I have to admit, I’m pretty predjudiced when it comes to things like tv-shows, movies, comics and videogames. And I have therefore stayed clear of many products because I have deemed them “worthless”. The result of this is that i often have to eat my own words when I finally bring myself to giving some of these products a chance.
This predjudice is, of course, not healthy, And could prove to be a disadvantage in the long run.
Anyway, I thought I would write a few posts once in a while about areas where I’ve had to eat my own words, regarding tv-shows, films etc. Future posts within this catagory will of course contain more recent “Eating my own Words” material, to maintain a certain “freshness”. But seeing as this is the first post, I will have to look to the past.
Buffy/Angel:
(Bear in mind that these two are not shows that I have followed actively, but rather watched once in a while.)
When I first heard about Buffy, I didn’t even consider for one second to watch it. I throught to myself: “Teenage girl fighting vampires, zombies and demons. Cheesy horror mixed with highschool drama.” The fact that the movie sucked royally didn’t quite help to alter my oppinion either.
It wasn’t until several years later that my oppinion was swayed. I was visiting my brother and found to my surprise when I arrived that he and his then-girlfriend was watching Buffy. I was reluctant to pay attention, but my brother assured me that this was good stuff.
After one episode, I found to an even greater surprise that this was not a bad show, and we continued to watch until I looked at the time and realised that we had sat in front of the compter screen for aproximately 4 hours.
This caused me to follow the spin-off “Angel” when it began airing on a Norwegian channel, and I have followed it more actively than Buffy.
So, as painful as it was to swallow, I had to admit that these shows were rather good. Not the best, of course, but pretty decent.
Battlestar Galactica:
When I first heard about it, I was not too enthusiastic. My first throughts were: “Sci-fi with no Lightsabers, re-imagination of an old show, taking place almost exclusively on a spaceship”. Incoming Star Trek vibes!.
I had only caught glimpses of it when it ran on NRK (If you say “NRK” in English, it sounds like “Anarchy”. Sweet irony!”, but then later when they started showing re-runs, I decided to watch the first episode. And I once again had to eat my own words, because it blew me away, and has become one of my favourite shows to date. It’s weird, because I would have caught onto the show much earlier, if only the people who recomended it to me had compared it to shows like Deadwood or Rome.
I have also managed to get my brother and his now present-girlfriend hooked aswell. Yay!
Heroes:
Here’s how it went:
Friend: “Man, you have got to watch Heroes! It’s one of the best shows out there!”
Me: “Ok, what is it about?”
Friend: “It’s about these young people who discover that they have superpowers, and that they have to use them to save the world.”
Me: “Ok… moving along…”
I harboured extreme predjudice against this show, and for good reason too. I mean, how often do you come across series and films involving people with superpowers that are actually good? Don’t get me wrong, I used to be an avid fan of the Marvel universe when I was younger. I read tons of Spider-Man as a kid, but lost interest in the genre eventually, and most of the films based on the comics have been terrible (I mean, Toby fucking Maguire as Peter Parker!?).
But eventually, though, I gave Heroes a chance after my brother praised and recomended the show.
And once again my own words were on the menu. I was hooked after one episode, and I realised that I had been deadly wrong when I brushed it off as “yet another superhero tale”. Because while these people have certain powers, their origin is defined as the “next step of evolution”. These powers does not grant them godlike power either, but rather gives them an advantage in certain situations.
I also love how human these “Heroes” are, they all have their strengths and weaknesses, and no-one is stereo-typically good or evil.
Anyway, that’s all for now, I’ll be sure to post fresh “Eating my own Words” material in the future.
I was right there with you regarding Angel and Buffy, but boy, oh boy was I wrong. Especially about Buffy, though Angel is a good show as well. Season 5 of Angel equals or surpases anything in the Buffy ‘verse. However, maybe Angel was a bit too dark for me at times and I’ll probably like it better when I do a re-viewing (hee-hee! ’tis a pun!) of it.
But shame on you for not having faith in BSG and Heroes
BSG is one of the best TV-shows ever made, and Heroes is quite good also (I liked the first season better than the second, though that may have something to do with the second season getting chopped in half…).
Nice to see that you’re keeping this up and running. It would be immensely helpful if you added some gadgets to your sidebars. Navigating your blog is a real bitch
I tend to favour Angel and quite enjoy its darkness in contrast to Buffy’s lighter tone. It depends, however, on my mood.
“But shame on you for not having faith in BSG and Heroes”
I know! I cannot believe I let NRK run 2 whole seasons of BSG right under my nose before I took proper notice! Story of my life, I suppose. The only shows I’ve managed to caught onto early are “The Sopranos”,”Spaced” and “Deadwood”.
It’s a damn shame about that cursed WGA strike (Just swallow your pride and pay them already!),as this has such an immense impact on TV-show junkies like myself. Even greater shame that the second season turned out to be a tad anti-climatic, when the first was so strong.
“It would be immensely helpful if you added some gadgets to your sidebars. Navigating your blog is a real bitch.”
Though I am ta technical-retard, I’ll see what I can do.;)
Next on my to-watch list is “Dexter”, once i finish “Firefly”.
I have fortunately not expressed negative sentiments towards these shows.:)
You, sir, have impeccable taste in shows
The sidebar things are really easy to do. Just go to “presentation” – “widgets” – add the ones you want/need. Shouldn’t take you too long.
I have been blessed with friends and fellow bloggers to guide me. I actually discovered “Dexter” through your blog.;)
Always glad to be of assistance, which kinda the point of it, you know.
The blog’s a lot better now. I actually had this blog theme for a long, long time, but changed it to my current a couple of months ago. I still like this one, though, so I’m glad you’re taking care of it for me.
Aye, I quite like this theme for its dark simplicity, which I oddly enough feel fits my obscure ramblings.
I’ll probably add more sidebar gadgets everntually.
Thanks for the helpful tips on how to add these nifty gadgets by the way.:)
I felt like that about “Buffy”, but for some reason gave “Angel” a shot when TV2 started airing it anyway. And by the time Doyle bit the dirt (or shiny light, whichever) I was well and beyond hooked. I didn’t get around to watching Buffy until TV2 had gotten me through almost four years worth of Angel, but when I did, I watched the entire series in slightly over three months, which is probably the most intensive TV-watching I’d done at that point. I started somewhere mid-season 4 of Angel and was done before Jasmine was.
BSG is obviously one of the best shows out there, and season 4 is looking good too. Heroes, I’ve got mixed feelings about it. A couple of episodes of it has been pretty darned amazing, but on the most part, I’ve been less than impressed. Good, solid entertainment, but rarely something special. It also suffered a lot from the writer’s strike due to its favouring of the very slow build-ups, not having properly gotten to the good episodes of the season before they were almost done. Decent show with a genious episode or two here and there (Company Man… *sigh*), but a rather unoriginal premise and too many plotholes for my liking keeps it out of the league of Buffy, Angel, BSG, Deadwood, Rome, Sopranos, Firefly, The Wire, etc. For now, anyway. It could obviously get better.
Of the shows you mention, the only one I haven’t seen (and liked) is “Spaced” – care to give me a short introduction to what it is? ^^ It’d be much appreciated as you seem to have good tastes in shows.
I was always surprised at how quick they killed off Doyle.
“Spaced” is a fast-paced British sit-com, created by the team behind Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. It is filled with popular culture references, geekiness and cult phenomenons, contains a lot of surrealism, and avoids classic “laughter-box punch-line” moments.
The show centers on a group of friends living in the same building, on 26 Meteor Street.
Some of the characters include Tim Bisley, an aspiring comic book artist working in a comic book store, whose interests include Star Wars, video games, Buffy, comics, skateboarding and cult fiction in several forms.
Daisy: An aspiring writer, despite her lack of work ethics, she has a tendency of going from overwhelmingly positive, to hostile negativity(usually work related). She is gradually sucked into Tim’s bizarre world of geekiness and cult fiction.
Mike Watt: Mike is Tim’s military and weapons enthusiastic , yet sensitive best friend. He is usually seen wearing a full camouflage outfit, and his big dream in life is to join the British Army. He is very protective, and dependent of Tim.
I can full heartedly recomend this show, as it’s probably the funniest tv-show I have had the pleasure of watching.
Season 2, especially, contains several simply priceless moments.
I must say, seeing Deadwood, Rome, Sopranos, Firefly and The Wire among your top shows warms my heart
Thank you for the information, I’ll try to remember to put it down in my “To watch”-list. ^^
“I must say, seeing Deadwood, Rome, Sopranos, Firefly and The Wire among your top shows warms my heart ”
I know what you mean, I felt like that when I read your post saying the same, so… But don’t forget Battlestar Galactica.
It might not be the number one show, but it’s certainly the number one among anything airing these days.
As for Doyle, yup, that was surprising. Apparently, Whedon had wanted to kill off a regular out of nowhere in the first season of Buffy (remember Xander and Willow’s friend who died in the pilot? Jessie or somesuch?), but they couldn’t afford putting him on the opening credits which kind of ruined the point…
It’s too bad they never got to see him again. I’d have liked an appearance of him in Heaven or as a spirit or somesuch at some point. (I think the actor died, though, so I guess that wouldn’t work) I’m very happy they referenced him heavily in season 5, though, that seemed fitting and decent towards a character that I always liked a lot.
Aye, Battlestar Galactica is definitely one of the strongest shows I have seen. Seeing “Battlestar Galactica” combined with “Season 4″ usually causes a considerable amount of drooling.
“As for Doyle, yup, that was surprising. Apparently, Whedon had wanted to kill off a regular out of nowhere in the first season of Buffy (remember Xander and Willow’s friend who died in the pilot? Jessie or somesuch?), but they couldn’t afford putting him on the opening credits which kind of ruined the point”
Doyle was a great character, which only increased my surprise when he was killed. It would have been easier to understand if it had happened to a character that didn’t possess that same energy and intensity.
“I’m very happy they referenced him heavily in season 5, though, that seemed fitting and decent towards a character that I always liked a lot.”
I always like when a deceased characters remain in the consciousness of the other characters (Such as Angel still struggling with Doyle’s death, even after good ‘ol Wesley makes his entry.), in stead of mourning him until next episode, and then forgetting all about it.
Absolutely, but paying their respects to him for the rest of the season is one thing, barely mentioning him for three seasons and then bringing him back rather heavily in several episodes in the show’s final season, THAT’s what made me very surprised. In a positive way, of course.
BSG’s being good. Season 3 was very unsteady compared to 1 and 2, but 4 seems to be picking up the slack a little. (I will say, though, that I still miss the intensity and the angst of the first two seasons a little, they’re not quite back at that yet, too much big picture-stuff to get that intense. And I can’t believe I just complained about too *much* big picture stuff on a TV-show. O.o) And Razor was rather good, too.
I enjoyed Razor very much. I remember asking myself when Adama was fighting the old-school Centurion in the air, if someone had slipped something into my ice tea
Awaiting season 4, I have honed my “screening” skills, swiftly detecting spoilers, and averting my eyes in time. If I stumble across a forum, and accidentally find out who the last remaining Cylon is, there will be hell to pay
Are you following season 4 right now, or waiting for the whole thing to arrive on DVD?
I’d preferably wait for the DVD arrival, but seeing as that may take a while, I’ll probably wait until it finishes airing and then download the entire season, before ploughing through it in 2-3 says. I’ll most likely buy it when it arrives on DVD as well, though (I’m pretty weird that way.)
I have a really hard time watchhng 1 episode every week, of shows like BSG, Dexter and Prison Break.
Not weird at all. If I like a show, and I can at all afford it, I’ll buy it on DVD – and if I can’t, I’ll make a mental note to do one day when I do. Hardly even matters if I think I’ll rewatch it in the next decade or not. It’s the least I can do for the people who spend time and energy making them. (Also, you know, packrat)
BSG, and a good number of other shows, I don’t mind the one-per-week-thing on. It’s a heavy show, which is tailored to create a lot of speculation and digestion of plot-points and reveals, and I thus feel like I’d lose out on a big part of it if I’d skim through it quickly. (I abhor the season-pauses, though, of course) Shows that are, on the other hand, designed to function based on cliffhangers and a high level of adrenaline throughout – like Prison Break or 24 – I agree with you. If I had the patience to wait that long, I’d certainly watch those in sizeable marathons. (I often don’t, though)
Speaking of DVDs, a friendly tip, if you can at all avoid it, then don’t buy the European BSG-boxes. They all have no commentary-tracks, season 2 includes only the extended version of the Pegasus-episode (not the normal cut, while the US-edition has both), and an episode of season 3 that’s also extended on the DVD-release has now suffered the same fate (can’t remember which episode it was). Additionally, and worst of all, the European season 3-box does not include the “The Resistance”-miniseries of internet-episodes that was shown before the season started, bridging seasons 2 and 3.