What Am I Watching?

[shipperx]

This post by elsaf made me think of TV shows that I'm currently watching. Like Elsa, I'm not shipping anyone at present, which is an odd hiatus for me. I've had years upon years of shipping behind me. I shipped Mulder and Scully. As XF died down, I shipped Michael and Maria on Roswell. Then, I fell for Spuffy, and that was all she wrote for all while.

I still dabble in Spuffy as far as fanfic goes (I swear to God, I am still writing both Perfect Vengeance and When Darkness Falls. I'm just unforgivably slow.) My Spuffy situation is rather odd because I can still ship Spuffy in fanfic. However, as far as canon goes, I'm completely off it. It's a weird combo, I know. But, somehow, it makes sense in my head... at least until a new ship comes along.

I will most probably continue to ship fanfic Spuffy (and Spred) as long as I can have fun writing them. In a very strange way, my dissatisfaction with canon is why I continue to write Spuffy. In contrast, I loved shipping Aeryn and Crichton of Farscape, but I've never had any desire to seek out fanfic or to write fanfic about the characters. Where Farscape is concerned, I was and am satisfied. The story that Farscape gave me feels so complete, that I don't feel the need to tinker with it or play what-ifs. I'm happy with it and that's enough. I suppose it takes some dissatisfaction to fuel my plot bunnies.

I don't know when a new ship will come along. I'm not really looking for one. I'm happy to watch TV without shipping. It's so much easier in so many ways. Still, it's odd that at the time being, I don't have a show or a specific fandom (other than continuing to hang in the familiar grounds of Spike fandom). It's an odd feeling to be without a show that I'm somewhat possessive of.

So what have I been watching? My LJ makes it clear that I watch both Project Runway and Lost.

Project Runway is simply fun for me. It reminds me of when I was in architecture school in so many ways -- unrealistic deadlines and projects, and crazyass people claiming to be artists.

And I think I enjoy Lostbecause it isn't my show. I think if I shipped anyone or if I was really obsessed with the clues and the mytharc, I would probably be frustrated with Lost by now. However, I don't ship anyone. And, since I am an old XF ho, I know better than to obsess over the mytharc. That only leads to disatisfaction. My casual interest and my willingness to simply enjoy the ride, is most probably why I continue to enjoy the show.

I also watch Battlestar Galactica. I find the show to be intellectually fascinated. However, emotionally, it leaves me rather cold. I don't have any attachment to any of the characters. I'm most certainly not involved in any of the ships. And it's not "must see TV" for me. It's more along the lines of "Boy, I'm glad something is on Friday Nights."

I enjoy My Name is Earl a great deal, but My Name is Earl is a comedy. It's not something that I become involved in. I just want to laugh a few times. Earl and Randy are sweet and stupid and make a bunch of pop culture references. That amuses me, but it's not the same experience as when I'm involved in a show.

And, I'm thrilled that Dr. Who is coming to sci-fi. I enjoyed the season off of the torrents and am happy to rewatch when it legitimately begins airing in the US. Still, with the way that it's airing (and, admittedly some of its campiness) it's not quite the same experience. I like Dr. Who a great deal, but I don't covet it in quite the same way as shows where I'm really actively involved. Still, excellent show.

Also in elsaf's post, queenofattolia mentioned that she had been watching PBS. In responding to her, I realized that some of the shows that I've most enjoyed recently have been on PBS (and were BBC productions, but my cheapskate cableservice doesn't actually have BBC America unless I get digital service, so I only see them on PBS).

In particular I have enjoyed:

Elizabeth I: The Virgin Queen Elizabeth was such a fascinating person. I loved Cate Blanchett's version of Elizabeth I, but I think I enjoyed this mini-series even more. I thought Anne-Marie Duff did an outstanding job. She made Elizabeth appear to be very much the daughter of Henry the VIII. Romantic and autocratic, mercurial and vain. And I liked the way they played off the relationship of Elizabeth and Robert Dudley, making it both romance and machination on both Elizabeth's and Dudley's part. She loved him, but she couldn't marry him. And he could never quite separate his love for Elizabeth and his own ambition (the actor looked too much like the guy who plays Nicholas Cassadine on General Hospital though.) And it was interesting the way that they took Elizabeth's love for Dudley and showed her transferring onto his 'stepson' the Earl of Essex --who was manic depressive... if not just out and out batshit crazy. Rome's Kevin McKidd plays the Duke of Norfolk in this one. Anyway, if --like me-- you're a ho for historical epics, I rec this one. It's probably my favorite thing on TV in the last few months. Who knows, or cares, how historically accurate this one is. It is well acted and populated by fascinating characters.

I also enjoyed Henry the VIII. I thought this was -- all things considered-- a rather sympathetic portrayal of Henry the VIII (though they did seem to forego mentioning that he had syphillis at the end of his life). They made him seem to have more conscience about the deaths of his wives than most portrayals. He seemed rather three dimensional in this telling. I was a bit distracted by Helena Bonham Carter playing Anne Boleyn because the first time I remember seeing HBC in anything was playing Jane Grey in Lady Jane. It's sort of weird to see her as two different historical figures, that closely related in time and story (not related, related, but part of the same timeline more or less). Sean Bean appears in this story as well, so that's always nice.

Watched John and Abigail Adams last night on PBS and that was also interesting. I remember once reading some prints of the letters John and Abigail Adams wrote to one another, and they really must be one of the great love stories from the period of the American Revolution. Their letters always came across as being devoted to one another, and it was surprising --given the time period-- how very much John Adams depended on his wife. There was information I had never known -- and wouldn't have imagined-- in the documentary. I never knew that Thomas Jefferson PAID a journalist to run a smear campaign on John Adams in order to bring Adams down and run for the office himself. It was nice that Jefferson apologized twenty years later, but it showed how dirty politics has always been. John Adams was doing what he thought was right and what he thought was honorable, and Jefferson backstabbed Adams a few times. Jefferson was a complex man -- and not always a wholly likable one. Anyway, I found this documentary to be both informative and interesting.

In Search of Shakespeare was another very interesting documentary as well as the Dickens documentary (though it didn't make me like Dickens much... okay almost not at all. He was an utter bastard to his wife and kind of a hypocrit. But it was a fascinating biography).

And all of that makes my quality TV viewing look entirely too high because... I'm really looking forward to the return of reality shows The Amazing Race and Survivor. Sometimes we just want crap!

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Oh good. You have anonymous posting turned on. I'm completely locked out of commenting otherwise. (This is elsaf.)

Anyway, I think there are two basic driving forces for fan fic. There's dissatisfaction with canon, and their is satisfaction with canon. You say you've written because you wanted to fix what you find unsatisfying. However, I wanted to write Buffy fan fic because I wanted to live in the Buffyverse. It was my way of having more.

However, no matter how much I like other shows, I'm not finding any inspiration for fic. With BSG, my big interest in the show is seeing how Ron Moore is going to play it out. I don't want to write my own, because it's his vision I'm interested in. With Gray's Anatomy, it's much the same. I love the characters, but I don't have any desire to manipulate them on my own.

So, I wonder what's different. At the end of the day, I think it's simply that the Buffyverse was such a rich place. And I'm not talking about plots at all. I think the idea of a world like ours but with demons and magic all over the place is very seductive. The Buffyverse is a place where magic can happen, but always with consequences (which makes it much more interesting than the cartoonish magic of Charmed).

The Buffyverse is like a wonderful kit you can use to create your own story. And very few other shows currently on the air are like that.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Bizarre. I won't let me UNSCREEN it tonight. How strange.

And it's not "fix" so much as take something a different way, explore what could have been done instead.

I liked what you said about BSG. That's sort of my view of it as well. I want to see where Ron Moore is taking it, not what I would make of it. Same with Lost, actually.

However, I think that's also part of my not being in love with it in quite the same way.

[sp23.livejournal.com]

I feel the same way about BSG. It has a big juicy story arc going, but, while I'm very fond of the Chief and Helo, I'm not in love with any of the characters. I tape it because I watch Numb3rs at 10pm, but if I don't get around to watching it for a couple weeks, that's okay with me.

As far as Lost goes, while I watch it, I'm really no longer excited by it. I watch it more out of curiosity as to where the story is going than I do for any of the characters. JJ could kill off a character a week, and I wouldn't get too upset. :)

And I agree with Elsa that the Buffyverse was just a wonderful playground for a fic writer. In fact, it was the Bverse and specifically Spuffy that introduced me to fanfic, both the reading and the writing of.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I started fanfic with the X-Files. Fanfic was somewhat huge in the X-Files. In fact, to this day I think I've written more XF fiction than I've ever completed in BtVS. Heck, I even have a completed XF novella. :)

[fenchurche.livejournal.com]

And for me as a reader, I've pretty much only ever been interested in fic written for X-Files, Buffyverse and Doctor Who (oddly enough, this was my favorite in High School... and here I find myself getting dragged back in again, all these years later). There have been tons of other shows that I've absolutely loved over the years and maybe, every once in awhile, I'd find a fic here or a fic there that were pretty good in those universes, but none of them ever dragged me in.

I suspect it really is a matter of untapped potential, and whether what we've been given in canon is satisfying enough. So, while I enjoy Lost or Veronica Mars, I've never felt much of an urge to hunt out fic for either of them. That's not saying they're better or worse shows, just that I don't feel a need for MORE.

And it doesn't seem particularly dependent on 'ships, either... because I have a 'ship on VM, but don't feel aparticular need to hunt out fic with that 'ship, even though I'm not terribly satisfied with what we've gotten on the show. Hmmmm. I wonder what the difference is...

[appomattoxco.livejournal.com]

I loved shipping Aeryn and Crichton of Farscape, but I've never had any desire to seek out fanfic or to write fanfic about the characters. Where Farscape is concerned, I was and am satisfied. The story that Farscape gave me feels so complete, that I don't feel the need to tinker with it or play what-ifs. I'm happy with it and that's enough. I suppose it takes some dissatisfaction to fuel my plot bunnies.

I feel exactly the same way about Farscape. It was such a complete tale there's no need to add to it.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I think the reason why I enjoy re-watching Farscape is the same reason I don't read the fic. It feels almost like a novel to me in many ways. It had a beginning. It had an angst-filled middle with Season's 2 and 3, and then it reached an appropriate and satisfying conclusion (though I still wish Peacekeeper Wars had been a Season 5 instead of a mini. Wars felt rushed. It needed more time and space to breathe.) But it feels like a complete story. Everyone's character got to evolve to one degree or another, and the driving parts of the story -- Aeryn/Crichton's romance, Harvey's presence in Crichton, Scorpious's quest to de-power the Scarrans all reached satisfactory conclusions that 'fit.' I felt like I got the whole story plus resolution... and it was a resolution I'm happy with. I think that the way that Spike's journey ended (and, yeah, I'm all about Spike) is unresolved. He didn't really find a finish point, and I keep searching. Spuffy both did and didn't find one. Yeah, it had something of a finish point, but they clearly left things dangling...because Joss became a wussie and always preferred ambiguity to taking a real stand. That leaves me feeling that there's more that could have been done, not just with plot but with characver evolution.

With Farscape I felt that every character changed and grew up tremendously, whereas with BtVS, characters kept being given lessons and yet an emotional reset button was constantly being hit. I wanted the characters to actually progress when more often than not they were forced to stand still on the scale of growing up versus not growing up.

[sharelle.livejournal.com]

I am still writing both Perfect Vengeance and When Darkness Falls.

This may not exactly be on topic, but I'm rather impressed. I had enjoyed "Perfect Vengeance" ever since I found it through the Spuffy Kinkathon, but I hadn't realized that the latter was yours as well. (That fic, as well as "Consequence," have been among my favorite stories for some time.) What a wonderful coincidence!

I can sympathize with how slow the writing process can sometimes be, but when it comes to quality work like yours, I've always felt that it is worth the wait. (Not only that, but I've found your stories to have a rare quality that, even when incomplete, are deserving of several re-reads.)

When you do get around to adding a chapter to either, I know I'll definitely enjoy that as well!

Best,
Rummi

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much for the wonderful praise. I am actively writing on Perfect Vengeance and poor When Darkness Falls was just supposed to be set to the side while I finished that "little" kinkathon story that's turned out to not be so little. It was never intentionally stopped (and in fact I have a three or so chapters completed that I've never posted because I had decided to finish the story in full before posting it.) One day -- ONE DAY -- I will complete WDF. And I'm really working on Perfect Vengeance, promise. And, I promise that the next chapter brings with it smut.

[petzipellepingo.livejournal.com]

Like you I've been watching more PBS than I used to and like you, I really enjoyed the Virgin Queen. It did an awful lot to remove the bitter taste that Blanchett's film did because I'm a history major and that was an historical nightmare. I thought Duff was perfect casting and she was able to pull off going from teenager to old woman just as Glenda Jackson did in the 1970's ER. I wasn't as fond of Henry VIII because for one thing Henry's accent was distracting and another thing they fiddled around with the events a little too much for me. I still prefer Keith Michell's version from the 1970s. I adored the Shakespeare show and tonight I'm watching the second part of the French & Indian War special (one of my favorite historical periods).
On network television I watch the usual House, VM, Invasion, Lost, etc and I enjoy them but ship any one -nah! My heart still belongs to Buffy and that love is still there.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

It was really obvious that Blanchett's version did a lot of condensing history and changing timelines, but I thought she gave a wonderful performance... though a very different performance than Duff.

I think I prefer Duff's. I really have to give her (and this production) kudos. This particular version of Elizabeth was truly fascinating, a great three-dimensional character. In fact the central conflict of Elizabeth's feelings for Dudley and her subsequent feelings for his step-son felt so psychologically complete. You could see the turmoil of the girl who had wanted romance warring with the woman scarred by her father's legacy complicated the burden, politics and dangers of being Queen. While not everything may be accurate, it made a wonderful psychological portrait of a complex woman who you believed could be queen (meaning this character not just the historical figure herself who clearly was queen).

It's one of those stories that stuck with me after I finished watching because the characters came across as rich and multi-faceted. No one's motivations were simple or direct. There were always many layers, and I'm a sucker for characters rich enough to dissect.

I agree that Henry's accent was distracting. I'm an American and so cannot tell all of the nuances of class in British accents, but Henry's did seem off for a king. And, I thought the plotting was sluggish in many places. I think the actor did a good job showing Henry's hubris and he made Henry not 100% contemptible in his married life, but, yeah, there were many flaws in this one. Interesting, but not as good as the Elizabeth mini-series.

And, yeah, the Search for Shakespeare was also a fascinating documentary.

[petzipellepingo.livejournal.com]

Besides which Duff really looks like Elizabeth R. and the actor who played Robin really resembles him as well . Blanchett is a brilliant acress but she was just too pretty for Elizabeth.
I guess that's what I get for having a degree in European history, I'm all picky, picky about things, at least from the Brits. I've given up on the Americans years ago. The Brits can even pull off a decent Roman program like I,Claudius or Rome.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Ever watched Deadwood? It's set in the Goldrush with some historical characters (Calamity Jane, Wild Bill Hicock, and many others, including the main characters) and -- once you wade through the stunningly expletive laden language -- completely engrossing.

[petzipellepingo.livejournal.com]

Yes, I watch it on and off, mostly for Ian. Not only is his character fascinating but Ian spends a great deal of his life in the town next to mine. His in-laws live in St. Clair Shores and he hangs out at various spots. Sadly I haven't run into him yet although I'm not really trying very hard, I'd made a lousy stalker.
BTW, the language is totally not authentic our ancestors weren't big on the cussing, at least not like that. The sets however are spot on.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I figure that the purpose of it is that in those days words like "bitch" and "damn" were shocking. Now they're tepid, so the language has been wratcheted up so that we realize that it's risque. What was risque in that time period would pass by modern viewers unnoticed.

[cy-girl.livejournal.com]

I really liked the Elizabeth I miniseries, too, but the Henry VIII one felt rushed. It could have used a few more hours. Poor Sean Bean. His characters always seem to die a horrible death.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

And what an ugly death! I knew as soon as he accepted the invitation from the king that that was a really dumb move.

Agreed that the Henry movie needed... more.

[mlgm.livejournal.com]

Ditto on Farscape. Complete and satisfying onto itself; the writers/producers take on it seemed complete so there was no need to what if or get a different view.

And I agree with you again on BSG, more intellectual not emotional connection. The only shipper feelings I have are no UST. Either get Lee & Kara together or stop hinting. I don't care which; but the UST thing? Done to death.

Spuffy is pretty much over fanfic or otherwise. I'd like to see what James Marsters could do with Spike as the lead character; but the BtVSverse is otherwise over for me.

I find myself slipping back into my very first fannish/fanfic loves: Star Trek and Star Wars. Must be a second childhood coming on.

More and more I find myself watching those Discovery Channel "events": Last Days of Pompeii, Walking with Dinosaurs, etc.

And I share your love of Project Runway. I like shows that give me insight into others people's lives and passions. I'm starting to enjoy Dirty Jobs on the Discovery Channel. Who knew there are people making a good living collecting owl vomit?

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm always a sucker for Pompeii. I too watched the Last Day... thing when it was on. When I was in study abroad in college a few friends and I went to Pompeii on our own. What struck me was how HUGE it was. It really was a city. Somehow in my head it was always smaller, but when you walk through its streets and you realize only a fraction of it has been excavated it sinks in that Pompeii was really a city that just disappeared overnight.

Then again, as you can tell from the rest of my post, I'm a sucker for history. I also enjoyed the TLC thing on the Knights Templar the other night. Very interesting as it dissected the Crusades, why they were killed, and how they may have started Switzerland and the Swiss banking system.