Media Diary
Intro
Welcome to my media diary! Ongoing reads, watches or plays will be listed on this page. Quick thoughts or longer form writing can be found in my monthly pages in the archive. I read a lot of books and comics, watch a lot of movies and TV, and play a lot of games. I'm sure you'll get an idea for my taste very quickly. Enjoy!
Ongoing TV Watches
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Ongoing Games
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Ongoing Reads
Ed. by Peter Lambert and Andrew Nickson |
by Frank Herbert |
by Homer trans. by S.O Andrew and M.J. Oakley |
Finished in July
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Buffy S5 & Angel S2
I think this may be the turning point of me liking Angel as a series more than I like Buffy. I haven't read much online about either series so I am truly in the dark about general sentiment, so I have no idea how controversial of a take that is. I'm still very much enjoying both, and I loved the introduction of Dawn in this season of Buffy.
The thing that has always worked best, the character interactions, is still working, although I don't think it's firing on all cylinders. Xander as always is a nuisance, but Anya tempers it since she is absolutely the standout of the new additions. Tara on the other hand seems to pull Willow to the side of the series and both end up quite uninteresting. Tara didn't really get much to do until "The Body" and even that only lasted so long before they just lobotomised her for the last few episodes. Buffy got an incredible amount of character work done with the addition of Dawn, a delightful new troublesome teen who is an annoying little sister in a believable way. Buffy navigating being the slayer, fighting an unkillable enemy in Glory, and eventually also needing to transition from older sister to guardian after the passing of her mother is all great stuff. But in the midst of all that there's Spike. Spike is now hopelessly in love with Buffy for some reason, in my opinion an excuse to somehow keep him docile and distance him from being a villain. But he is wholly uninteresting as a goody and I think needs that darker streak to be far more prominent, and the scoobies need to stop seeing him as a joke. Even with the chip which prevents him from hurting humans, he is a threat and he has been a monster for his whole vampiric career. I'm all for reform of villainy, but the show has clearly set up over these 5 seasons that vampires are soulless husks inhabited by evil demons with little margin for good with the exception of Angel, the vampire with a soul. If Spike is truly to be reformed in this show, that lore needs to be somewhat undone OR a stronger reason for his turn in motivation needs to be established. I love still having him around but it feels like he's leashed and not allowed to go off and do anything too interesting. At the very least he's more preferable to Riley, who was interesting in the previous season as a foil to Buffy but in this season became such a whimpering fool desperate for Buffy's "true love" that it was on the brink of being exhausting. However I do think the show staged Riley's exit at the perfect time, and I do think it worked well to test and twist Buffy's character development.
This is in stark contrast to Angel, where the core cast of Cordelia, Wesley, Gunn, and Angel all complement and push each other perfectly. Angel's brooding arc could have been annoying, but I think it was used so well to explore his history with other vampires and show what he is capable of, even with a soul, all the meanwhile the rest of the gang shows that they are capable without Angel. His return and the new status quo of him having to make all of this up to them is a much more interesting dynamic than the start of the season (especially whenever Lorne gets involved!). Wesley shows himself to be capable in not just hitting the books, but some dashing heroics and occasionally getting the girl. Coredelia shows so much soul in how the visions pain her but she sees it as worth it to help people. Gunn is maybe the weakest of the main cast, but even he has the tension of working with Angel and making sure his old crew are staying alive without him at his core. All of this is carried into the ongoing mystery of Wolfram & Hart and the everpresent seediness of LA (for my money a far more interesting setting for demons than the Hellmouth of Sunnydale). This combo works so well that for the last 4 episodes they can be thrown into another dimension and still make every scene a delight. Lorne is also a fantastic addition to all of this in that he is the most demonic of any of them, yet also enjoys humanity the most. And as the episodes go on, his chemistry with Angel is great as Angel begins to perk up and get rid of his brooding stare (genuinely some of the funniest lines and acting come from David Boreanaz which is crazy to compare to the beginning of the season). All this to say Angel is great.
I do think Buffy has set itself up for an intersting season 6 with the death of Buffy (we'll see how long that lasts), which I'm hoping will work for the characters just like Angel's brooding sabbatical did for his crew, but we'll see. Buffy has fought the apocalypse 6 times over (according to Giles' count), so season 6 needs to mix it up more than season 5 did. I am still seated for whatever that is and excited to see the scoobies again, but I'm glad I have Angel to fall back on if it doesn't hit the mark (famous last words?).
Still Wakes The Deep
Writing in progress (probably)
Finished in June
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Star Trek TNG S7 & DS9 S2
The final season of TNG was a really heartfelt send off for me for reasons mentioned in my June 16th blog post on it. Just like X-Files, this is a show I've muddled my way through since high school, so saying goodbye to these characters after 10+ years does punch me in the gut somewhat. I'm excited to see more of them in the films, some of which I have seen and some of which I have not, but I'm also excited for how much more Trek there is. DS9 is very picking of TNG's slack and so far is my preferred series out of the two, and I'm excited to meet the crew of Voyager (like meeting a family member you vaguely remember from your youth). I don't have a lot to say about the seasons in particular, while there are overarching plots, to me it's nice to just sink into this world that always has something new, weird, and horny around the corner.
The Archive