Too "CW" For Me

 

Stargirl seems like it ought to be a show for me. Female protagonist, cool superpowers, giant robot/suit, family drama, and a small town setting. So much to love. 

But I don't love the show. I'm not even sure I like it. 

And I think I've figured out why. It's the same reason I don't love The Flash or Arrow, even though those shows ought to have been right up my alley, too. Both had strong starts with interesting characters, but I eventually just lost interest. 

It's the "CW" effect. 

When a show is handed over to CW (or WB), it immediately changes, and not for the better in my point of view. They *look* good, with pretty people in great costumes and decent-for-the-budget special effects, but they don't hold up well to scrutiny. 

They're . . .shallow. 

So often the plot relies on people avoiding a conversation, often that conversation wouldn't even be that difficult to have. Or ignoring an obvious application of the powered person's skills. Or strange caprices. Character motivations shift from episode to episode, so it's hard to even know if someone is behaving "out of character" because there is no consistency about what is "in character." 

Superhero stories tend be a bit plot-driven…cool action scenes and creative fights are part of what fans come for, me included! But, the best ones also really understand their characters and lead to strong emotional payoffs. 

WB shows seem to be all about short-term payoff and cool moments, and I'm pulled out of the story again and again because I can't understand why characters are doing what they're doing. 

I watched Season 1 of Stargirl and enjoyed seeing the team of heroes come together. I liked the generational take, with young people taking over for older heroes. I had high hopes for Stripes-the-stepdad-with-a-secret-history. But I wasn't drawn in enough to watch it quickly. I think it took me two years to watch the whole season. 

The continual shifting of tones lost me. Was Stripes to be taken seriously as a mentor or laughed off as inept comic relief? Am I supposed to keep cheering for a girl who shows herself over and over again as more self-interested than anything else? 

I'm starting to wonder if we just hand the story over to a completely new team of writers every other episode and that no one reads the other team's work to build naturally from what came before. 

When we moved to the second season, I watched one episode and I'm not sure I'll be back for any more.

 

The adults in the show are not making any sense. Mom and Dad were THERE in the first season: they were part of the fight with the bad guys. The superhero stuff isn't a secret from them. But, they behave as if they have no understanding of all of what's going on. It's like they just forgot everything that happened and stepped back in time to the original conflict of trying to keep the kid protected versus letting her step into her role as a hero. 

Maybe I'm just too old for this, but it seems like cheap manipulation rather than honestly-built suspense. 

How about you? Do you like the WB/CW superhero shows? I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comment. 

The Haunting of Bly Manor: some thoughts

Just finished watching The Haunting of Bly Manor, a series from Netflix and the folks who brought us The Haunting of Hill House in 2018. I loved it. I loved Hill House, too, when I watched it.

Both of these series were based off of classic works: The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson and The Turn of the Screw by Henry James, two of my favorite scary stories of all time. 

But neither is a telling of the story as you might know it from the books. Instead, each is a brand new story, a kind of riff on a theme. There are echoes of the originals, but there is also completely new material and interpretations not present in the old works at all.

I've long had an interest in side and backdoor stories that come into a work I already love from another angle. Things like Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea which dared to ask who Rochester's first wife from Jane Eyre really was, or Gregory Maguire's Wicked which retold The Wizard of Oz through the eyes of the witch. I love the fresh take on a story I already love--it has a feeling of talking with other fans, and loving the original together. 

These two series are not quite those, but there's a similarity.

Both series changed the time frame, moving Hill House from 1950 to 1992 and Bly Manor/Turn of the Screw from the 1890s to 1987, a change which opens up story possibilities and also makes some parts more difficult. 

Both stories require some serious isolation so that the events can go unobserved/uninterrupted for a while, and that kind of isolation is harder to come by in 2020. I rather thought we only went as far forward as 1992 to keep smart devices and cell phones from encroaching on the story too far. 

Both stories take place in gorgeous old homes. The houses themselves are practically characters in the story--more obviously in Hill House (which is just as Shirley Jackson wrote it, in that respect), but still true in Bly Manor. 

Hill House changed the premise--no longer bringing together a group of would-be ghost hunters into a known haunted house hoping for a paranormal experience as happened in the book, but instead bringing a family of house flippers into the gorgeous old mansion to try and save it and resell it. Bly Manor stuck with the original premise more closely: a nanny is hired to take care of two troubled orphaned children in an isolated mansion and paranormal shenanigans ensue.

What I loved in Bly Manor was all the new material. Henry James's story is not forthcoming about the nanny herself. We don't know her history or why she might have decided to take on a job like this one. We don't know exactly what happened to Miles and Flora's parents, other than that they died. We don't know what Miles did at boarding school that got him kicked out or why the kids' uncle is so strangely detached, not wanting even to be informed about what is going on with the children. We certainly don't know what the ghosts want, exactly.

Mike Flanagan set about answering all those questions and I LOVED the answers. They fit into the story as told by James seamlessly. Along the way, he created a whole secondary mythology of the ghost activity at Bly Manor. The imagery isn't quite as terrifying as that of Hill House (the broke neck lady is way more frightening than the blank faced ghosts, at least for this viewer), but the tension is high. 

Perhaps surprisingly for horror stories, both of these series end up being primarily about grief and surviving loss. Both manage to end on bittersweet hopeful notes. Gorgeous really. Beautiful, haunting in a completely different sense of the word. I hope Flanagan finds another story to explore this way. I'll be there with my popcorn on opening night if he does.

Summer Viewing: Good Omens

I'm a Neil Gaiman fan and have been for many years. The first of his novels I read was Neverwhere, and I was hooked after that. My favorite is American Gods, though I also have a soft spot for The Graveyard Book and, of course, The Sandman series of graphic novels. I try to read everything the man writes, but he is disturbingly prolific and I sometimes read other authors, so there are still a few in the TBR.

So, of course I was excited to hear that Amazon was making a miniseries of Good Omens.

Though I remember the book fondly, I only remember the broadest outlines of the plot and a few particular moments. In fact, watching the series is sending me back to re-read the book with my twelve-year-old daughter.

I hear that the adaptation is not 100% faithful to the book, but trust that since Neil Gaiman was on board with the project that the changes were appropriate. In any case, I found that it held together well and was a very satisfying show.

Visually, the series was a delight. The contrast between Aziraphale (angel: played by Michael Sheen) and Crowley (demon: played by David Tennant) is beautiful, from their looks and outlooks to their demeanors and misdemeanors. They make a lovely yin-yang/opposites-attract friendship that holds the entire story together.

Aziraphale is quiet and fond of Epicuriean pleasures and old books. Crowley is a rockstar delighting in showy moments and grand gestures. Besides their affection for each other, they share an affection for this world and do not wish to see it destroyed, so when they become entangled in the plot to bring about end times, they determine to undermine it.

The rest of the story has its moments, but for me, this series was really about watching Sheen and Tennant create an odd couple for the millennium. Well worth the investment of six hours of your viewing time.

Summer Viewing: Wynona Earp

During the schoolyear, I watch maybe an hour of television a week, but in summertime (when the living's easy: and I'm not teaching), I sometimes watch two or even three hours of television in a single day. It feels like I'm flying through TV shows getting to watch them at that rate!

So, here's another peek into my summer viewing: Wynona Earp, season 3. "I told that devil to take you back!"

So, this is a show you have to approach with the right attitude.

If you're a viewer who wants accuracy (or even plausibility) and insists on consistent and well explained world building…watch something else. This one isn't for you.

But if you, like me, have a taste for pulpy badass fun? Then strap in. It's going to be a bumpy ride.

Your basic premise: There's a curse of the Earp clan, begun during Wyatt Earp's time which ties the fate of each generation's Earp heir to the endless battle of Revenants, demon versions of old west baddies who keep coming back every generation to fight the next heir afresh.

Wynonna is the latest heir and she's a hot mess, as in: she's hot, and she's a mess. She drinks too much, is a sexual adventurer, and is a shoot first and ask questions later fighter, all of which leads to high drama.

As played by Melanie Scrofano, I find her charmingly unconcerned with what anyone might think of her choices, comfortable in her skin even when she disapproves of herself, and steadfastly loyal to those she loves. She fights from the heart, relying on gut instinct and impulsive risks to save the day.

But my favorite character isn't Wynonna: it's Doc Holliday (yep: *that* Doc Holliday) conveniently immortal and recently rescued from imprisonment in time to wreak havoc on Wynonna's heart. Tim Rozon must be a man out of his own time, he plays the old fashioned Southern doctor turned gunslinger so perfectly for tone. He's as hot-headed as Wynonna herself and prone to epically bad decisions when his heart is wounded that only up the dramatic ante.

This is the kind of show where everything is blown out of proportion and the dial is turned up to eleven. I often have to pause to laugh out loud when the dialogue or situations take me by surprise. To my mind, this is perfect escapist summer viewing, satisfying and entertaining, always leaving me feeling distracted by very unrealistic troubles. Just what the Doc (Holliday) ordered.

Summer Viewing: The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

My college-aged daughter has an eye for programs that don't seem like they're for me that totally turn out to be for me. It was she who got me hooked on Jane the Virgin, for example, which I never would have guessed I'd enjoy so much. So, when she suggested The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, I knew it was likely to be right up my alley. I watched season 1 this spring, and season 2 this summer.

For fans of shows like Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, Mad Men, or Downton Abbey, you'll get that same feeling of having been transported in time. Miss Maisel's wardrobe alone is worth watching the show for. Her worlds, among rich Jews of the Upper West Side in the 1950s and on the comedy stages of the same era alongside Lenny Bruce, are not worlds I know much about, so I love the windows into something new. 

But characters are always what keep me or lose me in a show (or a story of any kind). Like Miss Fisher (a show you should also watch if you haven't yet), Midge Maisel is a striking personality who doesn't quite fit into societal expectations for a person in her roles in that time and place. She's charismatic and I found myself rooting for her right away.

Mrs. Maisel truly is marvelous, just as the title claims. She's witty, on and off the stage. She's strong and independent, despite having been raised with expectations that she would never need to be either of those things and therefore having obtained very few practical skills. Relentlessly optimistic in the face of every setback and confident in herself at superheroic levels, but still empathetic to the plights of others. Strong female character in that true sense of personality rather than literal physical strength.

The juxtaposition of Mrs. Maisel's two worlds is the heart of the charm of this show--who would have thought that a woman of her background could make a success on the comedy stage? The culture clash between the woman whose hat collection wouldn't fit in my house and her much harder-luck manager is rife with thoughtful life lessons that don't feel like lectures. (The stage routines are hilarious as well). 

Her relationships with the other comics and the relationship arcs for herself and her husband as well as that between her parents will resonate with a lot of viewers, even if your life experience involves a lot fewer matching shoes and handbags. Recommended viewing.

Summer Viewing: Black Lightning

Black Lightning has been on my TBW (to be watched) list for a while now and summer finally brought me a little time for TV.

I'm an easy sell: it's a superhero story about a character I didn't already know well, and he's not twelve--he's a full adult with experience, responsibilities, and something to lose. Three for three, with a bonus point for diversity. Right up my alley.

I'll be mildly spoilery at worst in this review. I wouldn't want to ruin your enjoyment by giving too much away. I've watched two seasons as I write this.

Can I just say how much I love Jefferson Pierce as portrayed by Cress Williams? I think I actually love him more when he's being Jefferson Pierce than I do when he's being Black Lightning. This is a show about Jefferson Pierce who is also a superhero rather than the other way around.

Such a beautifully complicated character. A community leader (high school principal with a high profile), who still gets pulled over for "driving while black" and has to manage racial politics with the Freeland school board (an awfully white organization considering the racial makeup of the community it's in).

It's all about control, of the situation, and of himself. Even when he's not being superheroic, he crackles with suppressed energy and channeled righteous anger. He's working within the system in one suit, and as a vigilante going around the system in another.

He's an involved parent, who still falls back on "because I said so" and "not under my roof" in frustration when his strong willed daughters reveal that they are definitely his children. It plays all too real to this mother of stubborn and amazing daughters.

He's not perfect (despite those abs and that smile), but he's working hard to make the world better, and not just when he's wearing the suit (either the coat and tie or the lightning). I can see why people call him "Black Jesus."

He loves his (ex)wife enough to have given up his superheroic pursuits at her insistence, and they have a push and pull magnetism on screen: still clearly in love and attracted to one another, united in their desire to raise their daughters well, but cracking under the pressure of heroism. That inner conflict about using your gifts when they hurt you personally adds serious tension.

It's hard to love someone who is constantly in danger and on call, to see them hurt and suffering because of the sacrifices they've made for strangers. Ask any spouse of a cop or firefighter or soldier or schoolteacher or other front-lines job.

Lynn Pierce, as played by Christine Adams is amazing. She knows her limits, and even when they hurt, she sticks by them. She's a brilliant doctor and scientist (and we later find out quite a fighter herself), fierce and dignified, but loving. No wonder her children are so much trouble. They're just like her.

It's rare in a television show to see a family with teenaged and newly adult children who have a good

relationship (or any relationship at all), but the Pierces are close, despite the secret of Dad's former superheroic life having been kept from the children until the crisis that begins the television series brings him back into his lightning crested suit. (When the show begins, no one has seen Black Lightning for nine years--his daughters don't know about dad's side gig).

The first time I saw the Black Lightning suit, I wasn't sure what to think. It's pretty darn cheesy, with a bright chest panel. It made me laugh, I'll admit. The effects used for his lightning powers are on the cheesy side, too, which contrasts pretty starkly with the look and tone of the alter ego parts of the show.

Whenever Jefferson dons the costume and goes out to fight, the music shifts towards the seventies, too, with full-on swagger. I wasn't sure I liked that at first, but it's grown on me. It's a subtle way to show his origins, though if he's only been on hiatus nine years, he stopped fighting in the earlier 2000s, not the seventies. Still it resonates with shades of characters like Shaft and Luke Cage, which is probably what the designers were after.

When younger heroes (Thunder and Lightning) come onto the scene, the generational contrast is interesting: in terms of where the moral lines are as well as what to wear. I like how that contrast is used to show that younger people and older people both have things to learn from one another.

"Uncle Gambi," Jefferson's adoptive stepfather, has had quite an evolution across the two seasons as well. He's definitely more than he seems when we meet him, and he keeps getting more interesting. His relationship with the Pierces and his role in the history and the superheroics helps heal plot holes as needed.

The villains in this one are big and broad and stylized, though their overall motivations can be a bit fuzzy. Tobias Whale is a great gangster with an extra secret, though I find him a little one-note overall. He seems like a plotter with a huge overarching plan, but then those plans turn out to be kind of loose and not fully thought out when we get there. Still, the personal nature of the grudge between Tobias and Black Lightning is powerful.

Dr. Helga Jace is horrifyingly cold about any human (or metahuman) costs in her mad science work. She's a great contrast to Lynn Pierce. I'm looking forward to learning more about the mysterious and dangerous Agent Percy Odell. The secondary cast with Khalil, Grace, and police ally Bill Henderson have a lot of potential for future drama and intrigue, too.

If you're looking for a new superhero show to watch, this one has a lot to recommend it!

The Orville Might Be the Best Star Trek Yet

I recently finished watching the second season of The Orville. For those unfamiliar with the show, it's a Star Trek-esque space-based episodic story with some longer arcs in which the crew of a starship encounter adventures as they explore the universe.

Similar to Star Trek in all its iterations, the crew are part of a an interstellar alliance with military rankings and rules. Their mission is both political and scientific. It's a show that gets really mixed reviews. Even people who love it don't seem to love it without criticism. I think I'm the same: I like it, but I can't quite love it.

While I have enjoyed several Star Trek series in my life (the original series, The Next Generation, Deep Space 9, Voyager, the old movies, the newer movies), I've never considered myself a deep fan. Watching Orville helped me realize that this is because I don't connect strongly with most of the characters.

They tend to be static--arriving on the scene fully realized and ending the series no significant changes to the core of who they are. The tension on your average Star Trek show is all external.

That's one way The Orville is different. Interpersonal drama is often as important or more important than external conflict in any given episode.  Throughout seasons one and two, we've watched a once-married captain and first officer figure out the parameters of their new relationship. We've watched a married couple become parents and discover deep-seated philosophical differences and cultural dissonances. We've watched several other characters foray into romance with varying results.

Fans might argue that these sorts of character arcs are seen on Star Trek as well, but for me, any such storytelling is solidly in the back seat in those shows. I like this more character-driven exploration of similar themes. These characters grow and change within the series more than I've ever seen on a Star Trek show. For me, that's the major selling point of The Orville: it's Star Trek, with more fully realized people in the roles.

I also enjoy the "ordinary Joe" feel of the characters. Among the people in my life, I can find people who are similar to Lt. Gordon Molloy, pilot and longtime friend of Captain Ed Mercer or Dr. Claire Finn, the ship's doctor who is also a single mother.

Competent and effective, but quirky, too. That's very different than giant icons like Jean-Luc Picard, who while wonderful, was too much a paragon to make stupid choices in love or leadership.

From the early days watching reruns of the original series with my mother, I've always loved the allegorical storytelling bent of Star Trek--exploring human issues with non-human characters offers contrast and comparison that an all-human cast has to work harder to achieve.

The Orville does this, too. There's emotion vs. logic in Isaac, the Kaylon emissary and science officer. There's exploration of the line between cultural respect and individual rights in the gender issues of Moclan, home world of Bortus, the second officer.

The discussion might be a little more subtle than it was when the black and white faced people of Ariannus refused to see each other's values (star bellied sneeches, anyone?), but the tactic is the same. And it's still a good one.

An aspect of The Orville I'm less fond of is the mixing of tones. Traditionally, Star Trek has had lighter toned and heavier toned episodes, but a single episode of The Orville may offer comedy and drama side by side, an effect I sometimes find jarring.

Individual episodes also suffer from inconsistencies and writer convenience sometimes (example: the fabulous warrior women who escaped Moclan to live life on their own terms and were skilled enough to do this suddenly lose all fighting and observation skills and need to be rescued by the crew of The Orville when the attack they've always anticipated finally comes).

All in all, The Orville captures much of what I love about Star Trek while shedding the baggage I didn't love as much. It's a love letter to the place the Star Trek universe holds in our hearts while also being its own creation. Worth watching.

SickBed Movie Marathon

I don't wish for more time to watch TV anymore, because the only way I ever get it is by being sick. Unfortunately, I've had a lot of time for TV this week: sinus infection. Gah!

So here's my sickbed viewing marathon these past few days. I decided I'd watch some things I'd been meaning to watch and hadn't gotten around to yet. I'm an impatient patient, so it's good to be sick in the 21st century, the age of streaming services and digital content!

I started with John Wick. Great fun and perfect for my mood (I hate being sick and would really like to blow some things up instead of blowing my nose). John Wick was a very satisfying flick and more fuel for my theory that Keanu Reeves does his best work when he doesn't talk too much. He's so good at the physical: body and face work. Though, he did pleasantly surprise me with one great angry explosive speech.

The fight scenes were creative and fun to watch. The whole secret society angle of hit-people and other dangerous folk was intriguing, with all the layers of loyalties and betrayal. Adrianne Palicki was a nice surprise for me, as she's not an actress I've been aware before The Orville, and this role as Ms. Perkins is nothing like her Kelly on that show.

I always love the reluctant hero (or antihero) story line, where a person had turned their back on a life and gets pulled back in. It's not a story with a lot of surprises, but it hits every expected beat well.

I was still in the mood for blowing things up after that, so I tried Red 2. I enjoyed the first movie

some years ago, and considered this one worth seeing if only for Helen Mirren. I can take or leave Bruce Willis doing another Bruce Willis type guy, and John Malcovich's character doesn't seem to know if he's the philosophical backbone, or the comic relief. Sometimes he felt more like Doc Brown from the Back to the Future movies than anything else.

But Helen Mirren's Victoria is one of my favorite characters ever. So the movie did not disappoint in that regard. Helen killed in evening wear and army fatigues with equal efficiency and panache, and even as dressed as a lunatic who believed she was the queen. In fact, I'd argue it's worth the whole thing just to see her shooting out both windows of a careening car and then sitting smugly while it all blows up behind them. When I daydream about having movies made of my books, I always cast Helen Mirren.

The movie overall wasn't quite as much fun as the first one, but I guess we'd already done the "coming out of retirement" gig, so this wasn't a bad way to go, and Anthony Hopkins was a delight. I think I'd probably be more critical of it if I felt better, but I'm looking for popcorn, and popcorn is what I got. :-)

After that, I'd had enough explosions for a while. So, I decided to watch Pan's Labyrinth (which turned out to still have some explosions, but they weren't teh point).

I'd heard a lot about Pan's Labyrinth, and most of the things I'd heard panned out (ha!). The puppetry was beautiful and creepy as heck. If all the labyrinth stuff was in this little girl's imagination, as the story certainly leaves room for, she was a child of darkness for sure.

But then again, what other kind of child could she have been given all the tragedy and sadness she'd experienced already? The story doesn't give her age, but I'd guess her at about 11 years old, and she'd already lost her father, seen her mother hook up with a dangerous guy, seen her mother suffer through a life-threatening pregnancy, lived in the scary household of said dangerous guy, connected with members of the resistance, and then seen her mother die.

The other Del Toro movie I remember well is Shape of Water, and there are some similarities in feel between the two films, including the fantasy happy ending representation of what came for our tragic heroine after death.

Definitely on the darker side of fairy tale, bringing to mind other movies like Legend and Labyrinth. So much ambiguity all the time. I couldn't tell whether I should be hoping she'd do what the labyrinthian creatures told her or that she'd discover their lies in time, because it definitely seemed like they were dodgy and playing right into what she wanted to hear. (Which makes sense if they only exist in her imagination). That deep ambiguity was woven through every scene in the real world and the fantasy one and is the main emotion the story evoked in me.

Quite good. I'll watch it again sometime when I don't have a fever.

So, there's the view from my sickbed today. Here's hoping it's a while before I have this much time for movies again!

#30 of 31 Days of Halloween: La Llorona

La Llorona is not a story I grew up with, but one I learned as an adult. She's a creature of Latin American folklore, a ghost or demon who preys on children who wander too far from home or on cheating men, depending on who is telling the story. She's a character in the traditional of The Woman in White, who is also a vengeful ghost seeking retribution for her wrongs or forgiveness for the wrongs she has done.

She's been gaining in popularity here in the United States, making an appearance on an excellent episode of the popular television series Supernatural. 

I love how these stories pull from many of my favorite ghost story elements. How ghosts can be remnants of powerful emotions, like vengeance, or how wandering as a ghost can be a punishment for wrongs, like filicide. Sometimes there's a phantom hitchhiker vibe to the stories, when the woman in white wanders the road, and might wreak horrible revenge on the man who picks her up.

There's a lot of meat to those stories and I end up being sympathetic both to the "monster" and to its victims, which is a place I like a horror story to take me.

#29 of 31 Days of Halloween: Werewolves

Of all of Halloween's creatures, my favorite is probably the werewolf. Cheesy or terrifying, I love the Jekyll and Hyde torment of a good werewolf character.

I don't remember when I didn't now about werewolves as a mythology, so I'm not sure who my first fictional werewolf was. Maybe Eddie Munster? Or Wolfie from the Groovy Ghoulies?

But An American Werewolf in London has remained a favorite film of mine since I first saw it as a teenager. It's the first thing I think of when I think of werewolves.

The special effects were amazing, but what really made it for me were the performances. When the two young men were frightened on the moors, I ran with them in my imagination. David Kessler's disbelief about what was happening to him and fear as he began to believe that maybe he wasn't "just" suffering delusions and hallucinations got me, too. It was also one of the first films I saw that combined the horrific with the comedic, which is a combination that still grabs me when I can find it.

As an old movie buff, I also love The Wolf Man. It's stilted at time, but oh-so-atmospheric and menacing at others. The 2010 update was equally flawed, but spot-on in some ways. I loved the family curse element of that story. Teen Wolf was a movie that I LOVED when I was younger, though I haven't seen it since and still haven't gotten around to watching the more recent TV series.

I loved Oz on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and was grossed out by the transformation portrayals in the first season of Hemlock Grove. Being Human (both versions) was fun, too, for the ways the bitten character tried to cope.

Got a favorite werewolf? Something I should check out? Let me know in the comments!

#28 of 31 Days of Halloween: Spooky Sounds

In so many spooky scenarios, it's the sounds that get you going, make you nervous and edgy. Footsteps echoing in empty spaces. Distant wolves howling. Tiny scritching sounds that might be rats trapped in the walls. Dripping liquid. Creaks and groans of old wood. Wind through dry leaves. Murmuring voices where you think no one is present.



Right up there with shadows, the right kinds of sounds can feed my imagination and let me build up a good case of the heebie jeebies. Combine spooky sounds with other atmospheric details like moonlight and fog and we've got ourselves a setting for a horror story.

One of the advantages movie and television have over print media is the ease with which they can convey sound. Literally, they can make you hear it. It's harder for writers, but when done well, sound can be a very effective way to build tension.

What kind of sounds make you nervous? Got a favorite horror moment when it was the sound that got you? I'd love to hear about in the comments.

#26 of 31 Days of Halloween: Zombies

I didn't grow up on zombie movies like some folks did. My family didn't go in for Romero films and I was still only 14 when the first wave of Zombie films went by. If I had wanted to see them, my parents wouldn't have let me.

But when I re-met the man who would become my second husband, we went to see Dawn of the Dead, (2004) together.

I loved and hated it.

I remember in particular, being really creeped out by the idea of a zombie baby (a pregnant woman had been bitten and was in labor). I had my feet pulled up in the chair with me, I was so sure it was going to be terrifying. Then, the baby came, and it was a zombie. But it was still…cute. I was so relieved!

Since then, I've watched a lot of zombie movies and TV shows. They definitely can make a great catalyst for storytelling, putting characters in survival situations and given them the chance to reveal their true mettle. So many times the real monsters are still human.

Got a favorite zombie story? I'd love to hear about it in the comments.

Summer Viewing

Summer is my window for television viewing. During the school year, I get an hour or so a week of TV time, so it can take me a loooong time to watch something. Especially during the age of Netflixing, I'm so behind on my media consumption!

But in the summer, the living is easy…and gives me a lot more time for television, so I do some catching up.

So, here's what I watched this summer: 

A Series of Unfortunate Events, Season 2: I started watching this one while school was still in, so I finished the rest in a rush in my first few days of vacation. I'm a fan of Neil Patrick Harris as far back as Doogie Howser, though I love him best for Dr. Horrible.

I've enjoyed these books with my children, and this series captures the feel so much better for me than the movie attempt of a few years ago.

Campy, but sincere. Funny, but dry. Intelligent, but silly.

Patrick Warburton's deadpan narration as Lemony Snicket is perfect and the contributions of Joan Cusack, Nathan Fillion, and Lucy Punch have been such fun!

Stranger Things and Beyond Stranger Things (all of it). I had already watched the series (I FOUND extra TV time to make it through the series unspoiled), but my 11 year old daughter really wanted to see it.

I decided it would be best if we watched it together in case it raised questions for her, since it's a little more mature than anything I've let her watch up till now. No hard sacrifice to watch it again on my part. :-)

Of course, she became a hardcore fan, just like her mom. She plans to be El for Halloween this year. We even watched the accompanying interview show and are keeping our fingers crossed that the third season will be just as good when it comes out.

I used this as my excuse to introduce her to some of the material the show riffs on, so we also watched The Goonies, The Lost Boys, It, and ET. Stand by Me is still on the TBW list.  

Grace and Frankie: Season 3 and part of 4. I started watching this one this past spring when I had the flu and spent almost a week in bed. Overall, I really like it, though each episode is quite short and that can make things feel jumpy and disjointed at times.

Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda make a great "Odd Couple" set of roommates and the story offers a lot of poignant and thoughtful moments surrounding issues of aging, even if it does veer into an "afterschool special" sort of feeling from time to time.

It's been like a who's who of actors over 60, and it's been fun to see some actors whose work I know playing something outside their usual. Sam Waterson, Martin Sheen, Peter Gallagher, Craig T. Nelson, Sam Elliot, and Lisa Kudrow, among others have turned in some stellar moments.

Jane the Virgin, Season 4: My older daughter recommended this one to me a year or two ago, and I was happy to see that there were new episodes out on Netflix. It's a little outside my usual watching preferences, but I've come to love the characters, and watching them grow from season to season.

The show has a lot of fun playing with telenovela tropes running rampant through the life of Jane, who would like to be a straightforward, sensible woman, but keeps being thrust into over-the-top dramatic situations. I enjoy the switching between English and Spanish representing the way a lot of folks live their lives in two or more languages (the Spanish is subtitled, if needed), and the universally positive potrayals of family life, even in the middle of hyperbolic turmoil.

I'm especially fond of Rogelio, her father and telenovela star, as portrayed by Jaime Camil, and season 4 gave Abuela Alba so much more to do!

Killjoys, Season 2 (most of it). I'm watching this one with my husband, which means we need two adults available, awake, and in the mood for this show at the same time. So, it'll probably be a few more months till we finish.

We're not thrilled with the going-behind-each-other's back stuff that's going on with the main three right now (feels like false tension for writer convenience instead of anything character based with real motivation), but we still love Dutch and are invested and seeing her win.

We've got no doubt she eventually will.

Wynona Earp, Season 2: Since I loved Lost Girl even when it got really

crazy, Netflix suggested this one to me.

It was right.

I'm a sucker for a good reluctant hero, and Wynona foots the bill. Add some demons, a curse, and a revision of her family history to include the supernatural, and I'm in! The Scooby Gang springing up around our heroine has a lot of fun characters as well.

It doesn't hurt that this version of Doc Holliday played by Tim Rozon is so very charming.

Jessica Jones, Season 1: This is another one my husband and I have been watching together and we finally finished a season. The Marvel-verse on TV is the part I feel the most behind on, and anxious to catch up on.

I still haven't seen all of Daredevil, the rest of Jessica, any of the Punisher, or Luke Cage. I've only just started Agent Carter. They produce this stuff faster than I can watch it!

Not sure if I'm ever going back for Agents of Shield (the character Skye drives me up a wall and even the magnificent Ming-Na Wen can't save the series from her). I saw and was underwhelmed by Iron Fist.

Anne with an "E": All of Season 1 and some of Season 2. This is another recommendation from my daughter. It's interesting that she knew I'd like it, when she doesn't even know Anne of Green Gables. It wasn't one of those childhood classics that grabbed her, like it did me. Little Women, either. She doesn't generally like "period pieces" like I do. But we both love this show.

I read the novels as a child and loved them. Maybe not with the passion that some do, but still, they stuck with me. I LOVE this retelling. It's like someone took this pastoral fantasy and decided to tell it more realistically, with some of the grit and baggage that must come into any life that has involved difficulty.

Anne's relentless optimism plays very differently (and, in my opinion, more powerfully) when framed with more background on the difficulties Anne faced in her life before coming to Green Gables. And AmyBeth McNulty (who plays Anne) is utterly amazing. I hold out hope that the rest will be just as strong.

Wow! That's a lot of TV.

Believe it or not, I still did other things with my summer, too. Writing it all out here, it sounds like I was a total couch potato. But school starts this week, so I'm back on my feet and in the classroom again. Let me know in the comments what I should catch up on next summer!

Yellow Crayons Save the World

I'm re-watching Stranger Things this summer vacation because I loved it and my youngest daughter wanted to watch it. We're at the part where (vaguely describing to keep from spoiling) they're staging an intervention for a character, by telling him all kinds of stories about how much they love him, all their happy memories and even some unhappy ones. Trying to reach the boy within and save him by making him feel.

And it struck me again how much I love this trope.

From Meg Murry who saved Charles Wallace in A Wrinkle in Time by helping him remember that he loves and is loved to Xander Harris who saved evil Willow from Buffy the Vampire Slayer with a yellow crayon story. I eat this stuff up.



Every time I see it. Pow. Right in the feels.

Every brainwashed, possessed, or mind-controlled person who is rescued by the loved ones screaming "I know you're in there somewhere!"

I guess I'm just still that far into the idealistic side of the idealism/cynicism scale that I want to believe that no one is beyond reach, that enough love can rescue a seemingly lost case.

It's not true often enough in real life. But in fiction, heck yeah!

The Joys of Re-Watching

What do you do when you need to let it all go a little while? What shuts off your brain and takes you to a happy place?

A bubble bath? Cuppa? A run? Drawing? A good book? A night of dancing? (had to throw something in there for you extroverts out there)

Me? I'm a comfort TV watcher.

I don't actually watch much TV, though there are plenty of shows I enjoy. Most weeks I'm lucky to fit in a single episode of anything at all--there just isn't that much unscheduled time, and I've got other things to spend it on when it comes. So, I've started watching all the stuff the cool kids watch, and finished almost none of it.

It has taken me as long as three years to watch a single season of a show, especially if I want to watch it *with* someone, because then *both* of us have to be available. It gets to the point where even watching TV, which should be passive escapism, starts to feel like an item on my to-do list, another thing I'm behind on.

So, when I get a chance, I'll go back and pick something I've already watched over and over. Something I know by heart. Buffy. The Quiet Man. The Monkees. Scooby Doo. Old Musicals.

There are a lot of advantages to re-watching something I already love.

• I can follow it, even if I zone out. If I miss something, I can remember it. 
• I notice new things about an old love.
• I get that ratty bathrobe kind of feeling of stepping into something that fits me right and makes me feel cuddled and calm. 
• Sometimes I forget something, and it surprises me again, or hits me differently than it did the other times, because now I'm a mom, or have had my heart broken, or just see things differently now
• If I don't get to finish it, I'm less frustrated. I knew what was coming anyway. 
• If I sucker the husband or the daughters in, I get to share something that's special to me with someone who is special to me. 
• If I get to watch it with someone else who remembers it, too, we can go tripping down nostalgia lane together.

How about you? Any other re-watchers out there? What draws you back to things you've already seen?

Iterations of The Tick

Amazon just released a new version of The Tick for prime viewers and I'm so excited! I had it on my calendar as soon as the release date was announced. SPOOOOOON! (that makes more sense if you know who he is: it's a catch phrase). 

I've been disciplined though, watching the episodes slowly to make them last. No binging this time. I still have one more before I've finished the released episodes.

The Tick is one of my favorite comic superhero characters. I'm not sure when I first discovered him, but I've enjoyed him in comics, as a cartoon hero, and in both live-action TV versions.

If you haven't met him yet, I recommend checking him out. He's big, blue, and nigh-invulnerable. He's also, well…confused, and oddly naive, and more than a little clueless.



He's got that old-school superhero charm, all wholesome goodness from the school of Adam West's television Batman from the 60s, calling people "chum" and "friend" and "citizen" and assuming that they have good intentions. He trusts that right will come out on top, and believes in capital J Justice.

He finds Arthur, a nervous accountant, to partner with in every iteration. In all the versions, Arthur has been a nebbishy sort, sort of hapless, but smart and with a good heart. In this latest version, he's a little more traumatized by his past and dealing with mental health issues, but he's the same old Arthur. The two play off each other for good humor and that kind of heroism where good intentions and luck serve the heroes as well as actual skill and intel might for another pair.

I love dark heroes with tortured pasts as much as the next girl, but there's something refreshing about the Tick's relentless optimism and confidence. I named my van after him. (It's also big, blue, and a little dense).

Unpopular Opinions: Lorelei Gilmore

I'm sure you've all heard that Netflix did a new Gilmore Girls show. I didn't watch the old one when it was on, but thought I should now that people are talking about it again. It's one of those shows that I've heard a lot about. Lots of intelligent women I like and admire enjoy it and I always intended to watch it someday.

So, I've been giving it a go. I'm in Season 2 right now.

I don't quite hate it enough to walk away. I'll still watch more. But I definitely don't love it.

Dialogue: 
People who told me I'd like the show praised the dialogue.

And, yes, there are some cute bits. I tend to like Luke's rants better than Lorelei's. I snorted during a recently-watched episode when Luke went on about how unprepared he was to become the sudden parent figure for his nephew. "I have no patience for jam hands!"

But these bits feel like staged monologues to me, or maybe dialogues when Lorelei and Rory do one together. Kind of like bits by Abbott and Costello, but with less real emotion and more elbowing you to make sure you've noticed how clever they are.

In short, the dialogue is fun, in a plastic, surface-y, insincere way. But it doesn't move me.

Quirk overload:

So, this town is on quirk overload.

I enjoy some good quirky characters. As a younger woman, I was half in love with Chris in the Morning on Northern Exposure, another show set in an imaginary town full of odd people.

But there's too much quirk for me in Stars Hollow. When everyone is bizarre, the bizarre gets boring. You need a straight man for the comedian to play off of. But here, everyone is Groucho Marx and there's no Margaret Dumont.

When I lived in Nome, Alaska, I used to joke that instead of a town drunk, they had me: the town sober. Stars Hollow doesn't have one! Even the curmudgeons are just a different brand of quirky. Thank goodness for the outsider perspective of characters like Dean and Max who can at least see that this place is a few sandwiches short of a picnic.

Lorelei:

And Lorelei is here to out-quirk them all. She's the manic pixie dream girl sent to torture Luke and we're supposed to cheer for them to get together. I'm like, "Luke, Dude, back away from the manic pixie. Those things will eat you alive!"

Lorelei is beloved among the quirk-tastic denizens of this town above all others. I'm waiting to see why. So far, she seems just irresponsible and self-centered to me, only interested in other people to the degree that they are foils for herself. The way she treats Sookie, for example, grates on my nerves. Friendship, dear Lorelei is a two-way street, and you are a terrible friend.

Which leads me to my biggest complaint:

Suspension of Disbelief:

I don't believe this story. I have no trouble watching shows that are patently untrue and feature characters doing things that are physically impossible like flying or running at the speed of light or reading minds or any number of crazy things. But, I have to be able to lose myself in the story, accepting the world around me as real, believe that the characters can do the things they do. And I just don't do that on this show.

The backstory, as I understand it so far is:

Lorelei was a poor little rich girl who didn't want her debutante life. She got pregnant at sixteen, ran away from home, and settled in this tiny town not too far from where her parents lived. She convinced a woman who owned an inn to employ her and give her a place to live with her infant and, over the next sixteen years, worked her way up until she is now running the inn. The child she raised alone while doing all of this is a Mary Sue of a girl with no serious bad habits or scars from her poorly supervised childhood.

I don't buy it.

I don't buy that Lorelei had the gumption to build a life for herself whens she'd been raised a pampered rich girl.

And even if I could buy that, I don't buy that this sixteen year old child had the patience to raise a baby with such care and love, even while working full time to keep them in food and shelter, that they are now so close it's of interest to Freud.

I don't buy that the kid came through unscathed: kindhearted, generous, bookish, ambitious, and of chaste habits.

I've been a single mother. It was only for two years, thank G-d. I was thirty-two. I had the support and help of my parents. I was lucky. And it was still freaking hard! I was exhausted all the time.

Lorelei, as portrayed so far, isn't woman enough to have done all she is supposed to have done.

And if she were, why would she give up so quickly on funding her daughter's education without mommy and daddy's checkbook? Surely Stars Hollow could have funded her with a giant quirky festival that raised the tuition dollars if her independence was that important to her.

Conclusions: 
Gilmore Girls is glib. I value sincerity and deep emotions (in life and in fiction). This show has a pretty surface, but it admires itself too much. While there are some things about it that are refreshing and interesting, After watching 1.5 seasons, I'm afraid I still don't get it.

So what do you think, people of the Internet? Want to help me understand what's so great about this show? Tell me I'm wrong? Agree with me? Please comment below. I'd love to know what you think, too.

Nostalgia Nights: Rewatching Buffy

When my daughter was but a wee thing, and I was in recovery from a yucky medical experience, we watched the Buffy the Vampire Slayer television series together. M was an unusually fierce child, and unfazed by monster makeup (only one monster on it ever scared little her: The Queller Demon). She loved that the main character was a pretty girl who kicked serious butt. She even had a special credits dance that involved a lot of arm flailing and acrobatic leaping. Luckily for her, I do not have video of that dance, but it lives in my memory with all my most joyous visions.

We've been re-watching the series this fall, now that she's all but grown (college in on our near horizon now). In the intervening years, we've watched an episode here and there and memorized the soundtrack to the musical episode, but we've never watched it all again. It's a double nostalgia treat for me, remembering and enjoying again both the series itself and the girls' night bonding of watching it with my girl. We're in Season 2 currently, and plan to watch the whole thing again.

Stuff we love this go round:

• Whedon dialogue. We're especially enjoying all the random musing on words. We're word nerds ourselves, so we also wonder why you can't be gruntled, but you can be disgruntled or if sore thumbs really stick out or why it's the "whole nine yards." Nine yards of what?

• Oz. He's our geeky, fully self-actualized dreamboat. Watching the romance build up with Willow is even better when you already know it's coming. "Who is that girl?" (It's also kind of worse when you already know what's coming after that). 
• The Music: when the show was on, I didn't know most of this music, but now half the songs being played at the Bronze are songs I can sing along with. 
• Cordelia. She's a fuller and more interesting character from the get-go than I previously gave her credit for (even in previous watchings of the show). She doesn't put her head in the sand and pretend there are no monsters. Like any good rich girl, she wants a professional to take care of it for her. Like any independent woman, she also wants to supervise, and might even help sometimes. 
• The clothes. Especially Willow's. 
• Giles. The reveal in season 2 of his history as "Ripper." What a great build and unexpected treat that was!
• The monsters. The insect woman, the bug man, the cowboy Vampire brothers, Ted, Spike and Dru, the Incan Mummy girl, the big tentacled thing with the egg babies . . .and I remember there are still more to come!

Any other Buffy fans out there? What do you love about it? 

Fangirling: Flash, Season 1, Episode 17

Summer is media time for me. I can't really watch TV much during the school year, not and keep up with teaching, mothering and writing. So, I binge in the summer. Netflix is my bud.

I watched all of Stranger Things, two seasons of Penny Dreadful, most of season 6 of The Walking Dead, and half of a season of Jane the Virgin so far this summer. I've also watched a few episodes of The Flash (I'm still in season 1 because the husband and I are trying to watch it together--and he's not got the summer off).

I really want to love The Flash. It's my kind of show. There's so much that is right about it.

Barry Allen (played by Grant Gustin) is perfect. He's youthful without being a child, romantic without being sappy, idealistic without being an idiot, funny without being a clown, and vulnerable without being a wimp. Even when the writing goes all emo on me and Barry is handed loser lines to speak and weak plots, Gustin makes a silk purse out of that sow's ear because he gets the heart of the character.

What I love about the character in this iteration is that, in spite of tragedy and bad luck in his past, he still has heart. He hasn't become bitter or vengeful. Even as he struggles to deal with the mystery of what happened to his mother, he doesn't turn a Batman sort of dark.

I also love Joe West (played by Jesse L. Martin). He's a rare creation in television history: a good father. There's no sign of Mrs. West so far in the story, so he appears to have been doing this alone, at least for a while, and raising an extra foster son with love as well as his own biological daughter. So, a good, black, single dad. Are there any more of those anywhere on television? Even rarer, he seems to have a clue when it comes to parenting adult children.

Harrison Wells (played by Tom Cavanagh) is a complex villain and I love how his contradictory motivations are coming into play. The man who does good things, but has a dark over-riding purpose--and this particular episode (season 1, episode 17) furthers that story and gives us an explanation we've long been lacking, while still leaving mystery.

Cisco (Carolos Valdes) has way more personality than the science guy is usually allowed. And he's a male character allowed to be emotional!

I wish I could love the other characters as much. But the women in this show. Gah! Have these writers ever met a real woman?

Caitlin Snow, science girl (played by Danielle Panabaker) isn't outright offensive, but she's also not very interesting. When it's time for the science support team to act, it's always Cisco's skills that save the day. She's supposed to be a brilliant scientist in her own right, but we never get to see her be one. She's just monitoring and communicating, supporting, but not actively problem solving. She might as well be the secretary in a 1950s show. The best she gets is a little heart to heart talk with Barry from time to time. Even when we brought her long lost back-from-the-dead beau in, they still only gave her an emotional range of "bravely not crying" to "crying."

And Iris. Good G-d, I can't stand Iris West (played by Candice Patton). The writers have done women the world over a disservice in making the object of Barry's affection a selfish woman who toys with the emotions of others. I think I'd like her better if she was aware of her manipulations and doing it on purpose, but no, they don't even give her that. She's not manipulative because she enjoys it or as some kind of power play. It's supposed to be unconscious.

She's so blind to the inner workings of her own heart, that she seems TSTL (too stupid to live). She reminds me a lot of Bella from the shiny vampire series…and I hated her, too. Good people just don't string other people along like that--they confront the feelings or they cut off contact. If I were writing this show, Barry would realize that any number of women would be better for him than Iris and move past his little boy crush for good.

And the way the men in the show (Dad, Barry, and Boyfriend) condescend to her by lying to her and misleading her under the guise of protecting her because they love her…what year is this again? They might as well pat her on the butt and tell her her not to worry her pretty little head about man stuff.

The portrayal of women isn't the only flaw in the show, unfortunately. There are also huge plot holes, all the time. Like, if the Flash just "flashed" he could win the day, but for some reason, he just…doesn't. As a superhero writer myself, I recognize that it must be difficult to write good challenges for a speedster character, but there have been many cases where it felt like the writers phoned in the plot when they were on a bender on a fraternity reunion weekend, ignoring completely obvious solutions to the problem and hoping you wouldn't notice through the haze of relationship drama.

That's why I was so thrilled with Season 1, Episode 17: Tricksters. For once, it felt all right. It was so good! In a show that's all about the breaking of the fourth wall and meta-moment Easter eggs, this episode was amazeballs.

So, first off, we've got Barry's dad, Henry, played by John Wesley Shipp who played the Flash in the 1990s series. He's been there the whole series, but he gets more screen time in this episode to enjoy that meta-goodness. Then, we've got special guest Mark Hamill as The Trickster. Mark Hamill played the Trickster in the 1990s show, too. They even work in footage from that 1990s performance in some stills and showing his costume.

And the very very very best part?

Mark Hamill, in his best villainous whisper, honed from years of voice work in superhero cartoons, references his Star Wars history at the same time by announcing, "I am your father!" I thought my geek heart would burst with joy!



If only all the episodes could be this good! So much potential…so not fully realized.

Fan Girling: Stranger Things

Stranger Things is a new Netflix Original series that I plowed through this week (G-d I love summer vacation!) and there's so much I love about it. Obviously, I'm the target audience. I'm 45, which means I remember the early 1980s setting very well, having spent puberty there myself. I was a huge Stephen King fan during the same time period, and felt at home as soon as I saw the fonts in the title sequence. I'm still a fan of weird tales and all things supernatural in fiction.

This show really delivers. Without getting too spoilery (I'll try to stay relatively spoiler free throughout this article), there's a central mystery involving shady and spooky stuff. There are three groups of people working on the problem, and all of them are ill-equipped in different ways to be the hero the story needs. It was beautiful how the story balanced the three groups: 

The adults: Joyce Byers (played by Winona Ryder) and Jim Hopper (played by David Harbour). They both come to believe in the supernatural explanation pretty easily, but they are both adults easily dismissed by others. Joyce has a history of "anxiety issues" and public hysteria surrounding an ugly marital history. You can see that her position in the town wasn't one of dignity and respect even before she started trying to talk about what was happening in her life. Hop has a history of grief and alcoholism and any strange behavior on his part has people wondering if he fell off the wagon. They're perfect in their unreliability. The "no one will believe us so we're on our own" vibe the story needs. 

The Teenagers: A classic misunderstood loner, nice girl, and popular bro trio. But all of them are deeper and more nuanced than you would have seen in an 80s show. I was pleasantly surprised by the character arc of the "bro" in particular. They come to believe in the big bad a little more slowly, drawn into it by younger siblings (for two of them) and the disappearance of another teenager. Our loner boy, Johnathan Byers (played by Charlie Heaton) wants to protect his mother and step up into a father-protector role that he's not quite ready for. Nancy Wheeler (played by Natalia Dyer) is dismayed when ordinary teen drama about jealousy and who's cheating on who complicates her monster hunting. Steve Harrington (played by Joe Keery) transitions from a boy-who-only-wants-one-thing into someone who admits his wrongs and makes amends, someone who can be a real ally. They add the "we can't just sit here and do nothing" recklessness element. 

The children: Mike Wheeler (played by Finn Wolfhard), Dustin Henderson (played by Gaten Matarazzo), and Lucas Sinclair (played by Caleb McLaughlin) are a group of middle school D&D players, along with their friend Will Byers (played by Noah Schnapp). They are smart, independent, and capable kids, but also imaginative and knowledge (through D&D) about monsters. When Eleven "El" (played by Millie Bobby Brown) comes into their lives, they are the quickest to realize that there's more to her and to the central mystery of the story than it appears on the surface. In classic kid mode, they (like the adults) are sure no one will believe them, so they take matters into their own hands. The scenes where the kids are frantically riding all over town on their bikes following leads and sleuthing are straight out of things like ET and the Goonies in their nostalgia and tension. 

It's only eight episodes, so you don't need too much time to see the whole season, and it ends in a beautiful place, with plenty of possibility for future story, but feeling finished enough that you won't feel frustrated or cliff-hangered. So, if you're looking for a good, tense, spooky summer show, I recommend this one!