Ian On The Red Dot

If you watch the TV shows done by Joss Whedon, you would notice that he seems to cast some actors regularly into his various works - it’s like he has managed to command a loyalty from them as well as displaying it to them. Now, why does this matter? I believe a big reason why Joss Whedon has a particular status in the world of fandom is not just because he writes well and produces/directs brilliant episodes but also because the actors he has chosen to work with have somehow proven to be accessible to fans.

This is an old story - despite the scifi series Firefly being canceled quite early in its run, it managed to build up quite a passionate group of fans. There was a convention for the fans which got canceled by the organizer and apparently people had arrived for the convention only to realize it was not happening. They then proceeded to organize their own fan convention. Here is where things got interesting - the actors of a canceled show learning of what the fans were doing actually came down on their own accord without any appearance fees and participated in the convention.

Read the comments and follow the links here:

Flanvention canceled.

Serenifly cast turns up to canceled convention.

Nathan said how sorry he was to hear about our con being …. maybe another definition of ‘con’.
He then shouted out, who is from Australia, one young lady came forward (she came from Australia for the convention but she also has family to visit in the area) anyway he gave her a gift from the box, I think it was a book that ties into his next project…
then he asked for others from Australia, those from Great Britain, and other far away places and he gave them stuff from his box….
Turns out Nathan had pulled out books and tapes and ‘Serenity’ money from his closet, dumped them in a box and gave them away!
I didn’t try to get anything I was just marveling at how amazing he was to even think of doing this! So amazingly cool.

Buzzfeed has a ton of links about a new tv series from Joss Whedon - Dollhouse. I am positively salivating in anticipation. The premise of the series is tantalizing, from nymag:

Dollhouse stars Buffy’s Eliza Dushku as Echo, a woman who is programmed to be a fantasy-for-hire in a supersecret, illegal facility known as the Dollhouse. Echo is programmed to forget between fantasies, but she starts to remember and become self-aware as the show gets under way.

I am unashamedly a fan of Buffy and Angel. I used to follow every episode when it was shown on Channel 5 until my National Service days when it became almost impossible because there was only 1 tv in camp, and everyone else wanted to watch Chinese sitcoms and just couldn’t understand the attraction of a girl, albeit a hot one, killing vampires. Thankfully, when I was in university, there was a period that Star World did a run of all the seasons for both Buffy and Angel with daily episodes.

The thing I loved about Joss Whedon is the way his writing is sprinkled with pop cultural references and almost every episode has at least a scene which is a homage to something. You also never know what you might get with each episode in term of filming stylistics. Like the movies of Woody Allen, each episode rewards you when you watch reruns; the writing rewards you for getting smarter and more exposed to our world and its history.

Another thing, the characters in TV shows done by Joss Whedon actually grow as the seasons progress - like Willow who grew to become a powerful witch, Xandar who matured from the clown in season 1 and Watcher Wesley who has probably one of the most interesting character arcs in television history - they aren’t stuck in some time-warp-time-frozen caricature.

This series stars Eliza Dushku. While I love Buffy, I always thought Faith was a more interesting slayer and way hotter - something about the fun spunky damaged self-hating middle-finger-to-authority ‘bad’ girl with a bitter grudge against the world who tries to do good in her own way but just seems to make all the wrong choices. She made the series Tru Calling actually bearable to watch. She also starred in what is probably the greatest cheerleading movie I have ever and will ever watch - Bring It On.

Below is more faith we could do with:

I’m going to watch episodes of ‘Will & Grace‘ again through the lens of this post by thegreatsze.

Will - determination, effort, perseverance. A blunt instrument.

Grace - style, effortlessness, ease. A pointed tool.

The former value is Hobbesian. With only Will, devoid of Grace, we are exposed for the maximizing animals that we really are. A graceless Mage (cloth-wearer, wands and staves only) loots on every drop, including plate, polearms and mail; a graceless clubber requests a full list of what his free drink coupon entitles him; a graceless diner leaves no tip and runs through a gamut of credit cards hoping for a discount; a graceless mother speaks of her SAP-school enrolled son with no hint of awareness.

Much of charisma, popularity and magnetism, then, come from the fountainhead of Grace. In the dog-eat-dog world of Will, nobody wants to win the approval of a fellow dog. No; if we are to worship, we must worship higher. The quality of Grace cleaves to our imaginations, our rose-tinted idealizations. We see it in LeBron and Federer on court, and Denny Crane in court; it seeps unconsciously into us through the behaviour of top-flight politicians, celebrities and business-class citizens.

We are the plodding, the grasping, the heathen, willing ourselves forward day after tiresome day; they are Gods on earth, gracing us with their presence.

There are many ways people can fight. There are many kinds of adversarial relationships. I discovered this new HBO series ‘In Treatment’ via YouTube. The battle between the two individuals in each episode, fought with words, gestures, expressions and the eyes, is more brutal than a lot of the fist fights I have seen online. It is amazing how with good writing, a story can be told just with the conversation between two people in one setting.