"Man. Today is so loopy."
Apr. 8th, 2005 09:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ealgyldenI finally made Arthur and the Tick shove over in my head so I could read the rest of Finding Serenity. Darn brain-eating Tick essay. And all the Tick fans reading this immediately start thinking, "But wait, it's not the Tick who eats brains, it's Thrakkorzog's tongue that eats brains," and see?! That's how it starts! Next thing you know it's all "SPOON!" this and "trapped in the belly of love!" that, and all of a sudden you're going sane in a crazy world, wearing the mustache of a titan and eating kittens, which is just plain... plain wrong! And no one should do it, ever!
Suuuusan?
Ahem. So anyway, I'm reading along, enjoying the Firefly-itude, and I get to Ginjer Buchanan's essay, "Who Killed Firefly?" "Why, Satan's cabana boy, FOX, of course!" I say to my book. "The answer to the question posed above, most would say, is 'FOX Executives in the Boardroom with Bad Decisions," the essay says back to me (so be glad all those Tick quotes weren't Clue quotes instead. It could always be worse). We're off to a good start, the essay and I. So Buchanan goes on to talk a bit about the respective histories, successes and failures of science fiction and westerns on TV, and it's interesting and nicely written and I'm having a good time, and then I get to the bottom of page 50, where she says, "Except for a failed attempt to resurrect Bret Maverick in 1981, no new western series debuted on network in the eighties. At all."
Well, okay, aside from the fact that it strikes me as odd to start an absolute statement with an exception to that statement, it's only a page later before she mentions another one, ABC's The Young Riders. So that's two. How about Wildside, also on ABC (in 1985)? Admittedly it only lasted a few episodes, but still, it was a western which premiered on a network in the eighties. We're up to three. I know, I know, nitpicking is annoying, and her point is still a good one. The '80s were not a great era for the television western. It's just that absolutes, especially easily disproved ones, bother me. And worse, she overlooked a show I loved (gasp!). Truly a deed most heinous. Worse than eating kittens. Not the sacrilegious Bret Maverick or either of ABC's offerings, neither of which I had access to. No, there was a fourth qualifying show. My heart belonged to Paradise.
Paradise ran on CBS from 1988-1990, at which point it morphed in Guns of Paradise and ran for another half-season. Your basic Old West gunslinger, Ethan Cord (Lee Horsley), was going about his business (wearing black, looking morose and shooting people, but in a "good guy" way), when he got the news that his sister had died and left him a bequest. Her four kids. Surprise! So he headed off to Paradise (in California, I think. It's been a while) to hang up the guns and raise up the kiddies. It's never that easy, of course, so Ethan was often sent off after black hats (since he was a tame shootist now and all) to get shot at and possibly die, plus there was all the awkwardness and negotiation of a loner raising a family who didn't know him, plus there was the personal tension with his would-be lady love, Amelia the banker (Sigrid Thornton from The Man From Snowy River! Shush, that's a great movie). You know, now that I think about it, Paradise has a lot in common with Dr. Quinn. Huh. Anyway, it probably sounds corny and generic, and at times it could be. But it could also be really good, or at least really fun, and I loved it madly. It's on my "Top 5 TV Westerns I Want on DVD"** list. The kids were good for TV kids (I quite liked Claire, the eldest and a pretty smart cookie), and Amelia was great. She was intelligent and tough, and she and Ethan had great chemistry. And Lee Horsley made Ethan very appealing (and sexy), in that archetypal noble gunslinger way.
So yes, Paradise! Had to stick up for my forgotten fave. Good show. And one of a whopping four TV westerns of the eighties I can think of. Wow, it really was a rough decade, wasn't it? Anyway, I don't disagree with Buchanan that the western aspect of Firefly was a harder sell than the science fiction aspect, based on comments I saw at the time and ones the PTB have made since. The funny thing is, for me personally, the western elements were the bigger selling point, back when we had only a title and the vaguest of outlines to tempt us. I seek out westerns, but when it comes to science fiction/fantasy, space-based stuff doesn't always hook me. I have a dreadful weakness for the paranormal and conspiracy branches of the genre, and stick a sword in your characters' hands and I am so there. But I was never more than a casual Trek fan, Andromeda had me for a season or two by virtue of being lousy, and I've never clicked with Farscape or Babylon 5. I certainly wouldn't have guessed I'd come to care about Serenity herself as much as I do. Sometimes love just hits you when you least expect it.
**My "Top 5 TV Westerns I Want on DVD" list, if you're curious, is:
1) a tie! The Magnificent 7 and The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr.
2) Wild Wild West
3) Maverick
4) another tie! Paradise and Nothing Too Good for a Cowboy
5) Peacemakers
Yes, my Top 5 list has seven shows on it. Math is hard.
Hee! I also got "Sister Sword of Courteous Debate." Also, "Sister Katana of Warm Humanitarianism." "Sister Claymore of Reasoned Discussion." But possibly my favorite is "Sister Dagger of Looking at All Sides of the Question." Indeed.
Tomorrow I need to catch up on comments. And I never did write out my reasoning on that favorite character meme, did I? Oy. Can't hold a thought in my head these days. That's bad when you have goldfish-memory to begin with.
Suuuusan?
Ahem. So anyway, I'm reading along, enjoying the Firefly-itude, and I get to Ginjer Buchanan's essay, "Who Killed Firefly?" "Why, Satan's cabana boy, FOX, of course!" I say to my book. "The answer to the question posed above, most would say, is 'FOX Executives in the Boardroom with Bad Decisions," the essay says back to me (so be glad all those Tick quotes weren't Clue quotes instead. It could always be worse). We're off to a good start, the essay and I. So Buchanan goes on to talk a bit about the respective histories, successes and failures of science fiction and westerns on TV, and it's interesting and nicely written and I'm having a good time, and then I get to the bottom of page 50, where she says, "Except for a failed attempt to resurrect Bret Maverick in 1981, no new western series debuted on network in the eighties. At all."
Well, okay, aside from the fact that it strikes me as odd to start an absolute statement with an exception to that statement, it's only a page later before she mentions another one, ABC's The Young Riders. So that's two. How about Wildside, also on ABC (in 1985)? Admittedly it only lasted a few episodes, but still, it was a western which premiered on a network in the eighties. We're up to three. I know, I know, nitpicking is annoying, and her point is still a good one. The '80s were not a great era for the television western. It's just that absolutes, especially easily disproved ones, bother me. And worse, she overlooked a show I loved (gasp!). Truly a deed most heinous. Worse than eating kittens. Not the sacrilegious Bret Maverick or either of ABC's offerings, neither of which I had access to. No, there was a fourth qualifying show. My heart belonged to Paradise.
Paradise ran on CBS from 1988-1990, at which point it morphed in Guns of Paradise and ran for another half-season. Your basic Old West gunslinger, Ethan Cord (Lee Horsley), was going about his business (wearing black, looking morose and shooting people, but in a "good guy" way), when he got the news that his sister had died and left him a bequest. Her four kids. Surprise! So he headed off to Paradise (in California, I think. It's been a while) to hang up the guns and raise up the kiddies. It's never that easy, of course, so Ethan was often sent off after black hats (since he was a tame shootist now and all) to get shot at and possibly die, plus there was all the awkwardness and negotiation of a loner raising a family who didn't know him, plus there was the personal tension with his would-be lady love, Amelia the banker (Sigrid Thornton from The Man From Snowy River! Shush, that's a great movie). You know, now that I think about it, Paradise has a lot in common with Dr. Quinn. Huh. Anyway, it probably sounds corny and generic, and at times it could be. But it could also be really good, or at least really fun, and I loved it madly. It's on my "Top 5 TV Westerns I Want on DVD"** list. The kids were good for TV kids (I quite liked Claire, the eldest and a pretty smart cookie), and Amelia was great. She was intelligent and tough, and she and Ethan had great chemistry. And Lee Horsley made Ethan very appealing (and sexy), in that archetypal noble gunslinger way.
So yes, Paradise! Had to stick up for my forgotten fave. Good show. And one of a whopping four TV westerns of the eighties I can think of. Wow, it really was a rough decade, wasn't it? Anyway, I don't disagree with Buchanan that the western aspect of Firefly was a harder sell than the science fiction aspect, based on comments I saw at the time and ones the PTB have made since. The funny thing is, for me personally, the western elements were the bigger selling point, back when we had only a title and the vaguest of outlines to tempt us. I seek out westerns, but when it comes to science fiction/fantasy, space-based stuff doesn't always hook me. I have a dreadful weakness for the paranormal and conspiracy branches of the genre, and stick a sword in your characters' hands and I am so there. But I was never more than a casual Trek fan, Andromeda had me for a season or two by virtue of being lousy, and I've never clicked with Farscape or Babylon 5. I certainly wouldn't have guessed I'd come to care about Serenity herself as much as I do. Sometimes love just hits you when you least expect it.
**My "Top 5 TV Westerns I Want on DVD" list, if you're curious, is:
1) a tie! The Magnificent 7 and The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr.
2) Wild Wild West
3) Maverick
4) another tie! Paradise and Nothing Too Good for a Cowboy
5) Peacemakers
Yes, my Top 5 list has seven shows on it. Math is hard.
My Unitarian
Jihad Name is: Sister Broadsword of Desirable Mindfulness.
Hee! I also got "Sister Sword of Courteous Debate." Also, "Sister Katana of Warm Humanitarianism." "Sister Claymore of Reasoned Discussion." But possibly my favorite is "Sister Dagger of Looking at All Sides of the Question." Indeed.
Tomorrow I need to catch up on comments. And I never did write out my reasoning on that favorite character meme, did I? Oy. Can't hold a thought in my head these days. That's bad when you have goldfish-memory to begin with.
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Date: 2005-04-09 08:49 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-10 04:28 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-09 04:50 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-10 04:34 am (UTC)