Watched, Watched, Watching: It's not the plane, it's the pilot

[Ran]

1 hour ago, RhaenysBee said:

My brain is exploding. I wonder how many hours of labor went into writing this episode. This is hands down the most genius musical episode I have ever encountered.

It's my favorite, too.

From the DVD set:

 

[Zorral]

5 hours ago, RhaenysBee said:

I wonder how many hours of labor went into writing this episode

It's what JW did that summer during hiatus. But Xena Warrior Princess did it first -- the idea wasn't original with him.

Show: Xena: Warrior Princess
Episode no: Season 3; Episode 12
Original air date: February 02, 1998

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bitter_Suite

Quote

Noted for being a rare musical episode of the series, combining both humor and drama, "The Bitter Suite" was nominated for two Emmy Awards. Regular series composer Joseph LoDuca was nominated for Outstanding Music and Lyrics for the song "The Love of Your Love" and LoDuca and lyricist Dennis Spiegel were nominated in the same category for the song "Hearts Are Hurting."[1] It was LoDuca's second and third nominations for the series out of a total of seven nominations, and one award, through the six-year run of the series

.

[Zorral]

Have begun Miss S on HBO, a Chinese remake, set in Shanghai, of the Australian hit series, Miss Fisher's Mysteries -- which was very enjoyable.

https://www.flicks.com.au/features/miss-s-is-chinas-faithfully-glamorous-remake-of-miss-fishers-murder-mysteries/

So far it is remarkably exact in remaking all the details of the earlier series.  Except, Chinese.  Shanghai.  The clothes are equally fabulous, one is happy to say.

[SpaceChampion]

6 hours ago, RhaenysBee said:

My brain is exploding. I wonder how many hours of labor went into writing this episode. This is hands down the most genius musical episode I have ever encountered. Is this script taught in schools? Because it should be. Is there a book or a video essay series analyzing Buffy? I want someone to hold a lecture about this script. I want a Buffy class. 

Buffy is actually held up as an iconic work of metamodernism.  https://whatismetamodern.com/television/buffy-the-vampire-slayer-metamodernism/

I'm currently diving into this piece on metamodernism in the arts:  https://medium.com/what-is-metamodern/after-postmodernism-eleven-metamodern-methods-in-the-arts-767f7b646cae

 

[Ran]

Yeah, there's a ton of academic stuff about Buffy, moreso in its era than now, but still. 

1 hour ago, Zorral said:

But Xena Warrior Princess did it first -- the idea wasn't original with him.

Nor with Xena, it must be said. In October of 1997, Chicago Hope aired a musical episode, and probably kicked off the renaissance of them. 

According to Google, a 5th season episode of I Love Lucy, "Lucy Goes to Scotland", is the first time a TV show aired a musical episode that broke its normal format. It was inspired by Brigadoon. Love Boat had a pretty star-studded musical episode in 1982 (guests included Ethel Merman, Ann Miller, Carol Channing, Della Reese, Cab Calloway, and Van Johnson).

I do think Xena may get credit for first doing a musical episode where there's an explanation for the song and dance, as well as forward plot and/or character development. Most musical episodes are very self-contained gimmicks.

[Kalbear]

I do fondly recall Bakker thinking he was special that someone was doing an academic paper on his books and responding with 'there are whole classes on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, you're not special'.

If you liked that, I'd definitely recommend watching Dr. Horrible's Singalong Blog

[Zorral]

Most I Love Lucy eps. had music, of course, because that's what Desi's profession was -- and more than occasionally Lucy tried to do it too, and, thus,  ensued, to the satisfaction of one and all.  I.e. entirely organic to the series. 

As I never watch doctor hospital etc. series, I never saw that.  But Xena's musical, like Buffy's after that, were more opera than musical, i.e. no spoken language, other than, maybe? a word or two?

It's odd seeing so much love for season 6, which I truly liked -- so much better than 5 because you know, Dawn -- while my sf/f friends were one and all appalled: how could BUFFY have had sex with SPIKE???????   Never ever not even possible!  They talked about lynching the lazy, mean writers for this sin beyond redemption that could never ever have happened.  Any more than Dark Willow, and making magic act like an addictive drug, and so on and so forth.  

[Annara Snow]

18 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Most I Love Lucy eps. had music, of course, because that's what Desi's profession was -- and more than occasionally Lucy tried to do it too, and, thus,  ensued, to the satisfaction of one and all.  I.e. entirely organic to the series. 

As I never watch doctor hospital etc. series, I never saw that.  But Xena's musical, like Buffy's after that, were more opera than musical, i.e. no spoken language, other than, maybe? a word or two?

No, Buffy's OMWF is a musical, not opera. They don't sing all the time. They just can't help occasionally starting to sing and/or dance - usually when there is something big and emotional that they are unable or don't want to express in normal talk and are trying to hide from others.

Well, at least as far as the main characters are concerned... 

Spoiler

Because we also see a woman (played by Marti Noxon) sing while trying to get out of paying a parking ticket, and a man (David Fury) singing happily about dry cleaners having managed to take a mustard stain from a piece of his clothing!

I love both seasons 5 and 6. Season 5 is more consistent (no bad episodes - only season 3 may say the same for itself, but it doesn't have as good character arcs for the mains) but I might love season 6 more, even though it has some weak points.

[IFR]

I am currently rewatching Legend of the Galactic Heroes, my favorite anime and one of my favorite shows.

I think I'm enjoying it even more on my second viewing. What a great show. 

[Ran]

12 minutes ago, IFR said:

I am currently rewatching Legend of the Galactic Heroes, my favorite anime and one of my favorite shows.

I think I'm enjoying it even more on my second viewing. What a great show. 

I'm always surprised that it's not more well-known. 

[Mindwalker]

I just watched a half-our review of First Kill,, a show I wasn't even planning to watch, mostly because I'm not into vampire shows. (I also suspected it wasn't very good.) It's quite entertaining, the review I mean. Unfortunately, now I really want to watch True Blood and What We Do In The Shadows, which looked amazing in the few scenes they showed, and I'm really not into vampire shows!

Contains many First Kill spoilers:

 

[Zorral]

How bad is this latest travesty that Jane Austen must suffer? 

Beyond the numerous reviews laced withcontempt and / or befuddlement, to the point where this this 2022 movie remake of Austen's last novel, Persuasion, has been characterized as "Austen as Fleabag More Dreadful Than You Can Imagine" to "The worst movie of the year, maybe worst movie of the last 20 years," there is this: it opened today on Netflix! Until Netflix sent me an announcement email, I do confess I had no idea Netflix had anything to do with this thing that I had done my best to ignore was being made.

 

 

[Mindwalker]

On 7/14/2022 at 1:24 PM, RhaenysBee said:

My brain is exploding. I wonder how many hours of labor went into writing this episode. This is hands down the most genius musical episode I have ever encountered. Is this script taught in schools? Because it should be. Is there a book or a video essay series analyzing Buffy? I want someone to hold a lecture about this script. I want a Buffy class. 

Hands down my all time fav Buffy episode.

I'm happy to report that I enjoy season 2 of OMITB just as much as the first one.* Minor nitpick, still some weird casting, particularly of certain people playing themselves for no particular reason, but that's a minor nitpick.

Also,

Spoiler

Shirley MacLaine!

Season 3 has already been greenlighted; I really hope they can keep the quality.

 

* I've really been traumatized by several shows with their sophomore seasons...

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

I'm literally less than 10 minutes into Jurassic Park Dominion and this movie is going to be bad. Really depressing given the original is a top 5 movie for me.

[Annara Snow]

13 hours ago, Mindwalker said:

I just watched a half-our review of First Kill,, a show I wasn't even planning to watch, mostly because I'm not into vampire shows. (I also suspected it wasn't very good.) It's quite entertaining, the review I mean. Unfortunately, now I really want to watch True Blood and What We Do In The Shadows, which looked amazing in the few scenes they showed, and I'm really not into vampire shows!

Contains many First Kill spoilers:

 

What We Do in the Shadows is amazing.

True Blood... the first 3 seasons are worth watching but already uneven... after that, it gets really bad.

[mormont]

Watched RRR last night and boy. The film makers really took to heart the notion of 'go big or go home'.

Hilarious that this is 'based' on two actual historical figures.

Top scene: the dance-off about a third of the way through. That was epic.

There's a nationalist theme but the clear intent is to do that without making it Hindu nationalist: how well they pull that off is for others to say. I have the impression that there are missteps but again, what would I know?

Ray Stevenson's having a terrific time though.

[TheLastWolf]

45 minutes ago, mormont said:

Watched RRR last night

 Long overdue visit to the shrink ig, what made you undertake such an ordeal?

PS hope it was pirated, can't bear those _____ screwing the box office

46 minutes ago, mormont said:

Hilarious that this is 'based' on two actual historical figures.

If it had Gandhi, he'd be a Indian Rasputin x Martin Luther King jr

48 minutes ago, mormont said:

Top scene: the dance-off about a third of the way through. That was epic.

The only good scene in fact, if you watched it in the Telugu version it was good, Tamil better, rest langs meh.

49 minutes ago, mormont said:

There's a nationalist theme but the clear intent is to do that without making it Hindu nationalist: how well they pull that off is for others to say. I have the impression that there are missteps but again, what would I know?

Jingoistic FTFY and they may or may not have tried to evade Hindutva, but it was there crudely in many scenes.

50 minutes ago, mormont said:

Ray Stevenson's having a terrific time though.

He was born to play an evil colonial, he and Alison Doody

Olivia Morris was cute, still is

But if you had to pick one Indian film to watch, I'd have recommended Vikram, here's the best criticism. 

[Scott_N]

6 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

I'm literally less than 10 minutes into Jurassic Park Dominion and this movie is going to be bad. Really depressing given the original is a top 5 movie for me.

So poor. DNF.

[BigFatCoward]

Confession time, never watched a single second of Buffy.

[Ran]

3 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

Confession time, never watched a single second of Buffy.

I remember years ago, when Buffy was still airing, just scoffing a people going on about it -- the commercials for it looked so silly. Then one day we had nothing better to do, an episode from the 2nd or 3rd season (this was in reruns) was on, decided to watch... and we were hooked. The humor and banter worked for us, the characters, etc. 

I'm not sure what I'd call the "quintessential" Buffy episode that features all of its key aspects in a self-contained package, the one episode to try to see if Buff clicks or not. Maybe "The Wish" from the third season? It goes a bit dark. Or if the zanier side of things, perhaps "Tabula Rasa" from the 6th season.