Buffy snubbed by Emmys again

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Originally posted by CharlieBlue:
I suspect that's the fault of the WTC attacks. I remember reading an article in TV Guide shortly before the show premiered where they said that they had to do a major change of direction midstream to focus the show more on Jack and less on somebody toppling the government or whatever it was they were going to do.

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Nice theory, but...

-- The first 10 or so episodes were done before 9/11. They didn't reshoot these eps, they just edited out stuff that would have offended people. So they still blew up an airliner, but they didn't show the airliner exploding. Must have killed them to throw away all that expensive CGI!

-- Anyway, if they didn't want to remind people of 9/11, would they have stuck with a story involving terrorists and hostages? Especially that "shoot the women!" scene that the critics all loved, but I thought was downright pornographic.

-- They've come right out and said that they didn't decide who the mole was until it was time to unmask same.

-- Naked Mandy was supposed to be a key character, but she just disappears after a few eps. Obviously she wasn't popular with the focus groups.

-- Ever watch La Femme Nikita? Same producers. They never had any qualms about making things up as they went along.

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Originally posted by Shuggie:
Six Feet Under has just started over here in the UK - we've had 4 or 5 episodes so far. I like it but I can't quite see what the fuss is about. The writing's ok - sometimes it's a little too self-consciously quirky for my taste. The acting's fine - I think the leads all perform well. But it doesn't really grab me somehow. I keep feeling like it's just about to get really weird and amazing but it never does.

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I wasn't that excited about it in the first four or five episodes either... It was a slow build, but now I'm completely in love with it. It just gets better and better, building on itself. Of course, I'm really about strong characters, and this show has them in spades. It's not much a grabby show. It's more like you step into the pool and melt in of your own volition.

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Maybe it's an unfair comparison but it's dark, quirky with a wry sense of humour - I keep expecting Twin Peaks - but it's not in the same class.

I do like the dead father - he's the most interesting character so far.

Shug

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I never watched Twin Peaks, though from what I understand of it, Six Feet Under is *not* Twin Peaks. Get thee gone, David Lynch! (no offense to Mr. Lynch, but I wouldn't be that interested in seeing SFU all Lynched out... bleh).

Six Feet Under is unequivocally the best show I've ever seen. Of course, everyone's welcome to disagree...

Pandora

"Mrs. Krabappel and Principal Skinner were in the closet making babies and I saw one of the babies
and the baby looked at me." -Ralph Wiggum

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I never watched Twin Peaks, though from what I understand of it, Six Feet Under is *not* Twin Peaks. Get thee gone, David Lynch! (no offense to Mr. Lynch, but I wouldn't be that interested in seeing SFU all Lynched out... bleh).

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Twin Peaks was the first Lynch work I saw, and for most of the first season I was blown away by it. But then I realized that DL, while very, very good at setting a scene, has no skill at -- or interest in -- actually telling a story. By the time you find out who killed Laura Palmer, you've stopped caring.

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Theoretically Lynch's short-comings in the storytelling department were supposed to have been made up for by co-creator and fellow Executive Producer Mark Frost (who also was one of the main contributors to Hill Street Blues among other things).

I haven't seen much of Twin Peaks lately (as I'm fighting buying the DVD since they only include the first 7 episodes, excluding the pilot, of the first season) but I did see a version of the pilot (a VHS special release that had a new ending slapped on to make it more of a complete movie) and that still held up today. The important thing about Twin Peaks was that it did contribute change in *how* people did television storytelling and that is a big part of why it made the TV Guide 50 greatest series ever list.





Nathan
"Being popular and well liked is not in your best interest. Let me be more clear; if you behave in a manner pleasing to most, then you are probably doing something wrong." - Janeane Garofalo, from "Feel this Book"

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I've heard about the movie version of Twin Peaks. As I understand it, the extra ten minutes weren't "slapped on". When they were financing the series, part of the deal was that they'd do a movie version of the first two episodes for release in Europe. Which meant at the same time they were shooting the series, they shot a half-reel of story that was never shown on TV. I've often wondered what they could do in ten minutes to bring the story to a reasonable end. Care to share? You should probably use the spoiler tag.

A movie version of the first two episodes would certainly work better than the series did. You could see everything resolved in one evening, instead of waiting months and months, until you finally gave up -- as a lot of tv viewers did.

But the big draw would be Lynch's trademark visual exposition. Which is popular in some circles, but which I find I'm now pretty bored with.

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The first season of Twin Peaks didn't really decline in the ratings. That didn't seem to be a problem at all then as a whole lot of people stuck around for the whole year (it was the second season that shot itself and good). I'll recap what I recall about the Twin Peaks: The TV series movie (I call it this to distinquish it from the Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me prequel) though I should recall that I was watching this about 2-3 months ago so my recollection isn't going to be perfect (this is going to be barebones and will probably leave out somethings from the beginning). Also, a video of this has been available at every Hollywood Video outlet that I have been in under the "Cult" section (along with Dr. Stranglove, Blue Velvet, Brazil, and Cannibal: The Musical) so it might be available for rental in your area.

Select to view spoiler:

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The end sequence kicks in shortly after the ending that we did see (of Agent Cooper calling it a night) originally in the pilot. In his hotel room Cooper gets an anonymous phone call stating that the killer is at the hospital, after calling Sheriff Truman they proceed to go to the hospital. Finding the anonymous caller they proceed to the basement and confront the Killer (who was called "Bob") there was a struggle and the caller (who apparently was tracking "Bob" after he killed someone that the caller knew) shot the killer before suffering what appeared to be a heart attack. Bob (the killer) made mention of a cryptic comments that included "Fire walk with me" at some point (I forget if this was immeadiately before or after he got shot, darned long-term memory).

After this a caption mentioned "[x] years later" (I forget exactly how many) you see one of the patented Agent Cooper dream sequences as he is in a room with the red-clad, weird talking midget (anyone who is a fan knows what I'm talking about), and Laura Palmer. What follows was a somewhat bizarre conversation between the midget and Cooper (was there any other kind ) involving Laura. Then music started up, the midget starts to dance, and laura leans over and whispers something in Coopers ear that we don't get to hear (and then the credits role). I have no problems with this extra time until the midget scene, which seemed far more tacked on than I remember the other "midget scenes" being in the series.

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RE: the idea of a Twin Peaks movie instead: I'd be more opposed to the idea of Twin Peaks having just been a movie of the first two episodes as we'd have lost a lot of the influence that it had on television as a whole (It should be noted that Joss Whedon has listed Twin Peaks among his favorite three television series of all time in a section in Entertainment Weekly). Plus there is the sneaking suspicion that a Twin Peaks movie would have turned out a lot like Mulholland Drive - good, but not necessarily something that will be remembered forever.

Though I will say that Twin Peaks would have been better as a one-season "Maxi-Series" instead of carrying over into that second season (which is the point that most people, myself included, seem to feel that the series went off the rails) which I think David Lynch agrees with in hindsight (given that that is how he pitched Mulholland Drive back when it was a television project).


Nathan
"Being popular and well liked is not in your best interest. Let me be more clear; if you behave in a manner pleasing to most, then you are probably doing something wrong." - Janeane Garofalo, from "Feel this Book"

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