"Day 7"

Least favorite episode of your favorite TV show

I have three- "The Night of the Raven" and "The Night of the Simian Terror" and "The Night of the Two-Legged Buffalo."  I wouldn't say that any of them are unenjoyably bad- I'm actually too fond of "The Night of the Raven" to actively bad mouth it, I'll just say that someone obviously had a little more drugs in his system than usual when he decided that shrinking Jim was a cool idea.

My objection to "The Night of the Simian Terror" is primarily the fact that it just doesn't feel like a WWW episode.  The plot- a scientist who theorizes that an ape, given the same upbringing as a human, is naturally intelligent enough to behave like a human raises a human boy as his control group and the boy grows up crazy and ultimately tries to kill the family who gave him away rather than have an imperfect child- seems sort of like a rejected story idea for The Twilight Zone or maybe- on a stretch- Star Trek.  There's a sort of "Don't people suck?  This father (incidentally a senator, which is how Jim and Artie get involved) cared more about appearances than his son and the only creature who ever really gave a damn about this kid was an ape" takeaway message to the episode that really belongs in a thought-provoking, moral-oriented sci-fi series, but it had Jim and Artie strong-armed into it instead.  And it's like they realized, while making it, that this stuff is not what people watch WWW to see, and the episode just sort of peters out before it seems properly over.

"The Night of the Two-Legged Buffalo" bothers me on a character level.  It's a relatively fun episode in general- Artie has his shirt off for most of it and looks very fine, there's a bit with mud-wrestling, and the "I have like a dozen wives but am clearly gayer than Christmas" South Sea prince cracks me up.  But as much as I like Jim there's a side to him that makes me want to write screw-you episode tags all day long, and 95% of them would be for this episode.  He can be pretty careless- though this aspect of his personality seems to go by the wayside once you get out of season one- and "The Night of the Two-Legged Buffalo" is a classic example.  In it, he almost gets Artie killed by withholding really important information from him- and then when Artie demands an explanation he takes the always crap "I thought you were better off not knowing" defense.  How often has not knowing actually kept someone safe?  Never that I can think of.  (Even when I find the plotline interesting- like Ichabod concluding that Katrina never told him she was a witch to protect him on Sleepy Hollow- it's still ridiculous.  I mean- look what happened to Katrina's family.  Note to writers all over: the superhero's girlfriend/boyfriend/BFF still gets kidnapped by the bad guys even when she/he doesn't know he's a superhero; the only thing not knowing does for her/him is make it so she/he doesn't know why this keeps happening.  I went on a bit of tangent there, but you get the idea.)  Also, and I know this going to sound trite, but it upsets me that he never seems sorry.  It makes me want to write an A.U. scenario where Jim thinks Artie did die and sit back and survey the mayhem.  I'll do it one day.  I really will.

( The rest of the meme )

"Day 8"

A show everyone should watch

This is a bit of a tough one, because in my view there is no one show that will appeal to everyone.  I mean, I love 60's westerns like The Big Valley, but Bonanza- which is a very similar show- does nothing for me and I don't know why (actually, I do know why.  I formed a kind of insta-bond with Heath Barkley the moment I saw him and learned to love the rest of The Big Valley cast with time, while no one on Bonanza ever appealed to me on the same level.  Also the music.  Every time I try to give Bonanza a fair shot, the music just drives me crazy.  Not the theme song- that's great- I mean the background music.  There's nothing wrong with it technically, it just sounds like someone was putting his heart and soul into making exciting music without ever considering whether it could complement dialogue or anything.  The characters will be having a serious talk with what sounds like a jaunty dance number going on behind them, and I can't deal with it).

Okay, giant tangent- but I think my point stands.  There is no one show for everyone.  I'm giving this to Orphan Black, though.  I know that plenty of people probably don't like it, and that's okay, but I really, fiercely want it to be one of the most popular shows out there.  It's clever and thought provoking and addictive and full of crazy twists and turns, it has lots of well-developed female characters (admittedly all clones of the same person, but that doesn't make Sarah, Cosima and Allison any less radically different and awesome) and LGBT characters who are not caricatures or comic relief but important, interesting people.  I want Orphan Black to have a long, healthy run- but, more than that, I want this to be the direction TV goes in the future, and the more popular it is, the more chance there is that that will happen.   

( The rest of the meme )