Making me wonder if Whedon's stories work better on a metaphorical level than a literal one? His earlier stories worked on both levels, his later ones seem to me to be getting more and more metaphorical and big-picture thematic/messagey.
I'm not sure it's that simple. Whedon always wanted his stories to mean something - Buffy s1 and early s2 are painfully preachy at times. On the other hand, I think both Firefly (though not so much Serenity) and Dollhouse often do a good job of sneaking the ideas in under cover of the story. But Season 8 definitely seems to go out of its way to get to a certain point, regardless of how much they need to mess with characterisation or continuity to get there.
It may turn up as a comic if it doesn't continue as a series, which I have mixed feelings about.
And like the Firefly comics, I'll probably steer clear of it. I just don't think Whedon has a good grasp of the medium. He and his co-writers seem to still be writing Season 8 as if it were a TV series, where they had decent-to-great actors to give their dialogue context (rather than Jeanty, who IMO is the equivalent of hiring nothing but bad amateur actors) and every episode plays out in 40 minutes rather than 3 months.
Love the Bloom County comic
Yay! I was hoping someone would comment on that. Bloom County ftw. (Even if that, too, occasionally sacrificed plot to soapboxing, but at least you only had to wait 24 hours for the next one...)
Oh, wait, it is Buffy flying. Okay why would that piss anyone off? Or be a big reveal?
According to Allie, I thought you'd say, "Well, great, it's a comic now, so suddenly she has to be flying? That's crap, Scott Allie, I'm gonna kill you for wrecking Buffy." It seems like any departure from the show is met with some venom, and this seemed to me the biggest departure so far. Which he's not wrong about, except that most people who don't think it's a fantastic plot development seem to be more bored and alienated by it than pissed off, despite him essentially admitting that he's trolling.
he will either never be revealed or is no one that we remember or know, or some meaningless peripherial character or big bad that we don't care that much about
As far as I can tell, there are a couple of different possibilities:
1) Twilight is a minor/unused character (Caleb, Adam, Tucker Wells, etc) which... yawn. OK, just kill him. 2) Twilight is a major character (Buffy, Xander, Giles, etc) from a different timeline or something (since pretty much every major BtVS character has been revealed to not be Twilight) which... Well, if they hadn't all acted like idiots, it wouldn't have happened. Plus, the dance they would need to do to explain why that character would do it would have to be pretty damn good, and so far Season 8's track record in that department isn't too good. 3) Twilight is one of the new Season 8 characters. Yawn. Just kill him. 4) Twilight is a completely new character and/or not even a character at all, just a figurehead for someone else. At which point you're still stuck with 1) or 2) and having to explain why on earth somebody would do that, and... again, yawn.
I used to think the interesting thing about Twilight would be what he causes the other characters to do. Except all they seem to do is act like idiots, and unless he's been doing something to the water supply, I'm not sure he can be blamed. :-)
They feel like fanfic to me, just as Fray felt like fanfic, and the Brian Lynch comics feel like fanfic.
To be honest, Lynch feels much more like fanfic to me. The worst part about Season 8 is that it does feel like a Whedon series - it's got depth and ideas that Lynch isn't even aware of, it just does it badly. As I think I've said before, I've seen fanfic that's better and I've seen fanfic that's worse, but I've never seen fanfic that's this much better and this much worse at the same time.
to a degree, Dollhouse may be an exploration of how he has treated actors in his own head and how Hollywood often treats them.
no subject
Making me wonder if Whedon's stories work better on a metaphorical level than a literal one? His earlier stories worked on both levels, his later ones seem to me to be getting more and more metaphorical and big-picture thematic/messagey.
I'm not sure it's that simple. Whedon always wanted his stories to mean something - Buffy s1 and early s2 are painfully preachy at times. On the other hand, I think both Firefly (though not so much Serenity) and Dollhouse often do a good job of sneaking the ideas in under cover of the story. But Season 8 definitely seems to go out of its way to get to a certain point, regardless of how much they need to mess with characterisation or continuity to get there.
It may turn up as a comic if it doesn't continue as a series, which I have mixed feelings about.
And like the Firefly comics, I'll probably steer clear of it. I just don't think Whedon has a good grasp of the medium. He and his co-writers seem to still be writing Season 8 as if it were a TV series, where they had decent-to-great actors to give their dialogue context (rather than Jeanty, who IMO is the equivalent of hiring nothing but bad amateur actors) and every episode plays out in 40 minutes rather than 3 months.
Love the Bloom County comic
Yay! I was hoping someone would comment on that. Bloom County ftw. (Even if that, too, occasionally sacrificed plot to soapboxing, but at least you only had to wait 24 hours for the next one...)
Oh, wait, it is Buffy flying. Okay why would that piss anyone off? Or be a big reveal?
According to Allie, I thought you'd say, "Well, great, it's a comic now, so suddenly she has to be flying? That's crap, Scott Allie, I'm gonna kill you for wrecking Buffy." It seems like any departure from the show is met with some venom, and this seemed to me the biggest departure so far. Which he's not wrong about, except that most people who don't think it's a fantastic plot development seem to be more bored and alienated by it than pissed off, despite him essentially admitting that he's trolling.
he will either never be revealed or is no one that we remember or know, or some meaningless peripherial character or big bad that we don't care that much about
As far as I can tell, there are a couple of different possibilities:
1) Twilight is a minor/unused character (Caleb, Adam, Tucker Wells, etc) which... yawn. OK, just kill him.
2) Twilight is a major character (Buffy, Xander, Giles, etc) from a different timeline or something (since pretty much every major BtVS character has been revealed to not be Twilight) which... Well, if they hadn't all acted like idiots, it wouldn't have happened. Plus, the dance they would need to do to explain why that character would do it would have to be pretty damn good, and so far Season 8's track record in that department isn't too good.
3) Twilight is one of the new Season 8 characters. Yawn. Just kill him.
4) Twilight is a completely new character and/or not even a character at all, just a figurehead for someone else. At which point you're still stuck with 1) or 2) and having to explain why on earth somebody would do that, and... again, yawn.
I used to think the interesting thing about Twilight would be what he causes the other characters to do. Except all they seem to do is act like idiots, and unless he's been doing something to the water supply, I'm not sure he can be blamed. :-)
They feel like fanfic to me, just as Fray felt like fanfic, and the Brian Lynch comics feel like fanfic.
To be honest, Lynch feels much more like fanfic to me. The worst part about Season 8 is that it does feel like a Whedon series - it's got depth and ideas that Lynch isn't even aware of, it just does it badly. As I think I've said before, I've seen fanfic that's better and I've seen fanfic that's worse, but I've never seen fanfic that's this much better and this much worse at the same time.
to a degree, Dollhouse may be an exploration of how he has treated actors in his own head and how Hollywood often treats them.
Good point.
Sorry for the long response.
Likewise! :-D