Sunny Saturday....

[fajrdrako]

Morning: Tim Horton's coffee with maaseru and maaboroshi, then exercising with my trainer Lynne, and Lisa. Was a little surprised how much I could do, and how my the Foot could do. It was a good session.

Then we went to Cora's for lunch, and talked about various things, including my job, or impending lack thereof. It was a little depressing.

Then: my place, to watch Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog and then The Moonstone with iclysdale, commodorified and auriaephiala. Then we went for a walk - barefoot in the park for a good part of it. commodorified is especially good at Foot-coaching. raynedaze joined us and we watched three episodes of Due South: 'The Blue Line', 'The Deal' and 'An Invitation to Romance'. I liked 'The Deal' very much - perhaps the best of the episodes I've seen so far.

Tired. Taking the Foot to bed now.

Comments

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

...David Marciano who pushed them toward that darker side

I was thinking more of tone than content: I don't necessarily want 'darker' stories, just more serious and deeper ones. This delivered. In spades.

"Shoe-related elf stories!"

I loved that!

It was Vecchio that really got to me, his complexity, his use of language, and most importantly, he brought the humanity out of Fraser, who always teetered on the edge of parody (and apparently Paul Gross liked him that way).

I the whole point of the show - initially, at least - was parody, including self-parody. (Not so much of Paul Gross individually, but of Canadians in general.) This is not the aspect of the show that I watch it for, though it's sometimes very funny.

In fact, the very first thing I ever did on LJ was a pair of essays: The Mountie Mask and Armani Armour.

What a great title! When I've watch more, I look forward to reading more DS fic and meta.

But fandom was always obsessed by PG or later by CKR and DM was often openly vilified.

Really? As it happens, the people who first introduced me to DS fandom (way back before series 3 ever happened) were Vecchio fans, so I came to it from that point of view.

I've only seen one Callum Keith Rennie episode, and it was all right, t hough I don't remember it now; so far, my money's on Vecchio, but I'm pretty much expecting to like both Rays.

Though Fraser is interesting, he hasn't yet quite won my heart (except maybe in flashes of brilliance), and it's Geoffrey Tennant and Chris Cutter I think of as Gross's prime roles. (Wish I'd seen his Hamlet!)

[nina-ds.livejournal.com]

I was thinking more of tone than content: I don't necessarily want 'darker' stories, just more serious and deeper ones.

DM's argument to Paul Haggis was that if the characters remained stereotypes, the audience wouldn't be able to connect to them or care; and that if Ray were really the f*&!-up he was described in some of the early episodes, he'd be dead by now. He was basically arguing for more realism, which I think is quite smart. It was certainly those more "heartfelt" moments and episodes that made me love the show, even though I had enjoyed S3 when I watched it first. So to go onto the next point, I did like S3 when I watched it, it just doesn't quite feel like the same show when I go back to it, if that makes sense. I've got more context for the characters.

It helps to be brought in by Vecchio fans! Or at least S1/2 fans. I know a few people who were brought in by Kowalski fans and found themselves falling for S1/2 and/or F/V and there being agita because of it. Personally, I'd watched the show for several years before I got into fandom, so I was pretty established and didn't get buffeted by fandom opinion, other than staying in Vecchio-friendly waters.

It was shown on the BBC and UK Gold in the UK, which is where I saw it, and BBC2 was one of the co-funders of the third series, which makes it even more surprising that they didn't show the second half of the series in their cult TV slot at 6pm on weeknights. You'd have The Simpsons on Monday, different versions of Star Trek on most days, and dS was usually on on Wednesdays. Actually that's not true — the first two series were shown on Sunday night first, but I didn't watch it at that point because they were mostly advertising it as the wacky adventures of the Mountie and his wolf, which didn't appeal to me. But by the time S3 rolled around, it was part of the cult line-up.

Wow. Rambling about schedule! I must be procrastinating...

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

He was basically arguing for more realism, which I think is quite smart.

I totally approve. It's the lightness of DS that kept me from being a fan all these years; I still find it too light for my tastes, most of the time, but every once in a while we get these flashes of what my mind interprets as 'the real story' and I get into it. Currently I'm seeing Fraser as shallow and Vecchio as interesting, but commodorified assures me that I'll come to love Fraser because he is 'so very fucked up'. This is quite possible.

I didn't know that Due South had that British connection. Interesting!