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[frelling_tralk]

Give me a fandom and I'll give you, either in the comments or in a separate post, five unpopular opinions for that particular fandom.

Comments

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

I was really bummed at how the mini-series dismissed their relationship :( I thought that their first kiss in season 4 was strangely adorable lol

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

Well it seems that I definitely got it right on my apathy for Wesley being an unpopular opinion anyway! :P

And hmm yeah, I'd agree with that. I remember that Cordelia was pretty awesome in early season 2 with how much she had grown, while still remaining her snarky self. But it always felt like they didn't really know where to take her after that, and then she became really perfect and bland after they landed on making her a love interest for Angel.

Thanks for those links, I'm going to check them out now :)

[damnedscientist.livejournal.com]

Yes! I adore the Aeryn/Sikozu bonding and the Bad-Rygel moments. And where else in FS do we get To hear Aeryn fart?

But I also hate MAA. It is the only ep I avoid watching. I'm always amazed at the way people hand wave-excuse what is confirmed (but we always suspected) about D'Argo in that ep. And the other D'Argo ep I call Dullas Shitis because it is so boring.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

Yeah I was really uncomfortable with MAA because the show had always previously told us that D'Argo was innocent, and that his brother in law had framed him because he was unfairly prejudiced again Luxans. But then MAA seemed to be saying that the brother in law was right all along, that D'Argo being a Luxan should never have married a Sebecian who was too weak to withstand his attacks. He might not have been the one that actually killed her, but he very easily could have killed her when he was blacking out and not remembering beating her. It was totally irresponsible of him decide to marry her, while knowing that he was too young and would be predisposed to hyper-rages and blackouts (Luxons frowned on getting married when you were young for that very reason from what I remember, because you haven't yet learned to control the Luxan hyper rage?)

And lol, I don't think I could ever sit through that season 2 episode with D'Argo again XD

[endeni]

Yes Owen was my least favorite as well.

Season 1 & 2 of Torchwood had their ups and downs and I loved them ("Captain Jack Harkness", "Something Borrowed", "To the Last Man", "Adrift"... ♥), but CoE was just so emotionally intense and heart-wrenching, plus it looked so slick and polished, tight-plotted too and we got to met terrific new characters like Lois Habiba and John Frobisher.

And yes, even Ianto would agree with you that Jack doesn't love him as much as he loves Jack. Have you had the chance to listen to Torchwood audioplays? In "Dead Line" Ianto says as much to a sleeping/unconscious Jack (the speech is also featured in this amazing vid by di-br).

[ditzyfish.livejournal.com]

Promise was impressive in how terrible it managed to make all three characters look though, which was presumedly not what they were going for!

Yeah a Clark Kent who's willing to run away with someone's pregnant fiance - nice one there writers.

*kisses Smallville like Michael Corleone kisses Fredo* "You broke my heart. You broke my heart".

[endeni]

Sure, no problem! ;)

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

I do agree that COE was very powerful drama, I just didn't really understand at the time why so many people acted like TW was just a silly Sci Fi show before that. At the time it seemed that a lot of the viewpoints were either people who never liked TW and celebrated it as 'growing up at last' with COE, or those complaining about how COE betrayed the spirit of 'my favourite cracky show'. But there were always plenty of disturbing topics that the show looked at and took seriously?!

And thanks for those links :) I always felt like Janto could have been a really big ship of mine, but the show was so all over the place with them that they just never lived up to their potential for me. It's a shame because the actors had great chemistry

[endeni]

Eheh, that's me, the compulsive (bookmarker&)linker... :D

[endeni]

/I think Wesley expected some forgiveness or a willingness to hear his side of the story/ - Yes, what sting the most is that *Cordelia* did not even bother to talk to Wes to hear his side of the story after coming back from her trip... (But then the characterization of later seasons!Cordelia is notoriously absurd.)

[endeni]

But what's so fascinating about Wes is that his earlier self is just another facet of what he'll later become. He was always a supporter of the idea that the ends justify the means and that the mission takes precedence over the well-being of single individuals, which goes way back since the whole thing in BtVS with Willow and the Major and the box.

[stolenglimpse.livejournal.com]

How's about a little Dollhouse? :)

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

1. It's one of my favourite Joss shows (after Buffy of course!), and it's disappointing how many people dismiss Dollhouse as not being his best work. I thought the show had some really fascinating things to say about identity through Echo refusing to believe that she's broken, and having to build her own personality from scractch, the show had so many interesting things to say if only people would dig a little deeper

2. I didn't really have a problem with Echo, I don't agree that Sierra or Whisky should have been the lead instead. Eliza wasn't always a strong enough actress to pull off certain scenes, but overall I liked what she did with the role. Okay maybe Whiskey could have been a stronger lead, but I was always pretty meh on the raves over the Sierra actress. She was decent enough, and I did love the 204 episode focusing on her, but I never thought that the character was that much of a standout as everyone else apparently did

3. It seemed like Paul/Mellie became the more popular couple over Paul and Echo, but I thought that Paul and Mellie were a total mess together and I could never root for them as a couple

4. I shipped Echo with Alpha a litle bit :blushes:, I wish that the show had more time to explore his character and what caused him to reform in the end and work with Echo

5. Okay I'm not sure that this is actually unpopular at all lol, but Echo >>>> Caroline, I was so glad that the show ultimately had Echo keep control of her body, after establishing that she had become self-aware and had just as much right to exit

[stolenglimpse.livejournal.com]

It's been a while so I need to rewatch. I had started doing that at the same time I did The Vampire Diaries but I continued TVD and Dollhouse has been waiting ever since.

One thing I'm not sure I like is Paul in Echo's mind in the end. That's kinda creepy to me.

And I like Sierra well enough, I think she's interesting but I don't love her more than I do Echo or Whiskey. I don't think I even have a favorite. If anything, Topher's a favorite *laughs*

I would have loved to see what caused Alpha to be so obsessed about Echo from the moment Caroline showed up (or was she already Echo when her saw her? I don't remember) and he had to go and mass murder and disfigure people (multiple personalities, I know but still).

I felt Paul/Mellie was a bit pushed but I didn't mind it much. I still have no clue how I feel about Paul/Echo... he was so obsessed about finding Caroline and now he got her (well, her body back but not her)... I don't know.

I wish that show had run longer. Much longer. I guess people weren't ready for a show like this one?

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

Adelle and Topher were my favourite of the main cast, but I definitely didn't object to Echo being the main character as much as everyone else seemed too :shrugs: And yeah, I don't know if it was supposed to be romantic in the end that Paul was inside her head, but I thought it was a really sad ending for Echo to remain in the Dollhouse lost inside her own mind... And Paul's obsession with Caroline and watching the video of her was really creepy in the early episodes, but I did appreciate how the show deconstructed his white knight fantasies at the end of season 1.

It was sad that they couldn't have had a longer run, it felt like they had to rush through a lot of interesting plot points in season 2 :(

[stolenglimpse.livejournal.com]

I like that Echo was the main character. I find Eliza to be really good and I love her and she deserved to be the main actress after Tru Calling. That's another show I would have loved to see run longer. Where they were going would have made it really great (I read somewhere where they intended to bring the show to and I thought it rocked).

Tru Calling's demise and where they wanted to go reminds a lot of Dark Angel. I read something about that where they would have gone and I would have loved to see that happen, too.

I really need to rewatch season 2 Dollhouse. I'm currently on Heroes season 3 now. I still have so many shows to catch up to and also rewatch, it's not funny. One of them is Roswell.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

I never saw Tru Calling, but I remember that most viewers seemed dead-set against Eliza as the Dollhouse lead from the beginning, and kept insisting that she would never be able to pull off anything other than Faith.

I need to rewatch Dollhouse at some point, there's just more and more shows on my to-watch list these days that I can't keep up with!

[stolenglimpse.livejournal.com]

I don't know why they say she can't be anything else but Faith. She's a good actress. She deserves the spot she got. I find it sad she actually doesn't have more lead roles, be it tv shows or even movies.

Yep, the list grows and grows and grows. I still have American Horror Story, The Walking Dead and a few more that I need to check, too.

[infinitewhale.livejournal.com]

That might possibly be the worst attempted analogy I've seen in quite a long time. A better one might have been Giles completely betraying Buffy by secretly injecting her with poison and then expecting compassion and understanding after it was found out. Wait, he didn't because he knew what he was doing. Would we have felt really, really bad if the gang didn't forgive him? I highly doubt it.

I mean, you're reaching pretty hard, probably because you realize you're not really backing your argument up with anything other WIKIpedia-level editions of BTVS storylines that neglects the lying, attempted murders, disowning and prevailing fears (founded as they were in the fallout) and lack of any betrayal with Wesley attempting to steal someone's kid and take off with it and saying it's the same thing. You could've taken a more correlative situation, like Giles in Helpless, but you chose... that.

Tell you what, we won't waste any more of our figurative breath discussing it and we'll let our unpopular opinions be.

[sunclouds33.livejournal.com]

I'm not letting you insult me as the final word. So, I'll respond and if you want, that can be the last word.

I selected the Buffy examples because it was Buffy doing some crappy things with very good intentions borne out a desire to protect and her own trauma. Yes, Buffy lied to everyone about their past tormentor/assaulter Angel was back. However, she did so out of a desire to protect Angel even though Angel wasn't in serious danger from the gang (and zero danger from any non-Xander person). For that, she deserves compassion for the lies, recklessness with Sunnydale students' lives in Beauty and Beasts, and the personal betrayal of certainly not telling Giles that Angel was back. The same is true with Wesley. He took Connor in a desperate effort to protect Connor and protect Angel from murdering his son. For that, he deserves compassion and understanding.

The difference between the two is that Wesley's betrayal went horribly and Buffy's ended up going fine. However, you argued that "the whole thing played like he knew what he was getting into even if it didn't go pear-shaped", putting down the gauntlet to judge Wesley's choices independent of the end.

Both actions are far afield from Giles poisoning Buffy....to keep his job. Unlike Buffy and Wesley, Giles betrayed Buffy out of pure self-interest. Giles wasn't out to protect anyone from incipient harm. Moreover, Giles poisoned Buffy with every intent to throw her powerless body in a house to fight a crazy vampire. Meanwhile, Wesley intended to take Connor somewhere safe and raise him with kindness.

Moreover, Giles DID expect a second chance. He said:

GILES
You have to listen to me. Because I have told you this, the test is invalidated. You'll be safe, I promise.
Whatever I have to do, to deal with Kralik and to win back your trust -

Giles says this after he had a chance to explain his version of events to Buffy. Then, Giles pre-supposes that he's going to embark on some path (however difficult and demanding) to repair to his relationship with Buffy and have a second chance. Giles knew that he what he did was awful and he was willing to deal with Kralik and do whatever it takes to get a second chance, but it was all the assumption that there was a path forward with Buffy. He never acts like Buffy's trust isn't unwinnable or like they're not going to work together to take down Kralik or tell off Quentin and he should slink off the court. And Giles proceeds in his relationship with Buffy with utter confidence right from the next episode on.

Moreover, I think Buffy absolutely did the right thing to forgive Giles. Giles already lost the love of his life, was tortured for hours, and devoted lots of time and resources to helping Buffy. As vile as his actions were, I think it's wonderfully forgiving that Buffy took all that into account to forgive Giles. Moreover by forgiving Giles and not shutting him out, Buffy got to continue to enjoy the resources of a trained multi-lingual adult Watcher with means. I think Giles should have helped her more but Buffy really would be hurt in her mission without Giles going forward.

As for Angel shutting Wesley out, Angel should have been absolutely up a creek (or stuck in a sea as the case may be) and his gang should have totally failed without Wesley. However, they all profited off how Wesley arrived as a product of an abusive childhood who borders on masochism who has an unfortunate love for Angel/Fred/Cordelia so they could continue getting Wesley's help even though they shut him out and treated him like crap. If AI was dealing with someone with slightly higher self-esteem or expectations from life, Wesley would have just continued his solo evil-fighting mission and told them to all piss off.

[infinitewhale.livejournal.com]

I didn't insult you. I simply stated what you were doing, which IS what you were doing. Trying to equate a simplified version of S2/S3 BTVS with Wesley's actions. You just said that's what you were doing. *I* actually do sympathize with what Wesley did. But...

Buffy didn't have good intentions when she ran away. She was 1.) expelled from her second school in a year, 2.) wanted for murder, 3.) kicked out by her mom, 4.) left believing no one had her back after Xander put Willow with them, and 5.) just killed a newly ensouled Angel. She didn't have good or bad intentions, just nowhere to go.

When she didn't tell them Angel was back, she still had no belief any of them wouldn't attack him since Angelus tortured Giles, Xander wanted him dead and she believed Willow was with them. This is more equatable with Wes if all this transpired in BatB (and Angel was killing people, she knew about it and covered it up), but it didn't. It's not different because it all turned out OK, it's different because it was at most dereliction of duty, if that, since Oz and Angel are equated in that ep, not a betrayal.

As for Giles, he went to Buffy to say that and offered himself for judgment. Did we see Wes pursue his friends and try to explain himself? I don't think we did, though he may have been put off by the smothering. His stance was *they* should have come to him to get his explanation, but while I get what he was trying to do, that's on him if that's what he wanted. I wasn't comparing motivations for doing it--Giles obviously felt it was justified in some way or he wouldn't have done it--but the expectation of forgiveness.

Which, as the circle comes back around, is my beef with it and something I don't think all the yammering in the world will get us to agree on. It doesn't work for me because the guy who should at least understand (Angel), he seems to give a pass to vs the others who were always been rash and judgmental. Them, he wants understanding from. He puts himself in a non-win situation because like you said, Angel is different when it comes to his stuff. No win there. Gunn, Fred and Cordy. No win there, either. At least if he expected them to come to him to explain himself.

I do apologize if you felt insulted.

[sunclouds33.livejournal.com]

I was finding reasonable analogies, recognizing that nothing is perfectly the same. It wasn't the worst analogy ever and it wasn't the Wikepedia version of BtVS.

When she didn't tell them Angel was back, she still had no belief any of them wouldn't attack him since Angelus tortured Giles, Xander wanted him dead and she believed Willow was with them. This is more equatable with Wes if all this transpired in BatB (and Angel was killing people, she knew about it and covered it up), but it didn't. It's not different because it all turned out OK, it's different because it was at most dereliction of duty, if that, since Oz and Angel are equated in that ep, not a betrayal.

Just because Angelus tortured Giles doesn't mean that Giles would kill Angel. Just because Buffy believed that Willow wanted Angelus staked before he could raise Acathala (much like Buffy at the time because Buffy *was* off to stake Angelus and told Willow to not bother re-attempting the re-ensoulment) doesn't meant that Buffy had good reasons to believe that Willow would want Angel dead. Heck, there wasn't even probable cause to believe that Xander would kill a souled Angel. True to form, Willow and Giles never attempt to kill a souled Angel; Xander starts but abandons his effort because Xander would stake a Bad Angel without his soul or out to lose his soul again (since he didn't believe Buffy's arguments that Angel was good) but he wouldn't stake an Angel allied with good,.

However, I still get Buffy's paranoia that her friends would stake Angel, even though they didn't really indicate that they'd stake a fully good Angel. Buffy's paranoia had emotional validity because of the severity of Angel's rampage of terror in S2. It's not really anything Willow/Xander/Giles *did* against Angel. It's that Buffy is also shamed by Angel's actions and believed that there was plenty of motive to stake him even with a soul but Buffy loved Angel too much to surrender him to that fate.

To compare the two, Wesley was observing Angel who was high on Connor's blood (since W&H was spiking Angel's blood supply with Connor's blood). Angel acted unusually irrational and angry and lashed out at Connor for crying as babies do. Angel made an awful, scary joke about how it'd be OK if he was trapped in a burnt out room because he could eat Connor. In addition, to the prophetic warnings, big omens of fire and blood, the Loa's warnings, and Holtz's threats to wipe out the whole of AI if Wesley didn't take the baby to safety. Ironically, Buffy hadn't witnessed nearly as frightening dangers to a souled Angel from her friends as Wesley witnessed from Angel towards Connor in Loyalty and the start of Sleep Tight.

Buffy did betray the group by hiding Angel. If a family member of mine hid the murderer of the love of my life and someone who tortured me for hours, I'd feel damned betrayed. If someone lied to me for weeks about their whereabouts, I'd feel betrayed. Buffy actively conspired to avoid bringing Angel to justice to the some of the people that Angel recently hurt the most.

[sunclouds33.livejournal.com]

In the middle of Beauty and the Beast, Wolf!Oz had to be locked in a cage and closely watched by a slayer for the entire night. The gang was investigating to see if Oz was a murderer to then, further evaluate further action to protect the community from Oz in anything ranging from shame (certainly already from Cordelia) to tranquing Wolf!Oz. Meanwhile, Buffy just locked feral!Angel with some ultimately failed chains and left feral!Angel unguarded for large portions of the day. Angel was never treated like a suspect. Instead for a time, all suspect shaming was pointed directly at Oz which humiliated Oz even though Buffy knew of another viable suspect.

So, Buffy absolutely betrayed the group and especially, Giles. Ask Giles in Revelations, I'm sure he'd back me up that he was betrayed. Buffy did it with every intention of protecting Angel. That does make her equitable with Wesley. As opposed to Giles in Helpless who betrayed Buffy to save his career and betrayed Buffy to the point of putting her in lethal danger.

Wesley had lots of good reasons for not approaching the group. First, Wesley lost his voice and he couldn't really talk until the last three eps of S3 which I think represents a week in real time. Angel said before smothering Wesley that he knows that Wesley took Connor to save Connor's life....but that doesn't matter since Angel still felt that he can murder Wesley. Then when Wesley still couldn't talk, Fred came by to the hospital and re-iterated that they knew that Wesley took Connor with good intentions but Wesley can't come by the hotel or Angel will finish what he started and murder Wesley which is an unbelievably credible threat. And Fred tearfullly begged Wesley to stay away or Angel will kill him. Then when Gunn came to ask for Fred's cure, Gunn basically said that he doesn't want to hear anything from Wesley other than Fred's cure. "Look, I don't have time to get into
it with you. I don't even wanna be here."

So unlike Giles, Wesley physically couldn't say his side of the story at first, he was barred from coming to the Hyperion to explain on penalty of murder, and he had three members of the team say that his side of the story is meaningless. I suppose that Wesley could have opened up sometime in S4, but IMO, Wesley had every reason to believe that no one in AI (save Fred) wanted to hear from him on a personal level and he should just work with them to defeat the apocalyptic threats in a very cold peace. That is until Angel laundered Wesley's brain of all of it at the end of S4.

[lynzie914.livejournal.com]

The first season was really great for them. I love how they went from their first scene in the pilot to the end he was busting out car lights for to get an apology. And I know there's lots of L/V parallels but I always thought that at the basics, Veronica and Weevil were more alike. (Also I never heard that about the actor, but that makes sense. Also, I would make that choice too, lol.)

Yeah, I heard about that with Duncan (though I forgot about it), that there was pressure from the network, but I wish they could have convinced them or somehow weaved the storylines in there. I mean, its not like they didn't include plenty of Logan's screwed up life. So why not show how screwed up Duncan's life was too? I mean his parents thought he murdered his sister and covered it up. Why was there never more to that?

I totally agree. All the seasons had something really good about them, good episodes that just made you really sit up and watch. And of course like you said, as long as Veronica was there, that's what mattered.

[lynzie914.livejournal.com]

Glad you don't mind. :D

Yeah, I hate that they seem to dismiss her or the people who say how they hated her when she was human but since she became a vampire she became so much more awesome. Its just like, are we watching the same show? Did you not pay attention to what was literally said? I don't understand. Caroline has grown, but she's also very similiar to who she was in S1, she's just been forced to grow up in a lot of ways, and that was already happening in S1 (Damon, Logan, Mystic Falls, etc), it wasn't like it happened just because the writers made it so.

I will never understand fandom's love of Matt. He remains the only human and I get that aspect, but personality wise, acting wise, his choices as a character/person....I just don't get why people like him. (Or ship him with people. He is a bad choice. Just because he doesn't go around killing people doesn't mean he's a good choice in dating. Just my opinion.)