Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Review

As I mentioned in this post about new shows, I decided to give S.H.I.E.L.D a chance (there's no way I'm spelling that whole thing out this entire time, and I might even drop the periods soon) solely because of the Whedon attachment.  I'm a Whedonite, through and through.  I have a homemade poster dedicated to fanart of Whedonverse and know all the words to the Buffy musical by heart -- basically, I'm living the whole Whedon fan cliche.  So even though I have very little interest in the superhero genre and remember more about the conversations I had during The Avengers movie (it was a drive-in theater, that's allowed) than about the movie itself, I decided to give it a try.

So after watching the pilot, here's a look at what worked for me and what did not.

What worked for me:  I liked the witty and self-referential dialogue which has always been one of my favorite Whedon trademarks.  Agent Coulson's entrance from darkness was fun and Hill's remark about Thor's arms made me chuckle.  I'll try not to compare too much to previous works, but the zingers did feel a little more out of place coming from the S.H.I.E.L.D. team than say, the Scoobies or Serenity crew, but it's a pilot.  It's allowed to find its way and I'm sure it will feel more natural soon.  I also liked that it was set up enough for me to basically understand what was going on.  The plot had some intriguing mystery to it, and I liked the cool gadgetry.  I liked seeing Whedon alum and hope to see more.  I'm interested in seeing how the characters get fleshed out, how the season arc evolves, and recurring themes of fighting the good fight (Angel ruined me -- I want this to be the theme for every show ever).

What didn't work for me:  My favorite character was that of J. August Richards but I'm not sure if he's supposed to be back as recurring or if he was just part of the case of the week.  If he was just a one time thing, that's a waste.  He got some good backstory and felt very human and real and relatable, aspects I felt were missing in everyone else.  I don't know if I missed deep characterizations in The Avengers, but without that context I didn't learn much about the main characters by the pilot alone.  Their personalities kind of meshed together so that I wasn't always able to tell them apart.  A line from someone could easily have been said by someone else.  But again, it's a pilot and can't do everything right from the start.  I mean, I slogged through season 1 of Buffy to get to the really good stuff, so there's no reason I can't allow some leeway for this show to settle in as well.

Another problem I had was that the show feels very squished, for lack of a better word.  It feels like a movie compressed to fit television, not a movie expanded into television or television with film-like standards like some "quality" shows.  Some of the effects just looked silly on the small screen, like Coulson's hover car. There's a lot of action for the film/franchise fans, but that's never been my cup of tea.  I'd rather there were more background for the characters so I can learn to care about them before they're put into heartwrenching danger.  Once again, I assume this will all come in good time.

As some commenters on the pilot review at tv.com point out, the show feels a bit like Alphas and/or Warehouse 13, and I agree.  Of course, you could argue that any show about the same general subject (superheroes/super abilities) is going to have some commonality and might even feel the same upon first glance while being vastly different shows.  I think the real reason to point this out goes back to S.H.I.E.L.D. feeling squished.  As of right now, Alphas did the super abilities thing better because it was always meant for television and didn't come from a mega-franchise and carry movie/comic baggage.  The characters were fleshed out in the pilot and grew from there; the writers could make the world as they went and didn't have to stick to any laws of the universe previously carved out in bigger projects with bigger budgets.  (Sidebar: can someone please get on making the Alphas conclusion movie?  That cliffhanger was cruel.)

Overall, I'm hoping the future episodes grab me a little bit more than the pilot did, and the way they can do that for me personally is to give me more background on these characters.  As long as they give them something worth fighting for, reasons for me to want them to win with all my heart, they'll be able to keep me as a viewer.  If it spends too much time on the action and effects without character development, I'll give it up within a few episodes.

For now though, my favorite thing was seeing this back on my television screen:

Modern Family: Fan vs Fanatic

As anyone just glancing at this blog should be able to tell(and anyone who knows me couldn't possibly miss), I'm a fiction fanatic, with my primary medium of choice being television.  I don't just watch television -- I talk about it, write about it, quote it, analyze moments, do entire series rewatches and occasionally even dream of my favorite fictional characters.  I'm a part of fandom for all my favorite shows, writing fanfiction and drawing fanart and making my tumblr essentially nothing but reblogged television GIFS.  I usually either love a show and obsess over it, or I don't care for it and will never bother watching.  Very rarely do I greatly enjoy a show and not completely immerse myself in it.

But there's always an exception, and for me, it's Modern Family.

The show's new season premiered last night, and I remembered to DVR it, but just barely.  I think the show is hilarious, and it fits right in with my other favorites like Parks and Rec and The Office.  It has lovable characters and emotional moments.  It's single camera, mockumentary, no laugh track.  I think it's a great show and I'm a fan.  But unlike most of my other shows, I'm not a fanatic for it.  I don't feel the need to make fanart or peruse its fanfiction.  I don't seek out its tags on tumblr and for the past season hiatus, I was two episodes behind, only catching up last night when it finally returned.  When I didn't have a DVR, I'd forget it for weeks at a time.

I watched the premiere today and it was really strong.  All in all, I think I laughed more times while watching it then I did watching the HIMYM premiere, and that might even be the normal comparison between the two shows (except HIMYM probably would have had the advantage in its early, golden years).  And yet, How I Met Your Mother still means more to me.  The characters will stick with me and I wonder about the missing moments the series doesn't show.  I theorize and read fanfiction and draw the characters.  I read interviews and watch blooper reels and can quote the show pretty well.  I never actively search for any of that material for Modern Family, and if something happens to just present itself to me, I will look at it with only casual interest.

After I finished the premiere today, I turned the television off, and that was all it was.  The show was over and I thought of it no more until it struck me how unusual that was for me.  I hadn't formed any real opinions on the episode and just let it end in my mind the same time it ended on screen.

I spent a lot of time thinking why that might be, and though I'm still not positive, two possible reasons do stand out to me: the family sitcom genre and its character development limitations.

My favorite shows tend to center on the "work place family" instead of literal family, and while the show does feature a "modern" and more eccentric version, the family set-up does have more limits to what can be accomplished.  For instance, the character relationships can't really change.  All the marriages will remain stable and reasonably happy, even when characters fight.  The end of each episode will offer this resolution. The kids will also always be loving and antagonistic siblings; they'll always learn their lessons with some setbacks along the way.  With the exceptional possibility of adding new characters, the dynamics are unlikely to change.  Ever.

There used to be a time in television when that's how shows were meant to be:  you come back for the same characters every week to see the same kind of stories.  You didn't want them to change and this was especially true for comedy -- you wanted the same funny people doing the same funny things and getting into the same funny kind of trouble, like in I Love Lucy or Gilligan's Island.  That's not the case anymore.  The trend for more serialized storytelling and changing characters started with drama but has since found its way to primetime comedy as well.

Take How I Met Your Mother for instance.  In many ways, it follows a classic formula -- archetype characters and zany situations.  In other ways, it has become more than that.  For most of its run, the show was a mystery centering on who The Mother would be.  It also has callbacks from seasons previous and plays with structure with flashbacks and flashforwards and unreliable narration.  And most importantly, it's allowed its characters to change.  Barney has changed from a one dimensional horn-dog and funny guy to someone with depth and insecurities.  We've seen him heartbroken and we've seen him patch up most of his daddy issues and we've seen him grow enough to want and actually be able to thrive in a committed relationship.  We've seen Robin do the same, while still striving to reach her career goals.  We've seen Ted accomplish things in his career and fall in love and move on and regress and move out on his own.  Marshall and Lily have gone from a seemingly stable relationship to finally being tested together to getting their own place and becoming parents.

Parks and Rec has had a similar trajectory.  The characters have had a chance to grow and change their relationships.  Andy has gone from a mooch to his girlfriend Ann to having a stable two-sided relationship with April and even some ambition for himself.  Leslie has gone from the Parks department to City Council, from being unlucky in love to finding her soulmate, and Tom's gone from the irresponsibility of bankrupting Entertainment 720 to running his own thriving business with Rent-A-Swag.  Ann's going to have a baby, and Ron's abandoned some of his hard independence for a lasting relationship and family.  They're all still the same funny, flawed people we've known but their storylines have been allowed to progress and as characters, they've been allowed to develop naturally.

All in all, I guess it's the serialization that really captures me with the ability to see characters grow and change and see their dynamics with each other change as well.  Modern Family is great and just as good if not better than some of my other shows, but changing just isn't something most family-centric shows can do.

Sorry for being long-winded, but much of this was me trying to sort it out for myself.  Agree, disagree, think my reasoning works out or is it flawed?  What makes you a fanatic for one show but a casual observer for another?

Breaking Bad and Hype

With the show in its final season and the aforementioned "hype" being greater than ever, I figured I'd address the current "gap" in my television viewing experience that is Breaking Bad (cue gasp and riot, no stones please).  So here it goes.

My resistance to the show started with reasonable intentions and no hard feelings towards it at all.  It began like this: I simply know what types of shows are my favorites, what genres I gravitate to.  I mostly like comedies, or the hour long dramedies filled with quirk and witty banter and ridiculously likable characters. To give some examples, my current favorites are things like Psych, White Collar, Eureka, and Warehouse 13.  These shows have a lot of fun, don't take themselves too seriously, but still give audiences some nice and deep emotional moments usually reserved for finales.  Hard drama has never been my thing, no matter how well done it is.  I knew that out there in the world, Breaking Bad was doing quality work and making a name for itself.  It just wasn't for me, and I thought that was okay.

But then it started: I'd mention my passion for television in conversation with someone, and their eyes would light up and say, "So you've seen Breaking Bad right?"  And I'd shake my head a little, tell them it wasn't quite for me, and try to move on by asking if they'd seen one of my shows.  Oh, the outrage!  How could I call myself a television fan without watching the best thing on television?  Or, what do you mean it's not for you, it's for everyone!  Or, but it is funny, Jesse is hilarious!  Or, sure Walter becomes a murderous soulless monster, but he did it for his family, and who needs likable characters anyway?

And I'd almost be convinced, honestly.  For a show that's got everything going for it, well, rabidly passionate fans are definitely on the top of that list.  And so I told them what I still say to this day:  Maybe I'll try it sometime.

That statement isn't a lie or meant to placate -- I truly believe that maybe I will watch the show eventually.  I love television, and though I do have favorite genres, I'm open-minded.  I've found some interest in drama with stuff like House of Cards, after all, and that certainly doesn't have likable characters.  I also don't avoid things just to break conformity or something, though my resistance has grown because of all the hype.  How could I not be a little jaded when I'm told my favorite, fun but not necessarily "quality" shows aren't worth my time in comparison to the God of all shows? How could I not roll my eyes just a little when my Facebook feed has nothing but reactions and spoilers for the latest episode and OMG, BREAKING BAD, OMG.

Can you blame me, really?  (Most of you will still say yes.)

But still.  Maybe I will.  When I've thought about starting the show in the past, it's always been with a few reservations.  What if it doesn't live up to all the hype people have made of it?  Or worse, what if it does?  What if I become just another rabid fan telling everyone regardless of genre preference that they MUST watch this show or they haven't truly lived?  Some of you might say I'm exaggerating but...it's damn near close to the truth.

The reason I'm bringing this up now is because of a recent conversation I had with one of my friends, Ethan.  Out of the many people that have tried to convince me to watch the show, he was the most effective because he didn't try.  He didn't sell it to me, he just said he really got into it, it's so good, and he found himself laughing so much at the funny parts.  He didn't say it was the greatest; in fact, he mentioned it just briefly, just to recap on the shows he's binged on from Netflix recently.  He talked about Breaking Bad and White Collar in the same five minutes, put them right up together with the same sort of enthusiasm and interest.  It was this conversation that has me thinking about starting the show more seriously than ever before, though by now I'm sure I'll wait until after the finale and the dust settles.

I just figure if Ethan can get past the hype and see it as just another good show in a long list of currently good shows on the air (or Netflix), maybe I can too.

Markus Zusak's Other Book

If you know the name Markus Zusak, it's probably because you've heard of and/or read his YA novel, The Book Thief.  It's popular, been on several "Must Read" lists and has now been made into a feature film coming soon to theaters near you.  I borrowed my roommate's copy and you know what?  It didn't do it for me, though I desperately wanted it to.  It's got an interesting writing style, with the narrator being Death, and I tend to like gimmicks like that, but not this time.  Maybe it was just because it's a period piece and that's not typically a genre I connect well with, or because the main character was also considerably younger than my age range at the time.

Or maybe I just had outrageously high expectations because I read Markus Zusak's "other book" first.  It's called I Am the Messenger here in the states, and just The Messenger elsewhere.  I picked it up at a bookstore knowing nothing about it.  The cover didn't look all that appealing, but I'd read a page or two in the store and liked the writing style and decided to take a chance on it.

I devoured the novel in hours and to this day, though I'm loathe to play favorites between books, it is one of mine.

I Am the Messenger is about an underage cab driver named Ed Kennedy, and here's a few things about him:  he's smart but unambitious, working a dead-end job and living a dead-end life.  He's pathetic in romance, in the eyes of his Ma,and generally going nowhere in a run-down town filled with run-down people.  He's averagely average with no prospects for more.  Until the day he unwittingly stops a bank robbery in progress.  Until the day he gets the first ace in the mail.

From then on, Ed is thrown into a whirlwind beyond what he could have imagined.  The first ace playing card gave him a list of addresses, at each address something he needed to fix.  They range from the unimaginably horrific to the simply sad, and it's up to Ed to change everything: change the world with one good deed at a time, lose himself in the beautiful broken people, and learn to live up to his potential.  It's narrated by Ed himself, and somehow from his simple and average perspective, the flowing metaphors and sensory descriptions are even more poignant.

Not to sound overly sentimental, but it truly is beautiful.

In short, I never did finish The Book Thief.  I tried and wanted to like it because of the author recognition, but it didn't capture me in the same way.  And I'm fairly sure I'll watch the film, but even if it takes me in more than the novel could, my heart will still be with Ed and the Aces.

TV Season 2013 -- Part Three

So here we go: the last installment of my look at TV Season 2013.  As I take in more new and returning shows, there will still be more posts on individual shows and episodes, but this is the last look at the whole. We finish off with the shows that aren't looking so hot to me this television season, and why.

Bones

Where we left off:  Brennan proposed to Booth, Pelant’s still free and telling Booth he better not marry her or he’ll go on a killing spree.  Or something.

Reasons for doubt:  The finale took what was once a fairly intimidating Big Bad who has caused some serious problems (even if they were rather unbelievable) and turned him into nothing more than a petulant child.  In my mind, I see him stamping his foot and saying “Don’t marry her or I’m gonna be bad!”  That’s my main concern, but the crimes are also getting old, the characters flat, and there’s too many squinterns to reasonably care about.  I’ll stick with it until the end (maybe), but it’ll never again be must-see television for me.

Community

Where we left off:  It should tell you something that I actually had to look this up to refresh myself.  I think they did the other timeline thing to death or something, and Pierce graduated, marking Chevy Chase’s exit. And Donald Glover will also be leaving to accommodate for his new FX show.  On the flipside, Dan Harmon’s back in. 

Reasons for doubt:  Honestly, Community is my sitcom darling, even over other favorites like The Office and Parks and Rec.  I’m in the middle of introducing a friend to it, and I can remember the wit and the silliness and will always champion it to others.  But Dan Harmon was axed for season 4 and it showed.  It showed badly.  It had more gags and less clever jokes, half-baked homages, and too much of trying and failing to be the old Community.  It had some gems, maybe, but it is the worst season without contest and against all reason, the show was renewed.  Now Harmon’s back in, but I just don’t know if he can recapture the magic, especially with two cast members gone.  I still manage to hope so.  #sixseasonsandamovie

The Goldbergs:

Premise:  The show is set in the 1980s and follows the Goldberg family. The single-camera series stars Wendy Mclevon-Covey as classic overprotective matriarch mother Beverly, her husband Murray, and three children.  Son Adam documents their lives with his video camera. 

Reasons for doubt:  The preview doesn’t look funny, and wacky families having wacky adventures is hardly innovative.  The series being set in the 1980s has also been done before, back in the late 90s with the now cult classic, Freaks and Geeks.  The main difference being that Freaks and Geeks had charm and depth, whereas the promo for The Goldbergs just looks loud and obnoxious.  I’m fairly confident, however, that it will share the same fate: cancelled in a season or less.

Dads

Premise:  Warner and Eli, two successful video game developers in their mid-thirties, have their lives unexpectedly changed when their fathers move in with them.

Reasons for doubt:  I may have to check this one out for myself, but the Internet reviews seem to have spoken.  It’s not funny and has too many racist jokes and is flat out boring.  I want better for Seth Green, so I’m hoping that if it’s really as bad as they say, it gets nixed right away and Green finds something better to spend his time on. 

As with any television season, many more of these new shows will be cancelled and deserve to be.  And more aging shows will cling desperately to life beyond their time.  These are just some of my preliminary thoughts on a few shows that got my attention; what stood out to you?

TV Season 2013 -- Part Two

As a continuation to my post about new shows, here's a follow up focusing on shows returning this fall.  For the most part, I'm a lot more excited to continue my shows than give a chance to the new ones just because so many of those will get cancelled within a season.  But here's what I'm looking forward to as far as returning shows and explanations as to why.              

How I Met Your Mother

Where we left off:  The Mother has been revealed to the audience, finally, and the long awaited meeting with Ted will occur at or after Barney and Robin's wedding.

Why I’m Excited:  Maybe it’s because I only started watching in season 7, but I am not like many other fans that are screaming “Just let him meet the mother already, it’s dragged on too long.”  If you really get this show, you should know it really is about the journey, not the destination.  This is about how Ted meets the love of his life and his happily ever after will be hard-won.  True, last season was all over the place; the jokes were more gag-y and less clever, and Barney and Robin had the most interesting storyline while that of every other character including Ted suffered greatly.  But you know what?  I’m optimistic.  This has been a good show and this is what everyone, including the writers, have been waiting to see.  We’ve met The Mother but Ted’s still waiting for her.  We’ll get to know her and hopefully love her too.  And my favorite bros are getting married.  I think they can end this show the way it deserves to end.

White Collar

Where we left off: Neal and Peter worked to find evidence that Neal's father is innocent of decades' old crimes, only to prove the opposite.  Now, after another murder, his father has escaped leaving Peter holding the smoking gun and taking the fall.

Why I’m Excited:  You would think White Collar’s extensive use of midseason finale and finale cliffhangers would get old, but it really doesn’t.  Peter’s starting off this season in jail, taking the fall for a murder committed by Neal’s actual dad.  From the preview, it looks like Neal’s going to revert to more of his criminal tendencies for the right reason – clearing Peter’s name.  Bring on the fun, the bromance banter, and bad! Neal.  Also, bring back Sara, please.

American Horror Story: Coven

Where we left off:  It's an anthology series so none of that matters.

Why I’m Excited:  I don’t know.  It’s a guilty pleasure.  I rage-watch as I try to decide if Ryan Murphy is a genius, an idiot, or a closet misogynist.  But October will put me in the mood for this genre and a season about witches will probably look aesthetically amazing.

The Legend of Korra

Where we left off:  Korra defeated Amon and is now in a relationship with Mako.  Tenzin's older brother Bumi returned to hang out with the family.

Why I’m Excited: As a longtime Avatar fan, I had high expectations for The Legend of Korra and Book One didn’t disappoint.  No, it’s not quite Aang and the Gang, but it’s a cool expansion of that world and way better than pretty much anything else in children’s programming right now.  Hell, it’s better than a lot of primetime television.  Book Two premiered this past Friday and is off to a pretty good start as Korra learns the mysteries of the now dangerously unbalanced spirit world, even if Korra herself did annoy me with too much teen wangst.

And that's it for now.  The third and final post in this series will highlight both returning and new shows that I am weary of watching, based on previous seasons or unappealing trailers/previews.

Happy Tuesday the 17th!

Today I was planning on posting the second installment of my look towards the new television season, but then I realized what day it was.  It's Tuesday the 17th!  A national holiday!  Well, for Psych-Os that is.  On Friday, February 13th, 2009, Psych aired its penultimate episode of the third season.  Though it's become a recurring style since, the episode entitled Tuesday the 17th was one of the first  Psych homages taken to the extreme, utilizing themes and references to the classic horror film, Friday the 13th.

Tuesday the 17th is truly everything you could want in a Psych episode: excitement, hi-jinks, gags, Shawn and Gus screaming like little girls, badass Juliet and even an emotional B-story for Lassie.  It is easily in the top 5 all-time greatest episodes and that's saying something, given that the show just completed its 7th season and has maintained a fairly high quality of awesome throughout.  

That's why Psych-Os celebrate every Tuesday the 17th that comes along, wishing happiness to fellow Psych fans across social  media, doing a rewatch, and eating obscene amounts of pineapple.

Here's the old promo, but celebrate the right way by checking out the full episode.  It's available on Netflix Instant, so no excuses!  Let's twist this.

TV Season 2013 -- Part One

It's September and that means one thing: television season begins, complete with new and returning shows. I'm therefore doing three segments: new shows I'm excited for, returning shows I'm excited for, and what remains to be seen/looks bad from both categories.

Back In The Game

Premise: When her less-than-athletic son doesn’t make the little league team, down and out and recently divorced Terry Gannon Jr. decides to coach him and the other rejects with the help of her overbearing father. Hilarity ensues.

Why I’m Excited: Okay, so maybe it’s a little much to say I’m excited for this, but I am optimistic. That’s mostly because I will follow any Psych cast member to any new show and root for it with all my heart, and if you don’t want the best for Maggie Lawson, you’re just wrong. Though it does distress me that this will cut into her Psych screen time, it’s pretty clear that the show (however much it hurts me) is winding down now after a great, long, and well-deserved run.  This is for new beginnings.

Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Premise: From the world of Marvel and The Avengers comes the new show centering on, that’s right, the agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Phil Coulson puts together a small team to handle cases that will test the team in cooperation and ingenuity as they try to work together figuring out newly emerging superhuman individuals in the world (wikipedia).

Why I’m Excited: I’m probably the only person in the world who is excited for this but who doesn’t actually care about superheroes and villains, Marvel, or The Avengers. For me, this is about Whedon’s return to television.

Sleepy Hollow:

Premise: Tom Mison stars as Ichabod Crane in this modern-day retelling of Washington Irving's classic short story, from Fringe's Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci. Frozen in time for 250 years, Crane awakes to partner up with Sleepy Hollow's sheriff Abbie Mills (Nicole Beharie) to solve the mysteries of a town ravaged by evil forces.

Why I’m Excited: I really haven’t heard much about this show, but I’m still not over Fringe and this show comes from Alex Kurtzman and Robert Orci.  There's not much more to explain there.

What new shows are on your watch list?

Fringe and Why A Rewatch is Absolutely Necessary

I’m a big fan of rewatches of my favorite television series, particularly after a show has finished production and the series is complete.  I love the idea of seeing how characters have changed and grown over the years, what trials they’ve been through, what obstacles they have overcome.  Storylines too  can expand over the course of a series, and very little delights me more than catching subtle callbacks to episodes from seasons ago.  Rewatches let you appreciate the planning, the continuity, the story, and the characters even more.

That being said, I have never felt as compelled to do a rewatch as I have for the series Fringe.  I missed out on the original airing and completed the series just over a month ago at the request of a friend.  For me, it started out slow but by mid-season two I was deep into it, discovering how many layers Fringe could provide, how extensive the worldbuilding went.  By the end, I realized that as attentive to the story as I was, there was still so much I must have missed.  There were things I couldn’t possibly have known were important until they finally became so seasons later, and I immediately needed to see all that build up in action.

From season one there were clues, a hidden message in the opening sequence, a character hidden in every episode, relevant words spelled out in glyphs (the iconic images between commercial breaks).  And the dialogue, little slips made by Walter to hint towards Peter’s past and the series’ future, recurring themes of fatherly love, parallels, callbacks, and foreshadowing.  It’s been like a puzzle, piecing together all the clues and meanings to understand the series as a whole.

Anyone who has seen the full show knows that season 5 is drastically different in narrative focus and appears to take you away from everything you’ve really known about the Fringe world.  What was once a happy present timeline becomes a dark future for the characters, what was once preparing for a mysterious war becomes fighting one, and the stakes are higher, the obstacles bigger.  But season five is less about changing it up than it is a culmination of storylines, universes, timelines, and the lives of the characters.

And that’s why I believe a rewatch is necessary to truly appreciate all that the Fringe writers accomplished – it’s impossible to see the value of the whole without accounting for all the pieces.

Now for Ben Wyatt’s (Parks and Recreation) opinion on the subject:

Obligatory Intro!

This blog is for people like me who are fans of all sorts of fiction -- books, television, and movies in particular, though other formats/mediums might crop up now and again too.  This is for those who live and breathe creative fiction, those who dream of characters or fantastic worlds created by favorite authors, those who remember when they've been moved to tears of laughter or sorrow by storytelling.  This is also for those who write in any form -- blogs like this, fanfic, novels, short stories, poetry, I'm not picky.  Because writing is writing and you do it because you have to.  And you do it because others inspired you first.

Though I'll try to be diverse, I'll let you know right now that I favor television and that it may dominate the majority of posts.  But I don't want to limit this blog to television because fiction is powerful in all forms, and it's the storytelling that matters.

So dive in with me.