It's completely telling of how messed up my priorities are that this is the most exciting thing I've heard all week, but I was talking with an old colleague about TV (she loves Battlestar Galactica but wishes Stargate Atlantis would take a long walk out a short airlock) when I mention that I still have all four original episodes of Wonderfalls on my TiVo, and that I even lovingly transferred them to my new TiVo when I gave away my old one.

She makes my day when she tells me that Wonderfalls is out on DVD (to Rachel's credit, Rachel told me only a few days ago that they'd probably come out with it, but I figured they'd never release a show with less of a fanbase than Firefly and only four aired episodes). BUT...

What made my week is that there are not only unaired episodes, there are NINE unaired episodes! They had a full 13 ep season and shelved more than two thirds of it! Now, thanks to the wonder of Amazon Prime (I'll have a writeup about that soon as well, to be sure) I'll have it in my hands tomorrow. I think it's time to put together a TV night once a week where we can watch an episode or two of Wonderfalls, and make the joy last for a month or two.

I realize though that not everyone shares my love for all things of Tim Minear and Niagra, so I don't expect everyone to be shouting from the rooftops, but if you do hear a voice drifting from dell to dell this evening, it might just be me.

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For your filkification: Once More, With Hobbits.

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Following WB's suprise announcement that this is Angel's last season, Joss posted the following on the Bronze Board. It looks like he's as surprised as anyone, and more dismayed than most.

joss says:
(Sat Feb 14 22:31:16 2004)

Some of you may have heard the hilarious news. I thought this would be a good time to weigh in. to answer some obvious questions: No, we had no idea this was coming. Yes, we will finish out the season. No, I don't think the WB is doing the right thing.

Yes, I'm grateful they did it early enough for my people to find other jobs.

Yes, my heart is breaking.

When Buffy ended, I was tapped out and ready to send it off. When Firefly got the axe, I went into a state of denial so huge it may very well cause a movie. But Angel... we really were starting to feel like we were on top, hitting our stride -- and then we strode right into the Pit of Snakes 'n' Lava.

I'm so into these characters, these actors, the situations we're building... you wanna know how I feel? Watch the first act of "The Body."

As far as TV movies or whatever, I'm not thinking that far ahead. I actually hope my actors and writers are all too busy. We always planned this season finale to be a great capper to the season and the show in general. (And a great platform for a new season, of course.) We'll proceed ahead as planned.

I've never made mainstream TV very well. I like surprises, and TV isn't about surprises, unless the surprise is who gets voted off of something. I've been lucky to sneak this strange, strange show over the airwaves for as long as I have. I don't FEEL lucky, but I understand that I am.

Thanks all for your support, your community, and your perfectly sane devotion. It's meant a lot. I regret nothing (except the string of grisley murders in the 80's -- what was THAT all about?) Remember the words of the poet:

"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the road less traveled by and they CANCELLED MY FRIKKIN' SHOW. I totally shoulda took the road that had all those people on it. Damn."

See you soon.

-j.

Damn.

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Heaping praise on Joss and David Boreanaz, WB has nevertheless cancelled Angel, at the end of this season, with no clear reason as to why.

The world has ended: For the first time in 8 years, Joss will not have a series on the air.

Yet I'd still trade Angel for Firefly any day of the week... At least he'll have more time to work on the movie(s).

On an entirely unrelated note: I wonder if Joss and Baz have ever worked on a project together? I can only imagine.

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Ammy, Rick, Ali, Mark and Ray are all over for Thanksgiving/Christmas dinner. Amidst stories of cars and road trips, I mentioned that I decided to transfer the GRR ARG license plate for the new car, and the naming began.

Fantasizing and lamenting about the Kayley-Anara sex scenes that start in Anara's boudoir and end up on Kayley's steamy engine room floor, and the proper order of episode presentation to those who have never seen the show, Mark named my car "Reaver," irrevocably and perfectly.

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So as I wrote and was wondering about where my car was in the space-time continuum (or rather, the part of the ST continuum that's closest to me in time), it was indeed chugging across the Atlantic ocean. It's built. Complete. It's coming to America.

December 8th (+- a few days) is the day! It'll be so hard getting it on a Monday when I'll have to wait all week to just drive and drive. But then maybe I can take it to Plough.

Which brings me to Mutant, my beloved Honda Civic. I've got to sell her, much as I love her. Bobbi the dashboard hula dancer is optional, but I hope they both find a good home.

And the license plate. I still need to replace the front plate but then I need to decide whether to keep the plate with Mutant (because what's a mutant without a "GRR ARG"?) and get a new personalized plate for the Prius, because my Prius is red, and not as mutant-like or enemy-ish.

What plate might I get instead? Well, 'GRR ARG' was pretty obscure for the uninitiated, but it was at least parsable as a phrase. My leading frontrunner for personalized Prius plates is '10E100'.

Too geeky? Is too geeky better in this case?

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It's official! As of this morning, Amazon is taking confirmed preorders on the full series of Joss Whedon's Firefly on DVD.

Release date is December 9th. I'm making an evite now for a Firefly party the following weekend.

Woot!

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Wow. The last episode of Buffy... And that wasn't even the biggest change in my life yesterday.

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Boy for a series that never received widespread acclaim there sure are a lot of Buffy farewell stories in the press today.

I know where I'll be at 8pm Eastern (5 Pacific. Nyah, nyah!). Sniff.

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Facing dim potential for an animated series or a spinoff with Faith, Joss Whedon speaks about closure and his 7 year Buffy experience.

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Walked out of my house a few minutes ago, popped in my iPod's headphones, started the random shuffle (someone should name their band 'random shuffle'... Or their blog...) and strode through the cemetery to the bus stop on the other side.

'Going through the motions' from Buffy OMWF came on as I walked through the grass between century-old tombstones. It was as perfect as a month ago when 'Rest in Peace' came on while I walked home through 2am moonlight.

Last night I decided today would be a creative rebirth, and this was a good start. I feel goth on the outside and plur on the inside. Scary.

Joining the spirit of unfettered writing, my iPod has apparently decided to do away with friction. Now my little jog dial will spin and spin until I deliberately stop it.

After kvetching to Benjy last night about how the latest firmware update fixed my iPod's battery problems, now I may have a replacement reason to take a closer look at the new iPods to be announced next Monday.

Mmmmm... Commerce...

[blogged from the sidekick, on the bus to school]

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Okay, now that we're rid of those people who haven't lifted Buffy off their TiVo or VCR yet, let me just say:

Oh my freakin' god: Malcolm Reynolds as the Ultimate Agent of the Ultimate Evil???

That, and: "It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye. Then it's just the apocalypse."

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From the 'didn't we know that already?' dept, CNN confirms that people connected to the show say that Gellar told Joss that she's leaving after this season. So now we have our definitive(??) answer.

The high point from the blurb was:

"Her departure also likely means "Buffy," at least in its current incarnation, will wrap in May, something that's also not much of a shocker, given the show's apocalyptic storylines this season."

Yeah, and the folks that taught us that the plural of 'apocalypse' is 'apocali' have never seen that before....

Apparently the fate of the show is still up in the air: Will it continue with a new Slayer? Will it be rebranded as a spinoff after the absence of the title character?

The only question that doesn't get much ink is whether Angel will continue on next season. It might, or it might not. No big diff. The paperclip of Angel's tortured life broke long ago.

Me, I'm secretly hoping for a crossover spinoff from Buffy and Enterprise, where a new slayer named Gargravarr rises up in The Fray's post-slayer universe, and travels by starship from world to world to (and this part's key) alphabetically insult, and then slay, every demon in the known universe.

Things get interesting in the series's two-hour pilot (which happens to also be it's season finale) when she crosses paths with, and consequently teams up with, Malcolm Reynolds and crew. The finale (aired in week two) centers around a final confrontation with the Big Bad: the mysterious yet ugly Reavers.

If only TiVo made new shows based on the ones I like...

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I'm glad I'm not the only one who takes the tagline too far.

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Yes, scary but apparently true, Allison and Alexis are engaged.

Sounds like a soap opera marriage...

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So after being put on hiatus by Fox, the news is now that Firefly has been cancelled. Despite the fact that they will still be running next week's new two-hour episode, which is actually the original pilot, it seems that the first shall be last, and Friday will be Firefly's last huzzah at Fox.

While things don't look good, there's still the possibility that UPN, WB, or one of a handful of cable stations (SciFi and FX come to mind) might make a bid to pick the series up. Nobody was saying it's a bad show, just that the ratings aren't up to the standards Fox has set for that time slot.

If you've watched the show and liked it, then I heartily recommend contributing to the letter-writing campaign targeting UPN and suggesting they be a suitor to take over the show.

While I don't think anyone is expecting verbosity on a postcard, here's my letter:

While so much new TV gravitates to the lowest (and widest) common denominator, Firefly represents a new calibre of show that has keen intelligence and great depth, while still remaining highly accessible and viscerally pleasurable to the larger audiences.

It saddens me that Fox has given the show such short shrift, but it is my hope that UPN will recognize this as an opportunity to add another jewel to its crown.

Please consider acquiring Firefly, the smartest and most promising new show of the last two years.

Sincerely, Kevin Fox, 29, San Francisco

Here's hoping...

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Idle thought for the day, watching a TiVoed Buffy episode from last season (the one where buffy turns invisible): At first glance, it seems that characters in the buffyverse can easily hop the fence from good to evil, or evil to good, and back again, but thinking about it more, it's more complicated. There seem to be three clear states: Good, evil, and amoral.

Willow, Anya, Spike, Jonathan and Angel, of the top of my head, all waffled between good and not-good, but the ways they did so fall into two distinct groups: those who caused destruction and pain for its own sake, and those who simply ditched their moral compass to get what they wanted.

Bad Angel is evil, but bad Spike is amoral. The primary difference being that the amoral will on occasion help the side of good, because they don't find it distasteful; they don't care much either way, but when doing good gets in the way of getting what they want they'll jump ship.

Anya's a weird case. In the beginning (of her appearance on the show) she was evil. Bad for bad's sake. Then she became indifferently good. Call it amoral, but in a position where being good helped her get what she wanted (Xander, the Magic Box, friends). Later she went back to vengeance, but this wasn't an attitude shift. She was still amoral, only now she could better serve her own internal needs for an identity by doing bad things. Though she was friends with Halfreck, she wasn't as close as she had been to Hally or the others before, because she wasn't evil anymore, just amoral. It was her distaste for evil-for-evil's sake, masked by a facade of righteous vengenace, that led to her eventual repentance.

Jonathan's pretty much the same way. He's always been an idealist, but his insecurities drive him to amoral behavior because it got him the attention he wanted (the one where he's in the clock tower with the rifle, then "Superstar," and later with the Trio). His inner struggle was swaying to good to the point that he moved beyond his own insecurities, but too late.

Warren, evil. 'Nuff said. Andrew, amoral. Ditto.

Evil Willow is kind of a conundrum. I don't think that she actually sought out evil, but it's easy to make it seem that way when her desire was so focused that she would do anything to achieve it. I'd still call it amoral. After all, she wanted to end the world because she felt its suffering and wanted it to stop, not because she wanted to kill everyone. Vamp Willow I think was also amoral, but that's a trickier subject.

Spike, chip or no chip, is amoral. The very fact that his love for Buffy makes him soulful, even without a soul, shows that however well greased his moral compass may be, it always points to what Spike wants. Give him a new loadstone and it's as good as giving him a soul, or taking it away.

Just some thoughts I wanted to share to possibly spark discussion. I forget if there are other characters straddling Nietzsche's fence... Of course there's the supervillans: Adam: amoral, Glory: amoral, Master: evil, First Evil: um, probably evil, Mayor: quintessentially amoral, despite his standards... Anyone else?

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So I know I've mentioned before on here that I live across the street from a cemetery, but those bare words don't do it justice. In the same way that Californians naively refer to 60-year-old buildings as 'old', most of use are used to nice neat cemeteries in nice neat rows; plots marked with plaques or short headstones following a common style guide: anonymity in all but the literal sense.

That's why places like the Black Diamond Mine cemetery, a true 'grave yard' is so nifty; the placement of the plots, and the headstones themselves tell far more about the character of a person, (or the people they left behind), than a bronze plaque could convey.

Come to think of it, I want my URL on my headstone.

Buffy was here.
(no, I didn't do it)

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Taking 'Dummies' a step further, they now have a book on that subset of the Dummies population that considers themselves a dummy amongst his peers, or a 'Dummy's Dummy' if you will.

At least, thats what I think of when I see Mp3 for Dummies (For Dummies). Heck, they even lowercased the p in MP3, and capitalized the second For.

Still, things could be worse... (from the same publisher, I have to point out the hilarious Data Structures & Algorithm Analysis in Java by Sarah Michelle Geller. I want that book. I bet the exercises would be more fun, though I'd probably get annoyed every third page when she says "and this part had lots of gnar, so I asked Willow to do it."

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Spoiler Warning: If you haven't seen this week's Buffy and plan to, then read no further!

Okay, now for the rest of you... If you did watch Buffy, and you enjoyed it as much as I did, (and there really was so much to enjoy this week!) and you were geek enough to download the Once More With Feeling mp3s floating around last November, and buy the OMWF Soundtrack this month, then you're probably lusting for Selfless's two OMWF bonus tracks.

You know I think too much, and I don't really know how Joss would feel about posting the MP3s but, since the're taken straight off the airwave broadcast, hopefully UPN and Mutant Enemy won't mind too much (note to Joss: Look how much I love your work). Just promise that, if and when these tracks are available commercially, you'll buy the album, just like we all bought OMWF when it came out.

He Got the Mustard In.mp3

I'll Be Missus.mp3

Oh, and if you want to link to these files, please link to this post, instead of directly to the files.

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So for those of you who have been watching Firefly, I feel your withdrawl pains this week as it's preempted by Major League Baseball (though I can't mind TOO much, as the Giants look to be headed to the World Series). For those of you who haven't watched Firefly yet: you really, really should.

So, in lieu of watching tonight's (non-existant) Firefly, I recommend visiting the Official Firefly Website. Like verything Joss touches, this is pretty remarkable. It's far more than just a cast gallery, episode guide, and screensaver distribution point.

Of course it has all that stuff, but the high point is that they really let you in to the production process, showing the life-cycle of episodes, from initial script drafts to special effect comp quicktimes, to changelogs, and more.

The high point is a weblog maintained by Kelly, one of the production assistants (yes, a real person). The whole thing really has the buy-in from the cast and crew, and they're smart enough to realize that letting devotees behind the curtain is vital for the initial kick the show will need to make it through the difficult first season.

So go check it out, have fun, root for the Giants while muttering under your breath that two weeks is too long to go without a joss fix, then guiltily remember that Angel is on Sunday, and Buffy is on Tuesday, so there's always some joss around the corner...

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So the Buffy premiere was last night, and naturally I have to post about it.

The episode seems pretty self-explanatory, except for the end, but I'll just take this chance to say again: Spike's human now. He's lost the vampy pallor, and you don't try to claw into your chest to get a soul out.

Last season finale, Spike asked the demon to "make me like I was," meaning, before the chip was implanted in his head. He wants this "to give Buffy what's coming to her."

So the demon gives him back his soul and instantly he's knocked unconscious, end of episode, end of season.

Only Spike was never a vampire with a soul. That's not making him like he was, and it certainly isn't what will give Buffy what's coming to her: Is another tortured love-affair with a look-don't-touch-fragile vampire with a side of soul what anyone thinks Buffy deserves?

Nope. Spike's human, no two ways about it. I mean really, what is a vampire Spike with a soul? Pretty much the same as the vampire Spike we've seen these last two semesters: tortured, not all bad, and in love. Add a soul with only dubious distinctions from the soul-on-chip he already has and you have a rehash of both first and last seasons, this time with extra apathy. No. This is something new. It also sets up the inevitable Spike/Halfrek romance we all know is coming...

All in all a reasonably good ep. I've got to say I must be pretty addicted to this show, because at the end, with the shifting evil, each incarnation sent a new and different shiver down my spine. I do have to say though that Bad Angel should have been one of the incarnations (Hello? Second Season? Finale?)

Still, a good start. I'm not quite sure why, but I was really struck by how perfect Adam's makeup was.

Oh, and a word about Firefly: Loved it, great potential, clearly a middle-of-season non-arc episode thrown in to lead the show off, but entertaining nonetheless. Watching it for the second time last night, I have two bits to add:

First, way to go on the universe layout. I didn't catch it at first, but the Firefly-verse takes place all in a single solar system, but one that happens to have hundreds of planets, some naturally beautiful, others terraformed. This finally does away with the whole warp-drive problem, weird aliens everywhere you turn, and space-time anomalies. An efficient reaction drive and great energy source could create a ship that's reasonably good at interplanetary travel. The only suspension of disbelief here is the luck in finding a solar system that has such a plethora of planets. I can live with that.

Basically, this is a middle-step between 'in-home-system' sets (like Heinlein's belter books, 2001, etc.), and the 'every star is nearby' space-jockey universes (Star Trek, Star Wars, B5, and almost everything else). It's got good potential.

Second, 'Hook', Niska's enforcer, mysteriously lost his heavy German accent and turned white-trash/stick-jock at the end. What's up with that?

Okay. Done now. All you Non-Joss folk can come back now...

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So hey, looks like Buffy didn't get any Emmy nominations. Bummer...

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There's being snubbed, and then there's being slamed against a wall head-first.

Buffy, always a bastion of exceptional writing and in a genre of its own, usually has one exceptional episode per season, pushing its own bar even higher. In 1999 that episode was "Hush" which was quite justifiably nominated for the 'Best Writing in a Drama' Emmy award, remarkable because over 75% of the episode took place with no dialog at all. It didn't win, but it's an honor just to be nominated.

In 2000, the breakout episode was "The Body," detailing the aftermath of the death of Buffy's mom. Sadly it didn't get the nomination which, in my opinion, it richly deserved.

That's fine though. Votes are votes; democracy in action.

Last year, "Once More, With Feeling!" was absolutely outstanding. In my mind, and in the minds of many others I've talked to, the best Buffy episode ever, and very possibly the best hour on TV in 2001.

People were talking about Buffy's first 'real' (read: not in makeup or music) Emmy with confidence. UPN was so proud of its new acquisition (having taken over the series from WB just that season) that they spared no expense in including, along with the customary 'for your consideration' ad in industry-mag Variety, a complimentary DVD of the episode. The DVDs sold on eBay for prices ranging from $120 to upwards of $600 just for that episode.

Emmy nomination forms went out to voters earlier this month, with a list of the episodes being put forward for nomination in each category, and inexplicably "Once More, With Feeling" wasn't on the list.

This isn't sour grapes or whining: Each show on television gets to put forward what they feel is their strongest episode and that gets presented to voters for conideration. OMWF was supposed to be on the list, and the Emmy coordinators made a typographical error.

Now, after being made aware of their error, the Television Academy has sent out postcards letting constituents know the procedure for retroactively changing their vote, but the process is considerably more difficult than the original voting, and industry experts forsee that a reasonable percentage of those who would otherwise have voted for OMWF won't bother to change it after the fact, if they even take notice of the junkmail-like postcard.

Losing in a fair vote is one thing. Losing because your show just doesn't have enough visibility is another, but both are par for the awards course. Being left off a ballot by a clerical error, though: that's simply fucked up. It's 2002, and voting still sucks. What will it take to have a peer review be a standard step in the ballot creation and certification process?

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Props to Robert for coming through with today's Buffy Tidbit: Apparently, for those too impatient to wait three years for Season Six to come out on DVD, you can plug that burning hole in your pocket and bid for a few rare DVD copies of "Once More, With Feeling" on eBay.

It seems that (quite rightly) Joss has chosen this episode as one of the two each series is permitted to send out to TV notables, hoping for Emmy nominations. As a result, hundreds of copies are out there, and naturally some of them have made their way to the common market.

On a parallel tangent, I've been TiVo-ing the late night and early morning reruns of Mad About You. I've got a jonesing to catch "Met Someone," the flashback episode where Paul and Jamie meet for the first time. Checking out the schedule of shows for the next two weeks, I came across another M.A.Y. episode entitled "Once More, With Feeling." Is this a trend, or an homage?

PS: for those non-Buffy fans out there, give it a try. You've probably noticed that your friends who rave about Buffy aren't those who you'd think would go for cheezy stupid TV like Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and you're right, they don't. The show's a wonder, and I really truly hope OMWF gets an Emmy because honestly, it so richly deserves it.

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Best. Poster. Ever.

(thanks Leia!)

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Okay, rather than write a long critique/rant/rave about the finale (which some of my fellow timeshifters haven't watched yet), I'll point you to the post I made this morning on MetaFilter.

The rest of the thread is pretty insightful (well, some of it is) as well...

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(notes: Most of this was written before 'Evil Will goes on a Rampage' aired. It's also rather randomly put together, but I've too much of a backlog to go editing and rewriting this into a term paper. :-)

I love Buffy. Along with The West Wing, it's my favorite show on TV.

But lately Buffy's been pissing me off.

Sure, there have been compelling storylines, and as far as the master-arc goes, I couldn't be more impressed with all the changes. Nevertheless, I don't feel like I'm watching anymore, but instead being manipulated.

The Buffy writers know the success they have on their hands. They know their rapt audience, lusting for their weekly fix, pushing the story along. They know that there are basically only two ways to lose this momentum.

The first way is to pull a Moonlighting or X-Files. For one reason or another the master-arc progressions stalls completely. You don't have to lose a main character to stop the arc-train. Sometimes it happens because the producers give too many opportunities to too many writers, making it nearly impossible to maintain a cohesive arc, resulting in a string of interchangeable capsulated episodes (again, X-Files pre-Duchovny's departure is a good example).

A lot of producers fear significant cast and focus changes. Some of that fear is nested with the worry about becoming a soap opera, where implausibility rules, and storyline shock is used for shock's sake. This kind of turn is rapidly followed by a 'who cares'-manship of the audience. When anything can happen at any time, what does it matter what the characters do? This is the second way to lose the golden eye of the viewer.

Granted, some shows thrive by exploiting both of these: Creating a world where outlandish things happen all the time, yet nothing ever sticks. This is usually the domain of animated shows. The Simpsons, Futurama, and South Park live and thrive in this world. This is not a suggested area for live-action shows, unless you're The Tick.

But back my Buffy Beef...

Buffy neatly avoids both these problems, but at the risk of finding a third problem. While the first few seasons had season or half-season arcs (The Master, Good Angel, Bad Angel, Dead Angel, Good Angel, etc.) for the most part the Scooby Gang remained constant, not rocking the boat until Joss proved to the network and the sponsors that she was seaworthy.

Soon characters were being added, relationships formed, were broken, twisted. Dawn was added, forever imprinted on the Summers household like a big 'CHA' half-etched on the surface of the moon. Plotline floatsam.

The true strokes of genius on the show is when the unexpected but believable happens. In 'The Body' where Buffy's mom is dead (not 'dies' but is just found dead, in the most honest post-mortem portrayal I'd ever care to see) we felt for the characters. It's not like she was murdered by her own lovechild who was kidnapped as a baby and returns from an evil dimension to hunt her down for her wrongs (ahem). No, it was a good example of life. Nobody expects an aneurism, and Joss didn't try to prepare us for one.

Granted, too much of that sort of thing and it becomes unbelievable, but in the right dose, it's honest life. When was the last time someone got in a car accident in a show, right in the middle of a totally unrelated storyline, and the accident becomes the new line? It happens all the time in real life, but on TV? Only on the soaps. Or ER, which is a perfect example of life-events pushing a storyline.

So I've written over 600 words. What am I getting at?

Buffy's in danger of turning to crap.

There are legitimate ways to foreshadow: Buffy the Musical was great because it revealed people's secrets. It didn't spell out what was going to happen, because often times actual events are the result of more than just innermost character desires. Contrived? Perhaps. But it was honest. It didn't declare what would happen, it was just a domesday book of where everyone was at at the given time.

Now, though, in recent episodes, the foreshadowing isn't at the character level, but at the omniscient level. When Willow and Tara get back together so fast and so passionately, Joss is tying on little heartstrings to pull a week later, when he kills her with a random bullet through the heart. When Spike has to leave for the sake of the story, we have to feel good about it, so he has to try to rape Buffy so he's the bad guy again.

Back to 'The Body', It was powerful because it was plausible, indefensible, and random. Shooting Tara through the heart just after her reconciliation is soap-operatic at best, predictable at worst.

Joss is telling me how to feel, so he can pull me like a puppet. "See? Spike is good deep down. Trust us; he doesn't have a soul, but you want to like him like he has one anyhow. Okay, do you feel for him yet? No? Then let's make him a little more sincere and a little more abused. Yet? Okay. Now let's show you how you were wrong when he slams Buffy's head to the porcelain.

"Remember how strongly people felt when Glory scrambled Tara's mind? Let's do that again! Oh, but we have to get Tara and Willow back together. The happier they are, the better it'll be. It'll be like Romeo and Juliet with kittens!"

Bah. My problem with all this is that Buffy's producers and writers decide where they want the series to go, then they figure out how to get it there. After a large, cycling ensemble cast (Buffy, Giles, Willow, Xander, Angel, Spike, (buffy's mom), Cordelia, Oz, Faith, Wesley, Anya, Riley, Dawn and Tara) (not counting the transient arc(h)-foes: Glory, Ben, the Master, the evil-supervillian-troika, Spike (err, again), Drusilla, Anya (heh), The Mayor, Principal Snyder, the Initiative and Professor Walsh, the Watcher's Council, etc.) they've decided to bring it back to the original foursome, the core Scoobies. Only in Giles's place we get Dawn, the master replaced by the apprentice (and if you think Dawn's not going to be 'let in' and will continue to warm the little-sister bench, then that's exactly what Joss wants you to think. Dawn has a trick up her sleeve that nobody knows yet.

Right, so: Foursome. Gotta get rid of Anya, while not making the viewers hate Xander for it. Have her sleep with Spike and get her vengeance back on. Gotta get rid of Tara without people hating Willow. Kill her off randomly in front of Willow. This also neatly solves the problem of Willow's ride on the wicca wagon, because a wegan Willow is as useful to the scoobies as a stupid Selma. (speaking of which, is it any coincidence that Buffy is reverting to core scoobies at the same time as Sarah Michelle Geller is staring in the Scooby movie?)

We got rid of Spike (but don't worry, "I'll be back, Slayer, and when I do..."), Giles is in England with a new show life, Mom's dead, Riley's married, Angel's on another network, and Oz is still on his wolfsome walkabout. Actually, there are some serious possibilities in the land of Oz. I watched Oz's last visit to Sunnydale last night, and his and Willow's 'wrong time, wrong place, but someday' speech sets the stage for an Oz housekeeping, if Joss can handle it tactfully enough to not raise the potential 'boy saving Willow from her lesbian self' ire.

Funny how there's an order to the randomness. In the words of the Fear Demon, "They're all going to abandon you, you know."

And of course, tonight we'll get to find out "what it really means to be a Slayer." Finally, again.

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Sorry for the relative silence this weekend. I've had a lot going on, and a lot on my mind (Buffy, scientific revolutions, death, friendship, new beginnings, and more).

Ideally, this should result in more blogging, not less, and it will inthe long run, but I have to finish a few things first. I have a few posts that were almost-finished last week, so I'll touch them up and post 'em later today.

Also, on the shallow end of the Fury pool, I hope I'm not the only one who's excited for tomorrow's two-hour Buffy... Mmm... Evil Willow...

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So naturally the part of my bio that's sparked the most attention is my cheese disclosure and subsequent 'skeezy cheese' amendment.

What is a skeezy cheese? It's different for everybody, and since this is a democracy, I'd like to see what you think is a skeezy cheese, and so without further ado...

First, get a grip on the skeezy clip from Buffy: The Musical.

Good. Now I've taken the liberty of venturing to Bev'n'Mo to document a good selection of cheese, and I put the question to you. Take a look at the selection and judge: Am I SKEEZY or NOT?

Later there may be a taste and smell test to confirm the web audience results.

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Well, one of my top ten, though I forgot about it the first time around...

From the episode where Spike wakes up in an Initiative cell:

"I always worried what would happen when that bitch got some funding." - Spike

Okay, for the Buffy-impared, I'm getting a lot better, will be back at work tomorrow (Yay, actually (this is what happens when you really like your job)) and will be riding (and writing) on the train, so you won't have to be appeased with "look how sick I am" posts any more.

Oh, and for the curious, the pivotal turning point came shortly after having that awful three-years-too-old lemon-flavor TheraFlu.

I'm having the other packet tonight, just in case.

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I'm listening to my iPod on the train, and "Under Your Spell" came on (the 'Tara and Willow get it on' song from Buffy: The Musical). It took me a second to realize, but for some reason the song was playing at half speed. It sounded completely normal, only it sounded like it was being sung by a drag queen with a drawl. Strange, that.

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For those of you who missed it, heard from raving fans after the fact, or who just want to see it again, don't forget that Buffy: The Musical is airing again tonight (Friday) at 8 on UPN.

I'm setting up my VCR to make a nice, clean tape of it, and I'm setting it to record Iron Chef USA immediately following, just for the heck of it (and to study).

After watching, don't forget to swing back online to pick up the MP3s and lyrics of all the songs, so you can get them stuck in your head, possibly helping you to deal with relatives next week.

(For those curious, four days of no-Buffy-listening has finally succeeded in getting the songs out of my head, but it did take four days. I'm driving to Lake Tahoe this morning, and I'm pretty sure I'll eventually resort to listening to it on the drive up, as I'm going alone.)

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Experiment for the week: See how many days of adamantly not listening to the soundtrack for Buffy: The Musical it takes before the songs stop running through my head. This is actually starting to get annoying...

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Buffy The Musical Songs in MP3

There is a god.

Updated link.

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Buffy: The Musical was amazing. Joss Whedon wrote all the songs himself, and it covered so many Broadway styles from ragtime through swing, 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s (though not much 90s), with what I perceived to be stylistic nods to Les Miz and Into The Woods, and Rent, as well as several others.

An excellently well told story and, unlike so many other 'aberration-style' episodes from other shows ('a very special Blossom', etc.) this one was actually a highly pivotal arc episode, setting the path for huge changes for nearly every person in the show.

After last season's 'Body' episode going without so much as an Emmy nomination, I don't have any expectations, but I do have high hopes for this one come next September. It seems that once a season Joss creates an absolutely amazing work ("Becoming - Part II", "Hush", "Body" and now "Once More, with Feeling").

It just keeps getting better.

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No, I'm not talking about Brad's initiative, worthy though it is.

Wednesday is my day without weblogs. I may write, but I will not read.

It's not a protest.

It's not a statement.

It's a necessity.

You see, Buffy's much anticipated season premiere aired tonight. I mistakenly thought Gilmore Girls was supposed to have its season premiere tonight, overlapping Buffy, but I was mistaken. Before I realized my error, I made plans to watch Gilmore Girls alone tonight, and head to Emily's tomorrow to watch Buffy. (Emily's TiVo was saving it for her, as she couldn't watch it tonight either.)

So at 8pm instead of finding myself in must-see T-vana, I ditched a television wasteland with nothing to offer me but TBS's ST-TNG: A Five Day Marathon.

So, as the rest of the world has watched this episode and is raving about it (well, those who are Buffy geeks anyhow), I seal myself in an anti-blog bubble for the day, refusing to let the tiniest bit of spoilage mar my timeshifting of bliss for 22 hours.

Just look at all the temptation out there. (I assume there are search results. I refuse to indulge in a glance.)

Clearly, this will be the problem when everyone gets TV on demand. How will people know what to talk about at the watercooler/latte bar/instant messenger?

Here's a final thought for the evening: You can rent DVDs all over the place, but not CDs. If DVDs became readily copyable, do you think they would stop renting them? If CDs became copyproof, do you think they would start?

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Something wasn't right.

I've been having some strange dreams lately. It's probably been a lot of things: I rearranged my bedroom and now my bed's in a strange place. I'm regularly living on 6 hours of sleep a night. I go to sleep thinking of unfinished projects and wake up in a rush.

I've been having strange dreams. Dreams of flying I'm completely familiar with; not flying like a bird, soaring, gliding, and circling through thermals of inspiration, but more like the flight of a butterfly, alternating floating downward and twitching upward. This is a familiar dream.

Strange dreams. Dreams like vignettes. A few seconds here, lay the background, and scene. And on to the next. Most of them I don't remember beyond the wheel-of-fortune structure of flipping from one environment to the next.

Strange. Two nights ago one flash was my car, the front fender damaged on the driver's right, sort of shredded, sort of planed off, so the bumper was higher on that side for want of a bottom. I was unsettled on Saturday, vaguely unsettled on Saturday, until I remembered this night-picture and segmented it off from reality. All better.

Today's morning ritual involved getting up later than I ought to have, to catch my train, rushing to get it all together, walking up Haste to my car.

Berkeley parking is somewhat of a mystery. When I get home, bet it 6pm or midnight, Berkeley is perpetually packed, residential and meter parking alike. Luckily, a silver-lining of my working world is being able to park at a meter, as my start time is substantially earlier than when the meters tick on at 9. The mystery is that, though the meters are packed when I get in in the evening, come 7am mine is the only car remaining on a block of 25 spaces.

Are the other 24 who were here last night all earlier risers than I am, or are they partying until 2am, then driving home?

No matter. My car is at the top of the block, and walking towards it from 300 feet out, I can't decide if it's mine. It doesn't look quite right. I don't think about it again and come half-a-block I can see that it's Baby. I walk up, unlock the door, hand on the handle, and I stop.

I go back to the front of the car, the dream-vision coming back, to check out the front bumper.

Fine, normal. Okay. I turn back to the door.

Something wasn't right.

Back to the front I go, and realization dawns. No license plate. Gone. Just an empty bracket. No trauma of a violent parallel parker, just the void of absence.

I check the back, just so see if my assailant was going for a hat trick. At least they left me that one, with the registration tab I spent far to long acquiring.

When did this attack occur? Were there cars around bearing mute witness? Did it happen days ago and I only just noticed? Was my dream prescient, coincident, or simply a subliminal realization trying to share itself with my conscious awareness?

So now I assume that my license plate, too clever by half, is adorning someone's dorm room or apartment. What my assailant isn't counting on is the interconnectedness that seems to run through my life. Three friends of mine who don't know each other all attended the same wedding on Friday, for two people I've never met. I can meet someone and within 15 minutes find a common acquaintance. I just know that I can find someone who knows upon what wall, in which hall or frat house, the license plate "GRR ARG" stands imprisoned and shackled. Have you seen it? Vanity theft is the most dangerous kind indeed. For the victim robbed of a non-fungible item, the desire for recovery is strong, and the thief feels the need to display the acquisition, for what good is art in a drawer?

It will take a few weeks for this spell to run its course, but I know that I will get it back. It may take some help from friends, or some more dreaming, but it will come back.

Grr, arg! Indeed.

Addendum: I just got off the phone with Ali, who tells me I was very lucky that they didn't take the back plate, as I can get a replacement front plate without a problem, but if someone steals the back plate, they'll keep the plate out of circulation for seven years. Umm, thank you I guess?

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ARGH! Okay, I know I should have better priorities, and I do, but one thing I've been looking forward to for four months is the season premiere of The West Wing. "Two Cathedrals," last season's cliffhanger, aired on May 16th, and the conclusion, "Manchester, Part I," was scheduled to run last Wednesday, September 19th. For obvious reasons, several of the networks, including NBC, pushed their schedules back one week, and the new air date was September 26th.

Now West Wing producer Aaron Sorkin has decided that, in light of the 9-11 events, he wants to create and air a special episode, to keep the show more in line with current events. He feels that it's important to do this before the season premiere, so the episode has been quickly written, and is currently undergoing filming, for a rushed post-production cycle and airing on October 3rd.

"Manchester," meanwhile, has been pushed back to October 10th.

Maybe it's escapism, maybe it's just withdrawal from a truly great television series, but I'm just glad that some new TV is still on the way next week, including Star Trek: Enterprise, and Buffy starts the following week. Maybe to tide myself over, I'll rent the first season of "Sex in the City" and start making up for not having HBO... It's something to do, anyhow.

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I'm working on trying to finish Metacookie before Fray Day 5, as well as working on a big ol' headache and some other issues, but I wanted to share an interview with Joss Whedon from this week's Onion (The A/V club part (the part that's not all about fake news)).

The interview was trimmed from 9500 words down to 5500, but the link is to the unedited source, for your reading pleasure. It's quite a long read, so wait till you have time to sit down.

Only a few more weeks 'till things start up again in TV land. I'm thinking about upping my TiVo from 30 hours to 108 by way of a cheap $125 60 gig drive and the glorious TiVo FAQ.

Oh, and I've also let one more show into my television pantheon. I gave Gilmore Girls a try and I'm completely taken with it. I feel like these people have been in my life for ages, though I'm not sure why. But I have a life! Really! Now, to bed, for tomorrow we code.

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Fluffy Battle Kitten is a particularly nice weblog, and not just because the name comes from Buffy TVS. In just 20 minutes reading it's made its way into my bookmark list and my recommended sites.

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It seems that last season Joss Whedon, creator, writer and director for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, made a speculation or two in passing on the net, which were immediately repeated as gosphel fact by the entertainment press.

That, apparently, was the imputus for his recent announcements regarding this season of Buffy, TVS:

"The truth is, I was a little wigged by all the commotion my posting caused. I think the worst thing that could happen would be for the Willow/Tara storyline to become some kind of publicity stunt. I guess if I type something here, the papers are gonna pick up on it, and there's nothing I can do about it. So I'd like to make the following announcements:
1. FROM NOW ON, EVERYONE ON BUFFY WILL BE GAY. You heard it here first. And not just a little gay, either. Whole new show.
2. MATT DAMON: MONSTER FIGHTER. Yes, a multi-episode arc feature the talented Mr Damon - and look for some of his movie star friends to make "montrous" cameos!
3. FREE PRESENTS AND MONEY for everyone who tunes in. Swear to God.
4. NUDITY, NUDITY, NUDITY.
5. NAKEDNESS.
6. ZEPPLIN FIGHT OVER NEPTUNE! Just in time for sweeps, the gang is going to have an "out of this world" adventure - with wacky Xander at the controlls! This episode is budgetted at 18 million dollars, and will change history.

Okay! Well, I'll just settle back and let the publicity come rolling in. Yep, ratings are bound to soar once everyone gets wind of the exciting and controversial direction I'm taking the show in. In the meanwhile, I hope you, the fans, enjoy the all-nude, all-gay Buffy. It's gonna be a hoot!"

The lesson here is always believe what you read. the rumors are always true. (thanks Crystal!)

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