Lit Apropos of Nothing - ACKBAR IN CAPITALS - The Lit Forum Social Thread, v2.0.15

And he played the Doctor, too!

 

Nobody's perfect.

 

Man, Community was truly awesome last night! I definitely wasn't expecting that cameo with the hologram. I really liked Troy's joke about his Clive Owens tublr.

 

Yeah, the Hologram part was a high point. Also loved the scene between Abed and Shirley at the end.
Next week is the Ass-Crack bandit episode, which could work really well, or cross the line. Hard to guess after seeing part of Harmon's cartoon Rick and Morty, which I did not like.

Also sort of sad to think that we just got two episodes, and only 11 are left. Stupid disappointingly short 13 episode seasons.
Six seasons, a movie, and Jeff/Annie!

They really need to give Community a back nine, or older school back 11 or 13. Same with Archer.
Still, the Holiday TV drought is over, with Community and Archer starting, and Castle, Bones, and HIMYM coming back.

 

Have just tested the board game Okko: Era of the Asagiri and I like it

I really should by the comics also, instead of just borrowing it from the library

 

Yeah, there's nothing in the last season you really need to see.

Firing up the SW Mythbusters special. I don't even know what they're testing, but if they "confirm" anything I'll be astounded.

 

From the previews they are at least testing those fun grappling hooks and climbing cables Stormtroopers have on their belts, so those at least should work. Also if you can crush a tank like object with 2 logs, which might not work that well.

 

Just finished it. Don't want to spoil, but it was pretty enlightening.

 

Well in that case, of to the Internets to hunt it down it is.

 

So a new comic store opened at the local mall, and I went in to see if they carried the FFG SW LCG (or Android Netrunner LCG), and they had unopened Decipher Star Wars CCG Premiere boxes and Young Jedi CCG boxes.

They also had X-Files CCG, which I never played but as an X-File fan I'm intrigued by. But I should probably know better than to spend money on a dead CCG. OR SHOULD I?

 

I've "wasted" plenty of money on a living TCG, Yu-Gi-Oh!, so I am about the last person to answer such a question.

 

Spoiler

Everything's plausible, even the logs. Also badass.

 

Havac, per request, here are some scatterbrained thoughts and observations on up to about midway through the third season of Mad Men. I'll start by outlining the ways in which my original opinions of characters have changed.

-As you predicted, Joan Holloway has gone from one of the, in my opinion, least sympathetic characters to one of the most. Part of this is due to her greater screen time. Where originally she came off as somewhat manipulative, by this point the layers have been peeled back enough to show the well rounded and, generally, very likable character that she can be. The sooner creepy rapist husband exits the picture, the better.

-In contrast, I find a character that ranked among my favorites in the first season has lost a great deal of my sympathy: Betty Draper. While there's still that distinct sense that she wants to do more with her life than be a simple housewife- I imagine her foray into local politics will only feed that desire- lots of little annoyances have begun to pile up. From her ridiculously lazy parenting ("babies can't write!") to her old-fashioned-even-by-60s-standards views, to various off-handed comments that are downright repulsive today (*paraphrased* "she's good with tools, Don, she's really turning out to be a little lesbian"), I find she's becoming harder and harder to like. Of course, in true Mad Men fashion, I find I can't comfortably say I dislike her without questioning why, and questioning what it says about me that I do. Intellectually, I know that Betty is very much a woman of her times (at times it's like listening to my grandmother), raised to embrace a set of ideals that are so anathema to my own, and that it's not entirely fair to judge her character for them. Similarly, I know that Don is just as worthy, if not much more so, of my disdain, yet for whatever reason I can't help but like him (if nothing else, it speaks to Jon Hamm's talent in portraying an unwaveringly likable ad man). Am I not, then, giving Don a certain amount of leeway that I'm not giving to Betty because he's a man? It's an unsettling question to ask myself, but one that I think does need to be asked every once in awhile.

-Moving down the Draper roster, I'm really loving Sally's development. Part of the reason I've been reacting so negatively to Betty, I think, is that I hate her parenting style so much. Very hands off, and when there is any hands on interaction, it's led by deceit (the god damn barbie scene, man). It's just too bad that, comparatively, Bobby (is that the son's name?) gets so little screen time. I suppose even with Mad Men's leisurely pace, there's only so much time to cover so many characters.

-Speaking of Sally, she has me interested in just how far into the 60's Mad Men will go. I'm really hoping that it at least touches on the craziness of the late 60's: Sally is just a hippie waiting to happen. I know I'd be highly interested in seeing how her parents react. My prediction is that Don would be slightly amused, and though he might scoff, as he did with the beatniks in season one, he would be fairly accepting (it's not like he's above taking drugs from crazy hitchhikers). Betty, on the other hand, will just be horrified.

-Since I've been talking about characters who have changed in my perception over time, I'll talk about one who has remained fairly constant: Duck. I've just never liked the guy. While he did appeal to me very early on with his love of his dog (what can I say, when it comes to animals I'm easily manipulated), but abandoning was not a good way to endear me to the character. So far, I haven't seen anything to disavow me of my opinion that the guy is just slimy.

-No shortage of "god dammit Pete" moments. And to think I thought he was just being a nice person for fixing that German girls dress; in retrospect it was rather naive of me to think that he didn't just want to get in her pants. I've mentioned this before, but I'm not sure why I find Pete's infidelity so much more malicious than Don's. Perhaps it's simply because I find Trudy so much likable than Betty. I also loved the scene between Pete and the black elevator man, with Pete practically telling him what he should like and how he should live based on the color of his skin; so deliciously smug. So Pete.

-Very interested to see where they take Salvatore's character. I certainly hope him being closeted isn't shoved under the rug, as it hasn't been mentioned since the third season premiere. That said, I find Don's apparent acceptance- I don't for a moment believe he was oblivious to what was going on- to be a major boon to his character. In many ways, Don Draper, the scheming, conniving ad man, seems to be the most open minded man on the show.

-As a last thought: "Guy Walks Into an Advertising Agency" has to be one of the best episodes of television ever. The lawn mower accident was brilliant, and if I watched the show for no other reason, Sterling's snide comment about his foot being cut off "right when he got it through the door" would have justified it. And the ending to that episode was already perfect, but the song choice elevated it to a new level. I'm a big Bob Dylan fan, and the way it reflected the episode thematically, a man who has changed his identity and is comforting his daughter with the knowledge that baby Gene has his whole life to define him, set to the tune of a singer who changed his name and is reflecting on his past in order to forge a new future. Easily among my top three episodes.

That was way longer than I intended. I'm curious, Havac: who's your favorite character? For the record, my money is on either Sterling Cooper or Don.

 

...An X-Files one exists?!

BUY IT NOW

 

But maybe I'm biased.

*screams silently*

 

Great, now I'm fighting the urge to wikipedia him to see what's making you scream. But I've learned the hard way that wikipedia is the devil when it comes to shows you haven't finished.

 

I'm tempted.

 

http://dsc.discovery.com/tv-shows/mythbusters/videos/m5-star-wars-aftershow.htm

I love how casually they toss around the word "reboot" near the end.

 

Duck is hilarious. He's an awful, self-absorbed drunk who is not nearly as successful as he thinks he is and craps the place up nonstop while disrespecting Don for being all creative and crap. Hating on Duck is both entertaining and rewarding.

The thing with Betty is that we see in the first season that she's unhappy, unfulfilled, with stalled emotional development. What I love is that the show doesn't go the easy way of turning her into a simple Betty Friedan liberated woman. She's emotionally stunted, damaged, selfish -- she doesn't simply snap her fingers and get out of that because she discovers women's lib. It's not even clear that she'd go in for it if she understood it. Betty's been wronged by society, by Don -- but that doesn't make her perfect. She's a much less sympathetic character than she initially appeared because of her personal problems, but she's no less interesting for it.

Sally is AWESOME. Kiernan Shipka turns out to be an amazing child actress. And everyone predicts that Sally is going to turn into a hippie, but again, I think that's putting too much faith in lazy "the sixties!" character development. For one thing, she's too young for the hippie movement to really hit her. And it's not clear that the deep counterculture would even appeal to her. By the time she's eighteen, the counterculture will be normalized -- she may smoke a little pot in college, but that's beyond the purview of the series. In a series that's more interested in examining the people who weren't directly involved in "the sixties" as conjured by Baby Boomer self-hagiography, in avoiding the easy "the sixties!" storylines, and concentrating on the way those events reflect on the vast majority of people who went on living fairly regular lives within the establishment, I think it's more likely that she remains an actual real, normal sixties kid who absorbs the effects of the counterculture sidelong rather than partaking of it directly, rather than a "the sixties!" rebellious hippie child.

Pete's infidelity reads as worse because he's cheating on ALISON BRIE with nobodies. Pete should by all rights be happy in a marriage with Trudy, who displays very few flaws, is loving, warm, supportive, and looks like Alison Brie. But he lashes out by having these affairs with randoms who show no appeal in comparison with Trudy. Don's wife looks like January Jones, sure, but she does have her significant flaws, and it's at least somewhat understandable that Don would not feel fulfilled in the marriage. Not to justify cheating, but you get why he might be unhappy -- and, significantly, Don seeks out strong, challenging women for his affairs, and you can generally see what Don sees in them (well, except for his self-punishment with Bobbie Barrett), which makes them more sympathetic.

Don's openness is very interesting, and I think one of the keys to his character is the tension he's in. He's got multiple conflicting desires, multiple self-images. He's the man who remade himself, the man who sees through society. In that capacity, he's willing to hang out with Midge's bohemian buddies and smoke pot and try pills because why not and wander around with the bunch of bohemian weirdos from The Jet Set. That openness and freedom appeals to him. That guy can respect Sal's double life, can get lost in the dreamlike summer haze of California. But he's also the ad man, the executive, the suburban dad -- the little kid with the screwed-up childhood who desperately wants to be normal. He wants the American dream. He wants the wife and kids and picket fence and the successful job and he wants to just be happy. And it's not just some delusion; it's internal, a deep part of him, something he actually wants. He sees through society and the system, but he also embraces the system, buys into it. That's why he can understand the free-and-easy artistic bohemian counterculture to a degree, but he doesn't much care for the emerging hippie counterculture. He can understand the desire to drift away from society into a niche of freedom; he can't understand the desire to reject society, pull it down. That's why he can get high with Midge's friends in an apartment, but he has nothing but scorn for their ignorant, lazy contempt of the business world that makes their comfortable indolence possible.

Don's conflict is best embodied in his relationships. He wants a lot out of his relationships -- he wants the American dream, he wants a beautiful wife who has supper on the table when he comes home and they have kids and a wonderful house and it's perfect and tranquil and he's the king in his castle. He wants tranquility, suburban respectability, control of the relationship. He married for that, and got it in Betty. But he also wants challenge, he wants an equal, someone who understands him and his lonely, veil-piercing existence, a relationship that's fulfilling. He gets that in his affairs. Yet inevitably, the independent, challenging women he seeks out run up against his desire to control his world and his relationships, his desire for his relationships to run on his terms. So the affair falls apart and Don retreats back to Betty or starts a new one. Don's a guy whose desires are in conflict, and his inability to reconcile that leaves him fundamentally unhappy.

As for my favorite character, SALLY. Sally is the best. Next-favorite: Bert Cooper. Underused, but never less than 110% awesome when he does appear. Then, from the characters you know so far, I obviously can't resist Roger Sterling, Don is one of the great characters of all time and of course I love him, Ken Cosgrove is just quietly in the background being the best guy on the show and also the Hooker King of New York, Peggy is one of the great female characters (how do you feel about her development?), Lane is adorable, and Pete is a magnetic character for all his repelling behavior. Plus I'm kind of a sucker for Harry Crane, just because he is consistently hilarious and sort of lovable in his hapless everymanism. I should also mention Hildy for her barely-disguised contempt of Pete.

 

Unopened Decipher Star Wars CCG? Where did they dig that up?

 

If it's premiere unlimited, thats still not that hard to find. Unopened Coruscant, Theed, or Ref III is rare as gold though, and priced accordingly.