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.
