The Good Word

Editors Note: Sorry about the post-less Wednesday. I’ve just been super-swamped. Luckily, my good friend Caleb is stepping up and stepping in. Here’s his first post, and it comes in the form of an appeal.

Welcome to the Hellmouth! Ahm… I mean Dollhouse. At long last Joss Whedon has returned to television with his much anticipated follow-up series Dollhouse. Follow-up to what you ask? Well Joss’s hit list is extensive. I forgive you for asking. Here’s your Whedon 101:

Joss Whedon is the mastermind behind TV’s cult favorites Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly and it’s spin-off movie (that’s right spin-off movie!) Serenity and of course the instant online cult classic Dr. Horrible’s Sing-A-Long Blog. Whedon has also worked on such box office blockbusters as Toy Story and Speed.

Still with me?

Confession: I’M A HUGE BUFFY FAN! It’s definitely a problem. I own not one, but two DVD copies of the entire series, and may have carved a few stakes of my own (just in case) back in the day. Allegedly.

So, I will try to keep this preview of Dollhouse, and the pilot “Ghost” unbiased, but truthfully are any reviews unbiased? I think we may need an Active for this, but more on that later.

When I found out that Joss was returning to TV with Buffy alumna Eliza Dushku in a new series I was overwhelmingly excited and when I heard the premise my excitement was tinged by a little anxiety.

Dollhouse focuses on Echo, a member of a highly illegal and underground group of individuals who have had their personalities wiped clean so they can be imprinted with any number of new personas. Hired by the wealthy, the powerful and the creep-os, the Actives don't just perform their hired roles, they actually become -- mind, personality and physiology -- whomever the client wants or needs them to be. Whether imprinted to be a lover, assassin, a corporate negotiator or a best friend, the Actives know no other life than that which the current engagement dictates.

But what about when they clock out? When not on the job, the Actives are “confined,” and I use that term loosely, because the dollhouse is amazingly swank (yes, the Hilary kind). There they live in a perpetual child-like, “doll” state, completely wiped (tabula rasa) of all memories of their previous engagements and the entirety of their life before the dollhouse.

Intriguing no? Why then why did the premise worry me? Well, Dollhouse puts Eliza Dushku in the driver’s seat of the series. Don’t get me wrong I love Eliza - she’s my second favorite slayer, but she’s no Sarah Michelle Gellar. Truth is, I was unsure if Eliza had the chops to pull off a different character each week the way Jennifer Garner could on Alias. If you haven’t seen Alias, know that Mrs. Garner deserves a place in TV heaven for her multiple portrayals of Sydney Bristow on J.J. Abrams hit.

Despite my giddiness, I can tell you that the first episode of Dollhouse did not disappoint. The series is unlike anything Joss has done before and while the quality is certainly there, it feels much more commercialized than his previous work, due in large part, I suspect, to FOX’s demands. However, I feel this could work for him in two ways.

One, it’s “commercial” feel will hopefully glue more pant-seats to the couch cushion every Friday night. And two, this will hopefully allow Joss the time he needs to take control of the show and mold it into what it could and should be.

I won’t throw out any spoilers, instead I encourage you instead to watch it for yourself and make your own judgments.

All I can tell you is that all my fears were put to rest and that Eliza, specifically  during the scene in which an engagement goes south, solidified her ability to be a leading lady in my eyes: “He said he was a ghost. You can’t fight a ghost. But he was heavy. The weight of him, ghosts aren’t heavy. Ghost’s are sheets, with holes cut out.” –classic Whedon style, performed exquisitely by Eliza.

The premise is solid and there is enough back-story to last for plenty of seasons to come. When a show and it’s characters can be anyone or anything each and every week, whats not to love? So, your engagement? Watch Dollhouse, and brush up on your Whedon.

I encourage you all to check out Eliza and Joss in Dollhouse on FOX Fridays at 9PM. Also, support another Joss alum Summer Glau in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles right before Dollhouse.

For your convenience, here is the pilot episode, via Hulu.com.

Like what you see? Take a walk in the Whedonverse, and start with Buffy - there’s a reason it’s still talked about by critics and fans 6 years after it’s last staking.

Let’s face it, the tables have turned. If you hadn’t noticed, the process began with the release of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off in 1986 and was completed the first time Seth Green showed his face on television.

What am I talking about? The Rise Of The Nerd.

Obama uses a Blackberry, the inventors of Facebook and Digg.com are celebrities, and people like Zach Braff (J.D. from Scrubs) determine what network T.V. looks like.

So, in an effort to help you all with the transition into a world entirely run by people who know when to “let the Wookie win,” I present to you my very own tutorial series:

Becoming a Nerd

Lesson 1 - Comics

Now, we don’t all have to get to the point where we’re eagerly awaiting next Wednesday’s newest issue of Superman Confidential (and I sincerely hope you don’t), but unless you want to find yourself sorely uncultured, take at least one step toward becoming comic-literate.

This process is going to take us from your Sunday paper to the web, and even to the very threshold of your local comic shop. So, let’s begin at the beginning with everyone’s first exposure to comics:

1. Garfield Minus Garfield. When you were little you couldn’t possibly comprehend why your parents would want a newspaper. It felt gross, was full of boring stories, and had hardly any pictures. The comics page, however, was different. You may not have understood half the jokes that Marmaduke, Family Circus, and The Farside were throwing at you, but you liked them anyway.

Garfield Minus Garfield is great because it eases you from printed comics and dated humor to the more subtle art of the web comic. On G-G the gig is pretty simple, the creator states:

Garfield Minus Garfield is a site dedicated to removing Garfield from the Garfield comic strips in order to reveal the existential angst of a certain young Mr. Jon Arbuckle. It is a journey deep into the mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against loneliness and depression in a quiet American suburb.

Don’t worry. It will feel a little icky at first, looking at Garfield comics on the internet, but trust me, it will get better. Take G-G in large doses- the more deranged Jon seems, the better.

2. Savage Chickens. Savage Chickens is a one-frame Far Side-esque comic starring chickens drawn on Post-It notes. They’re easily digestible and typically don’t employ any humor that is too esoteric. That is, they are a step up from G-G, but, on an average day, won’t demand extensive knowledge of English grammar or original episodes of Star Trek.

3. xkcd. The cream of the crop in the world of online comics, xkcd is almost always spot-on hilarious, but sometimes you’ll have to deal with extended plotlines based on Linux and other open-source products. Often, too, your understanding of a joke will depend upon how much you remember from the last time you were in physics class. Keep in mind though, xkcd is culturally relevant, and you’re not.

4. Watchmen. Time to make the transition back to paper. Watchmen, written by Alan Moore, is generally regarded as the greatest graphic novel ever created. What’s a graphic novel you might ask? Well, typically, it’s an entire storyline of a comic bundled into one durable volume. It’s a serious step-up in nerd-dom, but for only $20 at Barnes and Noble you can own the only graphic novel ever to win the Huge Award for Excellence in Science Fiction.

Watchmen will introduce you to the world of comics via solid literature, with a storyline that won’t expand on you. Also, it will get you ready for the upcoming movie – which promises to be pretty darn awesome.

As an English major and a gentlemen, I will stake my reputation on this one. It’s a great story, filled with literary allusions and believable characters that will make a seamless transition to live-action cinema. The title is even based on a Latin phrase: “Quis custodiet, ipsos custodes?” (Who watches the watchmen?).

5. Buffy. I hate to jump back on this horse, but let’s face it – Joss Whedon owns me. The show itself has some of the best writing I’ve ever encountered. Its witty, culturally relevant banter more than made up for seven seasons of low-budget special effects. Now the comic picks up where the show left off, and lays down the awesome.

I’m not up to date with it presently, but if you’re going to start venturing into the unexplored territory of actually visiting a comicbook shop, Buffy is a great way to do so without compromising your status as a devotee of video-based culture.

So, where do you fall on the continuum? Just dipping your toe into the world of comics, or diving headfirst into the back-issues bin, looking for obscure Green Lantern storylines?

And if that seemed a rather unromantic way to start February, check out the “Extra” I posted earlier: http://www.zgoodword.com/extras

So. It has been a tumultuous couple weeks. I don't know why I've been so down about it, but hopefully I can recuperate this weekend and be ready to live the last two weeks of Halloween to the fullest.

Bored to Death

The last week or so has been strange. I've continued to have problems with my insurance/loan situation. Once again I called my loan company only to find out that they still haven't received any sort of payment from the insurance company.

I've decided also that I won't be attending the CAMWS (Classical Association of the Midwest and South) conference next month.

CAMWS invited me to read my paper "Ripped Up By The Roots: Sophocles' Antigone and The Fall of the House of Oedipus" at their 2008 convention, but because of this car situation and every other blow Colorado has dealt me I don't feel confident enough about my school work or my finances to take off a couple days and attend the convention in Asheville. Also, the fact that G-mail marked a month's worth of CAMWS communication as Spam didn't help either.

I've also decided that if I can get back into blogging I'm at least going to give myself one day off per week, beginning in November. As it stands I owe you all way too many posts about Halloween to cut myself any slack before the end of the month.

I got back to RCIA (basically adult confirmation classes for the Catholic Church) this week after missing two weeks in row. I'm still not overly pleased at how painfully elementary the class is and how much time we spend sharing our "feelings," but I guess I just have to bite the bullet, unless I can find a more ambitious class in town.

Today is devoted to catching up on grading and reading Dracula. I've finished the second and third books in the Eragon series only to find that there's a fourth, and I'm none too pleased about it. While the books are good, and if my 8th graders are all reading them I don't think it's a waste of time if I do to, I can't help but cringe when I see the Christopher Paolini is in league with Phillip Pullman (author of The Golden Compass) whose entire purpose in writing children's books is to undermine the theory of fantasy and fairy stories developed by C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkein.

Well, this has been scattered, but at least I'm blogging.

Let me know how you've been and remind me if I owe you a phone call.

Your Halloween video for the day:

P.S. If you've never seen the musical episode of Buffy: The Vampire Slayer you can't consider yourself cultured. The same holds true for the musical episode of Scrubs.

Pray to St. Dracula for a musical episode of Heroes.

UPDATE: Sorry if you listened to the song that was on the playlist earlier. That was most definitely NOT the song I meant to choose. The correct one is up now. Sure picked a great day to remind everyone of the playlist...

Don't worry the title of this post is an actual song. Check the music player if you don't believe me.

And yes, this blog is meant to be read while listening to the corresponding tune. If you aren't doing it the only person you are hurting is yourself.

Whedonism, like Hedonism... Yup, just like Hedonism

If you haven't been taking part in culture lately you probably haven't heard of Joss Whedon. But if you've been using your T.V. or computer for anything worthwhile, chances are you've run across him and his band of cohorts.

Whedon is the writer and creator of Buffy, Angel and Firefly. Both Buffy and Firefly, now off the air, have developed huge cult followings and have spawned entire movements, of varying success, to get the funding and interest together to enable Whedon to expand their storylines. Minor successes include the production of Serenity, a feature length movie based on the Firefly storyline, and the creation of the Buffy comics, which pick up where the 7th season left off. The Buffy animated series, however, never quite took off.

More recently though Joss has been teaming up with some of the best in the biz for a new project: Dr. Horrible, a three part web-series starring Nathan Fillion (Captain Malcolm Reynolds of Firefly), Felicia Day (from the web-series The Guild), and Neil Patrick Harris (Barney from the CBS series How I Met Your Mother). Basically each of these actors has more starpower in their pinky-finger than any other B-actor out there right now and in Dr. Horrible they put it to good use - musical style. Felicia Day, I might add, is not only cute as a button, but also played a slayer called Vi in season 7 of Buffy.

Firefly, HIMYM and The Guild should each independently be recognized as some of the best entertainment offered to the American public in the last couple years, and when you take the most beloved character from each of these shows, and stir in a healthy shot of Whedon, you've got a hit. You've also got servers crashing from the overwhelming number of fans watching Dr. Horrible repeatedly on the day of it's debut and a #1 ranking on ITunes sales because people would rather buy the show than wait a few hours for servers to bring back up the website where they could watch it for free. Originally in three parts, Dr. Horrible is now hosted on Hulu (see end of post) in a single, uncut episode.

What's most exciting though is the fact that this fall Joss has something new in store: a weekly drama called Dollhouse. This new project stars Eliza Dushku who also played a slayer named Faith from the Buffy series (so much for "one girl in every generation"). Dushku plays one of the "Actives," a group of people who have "voluntarily" given up whatever lives they had before to become Matrix-breaking superhumans who forfeit their memories and enter into the employ of a shady organization who rents them out as assassins, personal security guards and arm-candy. I think the premise of the show is great and that Joss is doing something he hasn't done before: make us think. While Buffy and Firefly were immensely entertaining they lacked substance. This new show should raise some really important questions of ethics, morality and definitions of humanity. It's just a shame it'll be on FOX.

One of the great advantages of science fiction is it's ability to show us potential moral difficulties in society and give us a chance to work through them before we even have to deal with them. Often, with a real visionary, like Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov or George Orwell, the distopian future they depict begins to become reality before anyone takes sufficient notice. Sometime before the new season of Heroes begins I'll write a defense of Sci-Fi, but for now I'll take your objections.

Check out Dollhouse:

Hopefully the next couple weeks will give you just enough time to get hooked on HIMYM before this blog becomes entirely devoted to it (and Heroes) when the new fall line-up begins in a couple weeks.

So long Scoobies.

Also, if the ol' blog gets 50 hits today there'll be a contest starting tomorrow, with great prizes for all!!!!*

Watch (Legally!):
Dr. Horrible
The Guild
Buffy (Seasons 1 and 2)
How I Met Your Mother

*By "all" I mean the one person that makes me like them the most.