Community, Once Upon a Time, and Other Random TV -Related Updates...
So I've spent the last few days marathoning Community like crazy and I'm finally all caught up! I loved it, only wish I discovered this gem earlier. My thoughts:
I love the way it plays with genre and references TV and movies (especially through Abed), and just how creative and clever the stories and writing are most of the time. It's one of the rare shows that makes me literally laugh out loud, and the paintball epps are some of the most epic and brilliant things I've ever witnessed (especially the season 2 ones)! <333 I also love the characters, and the adorable bromance between Troy and Abed. It was nice to finally understand the context of all the clips and gifs I've seen of this show before, lol (especially during all the Troy campaigning in FMM last year).
Contrary to popular opinion it seems, I actually thought season 1 was the weakest season so far--it definitely started off very slowly in the first half, and I don't think there were many truly great/brilliant episodes until the very end--whereas season 2 had a lot more fantastic and clever epps that were instant favorites for me. The one area where I do agree it's gone downhill since season 1 are in the characterizations and some of the relationships, particularly where Britta is concerned. I'm really getting sick of the whole "Britta is the worst!"/"Everyone hates Britta!" schtick, it's not funny and it's sad/very undeserved. Britta has such a good heart most of the time, trying to help other people and holding good intentions (whether it's trying to help Abed find a new show to fill the void of Cougartown or offer all of her money to make Troy's hero stay longer, etc), and is so very far from "the worst" (Pierce is obviously in that category for starters, and probably Jeff too before Britta). If you can't tell, I really love Britta. So I wish they'd lay off of that, and also make Pierce less horrible (he was not as awful in season 1, more pitiable) and tone down Chang and the Dean's crazy a little (or more so in the former case). And relationship-wise, my OTP (not counting the brOTP of T/A) is Jeff/Britta, whereas I'm not a big fan of the Jeff/Annie thing, IDK...(I realize they're playing with conventions, etc, but still).
BUT anyway, overall I love the show, and I desperately hope it comes back, it's too good to go yet! ;_; (And I also really don't want it to end on that Christmas epp...:/ Though at least it was better than the claymation Christmas epp in season 2, which was just awkward and painful to get through, aside from a few moments like the Lost burn). Seriously, I am not much of a comedy person, generally, and outside of SDoaCG this is the first comedy (and show on NBC) I've followed since Seinfeld. *prayer circle* Some of my favorite episodes are (in airing order):
Beginner Pottery, Modern Warfare, Accounting for Lawers, Basic Rocket Science, Epidemiology (omg this one KILLED me), Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, Paradigms of Memory, A Fistfull of Paintballs, For a Few Paintballs More, Remedial Chaos Theory, and Horror Fiction in Seven Spooky Steps.
And finally, some of my favorite lines (Jeff, Troy, and Abed definitely get the best ones, and Troy gets the best reactions):
Coach Bogner: Jeff Winger, shouldn’t you be at an Urban Outfitters?
Jeff: I’ll go there later if I feel like it.
Jeff: Why six hours? Are they hosting the Oscars?
Chang: Damn! And the winner for best adapted Oscar burn, Jeff Winger, for “Oh Snap! The man who went there!”
(As an Oscar fan I especially appreciated this last one...:p)
Abed: Troy, make me proud. Be the first black man to make it to the end. (I choked on my soda at this one)
Troy: Me and Abed have an agreement. If one of us dies, we stage it to look like a suicide caused by the unjust cancellation of Firefly. We’re gonna get that show back on the air buddy!
Troy: Set phasers to love me!
I need to go find more gifs, knowing what they mean now...;)
+ Today I also finally caught up on Once Upon a Time just in time for its return this Sunday! :) A few thoughts on this show as well...
I have to say, I'm not quite as in love with this show as many people seem to be, but I find it intriguing/entertaining enough...I find the Fairy Land flashbacks 500x more interesting than any of the Storybrook RL bits though--both from a backstory standpoint and just in terms of interesting storylines. And shallow as it is, NGL I really prefer Snow's long hair to the pixie cut! She looks so much more beautiful with the long hair, IMO, and IDK the pixie cut just bothers me, I've never been much of a fan...though I suppose the haircut fits her less sassy, more mousy elementary schoolteacher persona....*shrug*
But yeah, the fairty-tale bits are my favorite parts of the show, and my favorite storyline within that is the Snow/James one, which surprised me by being a lot more awesome and Ever After-esque than I was expecting! I love how they first meet and begin to fall for one another, and love the whole "I will always find you" (and its different layers of meaning as time goes on) schtick; reminds me a bit now of Georgina/Seth in the Succubus books, in terms of them being drawn to one another in different lifetimes. It's too bad that things are stalled right now for them in the IRL segments. I look forward to seeing more flashbacks of them showing how they ended up marrying from where we left off--especially how James got out of marrying Midas' daughter. I also look forward to more Snow backstory period, particularly what secret she betrayed that resulted in the death of the Evil Queen's beloved--it's an intriguing mystery and angle, and I wonder how long they'll spin that one out before the reveal...
In terms of the negative, I'm also not totally sold on Emma yet, she strikes me as very bland most of the time, IDK. Though at least she's better than the kid--omg, how annoying and grating is that kid, I sure wish they'd cast someone of the caliber of Colin Ford in the role! O_o I also find Regina kind of irritating at times during the RL segments, in that her storyline (and dialogue period) seems very repetitive: "Stay away from my kid! Stay away from my kid! Leave town now! I'm in charge, don't mess with me! I know what's best for my son...you are not his mother!", etc. Again, I like everyone more in Fairy Tale Land, except maybe for Rumpelstiltskin, since he's obviously less gross/grimy in the RL realm, lol. I love him too loads, he's so perfect at being creepy and sinister and mysterious all at once--I wonder about his motives, for instance, whether he wants Emma to win or not to fulfill his prophecy, what he gave the curse to the Evil Queen in exchange for (same for Henry), and what he will ask Emma for in the future (man was that a stupid bargain to accept!). What he'd do with the kids too...I also want to see him and Crowley have a King of the Crossroads Deal-Off now. :p
I was sadly spoiled on the Graham thing from this multi-ship fanvid for the Mitchell/Annie (spoilers for Misfits and DA too), so that did not come as a surprise, though it's a shame since his character had become very interesting all of a sudden, and I will miss his hot self and even sexier accent...:( Oh well...overall though again, I am enjoying this show to be sure, and am eager to see it return this upcoming Sunday! It can be very cute and clever the way it interweaves fairytales into Storybrook (like Red Riding Hood, lol), and some of the new takes on the tales as with Snow and Cinderella. I look forward to seeing what new tales might arise and how they'll be interpreted and come across in the real world...
+ For those of you who are Cesare/Lucrezia fans, there is a commentfic meme going on right now over at cesare_lucrezia, check it out!
+ This is random, but I also was stamped as Morgana in a recent merlin_land challenge, and feel honored! <3 ;) Still need to finish season 4 of Merlin...
+ I saw The Adventures of TinTin last night, and while visually stunning, it was one of the excruciatingly boring, interminable 2 hours of my life...:/ I think sadly it's one of those things you have to be a fan of already to really appreciate (unless you are a kid). Another Moffat gutter-ball for me.
I love the way it plays with genre and references TV and movies (especially through Abed), and just how creative and clever the stories and writing are most of the time. It's one of the rare shows that makes me literally laugh out loud, and the paintball epps are some of the most epic and brilliant things I've ever witnessed (especially the season 2 ones)! <333 I also love the characters, and the adorable bromance between Troy and Abed. It was nice to finally understand the context of all the clips and gifs I've seen of this show before, lol (especially during all the Troy campaigning in FMM last year).
Contrary to popular opinion it seems, I actually thought season 1 was the weakest season so far--it definitely started off very slowly in the first half, and I don't think there were many truly great/brilliant episodes until the very end--whereas season 2 had a lot more fantastic and clever epps that were instant favorites for me. The one area where I do agree it's gone downhill since season 1 are in the characterizations and some of the relationships, particularly where Britta is concerned. I'm really getting sick of the whole "Britta is the worst!"/"Everyone hates Britta!" schtick, it's not funny and it's sad/very undeserved. Britta has such a good heart most of the time, trying to help other people and holding good intentions (whether it's trying to help Abed find a new show to fill the void of Cougartown or offer all of her money to make Troy's hero stay longer, etc), and is so very far from "the worst" (Pierce is obviously in that category for starters, and probably Jeff too before Britta). If you can't tell, I really love Britta. So I wish they'd lay off of that, and also make Pierce less horrible (he was not as awful in season 1, more pitiable) and tone down Chang and the Dean's crazy a little (or more so in the former case). And relationship-wise, my OTP (not counting the brOTP of T/A) is Jeff/Britta, whereas I'm not a big fan of the Jeff/Annie thing, IDK...(I realize they're playing with conventions, etc, but still).
BUT anyway, overall I love the show, and I desperately hope it comes back, it's too good to go yet! ;_; (And I also really don't want it to end on that Christmas epp...:/ Though at least it was better than the claymation Christmas epp in season 2, which was just awkward and painful to get through, aside from a few moments like the Lost burn). Seriously, I am not much of a comedy person, generally, and outside of SDoaCG this is the first comedy (and show on NBC) I've followed since Seinfeld. *prayer circle* Some of my favorite episodes are (in airing order):
Beginner Pottery, Modern Warfare, Accounting for Lawers, Basic Rocket Science, Epidemiology (omg this one KILLED me), Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, Paradigms of Memory, A Fistfull of Paintballs, For a Few Paintballs More, Remedial Chaos Theory, and Horror Fiction in Seven Spooky Steps.
And finally, some of my favorite lines (Jeff, Troy, and Abed definitely get the best ones, and Troy gets the best reactions):
Coach Bogner: Jeff Winger, shouldn’t you be at an Urban Outfitters?
Jeff: I’ll go there later if I feel like it.
Jeff: Why six hours? Are they hosting the Oscars?
Chang: Damn! And the winner for best adapted Oscar burn, Jeff Winger, for “Oh Snap! The man who went there!”
(As an Oscar fan I especially appreciated this last one...:p)
Abed: Troy, make me proud. Be the first black man to make it to the end. (I choked on my soda at this one)
Troy: Me and Abed have an agreement. If one of us dies, we stage it to look like a suicide caused by the unjust cancellation of Firefly. We’re gonna get that show back on the air buddy!
Troy: Set phasers to love me!
I need to go find more gifs, knowing what they mean now...;)
+ Today I also finally caught up on Once Upon a Time just in time for its return this Sunday! :) A few thoughts on this show as well...
I have to say, I'm not quite as in love with this show as many people seem to be, but I find it intriguing/entertaining enough...I find the Fairy Land flashbacks 500x more interesting than any of the Storybrook RL bits though--both from a backstory standpoint and just in terms of interesting storylines. And shallow as it is, NGL I really prefer Snow's long hair to the pixie cut! She looks so much more beautiful with the long hair, IMO, and IDK the pixie cut just bothers me, I've never been much of a fan...though I suppose the haircut fits her less sassy, more mousy elementary schoolteacher persona....*shrug*
But yeah, the fairty-tale bits are my favorite parts of the show, and my favorite storyline within that is the Snow/James one, which surprised me by being a lot more awesome and Ever After-esque than I was expecting! I love how they first meet and begin to fall for one another, and love the whole "I will always find you" (and its different layers of meaning as time goes on) schtick; reminds me a bit now of Georgina/Seth in the Succubus books, in terms of them being drawn to one another in different lifetimes. It's too bad that things are stalled right now for them in the IRL segments. I look forward to seeing more flashbacks of them showing how they ended up marrying from where we left off--especially how James got out of marrying Midas' daughter. I also look forward to more Snow backstory period, particularly what secret she betrayed that resulted in the death of the Evil Queen's beloved--it's an intriguing mystery and angle, and I wonder how long they'll spin that one out before the reveal...
In terms of the negative, I'm also not totally sold on Emma yet, she strikes me as very bland most of the time, IDK. Though at least she's better than the kid--omg, how annoying and grating is that kid, I sure wish they'd cast someone of the caliber of Colin Ford in the role! O_o I also find Regina kind of irritating at times during the RL segments, in that her storyline (and dialogue period) seems very repetitive: "Stay away from my kid! Stay away from my kid! Leave town now! I'm in charge, don't mess with me! I know what's best for my son...you are not his mother!", etc. Again, I like everyone more in Fairy Tale Land, except maybe for Rumpelstiltskin, since he's obviously less gross/grimy in the RL realm, lol. I love him too loads, he's so perfect at being creepy and sinister and mysterious all at once--I wonder about his motives, for instance, whether he wants Emma to win or not to fulfill his prophecy, what he gave the curse to the Evil Queen in exchange for (same for Henry), and what he will ask Emma for in the future (man was that a stupid bargain to accept!). What he'd do with the kids too...I also want to see him and Crowley have a King of the Crossroads Deal-Off now. :p
I was sadly spoiled on the Graham thing from this multi-ship fanvid for the Mitchell/Annie (spoilers for Misfits and DA too), so that did not come as a surprise, though it's a shame since his character had become very interesting all of a sudden, and I will miss his hot self and even sexier accent...:( Oh well...overall though again, I am enjoying this show to be sure, and am eager to see it return this upcoming Sunday! It can be very cute and clever the way it interweaves fairytales into Storybrook (like Red Riding Hood, lol), and some of the new takes on the tales as with Snow and Cinderella. I look forward to seeing what new tales might arise and how they'll be interpreted and come across in the real world...
+ For those of you who are Cesare/Lucrezia fans, there is a commentfic meme going on right now over at cesare_lucrezia, check it out!
+ This is random, but I also was stamped as Morgana in a recent merlin_land challenge, and feel honored! <3 ;) Still need to finish season 4 of Merlin...
+ I saw The Adventures of TinTin last night, and while visually stunning, it was one of the excruciatingly boring, interminable 2 hours of my life...:/ I think sadly it's one of those things you have to be a fan of already to really appreciate (unless you are a kid). Another Moffat gutter-ball for me.