Vaguely related--anyone seen the Buffy 'musical' Once More, With Feeling? It's gotten an in-joke following with a group of my friends...good stuff.

Also, I've been watching Monk lately. Quite a good series.

I haven't seen the musical episode...YET! MWAHAHAHAHA! Sorry, that was really weird, but I really want to see it, and the reruns are almost to it, so I can't wait till I get to see it. I do have the soundtrack (stole it from a friend) and it seems extremely depressing. I don't know why, but all the songs make me feel like crying.
Speaking of random episodes, who here has seen Hush? That scared me so bad. I'm a complete wuss when it comes to movies/TV. I think it's because I have an overactive imagination and the moment I'm alone it starts making up a whole bunch of completely random scenerios involving me dying. I think what freaked me out most about that episode was the way the Gentlemen smiled. It was most definetely scary because I know people who can smile like that.
I don't know if Netflix has Buffy, but I think Hollywood Video does.
I absolutely loathe Mystery. I'm sorry, but I saw one episode of it that scared me so horribly that I couldn't sleep for like a month. It was definetely not cool. I've kind of hated it since, but it's really well done.

I sing songs from "Once More, With Feeling." I own the CD. I listened to the Wall-to-Wall Sondheim concert on XT, because Joss Whedon was talking to Sondheim about doing it.

Cress, if "Hush" freaked you out, you might wanna wait a while before seeing "The Body." I didn't turn a hair over "Hush" and loved it to pieces. "The Body" shook me to the core. Really powerful stuff. Be sure, when you do see it, that you've got control of the remote, so you can pause to catch your breath, or turn off the sound (not that that would've helped with "Hush" ).

Sorry to hear you were traumatized by Mystery!. Yeah, it's not for everybody. You have to like British murder mysteries, and these days, they're getting very cold and police-procedurey with that CSI gross factor worked in. However, Miss Marple might not be so bad. And heck, they're getting Derek Jacobi and Zoe Wanamaker to guest, so I'm there.

Actually, all that bothered me about Hush was how they smiled. STOP SMILING! AHHHHHH! Ok, I had to let that out. And how they moved. Little stuff like that majorly freaks me out, especially when paired with freaky music.
Which season is "The Body" in?
Actually, I think I've seen Mystery since then and it didn't bug me, it's just that one really freaked me out and I haven't particularly liked it since then for that reason. Again, really weird stuff freaks me out.
What was the concert you watched?

Cress, I suggest you check out some of the Masterpiece Theater releases on DVD. For example, I think you will like Cadfael, which also stars Derek Jacobi. Brother Cadfael is a monk during the Middle Ages. He lives in a monastery in Wales, and solves mysteries. Very little gore, although there is usually a corpse or two. The original books are by Ellis Peters. Rather like The Name of the Rose, lite.

re Cress' post a couple posts back: Depressing? It's really rather funny...good for a quick laugh if you don't want to think too hard.
Ooh, Cadfael! I love those. Bit like Father Brown, yes?

I realize that people singing about vampires is massively entertaining, and I think that if I was actually watching it I would be laughing my head off, but when you listen to the lyrics, some of the songs are really depressing. Like Giles'. I don't know why, but that song makes me so sad.
Huh, Cadfael. Never heard of it, but if I have any spare time *snort* I'll try to get it.

The thing I love about "Once More, With Feeling" is that it's a book-driven musical, as well as being a Buffy episode, something I honestly didn't think could be done. And some of the songs are heartbreaking. I also felt the hair on the back of my neck go up when Tara and Giles began counterpointing each other. Whedon is amazing.

"The Body" is in Season Five. If you're heading for the musical episode (Season Six), you passed it.

The concert I was talking about was on 3/19. It was called Wall to Wall Sondheim, and was given by Symphony Space. They usually do a 12-hour concert to celebrate a specific classical composer, but this time they chose to celebrate Stephen Sondheim on his 75th birthday, so there was a 12-hour live concert of B'way performers doing their stuff, and a few discussion panels in between the sets. Joss Whedon was on "Sondheim and American Popular Culture".

Joss Whedon has often confessed that he's a Sondheim fanatic (and if you listen to the DVD commentary track on "Once More..." it's obvious that Joss is a massive musicals geek). And Frank Rich (once the New York Time theatre critic) knew about him, the Buffy musical, and dragged him onto the panel. And Sondheim obviously had no clue who Joss Whedon was, and Joss was acting like a total fanboy. It was soooo cool.

As for both Masterpiece Theatre and Mystery!, the thing is that both of them aren't series, really. They're showcases, which means that they repackage together an assortment of shows from a variety of sources, so that every few weeks you're getting something different. Liking or disliking one series on Mystery! never guarantees that you'll like/dislike ALL of them.

Love Jacobi, (I, Claudius!!) but never really got into Cadfael. But then, I'm not into the Ellis Peters novels, much, either.

I am hung up on Elizabeth George's Inspector Lynley, so I've had fun watching those, and am desperately amused to see that the BBC have run out of books, and have one completely made-up episode, and that the season after that, they're all completely-non-George.

Yeah, my favorite part of Once More is during Walk Through the Fire when they each sing a little blurb but there's someone singing underneath them the whole time. It's really amazing.
Sadly I haven't seen any commentaries. *sniffles* I'm seriously thinking of buying Season 1 on DVD though, so if or when that happens, you will be sure to hear about all the random stuff people talk about.
I love seeing famous people acting completely weird. It makes me feel good to know that they can be as stupid as I am sometimes.

My absolute favorite moment in "Walk Through the Fire" is the fire engine going by. I wonder how many takes they needed to get that to synch up. Freaking amazing filmmaking.

Buffy doesn't have nearly enough commentaries. But the ones by Joss are always the best. By comparison, Aaron Sorkin is just boring on the West Wing dvds. But at least they've got commentary tracks. Most of the Sherlock Holmes discs never had any, until they finally thought to get John Madden to comment "The Priory School." That was a kick and a half.

I love DVD television season sets.

I HAVE NEVER SEEN ONCE MORE WITH FEELING!!! *cries and cries and cries some more, and then cries after reading what she just posted at her lameness* Yes, I'm very sad about that, but I THINK it's going to be on in two weeks.
One of my friends was watching either a Buffy or an Angel commentary with James Marsters in it, and they were talking about his accent and somebody said that people wouldn't be able to tell who he was without it, so he started talking in his Spike voice. I would probably drive him crazy if I ever met him because I would just stand there and go "Do your Spike voice. Do the eyebrow thing." over and over. When I get nervous I sometimes get hyper and start to repeat stuff over and over. It's rather sad.

The sad thing about "Once More With Feeling" is that if you see it in syndication, it's probably been cut down. The episode came in overly long, and when it initially aired, UPN let it have a 70 minute slot or something. I think most of what got cut, though, was a ballet-like sequence with Dawn, so you won't be missing any of the songs.

It was also the ONLY episode of Buffy to ever be b'cast in letterboxed format (unlike ANGEL, which was letterboxed the last few seasons).

What's letterboxed?
Completely random note (ok maybe not, it's related to Dawn, a little) but has anyone here seen Ice Princess? I just thought of that because the ballet thing and ice skating seem kind of similar. I wonder if the person who plays Dawn can actually ice skate even remotely well?

letterboxing is a way of getting wide-screen format onto an almost square television screen. They put black bars at the top and bottom of the screen. It's also the difference between "widescreen" (letterboxed) and "fullscreen" (pan'n'scan) dvds.

There's now also sideboxing, which is how you display almost square old-telvision format onto an HDTV-widescreen tv, where they put black bars on the right and left side.

The magic phrase in movie and dvd land is "aspect ratio", which is the ratio between the width and the height of the picture. Most movies these days are shot somewhere between 1.85 (also known as the magic 16x9) and 2.23 (cinemascope!). TV is shot in 16x9 (HD), or 4x3 (1.33).

Some shows, like Medium, Lost and Smallville air in letterboxed format, mostly to give them a more "epic" feel, like a movie. The HD (high-definition) broadcast is also usually in 16x9.

And that's more than you ever wanted to know about letterboxing.

So, has anybody seen the new Doctor Who? The stuff I'm hearing on the BBC website is starting to make me really sad nobody in the US has picked it up:

quote:

Doctor: I'm the Doctor, by the way. What's your name?
Rose: Rose.
Doctor: Nice to meet you, Rose. Run for your life.

Snort. Chuckle.

Also just heard that Eccleston's already quit... regeneration, anyone?

hehe... I watched/listened to the trailers on the website this morning Kli, and I kinda can't wait for it to start showing here. It looks really funny. But I want to know what happens after he says that

YAYAY!!! Channel 10 showed one of the Sideshow Bob episodes last night. They're all my favourites - well mostly anyway . I think it was the one where he gets out of jail the first time - the witness protection program one. Anyway. I actually missed the first couple of minutes, well first ten minutes really... but its all good. I really have to look into getting all the seasons on DVD...

OK, lets go off on a bit of a tangent here, just because I'm talking with one of my Uni friends about it. TV shows that were on in the early '90s - I would say when you were a kid, but the ages of some of the people here make that a little ambiguous. What do people remember about them? I would make this a longer post but mum has just got home

quote:

Originally posted by kli6:
So, has anybody seen the new Doctor Who? The stuff I'm hearing on the BBC website is starting to make me really sad nobody in the US has picked it up:

Snort. Chuckle.

Also just heard that Eccleston's already quit... regeneration, anyone?

Yes, another regeneration .

I saw it (is that a surprise?) and liked it. I don't know if it'll be quite the same watching the rest of Eccleston's episodes, knowing that he quit so soon.

quote:

Originally posted by Alla:
But I want to know what happens after he says that

BOOOOM!

I can't remember the early '90s in particular. I remember series like Doctor Who, Z Cars and Space Kiddettes from when I was a kid, but I think it might be a good thing that that third one isn't available on DVD here .

I really don't remember early 90's since I was about anywhere from 1-5 then. I remember stuff from when I used to watch Saturday morning cartoons though. Did anybody here watch Recess? I loved that show! And Pepperann, but I never got to watch it because I had to leave for my piano lesson before it came on and I was really jealous of my brother because he got to see it and I didn't.

OMG YES RECESS!!

As for early 90's television, I'll probably remember everything you do, Alla. But off the top of my head, all I have is "Open wide, come inside. It's Playschool!"

I loved that show so much I named my favourite doll after the doll on it (the New Zealand version.) Then my brothers pulled her head off by sticking it in a drawer. I was BROKENHEARTED (although now it's kind of funny. )

Of course, there are now mockage versions of the song (lovely):
"There's a bear in there
and an electric chair
people with AIDS
and hand grenades.
Open wide, come inside
It's Playschool!"

But for the true parody nothing beats the Barney song:

"I hate you,
you hate me
let's get together and kill barney
with a one shot two shot
Barney's on the floor
no more purple dinosaur..."

...heh.

NB: THIS POST IS IN NO WAY INTENDED TO SHOW SUPPORT OF GUNS, GUNS ON TELEVISION, VIOLENCE, OR SHOOTING PURPLE DINOSAURS EXCEPT BARNEY. No under-fives were harmed in the writing of this post & I'm sure they're still as innocent as they were five seconds ago.

I love Recess.

But I'm older than you guys. I remember when Rugrats was new. In fact, I remember driving around L.A. to visit a friend, and actually seeing the storefront of Klasky-Csupo, and on an impulse, walking in to ask the receptionist if they had an episode list for the show. And she'd apparently never dealt with a fan before, so this must have been early in the run (season 2 or something?) I doubt you could just walk through the doors of Klasky-Csupo these days.

I've also always loved that the voice actresses for Rugrats were the same voices you see everywhere: Kath Soucie (Phil & Lil, and Bubbles on Powerpuff girls), E.G. Daily (Tommy, Buttercup), Tress MacNeille, Nancy Cartwright (Chuckie II, Bart Simpson, also, iirc, ), Christine Cavanaugh (Chuckie I, also Babe the Pig), etc. Best of the best of voice acting all in one place. Pamela Segall, btw, is both Spinelli in Recess and Bobby Hill in King of the Hill.

Spinelli is Bobby?! My whole world is crashing down around me! It's not POSSIBLE!! Ok, I'm done now, but that's FREAKY!
Barney is evil. Pure evil. Pure, purple evil. And so is Baby Bop, or whatever her name is. Don't ask me why, there's just something horribly corrupting about the way they're always smiling and singing and happy. It's WRONG!
I also vaguely remember some show involving puzzle pieces and puppet people that looked slightly like muppets. I can't remember more than that though.