(no subject)

 Currently Watching

Still in the first half of Buffy season three.

• There's been some really strong episodes this season ("Band Candy" and "The Wish" in particular spring to mind), with some really fantastic moments (rebellious teenager Giles is a standout one, though I also love Spike sitting in Buffy's kitchen talking about Druscilla whilst Joyce makes tea.)
• I still love the emotional beats of this show. Characters consistently make bad decisions (even if said decisions are understandable), and then they're not let off the hook regarding the consequences of that decision - Giles's talk with Buffy regarding Angel, and the way Oz and Cordelia react to finding Willow and Xander kissing. These characters are good, decent people who are complex and flawed and they mess up and have to deal with that. It's great.
• I really appreciate the scene where Willow propositions Oz, saying she's ready to sleep with him (though it's clearly part of her attempt to prove to him that he's important to her and that she wants to be with him), and he turns her down because he isn't ready. I am struggling to bring to mind any other show/book/etc. that I know of where it's a male character in a straight relationship saying he isn't ready. And there's no sense of shame or embarrassment, either. It's a lovely scene.
• I am still bored by Angel's narrative and his self-flagellation. The character is just not interesting to me. I also find his relationship with Buffy really, really  skeevy in a lot of ways.

The Lost rewatch is proceeding slowly.

• Seeing all these characters at the beginning of their arcs, before we find out any of their pasts, is really interesting in retrospect, and it's obvious which of them had the strongest arcs. A lot of them were hampered in later seasons by production issues / actors leaving the show, etc. Some of the characters' stories were set-up so beautifully but failed to deliver (Kate's felt like that to me, and that wasn't helped by her character being bogged down in a tedious love triangle, and the lack of resolution for Walt and terrible ending for Michael will always be frustrating), but others were much stronger. From these early episodes, it's obvious that Sawyer had one of the best character arcs, and I am still very fond of the way Jin and Sun progressed. 
• Locke is the character who was most let down by the writing in the end. He was one of the strongest from a very early stage and continued in that vein, but the writing just couldn't deliver on it. Watching "Walkabout" now is an interesting experience - the 'miracle cure for disability' storyline has a lot of issues that I didn't recognise when I first watched the show (I'll probably say the same with Hurley's storyline too) - but I maintain that it is one of the most satisfying episodes of the show, both in terms of character and writing.
• Lost's biggest downfall was its failure to deliver on mysteries, but this was only a downfall because there was so much insistence on there being an answer. If the writers - and therefore the narrative of the show - hadn't done that, it could have been much better. The answer is never as good as the initial set up. What is the Smoke Monster? What are The Numbers? Why does Richard never age? Who are The Others? So many mysteries were tantalising and fascinating and became more so as the Losties got more and more embroiled in them, but very few answers lived up to the mystery.

I started Sailor Moon! I've always intended to watch this but have never done so because it was so daunting. It's a show I would have devoured as a kid, but I don't remember it ever being on TV (we had no cable or Sky or anything when I was a kid) and I would have had no idea how to get hold of it. But now that the remastered, subbed episodes are being released I've started watching them.

• I thought I would find Usagi irritating, but I am mostly endeared by her. She's very sweet and earnest.
• I'm looking forward to Usagi's powers developing, and to meet the other sailor soldiers.
• So far I don't have a sense of the wider world or story, but since this is such a long-running show I imagine this could take some time to develop. I can wait.
• The concept of magical girls is amazing. When I was a kid I watched Cardcaptor Sakura (dubbed), which is the only magical girl show I remember making it to regular British TV. I loved it, and had no idea until much later that it was part of a whole genre.