the interests meme

[winterbadger]

azbound picked these from my interests list to explain.

Babylon Five: kathygnome turned me on to this. I had thought it looked really lame and awful when it came out, so I hadn't watched it. But after she showed me War Without End, I was hooked. Yes, the early seasons (#1 especially) were often gruesome in terms of acting, and sometimes the sets and costumes looked a little...too much like TV scifi set and costumes (as opposed to, say, BG, where everything looks used and battered and real...) But the writing, the wide arcs and complications of the stories, the wonderfully complex and (eventually) well developed characters were miles ahead of most television, let alone scifi TV (always a bit dodgy, IMO, no matter how much I enjoy it). I have to give special props to the thought that went into casting Walter Koenig, who had always played a cheerful, hapless, almost-a-red-shirt character on Star Trek in the role of the deeply evil and highly complex Alfred Bester. A truly excellent series.

Sad Notes: If any of you are, as I, fans of the incidental character Zathras, you will be sad to know that the actor who played him, Tim Choate, was killed in a motorcycle accident in 2004. An educational trust for his son, who was born in 2000, has been established; donations may be sent to The Tim Choate Memorial Fund, P.O. Box 861355, Los Angeles, CA 90086. Richard Biggs, who played Dr Franklin, also died suddenly in 2004. There is a scholarship fund for his kids. And Andreas Katsulas, who played G'Kar (who always reminded me of my father...) died in 2006 of lung cancer. :-(

Battlestar Galactica: The original series was so bad it was good (almost). The new series has been excellent. The first season was nonstop action and intrigue, as you tried to figure out who the 'new' Cylons really were, and the series explored how humans deal with an overwhelming catastrophe. The second season was good, with the humans falling into the "trek" storyline of the original series, without the hokey alternate civilizations to explore and with a whole lot more examination of the dark side of human nature than I recall ever seeing in the original. Series three...lagged. The New Caprica section was interesting, but any time you make entertainment too topical, it suffers in retrospect. And the whole subplot about Cyclon mysticism just didn't grab me. Either it wasn't really interesting, or they didn't find a way to write it that got me interested. And the themes of people fighting amongst themselves in the fleet really seemed to have been done to death. No one was coming up with new ideas, and there was not very much character development that didn't just seem like soap opera. I hope the final season will be better.

Deep Space Nine: The best (IMHO) of the Star Trek series concepts. Diplomacy, warfare, a serious and comprehensive look at a couple of alien cultures in a way that previous STs avoided. Avery Brooks, Nana Visitor, Colm Meany, Alexander Siddig, Michael Dorn, Armin Shimerman, Rene Auberjonois--an excellent cast! Really good character development. Complicated arcs as the series developed. Very fond of it, despite some of its flaws (like B5, it got much better with age.)

Buffy The Vampire Slayer: Another TV show I wouldn't have watched if not dragged to it. Back when and I were members of CPN, we were at one of the socials for their bisexual SIG when someone recommended BtVS and said "If you're going to see one episode, see the one they're showing tomorrow night; it's a rebroadcast of the musical, "Once More With Feeling". It was a good recommendation; we watched it and were hooked--we went on to watch pretty much all of the seven seasons. Again, excellent characters, good writing, good acting make a terrifically enjoyable watch. The fact that the series *never* took itself too seriously really helped make it hugely funny even when it was being all battle-y and end-of-the-world-y. It would never have worked as well totally straight.

Speaking of BtVS, if someone reading this has the rest of my Season 2 DVD set, could they return it?

Note: After my SIL gave me the series on DVD, I also fell in love with Joss Whedon's next work, Firefly. Neta, we need to watch this one of these days!

Red Dwarf: Hilarious British science fiction comedy series. I haven't watched it all the way through all eight seasons, but I dearly love the central characters: Lister, the shambolic but good-hearted; Rimmer, the prissy, officious, self-important...dead guy; Cat, the humanoid descended from cats; and Kryten, the punctilious and obsequious robot. Oh, and Holly, the computer ("Emergency! Emergency! There's an emergency going on."...*pause*.... "It's still going on...")

Kevin Smith: Genius director from my home state of NJ. Clerks, Dogma, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, but most of all Chasing Amy are highly entertaining and sometimes thoughtful films. I haven't seen Jersey Girl or Mallrats yet, but I want to.

NPR: I HATE commercial radio, and I'm a news junkie. I'm also moderate to liberal and prefer my news with as much detail and as little bias as possible. So NPR is the place for me. They also have a lot of features that I enjoy, more even than I regularly listen to. I love Car Talk and Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me! I usually enjoy Diane Rehm (even though I find her rather tiresome, she has interesting people) and Derek McGinty Kojo Nmadi. I also listen to This American Life occasionally and enjoy it, and in the past I used to be a regular fan of Prairie Home Companion and Thistle & Shamrock, but I don't catch them often any more. I loathe Whadda Ya Know (though I will listen to it if there's nothing else on) and the weekly monologues of Frank Deford.

If you want to, ask me, and I will pick seven of your interests for you to explain in your LJ.

Comments

[azbound.livejournal.com]

Such a thoughtful reply....thank you!

Now, as someone kindly said to me, "Do Me! Do Me!"

[winterbadger]

alton brown
anne applebaum
arctic monkeys
coldplay
incubus
john mayer
rosie o'donnell

[redactrice.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the reminders; I'd forgotten how some of those began. Didn't gr_c17 introduce us to Red Dwarf?

All of the above I pretty much agree with, but "Chasing Amy"? Yeeeuck! (I've never liked Ben Affleck, and I really don't like the story line.)