Author: latepaul

Categories
lesamy

Lesamy – Week One Results

First week of the new regime over, more importantly first weigh-in. In time honoured fashion I’ll keep you waiting for the result, first some thoughts on what kind of a week it’s been and what I’ve learnt.

Hey this is easy!

Okay, don’t laugh, but in the first couple of days I really thought it wasn’t going to be that hard. Of course almost anything is easy for a couple of days (except maybe holding your breath). I think the fact that I was eating what I’d normally eat, just sticking to meal times and a calorie “budget” made it feel like not that big a change. Of course the effect is (and needs to be) culmative. The later in the week the harder it got. And by hard I don’t really mean that I felt hungry. There were a couple of times when I felt my stomach nagging me but as much as anything that’s because I tend to eat my tea quite late (9pm sometimes) so that doesn’t really count when I could have easily got up from the computer and gone and made my meal.

So what made it hard?

The Real Meaning of Comfort Eating

It’s funny how you think you know about something when you’ve never really experienced it. I’ve always been the kind of guy to eat what I want more or less when I felt like it. So I’ve always associated “comfort eating” with the kind of thing you see on Friends where they eat a tub of ice-cream when the latest boyfriend dumped them. And whilst there are times when I pig out because I’m fed up it’s not something I do much.

The things is, eating less makes you think about when, how and why you normally eat, and whilst it may not fit my previous definition of “comfort eating” there are definitely a lot of times when I eat because I’m bored, or as a kind of “entertainment” – something to do that gives me pleasure. And it’s this later that’s hardest to give up.

Spreadsheet not Helping?

Last time I spoke about how I made a spreadsheet like I did for my Harry Potter Reading Marathon. I think overall this is a good thing. It’s a motivator to watch my progress and I like numbers (which is why, in the end, calorie-counting, which I hadn’t originally intended to do, works for me rather than against me.) However since the parallel was there this automatically made me think about the Harry Potter experience.

I got a tremendous sense of satisfaction out of achieving something that I wasn’t sure if I could do. I did so by keeping an eye on the target, via the spreadsheet, but towards the end there was something of a sense of grim determination about it. In order to make my ridiculous targets I was eating, sleeping, working and reading, and that’s all. I longed to just flop in front of the TV and watch a film but usually couldn’t spare the time away from the books (I still enjoyed them by the way, just not the reading itself, if that makes any sense). Once I’d finished I don’t think I picked up a book of any kind for several months.

So apply this by analogy to my dieting – what I don’t want to do is work hard for a few weeks or months, make some progress, hit my target and then be so fed up that I go back to eating too much and put it all back on, and to some extent the spreadsheet symbolises that. Whatever I do, whatever changes I’m making, have to be sustainable indefinitely.

Soooooo…. back to the “entertainment eating” thing, giving up of. When I’m sitting down at the end of the day thinking I really fancy something, not am hungry, or even fed up or bored, just really fancy eating something, the following train of thought goes through my mind:

“I really fancy something to eat. Not much, maybe a slice of toast, or one of those yoghurt bars.”

“but a slice of toast is 85 calories and the yoghurt bar is 70 and you’ve only got 50 left”

“so? I’m only going over by a few”

“it’s week 1 and you’re cheating already!”

“good point. Oh well think about the target, I’m weighing myself tomorrow. Once I hit the target…”

“Sure but it’s not about just hit-the-target-and-quit, this is your life now – or it’ll not work”

“Oh. So from now on I can’t just eat a slice of toast (never mind chocolate etc) when I fancy it? That’s my life? Thinking twice over a frikking slice of toast?!”

“Pretty much. But it’s only food. Is your life so empty that giving up comfort eating is such a terrible thing?”

(sadly) “yes. maybe?”

We’re not in Hogwarts Anymore Harry

This is all pretty downbeat but I think there’s room for optimism. I think that there are a number of reasons why it doesn’t have to be like the Harry Potter thing:

  • My goal is much more realistic. The Harry Potter marathon was the equivalent of a crash diet adn I’m not doing that.
  • It’ll get easier as I get used to it.
  • The hard part is psychological. As I said I don’t really get physical hunger pangs.
  • I’m starting to exercise. As I get fitter I’ll be able to do more i.e. burn more calories, which means I won’t necessarily be on 1800 calories a day forever.
  • Over the next X months I’ll be aiming to burn more calories than I eat in order to lose weight. Once I hit my target weight, I can find a balance between diet and exercise that allows me to maintain that weight.

So I’m not as pessimistic as the previous section makes it sound. In any case, it’s a helpful thing to have to re-consider the place of food in my life. It reminds me a bit of fasting when I used to do that (for religious reasons)

And the Magic Number is…

OK, I’ve rambled long enough. In the first week on my new diet/exercise regime I have lost 2.1Kg or 4.6lbs. More than I thought but not too much. It is the first week and I know that you always lose most in the initial stages so I’m not expecting to keep up that rate of loss.

But I’m pleased.

Categories
reviews

Merlin (or “Camelot the Early Years”)

Ok so that’s not original but clearly, the BBC’s new flashy drama Merlin is a Smallville for medieval times. You’ve got the younger versions of the main characters, not necessarily settled in their hero/villain roles (Arthur’s a jerk, Morgana seems ok), nor in their eventual romantic configurations yet (Arthur fancies Morgana, as does our young wizard, though there’s some Guenivere-Merlin banter that must be going somewhere). The formula works (for Smallville, time will tell for Merlin) because you get to play with people’s expectations whilst having a sense of familiarity. Plus you can do all those oh-so-funny wink at the audience jokes such as Guenivere’s “Who on earth would want to marry a king?” line.

I enjoyed it but it felt padded. They really overdid the setting up the fact that a) Merlin and Arthur not getting along and b) Merlin can move things with his mind. Maybe the budget was overstretched by the CGI dragon (not that great to be honest) but some of the later seemed rather minor and once the point had been made (e.g. by saving the falling Gauis) I’d’ve cut the others.

I also can’t quite understand why you’d cast Richard Wilson as the mentor when you’ve got frikkin’ Giles on the payroll! Failing that (and allowing for the fact that possibly Tony Head wanted to do something different) you’ve got John Hurt, although he may have just signed up for the voice work knowing that it would be a lesser commitment.

Having said that I did enjoy enough of it to watch again. Eve Myles did a great job in making the witch creepy and threatening – enough for a saturday teatime audience anyhow – and I enjoyed the ‘spell-singing’ at the end.

Overall – a bit of nonsense with enough about it to keep me watching, for now – 6/10

Categories
lesamy

Lesamy

Lesamy, pronunced “Less-oh-me” i.e. less of me, is my new made up blog tag/category word in the fine tradition of flubbage. Technically I suppose it’s a sub-division of flubbage but because it is a project in its own right, a specific endeavour like Buffy Rewatch, it therefore deserves it’s own category and word.

So what is it?

Ok. Basically I’ve decided to try to lose some weight. I have pretty much always been overweight and not minded much. As long as my general health and fitness was ok I didn’t feel inclined to go chasing a particular body image. However lately I’ve noticed I’m not as fit as I was. So I started to think about upping the amount of regular exercise I get.

This led to me deciding, this last saturday, to do specific exercises every day and increase the amount of walking I do. I did this for a couple of days and started to wonder if I’d feel the effect in terms of my waistline and so thought I’d weigh myself. Which led to the discovery that my scales are bust. Which led to the purchase of a new set. Which led me to thinking more about weight than fitness per se.

The Harry Potter Effect

One of the things that occurred to me as soon as I thought about weighing myself was to set up a spreadsheet. Some readers will remember my Harry Potter read-all-the-books marathon of last year, in which my use of a spreadsheet was both a kind of helpful distraction and motivator. Silly but true. So I set up a spreadsheet to record my weight. And really, only because it gave me another formula to plug in I added a column for BMI (Body Mass Index).

That was perhaps a mistake.I knew I was overweight. I thought I was probably “technically” obese. But the number I cam up with seems to be in the “Are you sure you’re not dead yet?” category. Oh well. In the end it’s just a number. I would have liked to make a goal of getting into the overweight category but since that would probably involve somehow stretching to 3m tall I don’t think that’s realistic.

The Sensible Approach

Looking up the formula for BMI did help me in one way though. It led me to some useful, reputable, websites with sensible advice. The Harry Potter marathon was the reading equivalent of a crash diet and I think I was already aware that I need to go for slow and steady if I want to keep the weight off, so reading just that along with some reasonable goals and advice was actually encouraging. So based on what I read I’ve come up with the following:

  • I’m doing a few minutes worth of exercise morning and evening. I intend to start slow and build up, so maybe in 3-4 weeks I’ll increase the number/duration of that.
  • I’m cutting out snacks and having just the two meals a day that I theoretically already have – lunch and evening meal.
  • I plan to add breakfast in at some point but it’s never been a major meal for me and I don’t want to change too much all in one go so I’m leaving that one until later.
  • I’ll aim for ~1800 calories a day most days with the occasional (no more than weekly) cheat day of 2300.
  • I’ll expect the progress to be slow, aiming at no more than about 1-2lbs or 1kg loss a week.
  • I’ll only weigh myself once a week (and more and you get discouraged with progress or frustrated by fluctuations)
  • I’ll expect the occasional set back but won’t be phased, will carry on, and will seek support and encouragement.
  • My goal initially will be a 10% reduction. Doing this by Christmas is achievable.

Having just followed this full regime for a day or two it’s not so hard that I can’t see myself carrying it on – potentially indefinitely as I want to keep the weight off. 1800 calories is a lot less than I was having but with a slightly smaller lunch I can still have what I consider to be a perfectly reasonable evening meal, with a nice desert. I just can’t have all the extra snacks. I have to choose between the nice yoghurt, the ice cream and the chocolate and just have one of those and not all three.

In a word it’s doable.

My Mean Mother’s Method

I said above that I’ve been ok with being overweight in the past so long as I’m generally healthy. However one person in my life wasn’t and that was my mother. She means well but it comes across as nagging. Recently I got home to find an envelope addressed in her handwriting. There was no note or letter, just a clipping from her local newspaper about a guy who’d lost some amazing amount of weight and his secret apparently was getting support through his blog. I just thought “not too subtle mam” and figured she’d thought of me because she associates me with all things computery. And fatness obviously.

A few weeks later having independantly decided to do this one of the things recommended in my reading was to get moral support. There’s no way I’d join a slimming club. I’m just not that much of a joiner plus I knew a guy who did weight-watchers and they were very civil to him but being the only bloke made it a bit uncomfortable. Best case scenario I think you’d be treated as a rare and special specimen and worst case you’d be seen as invading their safe female-only space. Besides it costs money. Bugger that.

So the blog it is.

Hence this.

Hence Lesamy.

Categories
reviews

Fringe

I watched the two hour pilot to the new JJ Abrams produced show, Fringe, the other day so here’s a quick review.

I told M that this was coming up and asked her if she was interested (she’s a huge Lost fan). In trying to describe the show based on the brief bit of blurb I’d read, I think I made it sound like a version of Heroes. When I tried to correct that impression after reading more, I told her it sounded a bit like X-Files (I knew she’d liked X-Files when it was on). She still wasn’t feeling any excitement about it. In the end she explained:

“Looking back I think a lot of the appeal of X-Files was David Duchovny.”

which is fair enough. But now having watched the first installment of Fringe,

  • I can see that Fringe is not just “a bit like” X-Files, it really really wants to be X-Files. Fringe wants to marry X-Files and have its cute little alien babies. More importantly,
  • How many people out there are going to watch for the pleasant day-dream inspiring delights of Pacey from Dawson’s Creek? Ok, ok – unfair I know. I’m sure Joshua Jackson has his fans but, and I could be way off but it never struck me that they were the kind to get drawn in to a pseudo-science pseudo-scifi thrillery thing with a, no doubt, soon to be very convoluted back story.

Now all this sounds very negative which is a shame because I don’t think it’s a bad show, I just can’t quite see it finding a huge audience, but what do I know? Anyway I’ve not really started reviewing yet, so let’s do that.

Fringe is about a CIA-FBI liason officer who gets involved in the case of a flight full of people whose flesh literally melted off their bodies. In the course of investigating this her partner (and lover) gets blasted with a dose of the chemical agents responsible, thus setting up a “solve it in 24hours before he dies” scenario. In order to reverse the effects she needs the assistance of a crazy chemist locked away in a mental institution. To get to him she needs his estranged genius drifter of a son i.e. the aforementioned Pacey/Jackson.

Thus the roles are all neatly defined. She needs to solve the crime to find the plane-poisoner and extract vital information for the cure. Mad old Dad assists with forensics and the final cure. Pacey can speak crazy/science to M.o.D and therefore acts as both handler to him and sidekick to her. In fact his role is a little thinly defined right now. There wasn’t much he did – chasing someone down an alley, a bit of particularly harsh interrogation – that someone else couldn’t have down. In a way he played the traditional female sidekick role, seemingly involved but with little to actually do. However since I don’t believe a golden dawn of radical feminism has yet arisen on Hollywood I suspect he’ll have more of a job to do in upcoming episodes.

But back to the neatness. This was a perfectly serviceable piece of television but I think the thing that stopped it being more than that was that I was too aware of the pieces of series setup slotting neatly and smoothly into place. The core team and relationships. The mysterious billionaire who seems destined to be the ongoing bad guy and his apparently benevolent organisation. The hints at what kinds of things we’ll be exploring in future. Mention of shadowy agency-within-an-agency machinations and some vague idea of a connecting threat called “The Pattern” (which I fear will end up as a holdall container for whatever mystery-of-the-week they want to write[1]) It was all efficiently and relatively unobtrusively done. But I was still aware of it. Maybe that’s just a problem with pilots, or a problem with viewers like me who’ve seen too many pilots.

Overall, ok but nothing here to tempt me into regular viewership – 6/10.

[1]As a Buffy fan I can hardly complain. What else is the Hellmouth but a built-in excuse for so many monster stories in one place?

Categories
flubbage movie

Why What Works Works

Yesterday I happened upon a list of the top ten cheesiest movie lines, as decided by some site linked to by J. Random Blogger. I was slightly disturbed to see some of my favourite movies up there with what I consider to be reasonable lines. However one I could definitely agree on was from Four Weddings and a Funeral where Andy MacDowell, soaking to the skin but basking in the fact that Old Floppy Hair has just told her he loves her, says:

Is it still raining? I hadn’t noticed

I groaned the first time I saw it and ever since. The film as a whole I quite like (though there’s a story behind that, maybe another time) but that line really doesn’t work.

Then it occurred to me that there’s a similar scene in As Good As It Gets which I think does work. It’s where Jack Nicholson’s grumpy OCD-sufferer has finally woo-ed, so we think, Helen Hunt and they go for an early morning stroll to the bakery. As they’re walking and talking she notices he’s moving away from her, looks down and notices she’s walking on a patch of cobble-stoned pavement, and he’s avoiding the cracks. She tells him it’s not going to work, he ignores her and gives a big romantic speech and then kisses her. The camera then pans down to show that they’re both now standing on the cobbles.

Of course these two moments aren’t exactly the same, but they’re using a similar technique, the idea of being so distracted by being in love that one forgets one’s normal concerns. But the effect, for me anyway, only works with As Good As It Gets. I’ve been thinking about why that might be. What I’ve come up with so far is

  1. The Four Weddings line is on the nose whilst the other isn’t even a line. Four Weddings tells us exactly what the character is thinking whereas As Good As It Gets lets us make the connection ourselves, even if it’s reminded us of what “stepping on the cracks” means a few minutes earlier.
  2. The Four Weddings line is a throw-away. It’s meant to be charming and romantic but it could be any line that achieves that. The As Good As It Gets moment is the culmination of a theme developing through the movie – the idea that he’s so in love with her that he’s willing to try to change for her.
  3. Specifically it recalls one of the most romantic and thematically important moments in the movie – the “You make me wanna be a better man” line. Four Weddings most romantic scene is arguably when he stops her on the street to tell her he loves her. There’s no connection with that, or any of the other key moments of the movie for that matter.
  4. Maybe I just like As Good As It Gets more so I’m more forgiving. I don’t think that’s true but maybe it is.

What do you think?

Categories
not of this blog

Someone New to Hate

Don’t you hate it when you find someone doing what you’re trying to do, only better? Someone to whom, if you’re honest, you can point and say, “look that’s what I meant!” and all your indulging friends will smile faintly and say, “Oh, I get it now.” Well turns out there’s someone like that for me and I’ve just read his blog.

Those of you with a long memory, or who’ve skimmed the archives for the good bits will know that I did a humourous recap of both the series 2 and series 3 finales of the new Dr Who. And you may have been wondering (if you are vaguely in step with the changing of the seasons, the rise and fall of the tides, the TV schedules and so on) whether I had forgotten to do so again, or whether my utter laziness just meant it was late.

The fact of the matter is that I had pretty much decided not to bother because some things are so bad that even to point and laugh is not worth the effort. Or so I thought…

Then I read Mr Andrew Rilstone’s reaction to the final couplet of Dr Who episodes. Check it out. He’s funny, clever and insightful. He makes important points about things I agree with. He understands that there’s a difference between silliness for silliness’ sake and silliness that gets you somewhere. He goes on a bit, but then so did that bloody finale.

He says the kinds of things I’d like to say but does it better. And he’s actually so funny and clever and all that I almost don’t hate him at all.

Almost…

Categories
Buffy Rewatch reviews Season 1

Buffy re-watch: 1.08-1.11 Robots, Puppets and Other (Invisible) Nightmares

So this is my first multi-ep re-watch review, and as you can see my titles aren’t getting any snappier. I’ll try to work on that. I deliberately left myself the final episode as a ‘oner’ because it’s my favourite season 1 ep and because it deserves a longer review than the few lines these four will get.

1.08 I Robot, You Jane – IRYJ or “Robot” is definitely a guilty pleasure. It shouldn’t work because it’s so cheesey and silly. Even for 1997 the computer stuff in this episode is just so off-beam. But you forgive it all that because it’s fun. And it’s fun because you’ve got all this lovely relationship stuff – Giles and Ms Calendar, Willow and Malcolm/Moloch with Xander getting jealous. And of course the last line and reaction which is pretty much the mission statement as far as BtVS romances go

Buffy: Let’s face it: none of us are ever gonna have a happy, normal
relationship.

Xander: We’re doomed!

Willow: Yeah!

So even with the element of cheese it deserves a good healthy 8/10

1.09 The Puppet Show – this is another episode that shouldn’t work as well as it does. There’s a long and glorious history of “devil doll” horror movies, and none of them quite get over the inherent silliness of a toy attacking a human. The fact that The Puppet Show almost does is testament to how good it is. I think that’s partly the way it’s shot, partly the voice acting for Sid the dummy and partly the plot. This ep introduces Snyder and he’s one of about 4 characters who you could genuinely believe is the killer. So it keeps you guessing. And laughing. This is a very funny episode, especially with Giles’ reaction to having to produce the talent show.

When I was deciding what to score this ep I dithered between a 7 and 8. I’ve decided there’s no point having a 10-point scale if you award say 7.5 but whilst The Puppet Show is definitely better than Never Kill A Boy… is it really on the same level as The Pack (my favourite so far)? Then I remembered the credit sequence. After that, no problem. 8/10

1.10 Nightmares – The best moments in this episode are just that – moments. But not in the way that I described for The Pack, these are moments that stand alone, they’re simple jokes really, based on what we think individual characters might find scary. I guess I find the ending a little too simplistically moral. But we have some fun along the way. 7/10

1.11 Out of Sight, Out of Mind – this is the Buffy take on the Invisible Man story. Here though the invisibility comes from being ignored and once again, making an everyday issue into a mystical reality works really well. This is one of the few Buffy episodes that genuinely creepy or even scary. I think slashing Cordy’s cheek with a scalpel whilst she’s tied to the chair has impact because it has resonances of serial killer movies and so on. It’s good that we get to see a little more complexity to Cordy in this ep. I love that she can make us sympathise with her, because she’s lonely in the centre of attention, and still be the queen bitch. 8/10

So a good strong run up to the end of the season.

Categories
book movie reviews

Atoning for the Lack of a Proper Ending

Stupid title, oh well.

I recently read Ian McEwan’s Atonement for the Ship of Fools Book Club, and then, since it was availble in Tescos for a fiver, I got the DVD and watched that too. So here’s your all-in-one multi-purpose Atonement review.

The Book

I really enjoyed the book, well most of the book. It’s in four parts and the first four tell the story of Robbie and Cecilia a couple whose fledgling love affair is almost prevented by class, family, war and false accusation of a crime. The final part reveals the fact that the previous three parts were a novel written by Briony, who made the accusation, regretted it and is atoning by writing the story. Only she reveals that she may or may not be telling the truth, part of her atonement may be to tell a better version of the story, one which gives Robbie and Cecilia the happy ending that real life denied them.

Except of course it’s all fiction any way so there is no “real life”, so it doesn’t matter right? As McEwan, speaking through Briony says,

I know there’s always a certain kind of reader who will be compelled to ask, But what really happened?

Well yes, and sorry Mr McEwan but I am that kind of reader. But I’ll come back to that. Anyway if you want to hear my musings on the ending read my comments on the Ship thread.

As for the parts I enjoyed, the other 90% of the book, let me say a few words about that. The first section was slow to start but very atmospheric, something quite deliberate as we’re later told this is one of the flaws in Briony’s writing style. It’s very clever in the way it switches perspective and moves around in time, without ever being confusing. As someone who’d like to be a better writer I envied McEwan’s talent and will go back and look at those parts to learn I suspect.

The second section of the book is Robbie’s journey to Dunkirk through a war-torn France. I haven’t read a lot of wartime fiction (though I’m aware there is a lot) so perhaps it was that that made me so engrossed in this section. I learnt a lot and like the first thirty minutes of Saving Private Ryan it put me there in that situation and gave you that feeling of how utterly brutal and yet random the sufferings of war can be.

The third section is the story of Briony training to be a nurse and treating some of the victims of that suffering. Again it was the things I learnt, the empathy evoked for the suffering and the sense of Briony’s growing up. There’s also a very real sense of wanting to know what will happen, how it will play out when, if, Robbie and Cecilia are re-united. This leads up to a riveting scene where Briony meets with them to tell them she’s recanting and to make her atonement.

Of course it’s this very sense of wanting to know what happened that is frustrated in the final section. Although at the very end there’s a cosy call-back to Briony’s childhood which if not making up for her ripping the narrative rug from under us, at least leaves a better taste in the mouth.

But the unsatisfying ending is all the harder to take because the rest of the book is so good.

8/10

The Movie

In terms of structure the movie is very faithful to the book. It’s beautifully shot, especially the first section, but then almost all period dramas are. I guess once you’ve got gorgeous locations and wonderfully made period costumes that it seems a shame not to make the most of them, and so the cinematographer is given his head.

My problems start with the middle section, the France section, which in the book was my favourite and in the movie is truncated. That’s ok, adaptations have to cut stuff out, but what they removed was most of the tougher stuff, so that sense that the journey was perilous and at any moment you might be killed, or saved, by pure dumb luck wasn’t really in the movie. The scene at the beach at Dunkirk, a masterfully shot 4-minute one shot, gave the impression that it was merely that things were a bit disorganised.

I also had a problem with the casting. Keira Knightley does ok, she’s as good here as anywhere, and James McAvoy is slightly better but in key moments they fall short of the source material. That killer scene I mentioned earlier, the confrontation with Briony, contains a moment where Robbie becomes enraged and may even harm Briony, and Cecilia brings him back from the edge by force of will, her love and holding him with her eyes. The scene is in the movie but it has none of the sense of physical menace nor the restraining power of Cecilia’s love communicated in a look. I watched it and thought, they just didn’t nail it.

Perhaps where the movie is most different is the ending. They replace the putting on of Briony’s play with a TV interview about the publishing of her book. In doing so Briony tells us exactly what happened. That Robbie and Cecilia both died, unre-united in separate senseless losses of the war. That her atonement was to write them a happier ending and that that’s precisely what she did.

Watching this made me realise that whilst I didn’t like the ending of the book, I preferred some remaining ambiguity to the certainty of the movie. The movie ending did have at least one thing going for it though, and that was showing Robbie and Cecilia enjoying their happy ending, playing in the surf near their seaside cottage. And leaving them on a happy moment, even a false one, is nice that it otherwise would have been.

6/10

The Buffy Episode

No really.

The discussion around the ending and the nature of storytelling has reminded me of the Buffy episode Normal Again. Naturally I’ll be getting to this in the Buffy Re-watch project but since it’s season 6 and therefore it’ll probably be 2019 before I get to it I’ll mention a few thoughts here.

Normal Again is superficially just BtVS’s version of a staple plot in genre TV – the alternate reality story where two interpretations of events unfold and the hero is not sure until the end which is real. In this case Buffy is attacked by a demon which infects her with some kind of drug that causes her to hallucinate that she’s really in a mental hospital. Her dead mother is alive and visiting with her abandoning father. It’s explained that Sunnydale, the monsters, her powers and all her experiences are an imaginary world she’s created as a kind of comfort.

It’s cleverly done but so far so Star-Trek-did-it-first. What sets apart Normal Again is that it ends the wrong way. There are certain conventions about this kind of episode. One is that you tell it from the hero’s point of view until you’re ready to reveal which reality is the true one, but Normal Again pretty much sticks with thirdy party pov all the way through. The plot is set up so that Buffy has to choose which reality she wants to live in – if she kills her friends it will “kill” the hallucinatory Sunnydale world and be cured, able to return to her mom and dad. What she actually does is kills the demon and the hospital world disappears.

But the kicker is that it ends, not in Sunnydale, but with Buffy catatonic in her hospital room, the camera pulling back slowly. In TV language that’s saying this is the true reality and it (it being the whole series so far) was all a sick girl’s imagination.

This made a lot of people angry, as Atonement apparently did also. However I think that given that we know from the consistent point of view and the fact that the show carries on and is in fact about Buffy fighting monsters in Sunnydale, that that final shot is about something else. It’s about saying that like Buffy we get to choose which reality we want to live in. We can choose to suspend disbelief and we get the fantasy world of Buffy with all her exciting adventures.

This episode came at a time when there was lots of discontent amongst the fans, a lot of which was around how unrealistic, how untrue to the characters, the show had become. There was also a lot of nitpicking over plot holes and inconsistencies. I always thought of Normal Again as a sly dig at those fans, as an appeal to suspend disbelief again and thereby enjoy the fantasy.

I guess the difference is that BtVS managed to do it in a way that didn’t make me angry.

In case you’re wondering, I’ll rate Normal Again when I do a proper review.

Categories
Buffy Rewatch Season 1

Buffy re-watch: 1.07 Angel

I wasn’t sure if I was going to do a “stand-out” review for this ep since it’s not really outstanding quality wise, however Angel is a pretty important character in the Buffyverse and this is the first Angel-centric episode plus the first time we’re introduced to his back story. Buffy finds out he’s a vampire, but with a soul.

I guess here is where we get to the re- in re-watch because I’m able to say something I never would have said a few years back. This just isn’t very good. In the sense of being bad. And I don’t mean bad on a BtVS scale where it’s still much better than most other TV. I don’t even mean bad in that other BtVS sense where the central story isn’t great but there are compensations in the form of funny lines and character moments. I mean it’s just bad. OK it’s not awful. I’d still rather watch it than say a makeover show or sport, but it’s not good.

And this is because it’s lacking those extra touches, that Joss polish, that seemed to define the early seasons for me. Also there’s some plot holes and logic issues (and we know how I feel about those right?) My main one is, exactly what is it that causes Angel to vamp-out when kissing Buffy? We know from later on that he more or less has control over that so I guess it must be some semi-conscious desire to reveal himself.

Also, if he’s on the side of good, how come he doesn’t just kill Darla when she visits him at home? Or at least fight? And we’re never really shown enough to suggest he’s suicidal – because in the Bronze he tells Buffy that she should just kill him before he explains about the curse.

I can live with the couple of not-quite-settled ideas which turn into discontinuities – i.e. the fact he’s living off human blood bags and not animal blood, and the fact he says he hasn’t fed off a human being since he re-gained his soul. The Angel episode Orpheus tells us otherwise.

Angel is noteworthy because it introduces the idea of the curse and therefore clarifies the mythology regarding what a vampire is:

Giles: A vampire isn’t a person at all. It may have the movements, the, the memories, even the personality of the person that it took over, but i-it’s still a demon at the core, there is no halfway.

and

Angel: When you become a vampire the demon takes your body, but it doesn’t get your soul. That’s gone! No conscience, no remorse… It’s an easy way to live.

and whilst Angel is in a sense Giles’ non-existent halfway, he exists because of the curse, a loophole in the rule much less an exception that proves it. So for now everything is back and white, vampire=no soul=bad=ok to kill them. I happen to think the show gets a whole lot more interesting when they start to bend that rule. Because when it comes to “halfways” there is, as Yoda said, another. But we’ll get to that (eventually!)

So worth seeing if you either really bored, a completist, want all the details of Buffyverse vampire lore or just like seeing David Boreanaz with his shirt off (or Julie Benz in catholic schoolgirl uniform I suppose)

4/10

Categories
Uncategorized

Buffy Empowers Women to Leave the Church

I’ve got to say this raised a smile. Here’s a slightly more sensible reporting of the same story. Apparently women are leaving the Church of England twice as fast as men and following Wicca instead because Buffy made it cool. Or something.

It made me laugh because

a) blaming it on Buffy is silly (though that’s just the tabloid-headline-grabbing meme there’s a reasonable point of view in there somewhere) and

b) on SoF we’ve just finished one of the regular rounds of “Why are there so few men in the Church?” discussions. It’s going to be a shock to some to learn that it’s women not men leaving in droves.

Oh well, I guess soon nearly everyone will have left but at least there’ll be gender equality. In the meantime I gotta say it, in the words of my favourite Wicca:

“Bored Now!”