Watching The CW

I’ve been watching through all seven seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer - yet again - and I realized a few things. I started watching in May and I’ve seen all 144 episodes (actually 145, cause I watched the unaired pilot, too) in just a few weeks, and I’ve come to the conclusion that we aren’t meant to watch too many eps in one day. Also, I learned something else.

Joss Whedon hates us. No, I mean it, he really, really hates us. He likes to smack us around, and rip our hearts out (with a spoon so it hurts more) and leave us bruised and bleeding on the ground. Then he likes to kick us in the head, just for fun. Like he’s an abusive boyfriend, and we keep going back for more.

Honestly, I think the great part of Joss’s appeal is his ability to really connect. To evoke feelings, good or bad, in all of us. He hates us and yet we love him. Joss can make us happy, sad, frightened, lonely, miserable, or, you know, feel like singing.

The reason I came to this conclusion, is cause while watching Season 6, the depressing, sex-filled season, I watched a string of shows, pretty much all within a day, that nearly made me suicidal.

The first ep (number 15 of the season) is “As You Were,” in which Riley comes back to Sunnydale to enlist Buffy’s help. Except, now he’s married to a wonderful woman and very happy. Buffy is working at a burger joint and has a cow on her hat. Plus, she’s sleeping with Spike. I never liked Riley that much, but it was hard to see him come back like that. It was also hard to see Buffy tell Spike she didn’t love him and never would.

The next ep is “Hell’s Bells.” Xander leaves Anya at the altar. It was just gut wrenchingly awful. I almost couldn’t believe it the first time I saw it. It still hurts to watch.

Then there’s “Normal Again,” where Buffy hallucinates between Sunnydale with her friends and being locked up in institution, except her parents are alive. She has quite a choice to make between which world she wants to be the “real” world. She tries to kill Dawn and all her friends. Plus, she cries a lot. Talk about depressing.

Following that are “Entropy” and “Seeing Red.” Anya tries to exact vengeance on Xander (that part is a little lighter), but then ends up seeking solace with Spike, and everyone sees them, hurting both Xander and Buffy. Then Spike tries to force Buffy to say she loves him and attempts to rape her. Also, Warren shoots Buffy and Tara, killing Tara.

Of course, then Willow turns evil and things really get bad.

So you see how I came to this conclusion and now, we never have to worry about feeling too cheerful ever again. Just watch Season 6.

By the way, if you’re interested in all things Joss Whedon, come on over to my other blog at FanaticSpace.com

I’m sitting here today watching a marathon of back to back episodes of Firefly on SciFi. How do I love this show, let me count the ways. It always makes me cry when I think of all the stuff that could have happened, all the questions I would have liked answered, all the things I wanted to learn about the characters as time went on. It makes me hate Fox more and more, as well. It’s so sad when a show with this much potential just isn’t given enough of a chance. Tears did come to my eyes, more than once, as I watched a particular scene, one I’d probably seen close to a dozen times before, but that still has the power to move.

I loved all these characters. I mean, really, really loved them. Also, I was in love with them, which is vastly different and much more intense. Like, I wanted to have their babies. You know what I mean? Dong ma? I even love that ship. It was as much a character on the show as the actors. There’s not another man anywhere like Malcolm Reynolds, or Jayne Cobb, for that matter. There aren’t other people on TV today that are as perfectly right as Kaylee, River, Simon, Zoe, Wash, Book and Inara. There’s no other ship as alive and real as Serenity. I just miss this show so much. Today was great, cause I was home and could just sit here, for the most part, able to watch and enjoy.

If you haven’t seen this show yet, you have to. I mean it. Right now. Go get the DVDs. Also, you need to find these actors and watch whatever they are doing now. They deserve it. They, along with the most wonderful and mighty Joss Whedon, gave us 15 hours of amazing television and a lovely, lovely movie, Serenity, to boot.

“Take my love, take my land, take me where I cannot stand. I don’t care I’m still free, you can’t take the sky from me. Take me out to the black, tell them I ain’t coming back. Burn the land and boil the sea, you can’t take the sky from me. There’s no place I can be since I found Serenity, you can’t take the sky from me.”

I didn’t know about the snogging.

I’m not surprised or anything, I just didn’t know. The first episode of the second season of Torchwood was interesting to say the least. And to a rabid Whedon fan like me, it held lots of fun little moments. Maybe they didn’t even realize it, but I caught lots of stuff.

Even my husband noticed when James Marsters’ character, Captain John Hart, told Jack he needed a blond on his crew. Was this a veiled reference to Buffy? Probably. In another scene, Captain Hart knocks out Gwen with a kiss from his poisoned lip gloss. Much like Saffron did to Mal in the episode “Our Mrs. Reynolds” on Firefly. Plus, Jack and John were stuck in a time loop once.

There were other little things just like that, but I don’t want to ruin them all. You really need to watch the episode for yourself and see how many you can count. Oh, there was also a Star Wars reference that made me clap my hands in glee (cause I’m a total geek). In one scene, Jon Hart leaves a voice mail message for Jack. When Jack plays the message its a hologram, very reminiscent of the Princess Leia message in R2D2 for Obi-Wan. I’m watching it, thinking it’s just like that, when John Hart ends his message to Jack, “Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope” and then he sorta looks back over his shoulder. See, there was glee.

James, of course, was awesome as usual. His character on Torchwood had bit of Spike, which was fun, but was also his own person. Charming, yet evil. Just the kind of person who you end up trusting in spite of yourself and then, of course, realize you shouldn’t have. I really loved it. I like that they ended the episode with the chance that John Hart might be back, too.

I just didn’t know about the snogging.

Torchwood, James Marsters, Joss Whedon, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly, Star Wars

The Sarah Connor Chronicles started last night. Yay for Terminator! I’m a big fan of the movies. (Well, the first two, anyway. I didn’t care for the third one that much.) In any case, I was looking forward this this show for a couple of reasons. Not just the fact that it was Terminator, but also because it stars Summer Glau, from Firefly and Serenity. And if anyone cares, she was also in one ep of Angel. I actually thought she was gonna be Sarah Connor, and I was a little disappointed when I found out she wasn’t, but turns out, she’s the Terminator. And that’s even more fun.

I wasn’t home last night, so I DVRed (is it just me, or does is bother anyone else, just a little, the way we all just take nouns and turn them into verbs these days?) the first installment of the two-part premiere. The second half is on tonight at 9 pm on Fox. I watched part of it last night and the rest this morning and it was good. I did have a little issue, though. There was some sports thingy (maybe a football game) on earlier that must have run over, cause it messed up my DVR. Well, I think that was it, cause it taped like 2 minutes, then stopped, then 2 minutes, then stopped, then 2 minutes, then stopped. So there were like all these pieces of show. It did, however, have three big pieces amongst the rubble of small ones, and I was able to see the entire show. It just took a little effort.

I’m looking forward to seeing the rest of it tonight (hopefully, in one big piece) and in seeing where it goes from here. There were a couple of things I’m not sure I’m buying, but we’ll see. I’ve learned from dealing with Joss, that you should keep quiet when things don’t make sense immediately, cause it might all get cleared up in time.

Here’s a really great recap from EW.com that says lots of the stuff I would have said if I had thought of it first.

Terminator, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Summer Glau, Joss Whedon, Firefly, Serenity, Angel

So I’ve been wracking my brain to find a way to make this blog about the CW when I haven’t seen anything new on the CW in about a month. So, here goes.

Last night we decided to watch a movie on our new TV (I’ll probably stop talking about it eventually) and we chose Serenity. I just got the collector’s edition for Christmas and I was really interested to see how it would be on the big screen with surround sound. (Awesome, btw).

So the way I got here? Serenity was the movie version of Firefly (which aired on Fox, so that was no help) written and produced by Joss Whedon, who was also the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer which was on both the WB and UPN, which joined together to make the CW. See? See how I did that? I used to like to do that on the Serenity movie site, as well. The six degrees of Joss Whedon. I think that stuff is a lot of fun, but only if I have the time to sit around and randomly web surf. Which I just don’t.

My husband has just recently taken to counting the number of times I use the word “random” each day. So far the count is - several.

Back to Serenity. If you haven’t seen it, you should. (You should actually see all 15 episodes of the series, Firefly, and then see the movie, cause it will make it all that much better.) I saw that Serenity is On Demand right now, too. I think on Starz. It’s really such a great movie. I cry and I laugh at the same stuff every single time I watch it. And I’ve seen it many times. Don’t ask me to count.

I also cry every time when I think how incredible it is and how much I love that gorram ship and its shiny crew and now they are just gone, gone, gone. Do you think Joss will ever do another movie? I’d watch it.

(Just so you know, we are having a little problem with comments. If you comment and it doesn’t show up right away, not to worry. I’ll try to make sure they get approved as soon as possible.)

the CW, Serenity, Firefly, Joss Whedon, Buffy the Vampire Slayer