BJ's EWTBCD: Bubble Gum TV, by Time Traveller!

You've read Time Traveller before - she's told you how she finished a novel, and she's discussed some exciting science matters.  This time round, she's here to contribute to the Enough With The Bone Crunching Doom season - with some gentle thoughts on how she and her youngest son love to bed down on the sofa with some TV drama...

On watching Netflix with son

I really enjoy watching Netflix with my son, Teenage Time Traveller (TTT) who, luckily for me, doesn't yet care that teenage boys aren't supposed to hang out with their mothers.  Together, we've watched Grimm, Heroes, Misfits, The Returned, The Tomorrow People, Dead Like Me, Chuck...  Oh, and Daredevil, who has become my very favourite superhero.    I can't believe I had never heard of him before.  All those childhood hours I could have spent reading the comics, if only I had known.

http://thehumortrain.tumblr.com/post/118288955155

When we watch, it is just two of us - which is just as well, because we like to pause and talk all the way through.  We talk about what has happened, what it means, and what we think is going to happen next.  We do this a lot, and we argue about it a lot.  It used to drive me mad, all this pausing, until I started to notice how often TTT was right about what was about to unfold.  He is keenly observant, and has a good memory for what has already happened and who has said what, when.   

As everyone knows, guessing what is going to happen next is good sport, and not quite as easy as it sounds.  Recently, for example, on Daredevil, it seemed obvious that something very bad was about to happen.  And it did.  The cause of this bad thing had not been shared with the viewer, yet, so we couldn't work out how we knew.  There was no dramatic music, or anything.  In fact, there was no music at all.  Could that be it?  We paused it, rewound, and after watching the scene a few times, we were still none the wiser.  Perhaps it was about camera angles or something.   

He and I paused our way all the way through Grimm.  Sometimes it was to discuss the plot (“Hold on, I think they might be writing that character out,” or, “I think she might be one of them, too.”), or to comment on the actors (“Is he wearing stacked shoes?  He hauls his feet along behind him like he's wading through treacle.”  Rewind, “Hmm, yes.  Or maybe he's just trying to be really manly.”).  TTT thought it would be a good idea to watch the early episodes again, see if we could spot any continuity errors, but I really wouldn't recommend that.

We prefer the very long series - if we could find another as long as Lost, we'd be there, dude.  We're both interested in creative writing, in one way or another.  TTT is learning to write computer games, and wants to do better than the writers of many games, where the players' available options lack any kind of realism.  We both watch for signs of a story picking up, branching out.  We enjoy a good back story (which Lost excelled in, to a ridiculous degree), because it gives added depth to the characters, adding a bit of extra interest.  It also provides the groundwork for character development - if we can see how 'bad' they used to be, we can see how far they have come, as well as how far they have yet to go.  Monroe, perhaps, is an example of that.  He has come from a slightly shady past as a flesh-eating Blutbad, to a vegetarian loner, to a lynchpin in Grimm's fight – a part of the family.   

We have mixed feelings about the introduction of new cast members.  They can take a bit of time to bed in.  Sometimes they provide some much-needed variety, and give the story somewhere else to go, but sometimes they just throw a brick into the action stream. 

When they start to introduce cliff-hangers between episodes early on, where they haven't been before, we know they're getting confident, and there will probably be another series in the offing.  When they introduce them late in the game, we know they're getting desperate, and there might not.

We enjoy spotting the actors who jump between these shows, too:  Haywire becomes Monroe, T-Bag becomes Sullivan, and the man who ran around without any clothes on in Lost turns up in Dead Like Me.  As for Jacob... well, he just keeps on popping up everywhere. 

TTT prefers the baddies, because they tend to be more complex, more interesting.  He was especially impressed by the King Pin in Daredevil, who is a gentle, sensitive guy - just so long as his inner sanctum is not threatened in any way.  Or, as TTT put it, he's really nice... until he isn't.  Characters who keep secrets from us become potential baddies, although that can be a bit hit and miss.  The bad guys also provide the perfect opportunity to explore ethics and lifestyle choices in a way that is easy, comfortable and sometimes funny. 

Our esteemed blog host once mentioned to me that a lot of these shows have a religious message.  I told TTT about that, and now we play 'spot the religiosity.'  Sometimes you can't miss it, like a great hammer spinning over and over in the air towards you - whoomp, whoomp, whoomp - until it finally hits you right between the eyes.  Other times, not so much.  Recently, TTT paused Daredevil to say that he had spotted one coming, but I was sure he was wrong.  We un-paused, and the very next scene started with a long-shot of a confessional box, taken from behind the bloodied hand of a crucifix.  Ah well, you win some, you lose some.  It was the beginning of an internal struggle between doing the wrong thing for the right reason, or doing nothing, and letting wrong prevail.  I should have seen it coming, too - the central character is Roman Catholic, after all. 

Grimm manages to sidestep the issue of religion completely (unless we've missed something?), choosing instead to focus on the mythical and supernatural.  Orphan Black, on the other hand, dives straight in with a truly scary religious sect, but this is balanced out by the equally scary scientists.  The unscrupulous behaviour of the scientists, including murder, surveillance, and manipulation is more than equalled by the truly shocking sight of a young girl having had her lips sewn together by the sect leaders – who are also not above murder and manipulation.  So far, at least (and we haven't finished watching the second series, yet), Orphan Black has these two paths woven through with questions of pure ethics.  Should scientists do something just to see if it's possible?  What would life actually like for a human clone?  Would they, should they, be seen as not quite fully human?  As an aside, an ongoing discussion is whether the clones are a metaphor for a multiple-personality disorder, or an illustration of nature vs nurture in action.

TTT will sometimes consider an element to be indicative of a clumpingly religious theme, when it I might view it as purely incidental.  For example, a family might pray before eating a meal.  We have to pause at that scene to discuss whether that is simply a sketch to illustrate the way of life in that region, or whether it is likely to become the driving force for overcoming evil. 

In The Returned, the very fact that people have come back from the dead (like Lazarus, and they are occasionally referred to as such), makes TTT suspicious of a strong religious underpinning.  We haven't finished watching it, yet, so I don't know if he's right (the  Daredevil example has made me think twice before dismissing his views), or whether it is just a fascinating, eerie ghost story.  We shall see.  

A couple of our favourites are now dished out to us on a weekly basis, putting an end to our binge-viewing (of these, at least).  That's fun, too, in its own way.  It gives us something to look forward to.  It is reminiscent of my childhood viewing, when they would say, “Tune in next week, folks!  Same time, same channel.”  The prospect of those seven days would stretch endlessly ahead of me, and I would have to go upstairs to re-read my superhero comics to help fill the chasm.

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Doesn't that make you want to go and dive into a boxset? Till next time...

Meandering with Star Trek and addictive TV

Last Sunday

It’s a strange day, weather-wise, outside and inside.

Outside its properly pouring with rain one minute, and now – this minute – very sunny, suddenly dry, and there’s an unidentified lovely tiny brown bird hopping out of the borage at the side of the garden hedge.

Inside, there’s the very distracting original Star Trek theme  from the living room, and lil’ Tetchyhead being awkward about having lunch.  I don’t need to be in there to know he’s twisted his way out of both of the straps holding his shoulders in place in the high chair, that his mouth is very orange and possibly so too is one cheek and the fingers of one hand.  My partner, Alias Stanley Kubrick is no doubt squinting between the TV and Tetchyhead, which won’t help the food distribution pattern. 

I feel guilty at not being in there, doing it myself, or just being with them, even though now is my time off.  And you really do need time off from whatever it is that you do all day (and all night, if its babies or small children), if you want to remember who you are and why you do that thing all day (and night).

When I was pregnant with Son Number one[1], his father and I used to watch original Star Trek every night on satellite.  We would come home from work (he as a printer, I was doing inventory in a warehouse for a now defunct Japanese designer goods shop in Bruton Street), and I would plop my immensely fat self down on the sofa bed in our box room we shared.  He would make a massive jug of chocolate Ovaltine (which I was very addicted to during the pregnancy), and we would curl up and watch that night’s double bill.  You know when you really really get into something?  I had seen Star Trek all through my childhood, but it wasn’t till I watched it whilst pregnant for that first time that I came to live for it every evening.  That I realised that All That Is Good And Right In Our Western Culture can in fact be found here, in original Star Trek.  It’s like a bible, a manual, for How To Behave In Every Situation.  Now – this clearly needs some backing up, as a massively daft statement.  (I can’t actually do that now – I’ll do it in a later post, I promise – I’d need to re-watch them all, which will take a bit of time; and my opinion will likely have changed – hell, its been 20 years since I watched them that closely.)

The weird thing is, I get that degree of total addiction to many TV shows (without being convinced they are also a manual for life).  Most of them can be blamed on Son Number One.  He’s an absolute connoisseur of finding addictive TV I will like:

Ø      24 (how to live life by running about and shouting a lot, being very definitive and consistently maverick) 

Ø      PrisonBreak (how to live life by running about and shouting a lot, whilst also making very good far thought out plans and giving Robert Knepper  the best role he’s had in ages) 

Ø      Big Bang Theory (I have always thought being a nerd was big and clever, and here is some very funny proof; and here is the actual big bang theory)

Ø      Two and a Half Men (its very scary that Charlie Sheen’s character is mild compared to his recently interviewed actual self – let no man say he cannot act) 

Ø      Buffy (one of the ultimate classics of teenage female empowerment and incredibly well-written) 

Ø      Angel (strangely more grown-up cousin of Buffy, also very well written) and

Ø      Lost (excellent long-running premise including unlikely polar bears, one of the world’s most handsome blonde men and an annoying ending) 

It goes back way further though.  As a rather miserable child who was bullied in two out of her three schools (the exception was the progressive school Prior Weston, where I happily did weaving with different shades of green suede and wool), I remember living for TV shows, or films, simply as a place to be instead of my world.  Flambards (recently re-released by the good people at Network ) I have yet to re-watch.  I almost don’t want to.  How can I find it as mesmerising as I did watching it as a dreamy and lonely child, wishing I lived in the countryside; wishing I had a weedy but brainy boyfriend into planes, and a brawnier love interest into horses?  Most importantly, that I was older and had some sort of control over my life and where I spent my time. 

Much obsessive time was spent watching and re-watching videos, when I hit my teens (which was notably the brilliant era of video-nasties and parents just not being quite aware what you were watching; or weirder, watching unsuitable things with you, like my dad did – later post on these).  I watched Grease, the marvellous Aussie Puberty Blues and Picnic at Hanging Rock with my Jodie Foster triple bill (The Little Girl Who Lives Down The Lane [yes, ‘school is stultifying’], Foxes  [and ever since have wanted a tattoo on my shoulder of an apple with a bite taken out of it], and Svengali [Peter O’Toole is always magnificent, I feel]) endlessly.  From each one I got ingredients to a world I liked better; or directions round this world that I understood more than interactions with anybody here.

Now see, we could go in so many directions now: about the fact that when you get older, quite often you still have very little real control over where you spend your time – for most of us, who didn’t study triumphantly to become marine biologists[2] and are well-mapped out and wealthy enough to grease our own pathways – the phrase ‘wage-slave’ means something. 

Or it would be interesting to see exactly what I got from each of those films, why I felt the need to escape so much.  (Not that I’m so incredibly interesting – just that many children in this situation do similar things, and it’s an interesting mechanism to look at – and how what they pick to disappear into influences their growth as a person.)

Or why so many parents of bullied children don’t change their schools?  Or try to help the children deal with the issues in any real way….Or why teachers used to accept it as just a normal thing that happens?  (A false understanding of the phrase ‘survival of the fittest’ as an idea Out There In The Ether underpins a lot of that last).

But none of these will happen this post, as I hear the small Tetchyhead crying bullishly and no doubt very fat tears in the living room, and its been a long day for excellent Stanley K with him. I can feel my need to go and take the baby from him; partly as an act of partnery niceness, and partly as I can’t stand to hear him crying this way (its one of the worst parts of motherhood, listening to this noise of upsetness, it drills my brain and makes me want to cry as well; I often do).  So I’m going to have to go.   We’ll have to call this meander, the one that could have gone somewhere interesting, but really never got there.  I shall have to come back to it all later. (Welcome to Motherhood: Land of Interruption.)

PS - I f any of these links go wonky, tell me, and I shall fix or find new ones, or remove.

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[1] …who I used to call Pumpkinhead, purely because I liked the way the sounds of the words went together – he has a head nothing like a pumpkin in shape.  I had this pointed out to me so many times (by other people, not Son) I stopped doing it.  Likewise, ex-hub really hated being called Belovéd Pea Hen…Because the pea hen was the female of the species, was his reason.  He really liked being male.  Again, it just popped into my head and I loved the sound of the words.  I stopped doing that too.

[2] I know a nice girl from school who became a marine biologist; all down to the influence of our geography teacher.  So no offence to marine biologists – I was just trying to think of a specialised and highly trained profession that I actually respected (unlike lawyering, say).