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starvinbohemianIt's fascinating to read old meta on shows I watched a long time ago or in isolation from other viewers/fandom. Particularly Angel because I've loved the show for a decade or so but I wasn't involved in fandom when it originally aired and for some reason I never bothered to look up meta after I was-- until now. Angel exists in a special, happy place for me, so it was really jarring for me to come upon some really caustic, take-the-bitch-apart meta. Not in a "how DARE you talk about my baby that way" kinda way, but in a "what the heck are you talking about/I never saw that/where is this coming from" kinda way.
Lesson learned: Watching a show in isolation, without outside input, or in one go through a complete series can greatly alter how you view said show compared to if you watch it one week at a time and participate in its fandom. For instance, I watched BSG all the way through in one go, so I never had time to sift through the epic mythology of the show or to form my own opinions about it while waiting years for the big reveals. But I just read some meta from people who did and, whoa (surprise), were they pissed at the series finale (which I thought was gorgeous). The same goes for Heroes. I zipped right through S1 with no expectations and loved it without seeing the issues I read about later in meta. For instance, isolated as I was from fandom, I had no idea that people were expecting a huge, epic Peter vs. Sylar fight in the S1 finale. How disappointed they were. And look at how bitter I am now (though not about that)!
Final conclusion: Fandom creates a sense of entitlement, and giving fans time to stew in their own creative juices and inputs to the story/mythology is just asking for trouble. Don't give the fans time to think! Wait, that isn't news? Oh, never mind.
During all this meta surfing, I came to another startling conclusion: I don't think I actually like Spike. GASP.
Well, that's not really true. I love him in a "back the fuck off" kind of way. I LOVED evil!Spike. He and Drusilla were a power house of a couple. But I've always had major issues with what I perceive to be Joss Whedon's extreme hard-on for his very favorite personal avatar. Someone once pointed out that Billy (Dr. Horrible) and Spike (nerdy, snarky, love's bitch kinda dudes) are the kinds of characters that Joss relates to most while angsty, brooding, champion Angel was really more David Greenwalt's baby. Looking at the evidence, I think that's true. Joss went out of his way to turn everything he could into "The Spike Show," and S5 of Angel was no exception. Remember how he also tried to get a Spike mini-series made after Angel was canceled?
I still remember when I first read in TV Guide that Spike was coming to Angel. I was standing in line at the grocery store, and it's very possible that I gave the kind of great, despairing, forget-you're-in-public cries that I usually reserve for Soap Digest. Why? Because I just knew that Spike was going to take over my show just as he did in BtVS. And I was right. He did, by golly. I've read a lot of meta over the past few days about how David Fury went out of his way to depict Spike as the "bad, not-Angel" vampire on the show to make Angel look better, but that is NOT how I read the season. No way. Rather, what I see/saw is a repetitive undermining of what made Angel special with the constant reminder that Spike "is all that AND a bag of chips!"
Screw that. This is ANGEL'S show. I left "The Spike Show" when I dropped BtVS, which became unwatchable for me after S3 (not coincidentally when Angel and Cordelia left for greener pastures). Once we hit Buffy: the College Years, I was finished. Well, more accurately, the Spike/Buffy pairing chased me out. Watching what was once one of the most awesome villains I'd ever seen slowly morph into the weakest, sappiest, love's bitch creature to ever come out of Whedon-verse became unbearable.
So, whereas a lot of fans apparently hated seeing Spike play second fiddle to Angel, I felt the opposite. And whereas a lot of Spike fans were upset to see Spike become a comedic device and a parody of his character on BtVS, I finally found myself enjoying him again in S5. He was funny and slashy as hell with Angel-- LOVE that pairing-- and he wasn't constantly trailing after Buffy, looking for scraps of affection. I just enjoy him in a "watch yourself, Whedon" kind of way.
Lesson learned: Watching a show in isolation, without outside input, or in one go through a complete series can greatly alter how you view said show compared to if you watch it one week at a time and participate in its fandom. For instance, I watched BSG all the way through in one go, so I never had time to sift through the epic mythology of the show or to form my own opinions about it while waiting years for the big reveals. But I just read some meta from people who did and, whoa (surprise), were they pissed at the series finale (which I thought was gorgeous). The same goes for Heroes. I zipped right through S1 with no expectations and loved it without seeing the issues I read about later in meta. For instance, isolated as I was from fandom, I had no idea that people were expecting a huge, epic Peter vs. Sylar fight in the S1 finale. How disappointed they were. And look at how bitter I am now (though not about that)!
Final conclusion: Fandom creates a sense of entitlement, and giving fans time to stew in their own creative juices and inputs to the story/mythology is just asking for trouble. Don't give the fans time to think! Wait, that isn't news? Oh, never mind.
During all this meta surfing, I came to another startling conclusion: I don't think I actually like Spike. GASP.
Well, that's not really true. I love him in a "back the fuck off" kind of way. I LOVED evil!Spike. He and Drusilla were a power house of a couple. But I've always had major issues with what I perceive to be Joss Whedon's extreme hard-on for his very favorite personal avatar. Someone once pointed out that Billy (Dr. Horrible) and Spike (nerdy, snarky, love's bitch kinda dudes) are the kinds of characters that Joss relates to most while angsty, brooding, champion Angel was really more David Greenwalt's baby. Looking at the evidence, I think that's true. Joss went out of his way to turn everything he could into "The Spike Show," and S5 of Angel was no exception. Remember how he also tried to get a Spike mini-series made after Angel was canceled?
I still remember when I first read in TV Guide that Spike was coming to Angel. I was standing in line at the grocery store, and it's very possible that I gave the kind of great, despairing, forget-you're-in-public cries that I usually reserve for Soap Digest. Why? Because I just knew that Spike was going to take over my show just as he did in BtVS. And I was right. He did, by golly. I've read a lot of meta over the past few days about how David Fury went out of his way to depict Spike as the "bad, not-Angel" vampire on the show to make Angel look better, but that is NOT how I read the season. No way. Rather, what I see/saw is a repetitive undermining of what made Angel special with the constant reminder that Spike "is all that AND a bag of chips!"
Screw that. This is ANGEL'S show. I left "The Spike Show" when I dropped BtVS, which became unwatchable for me after S3 (not coincidentally when Angel and Cordelia left for greener pastures). Once we hit Buffy: the College Years, I was finished. Well, more accurately, the Spike/Buffy pairing chased me out. Watching what was once one of the most awesome villains I'd ever seen slowly morph into the weakest, sappiest, love's bitch creature to ever come out of Whedon-verse became unbearable.
So, whereas a lot of fans apparently hated seeing Spike play second fiddle to Angel, I felt the opposite. And whereas a lot of Spike fans were upset to see Spike become a comedic device and a parody of his character on BtVS, I finally found myself enjoying him again in S5. He was funny and slashy as hell with Angel-- LOVE that pairing-- and he wasn't constantly trailing after Buffy, looking for scraps of affection. I just enjoy him in a "watch yourself, Whedon" kind of way.
