hsapiens | TV Meme: Day 1

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TV Meme: Day 1

I'm seeing this television meme ALL OVER my f-list. I've been resisting since I have the whole, "how can I only choose one?!?" thing going on. I don't tend to be an -est kind of girl so much as shades of gray kind of girl. But I want to play along, too!

Day 01 - A show that should never have been canceled:

Firefly. Is there any other answer?? In fact, does anyone need it explained? It's Joss Whedon. It's a great ensemble cast. Fox are idiots.

Day 02 - A show that you wish more people were watching:
Day 03 - Your favorite new show (aired this TV season):
Day 04 - Your favorite show ever:
Day 05 - A show you hate:
Day 06 - Favorite episode of your favorite TV show:
Day 07 - Least favorite episode of your favorite TV show:
Day 08 - A show everyone should watch:
Day 09 - Best scene ever:
Day 10 - A show you thought you wouldn't like but ended up loving:
Day 11 - A show that disappointed you:
Day 12 - An episode you've watched more than 5 times:
Day 13 - Favorite childhood show:
Day 14 - Favorite male character:
Day 15 - Favorite female character:
Day 16 - Your guilty pleasure show:
Day 17 - Favorite mini series:
Day 18 - Favorite title sequence:
Day 19 - Best TV show cast:
Day 20 - Favorite kiss:
Day 21 - Favorite ship
Day 22 - Favorite series finale
Day 23 - Most annoying character
Day 24 - Best quote
Day 25 - A show you plan on watching (old or new)
Day 26 - OMG WTF? Season finale
Day 27 - Best pilot episode
Day 28 - First TV show obsession
Day 29 - Current TV show obsession
Day 30 - Saddest character death

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Yay! another lemming
:p

Just color me a Victim of Peer Pressure. :D

Yay, glad to see you're doing this, too! I've had to pause my meme due to school, but it's lots of fun (and hard decisions!).

Good choice on Firefly! I completely agree!

It's a good meme because it's what originally led to a lot of us meeting. I sincerely doubt that I'll make it without cheating it a bit with multiple answers or tweaking the categories but I'm going to try. I'm still trying to figure out what my favorite series ever is. I have no idea what I'll answer.

Good luck with your exams and school! When are you done? *hugs*

28th of this month. So close, yet SO far! I shall be very, very happy in the days after the 28th.

Yeah, favourite series is a toughie. I went with Star Trek: TNG because of good childhood memories.

I was a college freshman when ST:TNG premiered so it showed during the years when I didn't own a television. I remember gathering in a friend's dorm room with as many people as we could fit to see the pilot. We were all happy geeks. Her little 12" TV was the only one I knew of in the entire building.

ETA: Oh man! You are SO close. I remember that feeling of joy at finishing a semester. I hope you have something fun planned. :D

Edited 2010-06-09 22:05 (UTC)

That is an excellent choice. Wow, I miss Firefly. Stupid FOX.

IKR? When I think of "travesty," I think of their canceling Firefly.

I love that icon! Gorgeous coloring.

Thanks! It's from Fringe, the show with the whacky skience that's currently taken over my brain. :D

I've been hearing lots of good things about Fringe but I haven't seen it. So much television, so little time.

Totally agree with you on that one. Firefly was so special, there wasn't another show like it on air, and probably won't ever be again. As much as I love Buffy and Angel (and oh God, I do!), and sort of love Dollhouse, I think Firefly was Joss's true masterpiece. I miss it.

Firefly had the same witty, tight writing that Buffy did. It's hard for me to compare the two, though, since I hardly got to really know Firefly before it was over. Buffy I can celebrate its wins and mourn its misses. Firefly seems to be 15 hours of awesome and that's an incredible record. Many of my favorite shows (I'm eying you, SG-1) had some real stinkers as they were feeling around in their first season. I would have loved to have at least 6 more seasons of Firefly to see the show in the totality of what it could have been.

15 episodes really isn't enough time to judge much of anything. It kills me that we got just a glimpse of what the show could be- like you, I wonder what would have happened several years down the line.

I loved Buffy, right from the get go. All the way through, even though I think I might have loved the show a smidge less when David Boreanaz left. Angel was truly my number one Joss show, I loved that one beyond reason. I'm still sort of devastated by the ending. I say sort of because I can appreciate the whole "slay the dragon" thing, but I want to know what happened! (I know there were comic books, but I don't read those. It's just not the same to me.)

I suspect that Firefly would likely have exceeded Buffy. If for no other reason than because Joss had even more experience in putting together excellent t.v.

I was so torn on Angel. I loved the beginning, I loved the first 3 years, and I loved it again when Fred morphed into Illyria. As much as I loved those storylines, I had equally strong distaste for the Connor storyline and what they did to Cordelia. I loved Cordelia. I wasn't happy about moving them to Wolfram & Hart, which NEVER made any sense to me. However, once they wrote out Connor and I learned to just shrug over the W&H thing, I thought Illyria was a very interesting plot twist. Amy Ackerman was BRILLIANT. It gave her a great opportunity to show her acting abilities.

I wish it didn't feel like there was only one female role on the team; that once Fred arrived, Cordy had to go. That's just so out of character for a Joss show.

Edited 2010-06-09 22:51 (UTC)

I loathed what they did to Cordelia. I understand that they were caught off guard by her pregnancy and they had to find some way to work around it, but what they did to her was awful.

I never really thought that Fred's arrival meant Cordy had to go. I loved them as a team- Angel, Wes, Cordy, gunn, Fred and Lorne. I didn't hate Connor all that much, just his annoying affair with Cordy. Connor's birth episode was one of the most amazing hours of TV I've ever seen. I still get goosebumps when I remember Darla killing herself so her baby can live.

YES! Connor's birth was some of the finest television ever. And if they'd left it as Connor was lost in another dimension, I'd have continued loving it as epic tragedy that only Joss seems capable of writing. Darla is one of my favorite characters.

I disliked what they did with Cordelia from the time they "ascended her" to a PTB. To have her come back and sleep with the son of her love interest and then go into a coma after giving birth to Yet Another Magical Baby...blergh. Even though I enjoyed seeing Gina Torres it was just odd.

I might be oversensitive about the way that shows often seem to have the hero, the sidekick, the bright researcher/scientist/exposition, and the female. For a while it looked like Fred was just another new character but unless there was back stage problems with the actress that I don't know about, the Cordy storylines just make no sense to me. The weirdness I don't like started before Charisma got pregnant.

Knowing Joss's other writing, I tend to think there was something else going on because he isn't the sort to have the one "girl" character. I want to give him the benefit of the doubt but the result of whatever it appears indistinguishable from other shows where there's only room for one 'girl' at a time.

ETA: Sorry for the edits. I always have to edit to get my thoughts clear. Writing is hard for me.

Edited 2010-06-09 23:25 (UTC)

Unless Charisma or Joss ever give a statement, I doubt we'll know what really happened behind the scenes. It could have just been a rare mistake for Joss, the whole Cordy ascencion thing, but that might be oversimplifying things.

I loved Darla and Dru, and I loved when they got the vamp foursome together. But that being said, I never liked Spike. I did prefer him as a villain, rather than a hero, but I never got, or was even comfortable with, his relationship with Buffy. I wasn't too pleased when they announced they were bringing Spike onto Angel in season 5, even though that was probably one of th factors that led to the show's renewal.

I suppose I could allow that Joss is human and he just goofed it. But in secret I still kind of think of him as my television God.

Dru was truly CREEPY when other vampires tended to put the vamp in vampire. I loved her and the actress was also brilliant. Joss gets the good actresses. I suppose that has to do with writing juicy female roles, eh? Loved the Fanged Four, too. Sometimes I felt like the back story was crowding out the current story from a narrative PoV but I never minded because they were so interesting.

I liked Spike. I liked him better as a villain because it felt a little like they were writing him into the role that Angel was meant to fill, down to his gaining a soul. I love James Marsters and his chemistry with SMG was scorching. I didn't like the way that they wrote the Spike/Buffy relationship but I just wanted James on my screen so I kind of lump it. (But Buffy is the one show I can think of where I don't have an OTP. Or even a preference. I love them all. I love Willow/Oz AND Willow/Tara. I love Buffy/Angel, Buffy/Riley, and Buffy/Spike. I love Anya/Xander.)

I watched the show in spurts over a year rather than over seven years. Watching a show that way fundamentally changes how I interact with it so it's no surprise that I'm less OTP-prone. I don't get invested in couples in quite the same way emotionally.

I've watched all of Joss's shows regularly, from the beginning, except for, believe it or not, Firefly. I watched the first episode they ever aired, The Train Job, which was actually the second episode filmed. The two hour pilot ep was actually the LAST episode they showed. If they had started from the beginning, liked they should have, I probably would have been hooked right away. Instead, I bought the DVDs after some friends raved about them, and of course, watching everything in the right order, I fell completely in love.

I have always called Joss my TV God, so I guess we have that in common, too. Sometimes I watch a show like Smallville, which has been and will probably always be my number one fandom, and I think, oh my, what Joss could do with this show. I think that about a lot of shows, actually. He writes characters, if you know what I mean. Male or female, it doesn't matter. His creations are always so vivid and real to me. I think that might have been the problem with Dollhouse, his last show. When the premise is that your characters change every episode, it's hard to develop that kind of bond with them.

I have to admit, Buffy/Angel was my OTP for Buffy, and believe it or not, I genuinely liked Angel/Cordelia on Angel. Those were my two true pairs, but other pairings always stood out to me, too. You're right, every pair had a sense of magic about them. Just another Joss touch, I guess.

I'm sorry to report that I had "no interest" in Buffy because it was a "high school" show. Shows what I know, right? I can't imagine Firefly making much sense without the pilot. It does the basic world-building and introduces the characters.

After Joss, most television seems thoughtless and flat. I think that's a great description: he writes characters. I get the vivid and real thing; after mainlining Buffy, it would surprise me to remember there wasn't a Slayer. I love his work!

I liked Angel/Cordelia, too, and that surprised me because I thought I was hooked on Buffy/Angel. Yup, it's Joss and his writing.

I think I also worship your icon- it's amazing!

It seems like very few people liked the Angel/Cordy pairing. Welcome to a very small club.

I guess I never really thought of Buffy as a high school show. It came out in 1997, when I was 24 (and a half!) and I watched it just to see what it was like. I was drawn in right from the start, and once I saw Sarah and david's first scene together, I knew I would be hooked.

Isn't it? It was made by

awmp. I love it. :)

I figured it wouldn't be popular amongst the Buffy/Angel crowd. If they'd started it up at the beginning of Angel, I doubt I would have liked it but they let it grow organically. *shrug* But then, I did generally like all of his pairings.

I was clearly wrong about it being a "high school" show. The characters attended high school and I mentally lumped it in with the 90210s of the world. I watched very little television until recently. Starting in college, I didn't have a TV and I didn't get one until my grandfather died and nobody else in the family wanted his TV. I've since made up for it in some ways but I still tend to watch television on time delay via DVDs.

I can't imagine life without a TV. Without my shows, I would go nuts. I like movies, but I LOVE TV. Before I moved to Florida about a year and a half ago, I hadn't been to a movie in close to a dozen years, but I always had TV. And I love DVD sets, you can play catch up, and pick and choose what eps you want to watch. Trying to watch SG1 on the Syfy Channel was giving me whiplash. They were bouncing back and forth between 3 or 4 seasons at a time, and I never knew what was happening.

I used to be more literate; I read a lot in those days. I've adapted to life with a TV a little too well now. I haven't been to many movies. They tend to be too cold, so loud as to hurt my ears, but not so loud that I can't hear the inevitable discussion behind me. I find I prefer the longer format story of a series to most movies. I get to know the characters better. I'm totally hooked on DVD sets. I, uh, own a lot of them.

I'm definitely the literate sort. I read a lot, usually more than one book at a time, too. Right now it's The Tudors by GJ Meyers and Helen of Troy by Bettany Phillips. I tend towards non fiction these days.

I own a TON of DVD sets. Besides books, they're always at the top of my wish list for birthays and Chanukahs, and when I just have some extra cash. I could live in Barnes and Noble.

Normally I only read more than one book at a time if I'm reading non-fiction or if I'm not all that excited by the "main" book I'm reading. Otherwise, I'm kind of obsessive and more likely to skip sleep so that I can read.

Same here. My family has stopped buying me the DVDs, which makes me sad, but they say it's boring. I want to come back and haunt Elliot Bay Book Company in Seattle after I die. That's my idea of Heaven.

One thing I love about my move to Florida is that the libraries down here are amazing. In New York, the library budget was so miniscule that they never got in anything new, and their overall stock was small. Down here, the libraries are gorgeous, architecturally speaking, and full of tons of books, new or otherwise.

I don't know why I read more than 1 book at once. I don't do it, though, if my main book is just so good that I can't put it down. In that case I just keep on reading, even if it's 3 in the morning.

What are some of your favorite books? In fiction I loved The Secret History by Donna Tartt, The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova and Madeleine's ghost, by Robert Giradi. In nonfiction, I tend to favor history, especially British history. I'll read anything by Alison Weir or Antonia Fraser.

FINALLY had the chance to sit down and answer this; sorry for the delay. STarted a new thread, though, so that I can read the dang thing. It's here:

http://hsapiens.livejournal.com/108784.html?thread=1555952#t1555952

Forgot to add in my previous comment- Fox made Joss pull Serenity, the original Firefly pilot (not to be confused with the later movie) because it was "too talky". Not enough action, too cerebral. What the hell did they know anyway?

I think it's pretty clear that FOX is run by room temperature IQs.

As Teal'c would say, indeed. And oh my God, I would kill for that icon!

Anyone can use it. It was made by

icon_ascension, who posted it for use years ago. Of all the icons I have, it's one of those I've had the longest because it is AWESOME.

That's from The Ties that Bind, right? I was watching it last night, but I don't remember any wiggling.

Yes, it is. The maker was extremely clever in manipulating the *.gif, looping his action. He adjusted the belt and she took advantage. It's brilliant. :)

I really envy icon makers. I have no idea how to do anything artistic, with or without a computer.

No worries, edits are fine. I ought to do them more often, myself. Some people post such eloquent, thought out statements, and I just jot down whatever comes to mind. Sigh.

I tend to get tired of seeing the edits show up in my own inbox, but I hate more to leave blatant misspellings or ambiguous antecedents in a comment.

I tend to think faster than I type, even though I'm usually a fairly good typist. But then the thoughts start piling into my head and I rush to put them down before I forget and I end up with typos all over the place. I hate that!

I definitely think faster than I type unless I concentrate on the letters of each word. I end up skipping words by accident, getting the letters and spaces mixed up, and writing stream of consciousness. Reading over it doesn't help me much unless I've let it lie fallow for a little bit, which isn't conducive to online conversations. *sigh*

Ditto, as Patrick Swayze in Ghost would say.

Heh. I refuse to play (I'm like that), but I have been enjoying everyone else's memes.

I wouldn't have you change a contrary hair on your head. *smooches*

TV unites a lot of my f-list (excepting those who I know from college, who tend to enjoy even more obscure geekery) so it seemed like a good meme to provoke discussion. Although I have to admit that I'd be shocked if anyone thought canceling Firefly was a good idea.

Edited 2010-06-09 22:41 (UTC)

Trufax: I know people who do/did not enjoy Firefly one single bit.

Immediately after I pronounced my refusal to meme this meme, I had an fierce urge to meme this meme. I blame this on low blood sugar more than anything else. ;)

Did they actually SEE Firefly? I ask because I'd seen bits and pieces over the years and was utterly unimpressed. I'm just not a fan of Westerns. After mainlining Buffy and Angel, I was willing to believe that Firefly deserved a fair chance so I sat down and watched from the beginning. It was BRILLIANT. Turns out the Western bits I'd been seeing were essentially the same scene in the same episode. The show was so much more.

LOL! I usually approach near narcolepsy when my blood sugar drops. I think memes are a much healthier response.

about 50-60% of these that i've seen have firefly for the first answer

I'm not surprised. It's such an obvious answer because it's heads above the norm for television. It had great actors, great sets, great writing. It was developed and written by a team that had batted a thousand at that point. It's a huge WTF moment in television history.

Noooooooo, another victim to the TV meme! *refuses to fall prey...!* (Especially since I hadn't discovered English-speaking TV shows until...last year? XD)

Also, this is where I admit that I haven't seen Firefly yet, but I will, and I know it will be awesome!!

LOL! Is there anything on your f-list that ISN'T this meme? I know I'm seeing it everywhere. :D

Firefly is worth setting aside a looong day for because once you start watching it, you probably won't want to stop. It's that good.

I have been answering the -est questions with at least three each, so don't feel bad.

I need to see Firefly.

I suspect that's exactly what I'll be doing. Because I'm incapable of choosing amongst Babylon 5, Buffy, and SG-1.

Doctor Who and SG-1 for me.

Doctor Who is pretty damned awesome, too. "Blink" certainly competes for my favorite episode of anything of all time.

I'm just an overall Who addict (new series at any rate) and have been since 2006. I may be card carrying crazy by the time this most recent obsession with the Doctor and the Master's relationship is over, but I'll be fangirling all the way, I'm afraid...

Firefly. Most damn definitely. Best damn show on TV and we weren't just robbed by FOX, we were assaulted. Bastards.

Okay. So. Now that I've seen what this meme is ... er, yeah, you know. ;)

Moving here so I can read the comments. :)

What are some of your favorite books? In fiction I loved The Secret History by Donna Tartt, The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova and Madeleine's ghost, by Robert Giradi. In nonfiction, I tend to favor history, especially British history. I'll read anything by Alison Weir or Antonia Fraser.

Fiction: Anything by Amy Tan. Dirk Gentley's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams. The Iliad. Pride & Prejudice. Elizabeth Peters's Vicky Bliss series. (I like some of her Amelia Peabody series, too, but it has lost my interest.) Animal Farm. The Aeneid. The Once & Future King. The John Ciardi translation of The Inferno. The Mists of Avalon. The Earthsea Trilogy by Ursula K. LeGuin. Most anything by Tony Hillerman. Lord of the Rings. Lysistrata & The Birds by Aristophanes. Soulless by Gail Carriger is a new book that I enjoyed. For fluff I read Carol Nelson Douglas's Irene Adler novels, Evanovich, Hiaasan, Aaron Elkins (though his books have become travelogues and I'm less excited now), J.D. Robb, and Charlaine Harris's Sookie Stackhouse series.

I'm obviously an escapist who loves her genre fic. I hate listing things because I KNOW I'm forgetting some really important books.

Non-Fiction: The Woman That Never Evolved by Sarah Blaffer Hrdy. I love that book SO HARD. I have read it probably 5 or 6 times, which is amazing because it's very dense prose. The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins. Most books by Stephen J. Gould, even if he was sort of a dick. Several lab manuals for bone classes I took. (I know, that's weird.) Edith Hamilton's Mythology. I tend to read biology and/or science-y magazines if I'm going to read non-fiction. I prefer to get my non-fiction on t.v., which is actually the bulk of my television viewing.

Cookbooks (yes, it's an entire genre for me): The Vegetarian Epicure Vols. 1 & 2 changed my life. Previously, being a vegetarian was all about what I didn't eat and those books opened my eyes to a new way of thinking. The Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book. The Veganomicon.

It's funny that you bring up Alison Weir. I recently bought a copy of her Six Wives of Henry VIII because I'd read a borrowed copy years ago and watching The Tudors made me want to pick it up again. On a whim I also ordered a collection of three of Jean Plaidy's novels, entitled "Katharine of Aragon," but haven't gotten around to reading it.

I love Amy Tan. And Edith Hamilton's Mythology, one of my oldest and most favorite books. I became obsessed with Greek mythology when I was a kid, and I never really let it go.

Alison Weir writes wonderful historical books, especially her Tudor related works. Jean Plaidy is alright, not fantastic, but readable. I read her Katharine of Aragon novel years and years ago, and it wasn't terrible or anything, but she's really not my favorite writer. For Tudor related fiction, I tend to prefer Philippa Gregory. The Other Boleyn girl was the first Tudor related book I ever read, fact or fiction, and it started my love for english history. Margaret George is pretty good with historical fiction, as well. She has "autobiographies" of Henry VII and Mary, Queen of Scots, and a really excellent one about Cleopatra.

I'm not a big sci fi/fantasy reader, even though I love TV and movies in the genre. One of ones I did love, though, was Sherri S. Tepper's The Gate to Women's Country. Brilliant book, all about gender and equality.

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TV Meme: Day 1

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