of note

[xparrot]

The Buffy musical episode? Totally worth watching the entire rest of the show for. ZOMG LOVE. Funny and cute and touching and awesomely singable. Seriously, Joss Whedon should just be writing musicals. (Okay, so I'm biased, as I love Sondheim and Rent and clearly Joss does, too. But he's very good at them! And horrible soul-crushing angst is so much more entertaining when it's being sung about...)

6th season of Buffy's been all over the place - halfway through it, I think I like it better than s5, but then Willow is suddenly starring in a ridiculous anti-drug PSA (Kids! Don't do magic!) and Giles has left (Noooo~!). OTOH, loving the Spike/Buffy.

And oh man do I love the musical. Especially Spike's song, Giles's song, Buffy's songs (I do wish SMG was a stronger singer, but the songs themselves were great) and of course the preparing-for-battle marching-on-evil ensemble piece, because those are nearly invariably my favorites of any musical and this one doesn't disappoint. Also the plot was hee and it followed through on the character arcs beautifully and really, I'm willing to forgive Joss a lot for it.

Meanwhile Angel season 3 has been...equally all over the place, because the team/family stuff has gotten even more adorable what with Lorne moving in and having a baby around (even if it is a really fake plastic baby sometimes), but the splintering into love triangles is as frustrating as gnine said. It's not even that the triangles themselves are that annoying - well, I'm sorely disappointed to lose Angel & Cordy's platonic friendship (siiiigh) but the Fred/Wesley/Gunn thing so far has been handled with a minimum of angst, which I like. And I do like Fred, she's sweet and fun. But the focus of the show has shifted to accommodate the romance, with the character interactions getting split along pairing lines to the detriment of other relationships. So far the team itself is still strong, but the show is showing more of the pairings and less of the team. Phooey.

But I'm still liking it enough to want to see more. Also River Tam turned up as a Russian ballerina, and before that John Winchester was hunting vampires. Hee!


*wanders off humming "Walk Through the Fire"*

Comments

[rheanna27.livejournal.com]

So far the team itself is still strong, but the show is showing more of the pairings and less of the team. Phooey.

Yeah, that disappointed me at the time. And, like I've said before, I loved and adored the Angel/Cordy platonic friendship, and was sorry when the show veered into romance territory. (It was one of those pairings I loved in fic, but would have been quite happy not to see actually happen in canon).

Season 4 is... well, I can't say too much without spoiling it. Unspoilery personal opinion: it's definitely a step up on the very uneven season 3, and has the strongest season arc AtS ever did, and in particular there's one piece of really fantastic casting/characterisation that adds an awful lot to the show. On the downside, the stuff that I disliked in season 4, I absolutely loathed.

Looking back, the thing I remember most about AtS is that it was a show where they were very prepared to try different things with the format and overall tone from season to season. A lot of that was probably geared at just trying to survive -- as I recall, AtS never got stellar ratings, and there was always a bit of 'will it be renewed?' uncertainty each year, so every new season they seemed to come back with a bunch of new things to try. When it worked, it worked big-time -- season 4 has its flaws, but it's streets ahead of season 1 in its storytelling ambition, and I always admired the AtS creative team for doing that. I mean, I love and adore SGA, but they stuck to the same thing for five years, whereas every season it felt like AtS came back saying, "Okay, now let's try this!"

[sholio]

I mean, I love and adore SGA, but they stuck to the same thing for five years, whereas every season it felt like AtS came back saying, "Okay, now let's try this!"

You know, the funny thing is, I actually felt like SGA did do that -- not to a huge degree, perhaps (I haven't seen AtS except for a few random episodes, so I can't compare them), but there were definitely shifts from season to season in style, tone, and the general fates of the characters ... more so than you tend to get in most non-arc-based shows, anyway. I think part of the apparent staticness of SGA had as much to do with the fandom as the show itself -- the fans definitely latched onto a particular era in the show's history as far as character relationships, cast, and overall style of the show (season two/early season three), and continued to carry that through in fic and meta, whereas the show moved on and did other things.

[astridv.livejournal.com]

I think part of the apparent staticness of SGA had as much to do with the fandom as the show itself -- the fans definitely latched onto a particular era in the show's history as far as character relationships, cast, and overall style of the show (season two/early season three), and continued to carry that through in fic and meta, whereas the show moved on and did other things.

Yeah, I've been thinking that. It's like that fandom was living in a bubble somewhere between season two and three.

But still, the way the Stargate shows evolved over time doesn't compare to AtS. Angel did really quite radical changes both in tone and overall structure, every season has a totally distinctive feel.

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

Yeah - I'm not liking the Angel/Cordy in the show but I think I'd like it in fic. ...or would have liked it; now the show's made me grouchy about the pairing. Some relationships are just better as subtext. (But you've got some gen fics with them, I've seen, which I'm looking forward to! ^^)

Now I am very curious about s4. Which is much better than dreading it! Even if I likely will hate some things about it...

--And following up comments below, I felt myself that SGA actually did attempt to reinvent itself from season to season. Whether it did so successfully is another story...