can’t handle a single iota of expectations, or responsibilities. They’ve never needed to worry before, so why bother now? Once the biggest hits on the block, now they’re just guppies in the ocean, and there’s nothing they believe themselves to be able to accomplish to keep up with this big brave new world. This is epitomized in S3E15, where old man Osomatsu tells a bastardized version of the Tortoise and the Hare, blatantly projecting his feelings onto it. Again, too many screenshots so let me pull more quotes (bolding for my own reference):

“The place that the tortoise thought was the goal was not actually the goal. His journey down the road of life still continued on. The tortoise was quite tired, but he continued running anyway.” “No one actually knew who was in front anymore. There are too many people above you.” “After the tortoise found out how society worked, he thought, ‘So this is the difference in talent? No amount of hard work is going to fix this. All right. I’m done competing with others.’”

S3 has left more questionable endings than its counterparts. The last 2 skits I referenced don’t even a gag to them, and the marriage skit doesn’t play music for the entire second half of S3E5. There’s more involved too. I haven’t even brought up the rice ball twins becoming actual entertainers in their universe, or how they introduced this whole AI subplot only to reject it because All Six Of Them aren’t interested in expanding their little corner of the world. Here’s a transcript of the ending preview from S3E1:

“Hey, hey, Osomatsu here. I thought we were saved from being replaced, but I guess we get new characters next week. Man, we’re busy. New encounters, changing surroundings... We’re NEETs to begin with because all that is a pain. I guess a lot can happen after three seasons. [EPISODE ENDS]”

The sextuplets’ mindsets are extremely self-centered, which is also an environmental thing (the parents don’t even really care that they’re NEETs, for one) and an understanding of what they ought to be (epic successful protagonists). They also have a very black and white mentality, all or nothing. They’re extremely sheltered, and once they realized where they stood in society at large, they just gave up. To them the world is divided between winners and losers, and somehow, “inexplicably,” they found themselves to have fallen from grace. But they’re protagonists, that has to count for something! Everything’s gonna end up okay, right? Well... what this show has told them: No, not at all. They are consistently compared and warned of Iyami, and are perfectly aware of this fact, and have come to internalize it as a truth rather than a reversible self-fulfilling prophecy.

Too many screencaps, taken from the S3S5 marriage discussion:

JYUSHIMATSU: I wonder if we’re gonna get married someday, too. CHOROMATSU: Well, I mean... probably? I’m not exactly sure, but... TODOMATSU: What? You’re gonna get married, Choromatsu-niisan? CHOROMATSU: Huh? Well, yeah... someday.

Surprise! They have commitment issues! The same group that couldn’t commit to a fucking plot! Though their personality issues have several factors involved, I can’t overlook the theater motifs abound. Life’s a stage, and they’re performing entirely unscripted and it shows.

Do I think all of this is 100% intentional on the writers’ part? No, probably not. There’s also an extra layer here regarding contemporary Japanese commentary that I’m not familiar with, so I just ended up focusing on the characters. I can’t be in the writers’ heads, but whatever decisions are being made by executives regarding censorship and “compliance” are reflected in these character changes that result in being significantly more bitter and defeatist.

In the all or nothing, winner-take-all mentality, the only way to save face at this point, in their minds, is to own up to it - act like it’s what they wanted all along. And, hey, it’s funny to watch, right?

“Why is Osomatsu all my examples”, you might be asking. Well, he’s the damn blueprint for it all. The leader of the bunch, the first personality to grab your attention, has had all his issues projected and ricocheted in their echo chamber.

Ultimately, my point here is that you could think their “canon characterizations” (though canon means nothing in a show like this) as being intertwined with the nature of their self-aware existence. They’ve shown you all their tricks, the smoke and mirrors are getting boring, and they’re stalling long enough the story seems to be moving on without them - in spite of them. And when something genuinely threatens their way of life, they don’t know how to respond.

You can play it all straight, of course. Remove the meta jokes and all the same plot points can be hit, but, as a slapstick comedy, it’s able to easily add this additional layer in that I appreciate. I’ve said it in my last post and I’ll probably say it in more, but with comedy comes sincerity - the caveat of all the cartoon violence is that, on some level somewhere, this is how they really feel.

#osomatsu san #osomatsu #karamatsu #choromatsu #ichimatsu #jyushimatsu #todomatsu #osomatsu matsuno #karamatsu matsuno #choromatsu matsuno #ichimatsu matsuno #jyushimatsu matsuno #todomatsu matsuno #analysis #confession this was sparked by a convo i had w friends about s3e18 #this is a bit truncated but i couldnt bring myself to make this longer #maybe ill make a pt2 or whatever idk

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extraordinarilyextreme · 3 years ago

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Fic Writer Interview Game

thank you @jockvillagersonly for tagging me! you're the absolute sweetest 🥺💖

name: susu (苏苏)

fandoms: honestly, a lot. but of the works i've posted on ao3, the list includes the following: Qing Ya Ji (The Yin-Yang Master: Dream of Eternity), Dao Mu Bi Ji (The Grave Robbers' Chronicles/The Lost Tomb series), Zhen Hun (Guardian), Chenghua Shi Si Nian (The Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty), and Good Omens

if we include fanart though, then there's also Shan He Ling (Word of Honor) and Chen Qing Ling (The Untamed)

two-shots: i genuinely didn't think i had any but here we are lol.

do not speak as loud as my heart: DMBJ & Guardian crossover 💙💚

i love(d) you: Star Wars AU for Good Omens ♡♥

in another time (UNFINISHED): TSOMD immortal!Ding Rong 💜❤️

and may we tie our hearts together again is technically part 1 of something too: red string AU for QYJ ⚫️⚪️

most popular multi-chapter fic: well, i mostly write one-shots haha! but by hits, kudos, comments, and bookmarks, it's a string of paper cranes (red string AU for TSOMD 💜❤️)

actual worst part of writing: i think just getting into the groove of things, trying to find enter flow state? i'm unfortunately really particular about the music i listen to when i write, so i tend to spend hours trying to find the perfect song to serve as my soundtrack instead of, you know, writing LOL

how you choose your titles: it's usually a quote lol no matter if it's a line from the show/book, a lyric, or from a poem (i've been doing more translation work recently so i take stuff from Chinese songs too). and on the occasions that i actually come up with something original... man, i couldn't even tell you how it happens; it's like when the DVD logo finally hits the corner of the tv screen and suddenly i have an idea once in a blue moon

do you outline?: yes. i've outlined for every fic i've written so far except the upcoming PingXie Exchange one (and for that reason, it was so much more difficult to write even though it's one of my shorter fics lol); i really need outlines so i won't miss any of the details i want to include

ideas you probably won’t get around to, but wouldn’t it be nice?: the thing is, i really think i WILL eventually get around to all my ideas, but i just have a lot of things going on :') but some of the stuff catching dust in my folder include an Orpheus & Eurydice retelling of CQL WangXian and some PingXie and Iron Triangle post-canon fluff. the Story of Yanxi Palace AU for TSOMD is still there, and i'm still not satisfied with the second chapter of "in another time" lol. other WIPs include a "Wu Xie dies but the DMBJ world has to continue on" AU and also the red string AU for QYJ from Qingming's pov. there's a huatubing (hanahaki) AU for RongZhi + focus on Wan Tong idea that i've discussed with @rongzhi too, and @naiwong-bao and i are of course still working on our QingYa derivative fic :)

and i'd love to write something for Xin Zhai Lie Ren (Psych-Hunter). the ending of that show left me so unsatisfied LOL

OH actually, i think the one idea that i'll truly never write is something for Shi Shen Ling (The Yin Yang Master). that movie... anyway, i just want to give all the characters so much more development dammit. it'd be post-canon; Baini and Boya become unlikely friends, and Qingming is still doing his stupid i-have-to-be-alone-to-protect-the-world nonsense or whatever. but he's always watching out for Baini and making sure she's safe.

callouts @ me: um... write faster? haha and... try to work outside your comfort zone a little more. try and write something without any angst at all. a rated-E fic maybe. and remember that even if only one person reads your story, even if that one person is you, then that's all you need.

best writing traits: i think i tend to have pretty strong dialogue. i'm good at showing love stories without necessarily an "i love you" in there. and, as much as i whine about it, i think i'm pretty good at making the "angst with a happy ending" pay off; it's exhausting to cope with the characters as they go through losses and tribulations, but i think i tend to handle it pretty realistically for the most part.

spicy tangential opinion: well, i don't think this is particularly anything newsworthy, but read what you like and don't read what you don't like. remember that most people are doing this out of an interest in the fandom, that it touched some part of them, and even if they're angry at the creators and writing fix-its out of spite, they're still doing it for free. so be kind to each other. and be kind to yourself; don't purposefully consume anything that will upset you.

and also. if you are not the intended audience for which a work was originally created and you're unfamiliar with the socio-historical and cultural context of the work, i am telling you not to speak over the voices of the fans who do belong to that culture. i am not asking nicely anymore. be respectful, do the proper research, and ask questions. if you are genuinely willing to learn and be educated, then people will be excited to answer. REMEMBER. you are a guest.

tagging (only if you want to!!! and if you've already done this, i'm so sorry for missing it): @naiwong-bao, @rongzhi, @lqcoups, @astarlitwishforyou, @aloverdestroyed, @ftw-wolvie, @inrainprose, @laireshi, @thosch3i, @a-universe-of-almosts

#tagged #ask meme #be kind to each other everybody

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smokeybrandreviews · 4 years ago

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A Trance On a Hard Beat

Letterkenny is a f*cking masterpiece. It’s legitimately one of the best shows i have ever seen in my entire f*cking life. Even if one season is slightly more pedestrian than another, at it's worst, this show still embarrasses the majority of television airing today. Seriously, the principal cast, refereed to as hicks, skids, and hockey players, are exceptional. Jared Keeso has created some classic characters with an even more unique dialogue. There is an entire lexicon of slang and wordplay that you pick up on subconsciously watching this show. I’ve actively incorporated some of it in my every day speech. It's amazing to me how complete this show is, considering the genre. You rarely see such detailed world-building in television comedy.

Letterkenny is, effectively, a slice of life, following the misadventures of Wayne, Katy, Squirrel Dan, and Dary. They are the Hicks. They are f*cking hilarious. As the show progresses, you’re introduced to the other denizens of the five-thousand strong city, all just as memorable as the next. Some of my favorites include Mr. and Mrs. McMurray; a couple so goddamn horny, they’re can’t keep their hands off of each other, or anyone else for that matter. The dumbass hockey players, Rilley and Jonesy, who lust after big city slams and swear they never get the Native Flu. The swoon worthy Bonnie McMurray, especially in the later seasons when she actually joins in on the agriculture fun. But, all of that said, all of that love given here it is definitely due, I'd be remiss if i didn’t properly give my personal respects to Tanis. Auntie Tanis from the Rez. My goodness. Tanis is f*cking everything, man! Grill marks, for sure, bud!

While i love the characters and their quirks, the dialogue in this thing is absolutely exceptional. The jokes come fast and the interactions even faster. It might seem redundant at times, even a little juvenile, but trust that the delivery and punchline will redeem any apprehension. This sh*t is some of the smartest, quickest, wittiest, writing i have ever seen on television, period. I forgot to mention that this thing is Canadian, through and through. Top to bottom, filmed in Canada for Canadians, and still internationally hilarious. Great comedy transcends everything and Letterkeeny is one of the best to ever do it. I respect the f*ck out of that. I live in the States where all our TV is effectively Keeping up with the Kardashians-esque trash, This is us Emmy pandering, or Family Guy try-hard comedy, so seeing something like Letterkenny come though and effortlessly make me guffaw with an organic cleverness, is very much appreciated.

The first few seasons aired in Canada as the first original series of Crave TV That’s the Great White North’s version of Netflix. I imagine there are fewer restrictions up there so you can get away with a lot of language and adult themes, stuff censors would definitely kill to death down here. The Skids literally sell meth. There is a whole arc in the first few seasons, i can’t remember which one specifically, where they turn Letterkenny into a Meth Town. Out of spite. That story don’t fly on US airwaves, especially considering the “Opioid Cris” the news wants me to care about so bad. Since the show’s acquisition by Hulu, they’ve been pushing the envelope further and further, dropping season eight last year, which might be my favorite season of the show so far. That last scene of that run was incredible. We are left with a cliffhanger of palpable intensity and i kind of love it.

Speaking of that scene, the soundtrack to it’s carnage was incredible. M83′s Do It, Try It. That sh*t was epic. I’m a massive fan of that band and hearing them get play on one of my favorite shows is always awesome. But the musical stingers don’t end there. Letterkenny licenses the best tunes for the best effect. Pressure by Milk n Bone plays as the angelic Rosie appears for the first time onscreen while Ron and Dax’s first dance after their nuptials was set to F*ck the Pain Away. Fineshrine by Purity ring serenaded a rather adorable episode close in season six and has been a mainstay on my Spotify rotation every since. Purity Ring, itself, has become one of my favorite bands and i have this show to thank for the introduction. The selection throughout the entire show is eclectic as f*ck and they’re almost always bangers. I love a show that can broaden my audiophile horizons and everyday playlists like that.

Letterkenny is a f*cking miracle of television. I love this show. It’s written brilliantly with a penchant for the absurd but grounded in a weird, homey, kind of vibe. While the content is lighthearted, the writers are able to take rather unflattering stereotypes or uncomfortable social conversations, and weave some of the most palatable satire I have ever witnessed. With such endearing characters, it makes broaching sensitive subjects easy. The music is dope, the narrative is airtight, and the comedy is diverse. This show is wildly inclusive but it never seems forced, often lampooning those who lean too hard on either side. It's absolutely f*cking inspired and should be seen by everyone. Letterkenny deserves all of that shine.

#Letterkenny

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loisinherlane · 4 years ago

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Hi! I hope this isn’t an annoying ask but I’m curious to see how you view Conner’s dynamic with Luthor? I feel that Conner’s relationships with both of his dads hasn’t really been delved into as much. I think the closest we’ve gotten is Titans?

This isn’t annoying at all! <3 Anon, I love getting asks so much because I love to ask. Being asked how I view dynamics is exciting because it’s a chance for me to run my mouth.

First, I’m going to clarify that I don’t keep up with current comics super well, especially because I’m still reading through a lot of the more fundamental old comics. Most of this analysis is based on Post-Crisis continuity, and we’ll have to admit that’s Schrodinger’s canon at the moment. When you say Titans, I’m not sure if you mean TTv3 or the TV show, which I haven’t really watched since midway through the second season, so I have no comments on that.

We should also note that Lex as a character isn’t exactly written consistently. When Kon first appeared, Lex was in disguise as his own son via a clone body... and Kon was only made to be his and Clark’s “son” later, in the wake of the Smallville changes. These are changes I still ascribe to in my canon: The Luthors are from Smallville. Clark and Lex were best friends. This has an enormous impact on the Luthor-Kent dynamic as a whole.

You’re right in that they really haven’t been delved into that deeply. For one, DC doesn’t acknowledge Clark as Conner’s dad (except in this tiny, tiny panel where Lex is reading an article by Lois).

(Adventure Comics (2009) #2)

I see you trying to hide that, DC. Could not make it less obvious. But it’s canon to me. Clark considers Conner his son. <3

Of course, Lex much more obviously calls Conner his son, but he also calls him his property. Big Yikes.

(Robin (1993) #147)

(Adventure Comics (2009) #3)

Obviously accounting for different writers and different takes, we can take this combo in multiple ways. Lex could be lying in either case. Consider the first panel. After his first fight with Superboy-Prime, Conner gets sick, and Tim theorizes Luthor must have a way to save him prepared somewhere. He does, and this is their conversation afterward. It makes sense for a Lex who doesn’t actually care about Kon to still want to save him because he’s “his.” But it also makes sense for a father who loves his son but can’t show it for whatever reason to do anything he has to do to save him without revealing his hand.

This doesn’t even take into account what Lex did earlier in TTv3, but I’m not going to hash that out too much. Suffice it to say, whether Lex loves Kon or not, he’s not above using him as a tool.

Kon’s feelings are more comp(Lex). (Ha. I think I’m funny.) When Kon comes back from the dead, he has this conversation with Clark:

And later, when Kon is working through his list to figure out if he’s more like Clark or Lex, he admits he was lying.

(Adventure Comics (2009) #1)

In canon, Conner has very little time to process how Lex uses him as a tool (see my child of divorce notes), and he has to figure out how he feels about not only being a clone of Superman and Lex Luthor but what that means for him as a person. He really tries to parse that out once he comes back to life, but he never really gets a chance to get to know Lex Luthor as a person, only as a villain.

Personally, I think Kon’s feelings are really akin to a kid who loves their parent while recognizing they’re not a good person. Kon wants to know Lex, and he wants to be part of his family, even as he’s repulsed by him and his actions. This is such a child of divorce mood too: You’re constantly managing your parents’ feelings. Clark hates Lex, so Kon has to hate Lex too! Conner chose his side. He’s not allowed to regret it. And the thing is, Clark is proven right over and over. So why would Conner want to know him at all? But Lex does have family, and while they haven’t been around in a while, I think it would have been cool if his relationships with Lena and Lori Luthor were explored more!

Sorry this got really long and rambly and I totally lost the point. When writing, I try to extrapolate from canon as much as possible. I think they have a really complex relationship that hasn’t been explored deeply enough because they don’t really know each other. I’d love to see multiple avenues. A Kon that unambiguously hates Lex after getting to know him. A Kon who manages to have a familial relationship with Lex in spite of being on opposite sides. A Kon who convinces Lex to settle down and just be the annoying ex-husband, basically. Sometimes, lighter versions of their relationship are fun to write/read. (Literally my rendition in Kon-El and the Great Kazoo Caper.)

Personally, I’m a big fan of metaphors, so I think my ideal Conner and Lex relationship goes back to the child of divorced parents thing. Lex constantly tries to pull Kon between him and Clark, and Kon hates it. He hates that he’ll always side with Clark because it’s the right thing to do, even though it makes him feel guilty. He hates that he cares about Lex at all. And Lex loves him, but that love doesn’t mean Conner isn’t someone he can use. Sometimes parents are just bad people, whether they love you or not.

Hope this makes sense, anon! Feel free to shoot me any more questions you have. <3 <3 <3

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kbox-in-the-box · 4 years ago

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My interview with Parker Stevenson about “Probe” on ABC in 1988:

Parker Stevenson and Ashley Crow, in a promotional photo for Probe on ABC in 1988.

Probe is one of the best short-lived genre TV series you've never heard of.

It ran for seven episodes, from March 7 through April 14 of 1988, on ABC.

It was the joint creation of legendary science fiction author Isaac Asimov and William Link, the latter of whom also co-created (with Richard Levinson) such critically and commercially successful mysteries as Columbo and Murder, She Wrote.

It costarred Parker Stevenson of The Hardy Boys as eccentric scientist Austin James, and Ashley Crow — who would later play Sandra Bennet on NBC’s Heroes — as his exasperated secretary, and potential love interest, Michelle “Mickey” Castle.

And it remains Stevenson’s favorite, of all the shows he’s worked on, so back in 2015, I decided to contact him about it. In spite of his hectic schedule, as both an actor and a professional photographer, he was gracious enough to answer my questions via email.

Q: I recall you saying in an interview at the time that you’d decided you were done with series television, until Probe changed your mind. Given that stance, how did you come to be involved in this show?

A: Having recently worked for ABC and Universal on The Hardy Boys, they came back to me with the offer for Isaac Asimov’s Probe. The chance to be in an ongoing TV series overseen by Isaac Asimov was too hard to resist. In truth, I was lucky to get the offer.

Q: In another interview, I believe you alluded to becoming a more avid reader as you got older. Were you already acquainted with Isaac Asimov’s works by the time you started working on this show? Likewise, were you a fan of any of William Link’s other shows, such as Columbo?

A: I knew of [Asimov] as one of the great minds of the 20th Century, but had read little of his actual writings. That changed when I committed to being on the show. I was very aware of William Link’s other shows. He was a major force in TV programming at the time. But it was Michael Wagner who I worked the most closely with. He was a really gifted writer, and I hoped to continue working with Michael after Probe ended, but he died too early, and that was a great loss.

Q: You’ve mentioned identifying with the character of Austin James to a certain extent. Which of his traits were you able to connect with most easily, and which did you find the most fun to portray?

A: Too much of Austin James was me, which isn’t exactly a good thing. What made it easy but uncomfortable to play him is that I have the same degree of limited attention span, obsession with “why,” idiosyncrasy, and I’m mostly a loner. I also talk way too fast.

Q: Your onscreen partner was Ashley Crow as Mickey Castle, and your characters had a very casual yet engaging chemistry. What was it like working with her?

A: Ashley was relatively new to series television, and she was a breath of fresh air, which I’m sure is why she was cast. It was easy, easy, so easy working with her, and that’s not always the case.

Q: You’ve alluded in several interviews to staying in touch with your Hardy Boys costar Shaun Cassidy. Given your expressed fondness for Probe, are there any members of its cast or crew that you’ve remained in contact with?

A: Yes, I have gotten to see the director of the pilot, Alan Levy, sporadically over the years, and the director Rob Bowman, who I worked with many times on Baywatch, and who went on to work on The X-Files and, more recently, Castle. Both are talented filmmakers and good men.

Q: Like many television shows in the 1980s, Probe had a bit of a “ship-tease” between its male and female leads. Do you know if there were any plans to go any further in hinting at a possible romance between Austin and Mickey? Furthermore, what would have been your preference for how their relationship would have been handled?

A: No one ever mentioned consummating any relationship between Austin or Mickey, but it would have been a mistake, as it was at the time on Remington Steele. The effort to create some quick ratings numbers never plays out in the end, when the relationship loses its flirtatious energy.

Q: Probe tackled a number of heady topics and concepts, from artificial intelligence to the morality of animal experimentation. Were there any scientific subjects that you might have enjoyed seeing featured in an episode of the show?

A: I always thought Asimov’s perspective on the question of how societal pressures and conventions and/or the advertising industry’s marketing affect our choices, thinking and behavior would have been really interesting to see play out.

Q: Which are your most and least favorite episodes of the show, both to work on and to watch later on?

A: My favorite episode on Probe was one called “Metamorphic Anthropoidic Prototype Over You.” It starred an orangutan named Sunshine. I swear she was smarter than all of us put together. I loved the season of episodes we made because they were all so different, each from each other, and from any other show on at the time.

Q: If I remember correctly, you touted the long hours you put in on set, something like 10 hours at a stretch on some days. Were those typical hours for a TV show at the time, or were there specific demands to producing Probe that forced you to burn the midnight oil? Moreover, what were the biggest challenges to producing a show like Probe?

A: 10 hours a day was standard, but 12, 14, 16 and even 18 often occurred, especially on Fridays, when the union specified turnaround could be protected. That is all fine if you love what you are doing. What was unusual at the time was the fact that the show was filmed on location in Phoenix to save money. I guess it was the start of what would be called “runaway” production leaving the state of California.

Q: Given the number of 1980s entertainment franchises that have been successfully revived, do you know if anyone has considered bringing back Probe? The dynamic between Austin and Mickey seems to have inspired Mulder and Scully on The X-Files, which has itself influenced countless other shows.

A: I haven’t heard any talk about resurrecting Probe, but if it was, I would beg to be part of it.

Q: What fates do you imagine might have befallen the show’s characters by now, 27 years later?

A: Mickey would most likely be happily married with grown kids and living in Connecticut, while Austin would probably be in hiding like Howard Hughes in the desert somewhere.

Q: Are there any questions that I haven’t asked that you’d like to answer? In short, is there anything that I’ve left out here?

A: Why was working on Probe so fun? Because it was ahead of its time and smarter than the average show.

My thanks again to Parker Stevenson for sharing his informative insights on a show that surely deserved more of a chance.

#Probe #Parker Stevenson #Ashley Crow #Isaac Asimov #William Link

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spiders-hth-is-an-outlier · 4 years ago

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Okay start us out with those Magicians Opinions!

the first character i ever fell in love with: LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT QUENTIN COLDWATER. Okay, but yeah, they really introduced him in a way that worked-worked for me – that whole opening sequence that cuts between Quentin being tense and closed-off and miserable in this hollow, almost angry way in the office of the hospital, and Quentin trying to act normal at a party, making wan jokes while the misery and the anger leaks out of him and makes him just so unpalatable to be around – I mean, Jason Ralph just takes the character by the throat instantly and Goes There. I remember thinking as I was watching it that this was the first “anxious nerd dude” character I'd ever seen who wasn't being framed as actually funny/weird/charming/vulnerable/the clear audience stand-in, but framed as if he were a real person who's really eaten up by depression and self-loathing, and just as off-putting as that is in real life. I vividly remember just having that reaction of, “Oh. This is about someone who's really hanging on by his fingernails, not just Hollywood Depressed,” and latching on so hard, because I needed to see that so much, and I needed to root for him to find his reason, not in spite of but because as a character he was resistant to being liked by other people, by the audience. It's not loveable and charming, to hate yourself, to find your life barely tolerable. It's not a position from which it's easy to see your way forward, and to me Quentin is the most honest expression of that reality that I had ever seen in genre tv. So like, I get why some people didn't like him in first season – he's intentionally tough to like – but I was ultra-invested from minute one, and literally everything he ever said or did made me love him more.

a character that i used to love/like, but now do not: I think I was kind of intrigued by Fen early on – I liked the idea that she was this naive fairy-tale girl who was going to have this harsh awakening when her Destined Prince turned out to be a real person who couldn't fulfill her fantasies, who was going to have to figure out who she was beyond “going to marry the king someday.” That seemed like an interesting arc, and here and there they were kind of doing it – I love the realpolitik she occasionally comes out with, particularly that one scene on the boat when she's like, “The dipshits from my hometown are going to execute me because of you, so sticking with you is kind of my only option and that's just happening.” But then...I don't know, she's really irritating, and they got this weird thing in their heads where her problem is that Eliot sucks, instead of that being The Girl Who Will Marry the King Someday is a sucky role to be forced into making a real life out of, and I just gave up trying to like her eventually.

a ship that i used to love/like, but now do not: I liked Penny/Kady all right, until they started doing the weird thing where “in Doomed Love with Penny” was Kady's only emotional arc, like – they actually had her say that all she ever cared about was being Penny's girlfriend, and that's the kind of thing that kind of retroactively ruins the pairing for me.

my ultimate favorite character™: So after everything I said up top – it's actually Eliot. That snuck up on me! And my love for Quentin never went away, not by any means, but. God, Eliot.

prettiest character: If I try to take an objective stance, I'd say it's probably Margo? Like, she's just unearthly beautiful. But there's something about Jason Ralph's goddamn face that – I don't know, it just enthralls me; he does okay-ish at playing Normal-Looking for TV, but also if I look at him for too long it kind of hurts, he's so stupidly gorgeous.

my most hated character: Hyman. And I thought we were supposed to hate Hyman, but then season 5 allegedly happened, and everyone was like, aw, Hyman's okay! But – no he's not? He's obviously not okay? He deeply sucks? Ugh, season 5.

my OTP: Hi, I'm Milo, and welcome to my Tumblr. But yeah, it's Quentin/Eliot, canonical soulmates and The Ditch I Will Die In.

my NOTP: You know, they kind of wore me down to the point of “fine, what the fuck ever,” but I still don't support Margo/Josh. It's bad, it's a bad relationship, it was a bad idea.

favorite episode: I really love Be the Penny, but the actual answer is Escape From the Happy Place. I feel allegiance to Be the Penny, I have not a negative word to say about it, but Escape from the Happy Place is just a level beyond, it's astonishingly good.

saddest death: This question is a microaggression and I will not stand for it.

favorite season: I'm about to break your brain, but – it's 4! It's season 4! I fucking love the first ten episodes of s4! I love the Monster, I love Bad News Bear, I love Hard Glossy Armor, I love fucking Santa Claus. I think s4 has this great propulsive energy where the rest of the series has always been plagued by a tendency to kind of throw everything at the wall and see if anything sticks, the stakes are clear, the external villain and the emotional stuff work together for once, everyone's performances are so strong. The collapse at the end feels so appalling to me in part because I was totally on the ride for most of the season.

least favorite season: I mean, it's season 5, but it didn't have to be. I was never going to get over Quentin's death, per se, but I think there were ways to structure the next season that would've been workable, and honestly there are things about s5 that I do like. I watched most of 5 feeling like it was – messy, but messy in the same way that s2 was messy, the same way The Magicians has always been a little messy, and it wasn't until the end when I really just threw up my hands and was like, okay, I get it, there was never a plan, none of this was going anywhere. God, the last couple of episodes still frustrate me so much, because right up until that point, there was still time to salvage a lot of character work, but nope!

character that everyone else in the fandom loves, but i hate: So I don't hate her, and in fact I came to kind of like her eventually, but I did actively hate Julia for a long, long time. Just. Like, she really – pushes my buttons in a very specific way, and if she were a real person I would absolutely love myself by having as little contact as possible with Julia, but because everyone except me loves her so much, I really kind of forced myself to delve into her and try to see what people liked about her, and I do think it was a pretty successful project. I would definitely say at this point that I appreciate Julia as a character, and I have a pretty good sense of what Stuff she activates in me that produces that ruffled reaction, which has allowed me to go beyond Julia Sucks Actually to This Character Is Not Really For Me. I love and support the 98% of fandom who like Julia! In my way, I love and support Julia! But kind of like – a sibling you're sort of forced to into a relationship with, that you love even though they drive you crazy and you're not too sure you will really ever like them.

my ‘you’re piece of trash, but you’re still a fave’ fave: The Monster. I mean, it's not that I wanted a redemption arc for him or anything (although @portraitofemmy has always been onto something with the idea that if the Monster is essentially a child, allowing Quentin to save the world by parenting him would've been a pretty clever payoff for long-term arcs), he's just the kind of villain that is just endlessly fun to watch.

my ‘beautiful cinnamon roll who deserves better than this’ fave: I mean, that's a pretty succinct summary of the entire Eliot Waugh Experience.

my ‘this ship is wrong, nasty, and makes me want to cleanse my soul, but i still love it’ ship: With the caveat that I still don't believe in guilt because these are just imaginary people in imaginary stories, I definitely still think there's a great romantic tragedy right there for the taking with Eliot/Seb. I wouldn't say the show should have done it, because that would obviously have been just a very different direction than they intended to go, but as a non-canonical ship, I think it's so potentially rich, and someday I'm going to have time to go back to that story I was writing about them, whether or not anyone else ever gives a shit about it.

my ‘they’re kind of cute, and i lowkey ship them, but i’m not too invested’ ship: I never could figure out what people's issue was with Julia/Penny23, they seemed to make each other happy. He was a sweet, supportive dude, and I like their little Wild Thornberrys Interdimensional Adventurers family at the end, although I wish they'd done it on purpose, because “guess what life-changing thing is happening to Julia's body without her consent this week!” was not a well the writers needed to go back to, in my opinion. But I like the idea that Julia ends up with a good guy and a magic kid and is off doing quests and shit, the whole shebang, I thought that was a nice ending. For whatever that's worth, and I imagine that from the perspective of a real Julia fan, my opinion at this point is not worth much!

#the magicians

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