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Joss Whedon Is Creating a Sci-Fi Drama For Fox
grafikhugh writes "An article on Yahoo! News states that Joss Whedon, the creator of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Angel", is close to closing a deal with Fox. He will create thirteen episodes of a "Anti-Trek" Sci-Fi Drama to be a big player in Fox's fall 2002 line up.
Its seems Whedon wants to avoid aliens as the big bad, and concentrate on making "scary-ass" humans Living in a "Dark Place"." It's also worth noting the IMDB entries for a possible buffy spin-off Ripper and an animated Buffy.
...with Joss's work on Angel, Fray, the animated show and the limited work he does on Buffy (since Marti Noxon does most of it now), how is he going to manage everything?
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
Come on... not to troll or flame, but these shows only have popularity cause of one thing:
Great looking chicks.
Same reason why dawson's creek is popular. Star Trek got the same idea when they lost viewers to voyager. Enterprise has nice "soft porn" scenes. When I think a "SciFi" from the creator of "Buffy" is just gonna make another show with good looking women that bastardizes people like Heinlein.
Maybe he'll prove me wrong? Prolly not...
>He came up with a concept that's part Western,
>part space drama.
Hmm... maybe we will see a return to true space opera(like 1930s sci-fi literature). I would love to see a straight up western transposed into outer space. Space-ships and six-shooters. I've always been intrigued by the crossover of high and low tech.
lysergically yours
I only hope that this will become a real _science_ fiction thing with some action... not a pseudo-science space-soap like Star Trek.
Is a series filming in England about the character "Rupert Giles." Ripper was his nickname as a teen. The series is supposedly about his years growing up and training to be a watcher..
It's been long discussed on alt.tv.buffy-the-vampire-slayer.
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
Scarier than Janet Reno in Latex?
Is there a way to mod me down for breaking the mental image rule?
-- Two men say they're Jesus. One of them must be wrong. - Dire Straits
- Sarah Michelle Geller is likely to be cast as an alien, as
the obligatory 7-of-9 clone.
- Wil Wheaton, in an effort to rescue his foundering career, will
probably be one of the main characters. He will work for cheap and he's
easily recognizable, so why not?
- David Duchovney will probably also have many guest appearances,
although keeping him on full-time will probably put the show waaaay over
budget.
- Ryan Phillippe will probably be the token pretty-boy character,
because, well, that's just what he does best.
There were many other names mentioned, of course, but these seemed to be the most credible.Bill
With SMG playing Velma (IIRC) in the live action Scooby Doo (Am I the only one that finds the thought of a live action Scooby more frightening than Evil Angel?) will the cartoon Buffy look like Velma? Will it have a drug addicted dog?
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He seems to be a one-trick pony, like Stone/Parker (I like South Park; but Basketball? That Bush show? Hell, even Orgasmo, which I know does have a cult following.....all crap IMO).
Everyone moaned (both in a good and bad way) about "Enterprises" scantly clad vulcan woman, and her "soft porn" rubdown scene... Imagine what Joss will do with scifi & women!
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
Well, I loved the first three seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but after that he and the other writers just seemed to run out of ideas - it got really repetetive and just lost its charm.
One of the biggest things that drew me to Buffy as opposed to other "sci-fi" shows was the real life appeal it had, it tended with issues I (as a teenager) faced while mixing in the mystery of the occult.
It sounds to me like he'll follow the same lead in this series and I'm gonna definitely check it out.
Also, Buffy was hot *wink* *wink*
We wave the flag of freedom as we conquer and invade.
On TNN - Star Trek: The Next Generation
On UPN - Star Trek: Voyager
On FOX - Star Trek: Panties in Space
Is not life a hundred times too short for us to bore ourselves? -Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
They tried that... Wild Wild West. 'nuf said.
"Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
if Sarah gets naked
Fuck you, taco hell!
From the article...
Whedon said ``Firefly'' would in some ways be a sort of ``anti-'Star Trek''' with no regular aliens or other monstrous creatures.
Thats one thing I always hated about Star Trek, the aliens ruined every episode. Let's all hope this show has alot more personal dialog and relationship storylines.
Seriously though, why no aliens or monstrous creatures? Maybe the TV studios want more person-to-person relationship storylines, romance, and more of a drama rather than adventure nowdays.
I Heart Sorting Networks
Some of us are trying to eat lunch!
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Admittedly, I've never seen Buffy or Angel, or whatever those shows are, but I'm not sure I can ever forgive this guy for Alien Resurrection. Alien 3 pretty much destroyed an otherwise excellent series and then it was followed by something that could have set the series back on track but instead was just ... well, most of us saw what it was.
Yech.
Wonder if this has anything to do with the difficulties that the new Battlestar Galactica production is having with Fox.
> Tentatively titled ``Firefly,'' the new
> ensemble series takes place 500 years in the
> future and revolves around the crew of a
> "small, incredibly mobile spaceship whose aft
> end lights up", Whedon said -- hence the name.
For god's sake! you would think that a TV network would be able to afford to employ someone just to stop people from doing things like this!
i mean, come on:
"Well we don't have a name yet, but the little model we built had an LED in it's ass, let's see if we can work that into it somewhere..."
lysergically yours
Hey, at least our names rhyme...imagine the Project Mayhem we could pull on the set...
How 'bout it, Joss?
If Star Trek and Anti-Trek attempt to occupy the same time slot, do they both vanish in a brilliant flash of light?
You can get a job as a Red Shirt?
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sit through crappy theme music (enterprise), I'll watch it. I can see it now.....Green aliens with horns, aliens with big teeth, aliens with personality complexes, aliens with secret love affairs, aliens that die and come back to life on other networks.
true, but it's possible to make a bad movie in any genre. Even from a good story.
look at spaceship troopers.
lysergically yours
Doesn't sound like anything I've ever seen on tv before . I'm amazed by this guy's ingenuity.
will they stick with the gravity generator style of space ships, as in Space Trek,....or will they have lack of gravity.
I expect the ships will have gravity, as the production hassles of faking lack of gravity would be costly.
would be a great way to finish up the fox episodes. In my local newspaper, about 1 month ago, also with advertisements on Dish and public TV, there was a Buffy the Vampire Slayer musical being formed. At the verry second ,I questioned myself on the basis of 1)will they advertise Microsoft X-Box in this musical, and 2)is there a god?
I hope Joss makes an Anti-Buffy musical, lord willing.
without prejudice
I don't understand why a more cyberpunkish series set here on earth a la Neuromancer wouldn't be a better, cooler, "darker" (whatever) concept. Suppose Fox already has this , but its kind of, well, cut-rate.
Has anyone heard much of the 20 hour mini-series called 'Taken'?
They have a $50 Million budget, and apparantly it revolves around abduction stories beginning in 1947...
The only reason I know anything about this is that they spent a week filming at my house in North Vancouver.
Still #1 -- Lonely Gay Geek
Good or bad, what has his record doing non-SF have to do with whether or not he can put together an interesting SF series? Does he know how incredibly short the list is of non-SF writers who have failed miserably when they tried to write science fiction? (Almost as difficult as it is to go from SF into mainstream.)
Can he do SF? Won't know until he tries. He hasn't done it so far, but then most of the "SciFi" billed stuff on TV and movies isn't SF either. I hope he remembers that success with Buffy doesn't automatically translate into success in other genres: I think it helps the creativity when the hounds and jackels are only half a step behind... Fear is a terrific motivator, sometimes.
Prediction: lousy SF, possibly profitable typical Hollywood "SciFi" crap. Cha-ching and he'll go off to do something that takes a bit less effort.
Why, with credits like those two spectacular shows, and with a target station of such unequaled reputation like Fox, I can't imagine that this would be anything but unadulterated television brilliance. Truly.
The coolest voice ever.
And I would watch "Baywatch the Musical" if it came out ;)
Get a clue! It's one of the funniest shows on TV.
And as odd as the story is, the characters are more believable the your average(or even good) show.
Actually the story of a person who purchases CD audio disks and converts them to MP3 files. In the TV show he is pursued by a team of operatives from a sinister organization known as the R.I.A.A.
[Insert pithy quote here]
I am trying to finalize my machine that takes corn from TV and produces actual stone groun corn for my eventual consumption. (obviously I don't plan on just eating corn meal) So far, my initial tests have shown that Buffy and Angel have produced far FAR more corn than just about anything in the past 10 years. The problem is not the shows, but it would seem that I encounter a buffer overflow (literally) in my device simply because it just can not handle the over abundance of corn waves eminating from the TV on most episodes. I have some rather funny moments however, when especially corny situations arise and the machine just explodes converting my living room into a grain silo filled 7 feet with corn meal. Usually this happens any time one of the comical looking and horribly silly demons shows its face(s). I am figuring that some day, there will be this cute red demon with goat legs and a horn-tail, complete with pitch fork and goatee. If I could only stabalize my device before then, imagine what the output could do for world hunger!
There is a Buffy comic book series already, as well as one called 'Fray' which is pretty similar. Ripper has been in the works for some time (this is why Giles left BTVS this season).
No one does good vs evil better than Joss Whedon, IMHO.
Not only Linux came from Finland.
He came up with a concept that's part Western, part space drama.
It might be worth remembering that Roddenbery originally pitched the first Star Trek to the studio as "Wagon Train to the Stars".
. . . treated as an opportunity do things that would be prohibitively expensive in live action. Keep the interesting interrelationships and characters but also bring in more fantastic storylines. Heck, maybe even have vampires that fly.
I saw that all the time on Dr. Who.
For some reason they all wore rubber suits and hissed or growled.
Jonathan
Joss Whedon is the antithesis of all this. Not that he's any great literary genius. He just makes up ordinary, low-brow stories. But he hates hackwork, and he hates repeating himself. Most of all, he hates cliches.
You can see this in his biggest success, Buffy. The premise makes no sense at all, except as a kind of anti-cliche. It takes the biggest horror cliche of all, the helpless, clueless, personality-deficient teenage bimbo, and turns it on its head. Critics love to talk about how Buffy keeps "raising the bar", with ever stranger and more suprising stories and chracters. But really all that's happening is Whedon telling his writers, over and over, "No, we did that already."
So is good news, not just for TV SF, but for the whole genre. As bad as the idea-deficient Hollywood SF writers are, they're easier to take than all those bloated-epic writers who think that a clever idea is all you need. Somebody needs to teach all these people the basics of good storytelling, and Whedon is just the person to do it.
``There'll be scary-ass humans,'' he said. ``I can make people that are scarier than anything you can put in latex.'' --Joss W
What the Hell is this guy talking about? I say get Charisma Carpenter, Sarah Michelle Gellar and
Alyson Hannigan in latex and have them make-out for a half hour every week.
CC as Wonder Woman
SMG as Cat Woman
AH as Batgirl
I'm watching that show right now... in my head... ohhh soo nice... latex... mmmmm
This
How do you know her name is Kathryn Thurber??
"``It's wicked Joss-like,'' Fox Entertainment president Gail Berman said of Whedon's latest concept. ``It's not like any show set in space that I've ever seen.''"
:-)
Ok, so either
A: This guy hasn't seen much
B: The series is going to suck
There are only so many movies you can create about space and still say it is doing something new, I seriously dought this will be any good, regardless, this guy's resume speaks for itself.
Or maybe I'm getting old, I grew up with Buck Rogers, Battle Star Galactica, Star Blazers and Robotech. Everything today seems a bit silly by comparison. Except Babylon 5 that is
He came up with a concept that's part Western, part space drama.
Now there's an original concept. (groan)
And the universe is a big, scary place just like high school.
So the villian is going to be called Vice Principal?
Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon
I guess the musical episode could be interesting, though...
The man certainly can manipulate the visual medium(s). While I'm not a fan of the Buffy series, I know many who are entranced by it. I thought I'd give his first foray into comics a try and I've been very pleased with the story, the visual composition (paneling, etc...), and the quality of art (kudos to the artist).
There have been 5 issues released so far (I just read #5 last night). He's got great pacing per issue as well as across a whole storyline. His characters are intriguing and complex and he uses relationships well.
If you like Whedon's story telling via video, you should check out this book.
This took me a whole five minutes to find.
Rob malda's GF's website & pic at the bottom
-Dead Fart Warrior
Man, sounds like he's got still got 'issues' with high school.
Let's stick with the current Bush administration, ok?
"There ought to be limits to freedom"
The show is a success because of great plot writing and actual character development. If the "Great looking chicks" argument held water for Sci-Fi, then we'd all be talking about how excelent Dark Angel is (GAG!).
*** Sigs are a stupid waste of bandwidth.
Ok guys, enough is enough. There's plenty of comments on the Buffy show lately. I think we can all drop the act.
You know what I mean. We're not watching it for any sci-fi or horror reasons. It's obvious.
Buffy will date freaks.
And the lesbians don't hurt either
Buffy the Vampire Slayer...might as well be called Fluffy the Vampire Slayer. It's hard to take a show with such a silly premise, and a hottie like SMG as the main character, seriously.
But seriously you should take it because Buffy has got some of the best damned writing on TV today, and it keeps getting better.
Joss isn't just churning out the class-A stories, he's delving into new and exciting territory. While other shows consider themself to be forward thinking by including five seconds of girl-girl kissing, Buffy features a deep well developed relationship between Tara and Willow. This season's musical epsiode features exceptional music, vocals, and choreography. It was a total diversion from the standard Buffy format, it was incredibly good, and it leaves the viewer wondering what kind of genious could create something so different, so wonderful, and for just one episode.
Joss.
The man is a genious.
Hopefully he won't have to throw in an angst-ridden geek character for Slashdot readers to appreciate the brilliance that is Joss.
---
I support spreading santorum
I thought this was supposed to be a dark show. Fireflies are cute, not scary.
If they have to name after the fact that its ass lights up (unlike every other ship out there?) how about giving it a scary name?
Something like FLAMING MONKEY BUTT. Normally abbreviated to FMB unless they have a late time slot.
... actually, since that's often a sign of sexual arousal and a red light has long been a symbol of cathouses for the same reason, this would be a good theme for a show following a band of itinerant whores. But that would make it a cable show, something for Cinemax or maybe Showtime (when Wormhole X-treme's run ends).
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
That's funny, I thought there already was an animated buffy
Isn't Devil Hunter Yoko what the show was based on anyway?
It was called Millennium.
Tentatively titled ``Firefly,'' the new ensemble series takes place 500 years in the future and revolves around the crew of a ``small, incredibly mobile spaceship whose aft end lights up,'' Whedon said -- hence the name.
Anyone else smell a rip off?
Seriously though, I really liked this show. The FIRST time I saw it, when it was called RED DWARF!! And the ship was STARBUG, not f#^#$'n FIREFLY, and it was 3 million years in the future and not 500. And the dark place was a nebula full of GELFS!!
- insert witty line here
Remember the hype for Harsh Realm a few years ago? Fox ran the premiere once on a Friday night. Monday morning they decided to cancel it due to low ratings. They ran the second episode that week then the series vanished.
How is somebody like Whedon supposed to do any better? It took Whedon, like Carter, several years on a "second-class TV network" before their work grew beyond a cult following.
I'm sceptical such a thing will be allowed time to grow on Fox.
Anybody seen "The Tick" after the first 2 or 3 episodes? I didn't think so.
Am I the only one who is completely sick of unbelievable heroin pseudo hero's? Buffy sucks, the movie sucked and the series sucks even worse. Angel sucks. Take one beautiful babe, put a barcode on her neck, do some trick photo kicks and you've got a series. bla!
..but that's just me and I'm just right.
I know women need role models and that's fine but why do they have to try and reach everybody between the age of 16 and 80, male or female?
Don't you remember Dukes of Hazard and Charlies Angels? Separate the male/female fantasies and you're in business. Try to blend them together and you get Star Trek Voyager. Need I say more?
I will say more. I think it all started with Laura Croft.
- Sidog
"you are a beautiful.. beautiful butterfly"
That sounds like Jonathan Creek, another BBC show. Sorta a cross between Penn & Teller and Columbo. (The hero, JC, is the guy behind a well-known magician. After hooking up with an author sent to profile the magician, they investigate "paranormal" events and write them up as a series of well-selling books.)
The series is highly regarded in the usual Anglophilic PBS circles, but I've found it takes several viewings to figure out what's going on. The problem is the language, not the plot. In a BritCom it rarely matters if you miss the subtle points of an off-handed comment, but in a mystery series those are usually the key clues!
It's possible that Ripper covers the same ground, but the synopsis is so close that it's inevitable that at least some people will confuse the two series unless they've seen both.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
You got a beef, spell it out! Don't hide behind pansy-ass sarcasm. You wanna rag on Fox or the shows, do it, but at least have the guts to be specific.
Joseph Michael Straczynski.
If there were more epic stories like Babylon 5 on TV, it would actually be worth watching.
Actually, Farscape and Stargate SG-1 aren't too bad, either. Sure, there are plenty of real bad sci-fi shows, but this are all on the Big 5 (NBC/ABC/CBS/FOX/UPN), where corporate marketting reigns. On the channels that don't have to rely on people with B&W TVs using an attenna to get their sitcoms, they have enough intelligence to find shows based on good stories, and not a short-term big-hit injection (ie: good pilots, bad episodes) to get their finacial high.
Series like Babylon 5 and Farscape survive because it's a good long-term story that lasts a long time (and gets people hooked for a good amount of Nelson cash flow), and the channels that host them are willing to let them go past their 13 episodes, even if they aren't suddenly the #1 show in the universe. (The main corporates just won't settle for anything less, anymore. If you don't believe me, just look at UPNs first season, where they canned EVERY SINGLE SHOW except for their Voyager cash cow.)
Zodiac Survey
A rather bold request for an Anonymous Coward...
The coolest voice ever.
Angel is a spin off of Buffy. It's a darker, more angst-filled show and well worth watching. (not that BtVS isn't, mind you)
The mere fact that you've confused the shows means that you haven't watched it and should not criticize it.
Psykechan
Having listened to Joss at a con, he's a pretty cool, with-it kind of guy. Call the production office, let him know you want to work with him.
And good luck.
It's tough out there.
Before a couple of weeks ago, I never had seen the original BtVS movie. Before October, I'd never watched a single episode of the series. It just sounded stupid, and I thought that it was some dumb teen-chick show like Charmed.
Then, a few months ago, FX started airing back-to-back episodes of Buffy, and I happened to watch a couple of hours of it. I was completely amazed at how good it was, and mortified that I haven't been watching it over the years.
Thanks to my VCR, though, I'm almost all caught up. It's an excellent series, and the only scifi show I've ever seen that can so consistently give me a good laugh from the clever dialogue (in addition to when Spike makes some dread proclamation of doom, then proceeds to get zapped or falls into an open grave.)
Excellent stuff.
Why are you letting these clowns ruin our country?
There's also Recycled Roddenbery, the failed media mogul, who was responsible for a stream of half-baked TV and movie projects, none of which would have seen the light of day without his reputation as the "creator" of you-know-what.
But you're probably thinking of Soapbox Roddenbery, who wrote lots of preachy TV scripts, and aspired to become a producer, and thought "Wagon Train Goes to Mars" (better known as Star Trek) would make his reputation as such. He's widely credited with bringing "hard" SF to television, but that's bogus -- he just employed the people who did.
Gag. Straczynski scripts are full of clumsy exposition and dialogue worthy of a badly-dubbed kung-fu movie. His stories are so corny..., oh well, bring on the flames.
I'm tempted to ask why they didn't bring in Wesley to get Voyager home. He was the expert on Going Real Fast, after all. But I won't ask. I suspect an honest answer would get you sued!
Whatever. B5 is to Buffy what a fine French resteraunt is to McDonalds. But then, some people do so love their junk food. . . .
...when it was called 'Dark Angel'! :p
though Jessica Alba is still one of the hottest girls on television.
props to David Spade for biting his style.
As for Buffy, you speak from ignorance. A better analogy would be one of those storefront ethnic restaurants that you're afraid to try, but which turns out to be pretty good, once you get used to the strange flavors.
Hey now, I like Wesley Crusher...
I always wanted to like him. The idea of a space explorers who took their families along was one of the few things I really like about TNG. Pity the writers didn't know what to do with it.
And liver....
Yum, drool. Never understood why nobody likes it. Alas, instant arterial block.
and cow's brains
Too salty for me! But have you tried tongue?
and Anne from "Weakest Link"
Oh Jeez, the things Hollywood does to avoid hiring actual writers and actors...
Buying on DVD is more cost-effective -- unfortunately, Buffy DVDs get released for the UK zone long before they get released for the US -- if they have even been released for the US DVD zone yet. The first season of Angel was also just released on DVD. Try the UK version of Amazon.com.
Season 4 started off weak and got worse, but Season 5 picked up again and contained some of the best episodes to date. In particular, the introduction of Dawn gave the series a whole new focus.
:)
I've only seen the first few episodes of Season 6 so far, but it's a strong start.
So if you ran screaming during Season 4 (and I don't really blame you) you can come back now, it's safe.
Enterprise = anti-trek.
.... 20 minutes!)
'nuff said.
though perhaps my opinion isn't worth a damn because I stopped watching that putrid shit after the second episode (ooh! goodie! lets learn a language in
BTW, who is going to top Buffy? (Oh.. fuck they found a place for Britney Spears, tho that might not be that bad...)
1q2w3e4r5t6y7u8i9o0pqawsedrftgthyjukilo;p'azsxdcf
Ultimately, Whedon said, the new show will have the same moral center as ``Buffy'' and its ``Angel'' spinoff: ``Life is hard. People are good when they want to be. And the universe is a big, scary place just like high school.''
Yeah, but what about the hot pants?
I mean, I ain't going to watch anything like that unless it has space chicks in hot pants. After all, they gotta be hotter and carry bigger guns than Aeryn Sun, and still avoid being cheezy. I see a grim prognosis on this one. Farscape is still some of the best writing around. Space is "just like high school"... hmmmmm.
Good Luck! You're going to need it.
He is bitchin' all the way to the bank about these movies... so if he has a prob with the way that Hollywood does him, then he needs to get out. Geeeez. He can't have it both ways, y'know, big time writer and not prostituted by the studios.
It is the price you pay for fame. If you think that sincerity is big in Hollywood, you need to see press junket talk in an Electronic Press Kit for a dog movie. Get used to getting exploited. Expect a big smile with the director of Ishtar saying, "this movie is the best I have ever done!"
Also, he was responsible for the basic ideas in Alien Ressurection, so that whole "dialog by actors" crap he is spewing about others destroying the movie is doo-doo. The concepts in Alien Resurrection were horrible... and no matter how he spins it, he is directly responsible for that. Mutant-Alien Sigourney Weaver. That is the worst idea ever.
Please. Even X-men was a direct comic rip... and not a whole new script. It looks almost shot for shot to specific comic scenes that I can remember. Take credit for that.
He is bitchin' all the way to the bank about these movies... so if he has a prob with the way that Hollywood does him, then he needs to get out. Geeeez. He can't have it both ways, y'know, big time writer and not prostituted by the studios.
Actually, I'm pretty sure he has quit Hollywood entirely, and is only working for TV now. In TV, the writer is king.
And it sucked. big time.
The only reason it lasted at all was 'cause it was popular with SUV buyers.
Its already the Anti-Trek.
You have no idea how wrong you are... I used to think that too before I watched the show. I even felt slightly dirty for tuning in to it. That quickly was replaced by stunned fascination for the storys, characters and humor. It's the best show on TV, burdened by a silly name and a small network.
Most the fans are female. I went to a small Buffy convention recently, and found myself to be the only guy of 16 participants.
You mean Babylon 5?
;)
Already been done.
Buffy and Angel. Heh. They're only popular for teh same reasons Baywatch is popular.
And let me tell you - it isn't the 'great plot'.
Blakes 7 was most definitely anti-trek, with the totalitarian empire of the Federation having its symbol as Trek Federation symbol on its side. The great writing, some good acting and some good characters made up for a low budget. Can you imagine a dialogue like this between heroes in any current American SF series:
"I'm in front, I should have the gun"
"No, I've got the gun, that's why you're in front"
And perhaps this is due to Whedon's shifting attention, but ...
... I'm someone who enjoys a good wallow in misery sometimes, but ultimately tv is about entertainment.
IMHO, Buffy has fallen into the same trap that the X-Files did. Both shows used to be bitingly funny--even though there were deep dark moments (especially in Buffy), there were always enough off-handed humorous remarks so that the shows weren't truly depressing week after week. The beauty was that in the same episode where Angel turned evil and tortured Giles (and etc.), there were still lines that made me laugh out loud. However, in the past season or two (and a bit longer for the X-Files), it's as if the writers have been trying far too hard to make a point or develop plot or something
And, of course, "Angel" has fallen prey to the baby-trap that killed off "Mad About You."
Hey! I agree with you in that Alien 4 was pretty much... crap. But Alien 3 was great! I've always thought that what makes that series so good is that each is a different genre (Alien - terror, Aliens - action, Alien 3 - suspense/drama), and each is very good in its own right (well, except for the fourth one with that hideous mammal alien thingie)
Overcaffeinated. Angry geeks.
I'm not quite sure who would win in a fight though. Lucy Lawless is quite butch as Xena, but Buffy has super-powers, while Xena is just well-trained.
;*)
;) So I have to speak up. Don't listen if you don't want to. I know I'm wrong, and I know I'm right too.
IMHO, Spider-man would butcher them both.. at the same time! He's got this spider-sense you see, and that makes it impossible to surprise him. I even saw him take The Incredible Hulk once. Now THAT's a feat! Of course, he had a little luck too..
Xena, Babylon 5, Charmed, Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, Stargate, Enterprise, Voyager, X-files... How can you stand it? Don't you read books or play with your computers?? Don't you see this entertainment as dope to the masses? Don't you fancy taking the red pill, wake up and get a life, instead using the TV as an excuse to not live life. All these series are the same quality as those your mothers are indulging: Semi-real/fictious documentaries about rape, child-swapping and molestation, drug-abuse, sickness and death. They feed you what you crave. You crave without knowing how to deal with desire and fear. And so it continues without ever being resolved. Then you die and wonder what life was all about.
I can't tell _you_ what life is all about, but I would recommend turning off the TV and seek out things you don't want to do - what you avoid.
I wouldn't speak up, if it wasn't for the pure low-quality of these series. It's perfectly okay to watch now and then, but if you follow each episode eagerly, THAT's disturbing!
- Your Neighbourly Concerned AC
Ever watched Classic Trek?
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Region 1 Buffy season 1 DVDs are due to be released sometime in spring 2002 in the states. By which time UK, Europe & Australia will be up to season 4 of Buffy & season 2 of Angel.
Karma: Shitty (mostly due to American moderators)
I guess I shouldn't dredge this back up, but the number one reason that I didn't like Alien 3 was because it didn't stay faithful to Aliens at all. Hicks and Newt dying in the first five minutes of Alien 3? Ripley dying in the last five minutes? It completely nullified Aliens. All that running and fighting and trying to get away from LV-426 ended up being for nothing. Hey, if the people who played Hicks and Newt don't want to or can't come back to play them again, that's fine. Find some way around it, I'm not upset that they weren't in this movie. Just that killing everyone off makes a really great movie (Aliens) a complete waste of time as far as the storyline goes.
You're right, it is funnier if Wil is the Security Goon. I see it now, Wil the Security Goon shoots Annoying Teenager, looks behind styrofoam rock, says "AAArgh!".
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"bastardizes people like Heinlein.
AC is implying that Heinlien's work isn't sullied with sexy, bright, scantily clad women like they are in Whedon's stories.
Maybe if he read any of Heinlein's books, AC would know that sex was part of his work.
- Stranger in a strange land - everything goes! Orgies, cults, multiple marriages, gay and straight sex.
- Friday - Strong, beautiful, scantily clad female lead. Threesomes, multiple partners, homosexual references.
- The cat who walks through walls - Orgies, multiple marriages, gay and straight sex.
This is only a partial list - most of his books included some sex. Heinlein wasn't afraid to recognize that the sexuality of his female characters didn't weaken or exploit them. It made them more human, just like Whedon's characters.Also, "good" science can quickly turn to "bad" science, because science is always changing. But that doesn't turn good SF to bad SF. Much of Heinlein's best work is set in a solar system populated by ancient Martians and swamp-dwelling Venusians. The idea that Mars and Venus are habitable has been debunked for decades, but books like Podkayne of Mars and Between Planets are still read -- and still considered "hard" SF. This comes from the structure and integrity of Heinlein's work, not from the specific science he employed.
The 60s Star Trek series had some sense of this. Roddenbery deserves some credit for this, though not nearly as much as his fans (worshippers?) like to give him. And once GR left the scene, there was no hope of preserving any kind of discipline or structure to the concept. Indeed, Rick Berman and his cohorts seem unusually contemptuous of this sort of concern, even by Hollywood standards.