Slayage Conference: Jeanine Basinger

Joss Whedon once said, "I've had two great teachers in my life -- one was my mother, and the other was Jeanine Basinger." On Saturday night, I got to go out to dinner with the second great teacher of Joss's life. Jeanine Basinger is one of the world's leading film historians. She was a professor and mentor to Whedon when he was at Wesleyan College, and also boasts among her students Alexander Payne (Election, About Schmidt), Matt Weiner (Sopranos, Mad Men), Alex Kurtzman (Alias, Fringe, Transformers), Toby Emmerich (exec producer of too many to mention), Michael Bay (any film with a giant stylized explosion in it), and many, many, many others.

Joss Whedon took every class of hers except one (The Four Directors, which he still complains about to this day; he joked with her that on his tombstone it will say, "He didn't get to take the Four Directors class.") and since then he not only keeps in touch with her, but calls her on a regular basis, asks for her help and input and criticism, and will go spend weeks at her house hashing out ideas. Her students say that despite her strictness in the classroom (she does not tolerate absences or lateness or extensions AT ALL) she is amazing one on one, and always makes you feel better about yourself and what you do. She can buoy up a person who's about to give up, and she makes her students feel like they can do whatever they set their minds to.

At dinner she was lovely, and we went to a very posh place called "The Hamburger Barn" with onion rings the size of my head. Jeanine loved the onion rings. I had ordered fries so I didn't eat one of these gargantuan things, but I think you'd have to be some sort of superhero to be able to do so... and Jeanine is certainly that. Although we were all hanging on every word she said, she showed an interest in what we did and thought, especially when it came to film and television. David Lavery had told her we were the keynotes, so she went around asking each of us what our papers were on. When she got to me, I explained that mine was about Whedon's realistic portrayal of high school, and that I compared it with John Hughes movies. She replied, "That's very interesting, Joss LOVED John Hughes movies." I felt like my paper had just been given a gold star. :)

Then she asked us a doozy... for all those who easily answer, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" whenever anyone asks you what your favourite show is, consider this question she posed to each of us, "What is your favourite non-Whedon television show? In other words, you cannot say Buffy, Angel, or Firefly." Uh... I eventually said Lost, because I love it and am immersed in it, but it might be a tie with The Wire, which I didn't say. Other answers were My So-Called Life, M*A*S*H, and Due South. She also asked about favourite sci-fi film (Blade Runner for me) and then she told us this hilarious story about one of her students. It sounds like many of them come to her for motherly advice, not just teacherly, and this guy had introduced her to his girlfriend. In a short conversation, she somehow figured out this woman did not like Vertigo. Jeanine was appalled, but said nothing. As she tells the story (I'm paraphrasing, obviously), with much drama: "So a few weeks later he comes back to me and tells me he's getting engaged. I decided to take the high road. 'Well. That's very nice, I'm very... happy for you, and, um, marriage is good, and I think that you will be very ... happy, and OH FOR GOD'S SAKES HOW CAN YOU MARRY SOMEONE WHO DOESN'T LIKE VERTIGO??!!"

They broke up two weeks later.

She told us some stories about Joss, but they were always respectful of him, and she wouldn't say anything that she considered private, which was very gracious. She said he was very interested in Slayage, (he'd been invited him to come but he couldn't because of Dollhouse), and she seemed to suggest she'd sort of been sent by him to scout it out and report back if we were a bunch of crazy people. He'd said to her, "Grab everything you can, I want to see EVERYTHING. Programs, books, everything." She talked about other aspects of film, and mentioned in passing her good friends Marty, Capra, and Kazan. Wow. She was one of the most fascinating people I've ever met, and I just wanted to sit there and listen to her talk for ages.

Then Sue and I headed back to the B&B room, where, on TV, they were playing Footloose. We were thrilled! Especially since we were totally convinced we were in Footloose territory all weekend, with the no alcohol (I'm sure if we'd started dancing in the streets someone would have stopped us). By the end of the movie, which I hadn't seen in many years, I wondered aloud, "Wow, do you think Kevin Bacon watches this now and cringes?" I especially loved the idea that by learning to dance, they could now kick the asses of the guys in the parking lot, using wicked awesome dance moves.

The next morning was Jeanine's keynote. She'd told us the night before that she had absolutely nothing prepared. Either she's a liar, or one of the greatest impromptu speakers ever (I'm still not convinced which it is, though she did have notes). She introduced her talk as being very Citizen Kane, and said she was going to jump around, and give us puzzle pieces, and she would leave it up to us to decide why she'd formulated it that way. It was brilliant. She started in 1983, where a young Joss Whedon had walked into her office to ask to enroll in her class. Because of the huge demand for her classes, you had to register for them one to two years in advance, so that's what he was doing. She said, "He walked in and sat down, and we began a conversation that is still continuing 25 years later, and it's one of the most important and meaningful conversations of my life." She added that she was looking forward to leaving the conference so she could get back to their conversation.

When she'd told him about Slayage, he said to her, "Make sure you don't tell them that thing." She said, "Oh, you mean the time you ---?" He said, "No, that's not what I meant... but don't tell them that, either!" "Well, the time when you and I--?" "Oh God, no, I'd totally forgot about that, don't tell them that, either!" She said after 10 minutes of this she said, "Joss, I'm hanging up, you're not leaving me anything to tell!!"

She said the one thing you could say about Joss is that fame never changed him. Despite the adoration and adulation and cult status and "Joss is my God" t-shirts, he's the same guy, wearing the same t-shirt and shoes, that he was 25 years ago when she first met him.

She told amazing stories about him at Wesleyan, and said that for each film she assigned that they watch (on 16mm in the screening room on campus) she'd have 3 alternates, and he would go every night and watch all 4 of them, until 2am, when he'd go home and pop on the TV and see what else was on. He was a consummate watcher. She said the students had to run the movie theatre on campus and choose the movies, and his choices were "The Bad and the Beautiful," "The Furies," "Laura," and "The Scarlet Empress." She said her students feel passionately about their films, and they'd get into fistfights over them. She said, "While Joss is a very effective screenwriter, he is weak in the punching department." He liked Brian DePalma, and would defend those movies to the bitter end, while he hated Masterpiece Theatre-type films like Merchant-Ivory.

See if you can see the Buffy connection here: She said he loved Hitchcock, and when he presented a paper analyzing The Birds he divided the movie up into 4 themes: The Watcher/The Watched/Isolation/The Role of the Viewer. In talking about Hedren's character, he said "She has to give up her superficial life to survive," and added "Stop thinking of why the birds are attacking... they just are, that's all that matters." In other words, horror needs no explanation. It just exists.

She said when she first watched BtVS, "I could hear Joss's voice, I could hear his cadences, his language, his nuances, emotions, pain... I could feel his heartbeat."

In his third year, he became Jeanine's TA, and one of her favourite notes that he'd jotted on another student's paper was, "This guy misses all the points in a single bound."

In an analysis of Rear Window, Joss told the students to look at Jimmy Stewart as the Watcher, and that he thinks life is a movie, and it can't hurt him, but it does. Watching him watch them, can hurt us. I noticed when Jeanine was talking about his analyses of Hitchcock that Whedon always seemed caught up in the role of the viewer, as if when he's writing he's constantly aware of how this will be watched.

In 1989 she received a letter from him while he was writing for Roseanne (on the Roseanne letterhead) and in it he said, "I'm making my way."

In the mid-90s they went out to lunch and he said he wanted to talk to her about a new project, and he looked up and said, "Don't say anything.... Don't say ANYthing.... Now... just don't say anything." She said, "Joss, I'm not saying anything!!" "Okay... just don't say anything. You remember that movie Buffy the Vampire Slayer? I'm thinking about turning it into a television show." "Joss!! That was such a terrible experience, why would you--" "I said don't say anything!!"

Hahahaha! Eventually he explained to her that it had always irked him that he couldn't do it his way, and besides, it'll only last a few episodes and then be cancelled, but he'll get to "do it a little bit my way." Jeanine concurred, and decided it'll be good for Joss to let him do it for a few episodes a little bit his way. She explained what it was like on March 10, 1997, sitting in front of her television. "A moon. The sound of an organ. A wolf howls. Guitars start playing. Cheerleaders start jumping. Now my husband is interested." Joss called her when it was done. "What did you think?" "Joss, I thought it was very good." She said she never missed a single episode, never watched it recorded, she always watched it live after that.

As for Firefly, she calls it the biggest screwup in television, and if she could kill television execs, she'd kill these guys. She apparently chews them out every time she sees them. She was in on the ground floor on this one, leading him to noir westerns to help him out with his idea.

She concluded by saying that Joss Whedon is a storyteller, and he must do it. He's unhappy if he isn't telling stories. She likened him to a tribal storyteller: if he were in the cavemen age, he would be the tribal storyteller who would be invited over to the fire of the chieftains, wearing their fur. Sometimes they would feed him, and sometimes they would beat him with a stick. She said the same is true today. He walks into the network offices in his sneakers and t-shirt, and the chieftains wearing their fur invite him in. Sometimes they feed him (Buffy) sometimes they beat him with a stick (Firefly).

She had a LOT more to say, but I was so caught up in what she was saying I wasn't always taking notes (and to be honest, I actually have more notes, but I feel like the talk was meant for a small group, and I wouldn't want to give it all away). She was a truly amazing and gracious lady, and I wish she'd write a book on Joss. But even more interestingly (sorry Joss), I wish someone would write a book on her.

Slayage Conference: My Keynote

Don’t You Forget About Buffy:
Why Joss Whedon’s Masterpiece Captivates Us Still

I don’t know about you, but I love John Hughes films. When TBS runs one of their Hughes marathons, I’m right there. When I watch The Breakfast Club I’m suddenly 15 again, wishing my school had a Saturday detention that was that freakin’ cool. And I can’t get enough of Sixteen Candles, with its geeks and touchy-feely grandmothers and parental neglect. I’ve seen Ferris Bueller so many times I’ve lost count, and while I thought I identified with Ferris, I’ve recently realized it’s his worried friend Cameron that I sympathize with the most. I’m not a huge fan of Pretty in Pink, but despite Andie’s godawful dress and the fact that Blane was a bore, I still love Ducky.

I know I’m not alone here. Everyone I’ve talked to seems to feel the same – we turn on a John Hughes film, and we’re transported back to high school... it’s like our twenties and thirties never happened, and we’re suddenly teenagers again, experiencing that rollercoaster of emotions, embarrassed about our parents and wanting to be in with the cool crowd. And why is that? Because John Hughes captured a time in our lives that all of us went through, for better or for worse. There are things we did in high school that we’d probably chalk up to being the most embarrassing moments of our lives. And there are moments that we cherish. For every memory we have where we swear we’d give a limb just to go back and relive it one more time, there are probably ten memories that remind us we’d never go back to high school if someone paid us.

Over the years, I’ve been asked the same question countless times: What is it about Buffy that makes people love this show so much? We all have our own answers to this question.

For some, it’s that remarkable dialogue or the story arcs that took monsters and made them metaphors for real life. For others, it’s that extraordinary ensemble cast, made up of mostly unknowns, with the exception of a diva from All My Children and that British guy from the coffee commercials. Most often fans point to the veracity of the show as the reason it was so good: it might have been about werewolves, vampires, and the occasional tiny Gachnar, but it was the most realistic show on television. (Try saying that to a non-Buffy fan.)

But for me, the reason Buffy has had such a major impact on my life, and is something that I will always keep coming back to, is that it was set in the teenage years, and began in high school. At no other time in our lives do our emotions run so high. When you’re a teenager, the tiniest provocation can cause your world to come to an end. We love with so much passion we feel our hearts will split in two, and we hate with that same fervour. So many things are happening for the first time – you meet the guy or girl that you completely obsess over. Sometimes it’s requited, but sometimes it isn’t, in which case you have your first experience with writing suicidal poetry. It’s a time when you meet the people who might be your friends for the rest of your life, and when you’re fighting with them, you hate them more than any person on Earth.

When it comes to the old adage, “Write what you know,” high school is a pretty safe topic for any of us. Joss Whedon is clearly no exception. A connoisseur of teen angst, Whedon has been on the front lines, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer was the perfect medium through which he could recreate the hell of high school and bring it back to life. Just like watching those John Hughes movies, viewing the first three seasons of Buffy will bring back memories for all of us. You’ll realize that you can take the person out of high school, but you can’t take the high school out of the person, when you think back to how you felt watching certain Buffy moments, such as:

• Dodgeball.
• Buffy and Angel’s first kiss, and what happened after.
• The consummation of Buffy and Angel’s relationship... and what happened after.
• Cordelia teasing Willow that she’s seen the softer side of Sears.
• The prom.
• Buffy explaining to Jonathan that every student – from the mathlete to the cheerleader – is filled with pain.
• The talentless show.
• Buffy’s father not taking her to the ice show on her 18th birthday.
• Willow crying in the girl’s bathroom stall after she finds out Xander, the best friend she’s had a crush on since infancy, would rather be with someone he hates than with her.

By beginning his series firmly ensconced in a high school setting, Joss Whedon managed to pull us in and keep us there, week after week, because he had portrayed high school in such a realistic way. Because those years are so deeply imbedded in each of us, we could relate to the show, and it suddenly became about us.

High school was a huge time in our lives, filled with change and firsts: High school is when we have authority figures surrounding us – whether it’s a teacher, a coach, your boss at your first part-time job, or your parents – but we’re also struggling to gain our independence for the first time. High school is where you first stayed out late, often first lied to your parents about where you were going to be, and tested the boundaries of the rules that you had always followed before.

When we were in high school, our personal lives changed. Parents got divorced, and some of us had to deal with meeting mom or dad’s new “friends.” You may have fallen in love for the first time when you were in high school, and probably suffered through your first breakup. Your hormones were raging, so everything seemed more amazing or depressing than it later would.

In high school, we were pressured with preparing ourselves for the rest of our lives. At 17 or 18, we were making decisions that would affect everything we would do from that point on. It’s like that first section in The Game of Life... if you land your tiny car on Teacher and someone else lands on Doctor, you’re pretty much screwed from the outset.

Whedon created all of these scenarios and more. Buffy’s parents are divorced, and she’s being uprooted at the beginning of the series and moving to a new school and town with her mother. Sunnydale High is full of cool kids versus the nerds. It’s hard watching Xander, Willow, and Joyce gang up on Buffy upon her season three return in “Dead Man’s Party,” either because we identify with Buffy and hate seeing her ganged up on, or we sympathize with the others, and feel their pain of betrayal.

Emotions are running high for these high schoolers: just think of the Willow and Oz romance. Willow is the wallflower who was never supposed to get the cool guy, and when HE actually notices HER, our hearts are a-flutter. Buffy, on the other hand, personifies first true love gone terribly, terribly wrong. She discovers the guy she loves is 240 years old, and after sleeping with her he turns into a soulless vampire. But WAY worse than that... he doesn’t call her the next day.

AH!

We see characters discover changes in their bodies – Willow finds out she’s a witch, Oz is a werewolf. Buffy balances the pressures of schoolwork with a part-time job, or as she calls it, her “calling.” (I know a lot of people who also referred to their part-time jobs as their calling in high school, but after a few months folding shirts at The Gap, they felt differently.) Xander knows he won’t go to university, and the guy who’s always been part of the gang foresees a day when he will be an outcast, that dude with the technical career and not the intellectual one. Faith embodies the high school rebel, that person who puts up a harsh exterior because inside they’re in so much pain they don’t want anyone to find out. Through it all, the gang loves and tolerates Giles, that adult who is a part of the group that they tease one minute, revere the next.

But the most realistic part of all? The high school was on a hellmouth. Did ANY of us go to a high school that was not?

This theory would suggest that Buffy is only good because of the first three years. But that’s not what I’m saying. It was the first three years that managed to pull us in. By the time season 4 began, we were fully in the grip of Joss Whedon’s world, and the pain and horrors that were to follow were as realistic as the high school setting he’d already established. Just as many of us will carry around the emotional scars and happy memories of high school forever, we also remember those complicated years that followed.

After high school, there’s college or the work force. These years opened us up to new worlds. In college the geeks were in the majority, and a person was actually rewarded for working hard – imagine that! But college is often where we were uprooted for the first time, being forced to live on our own away from our parents. Our family became secondary to our friends and schoolwork, and for many of us, disorientation set in. If high school was where we had to think about adulthood, post–high school is where we had to enter it.

The same was true of Buffy. Just as seasons one through three mirrored the emotional turbulence and pleasures and traumas of high school, seasons four through seven perfectly captured the rollercoaster that was to follow. Season four wobbled and didn’t quite work, as if the writers had decided on a shift, realized they’d made a mistake, and scrambled to fix it. Similarly, when we leave high school and enter our lives, we are perplexed, and the familiarity we once knew is gone. Post–high school, we’re all in a transitional phase, following the decisions we’d made in those crucial years and entering the paths we’d laid out for ourselves. For some, they realize they’ve made a big mistake – “Law school?? Why the hell did I ever want to become a LAWYER??” – and they backtrack, desperate to try new things until they can figure out what they really want to do, and get back on the right path. This description pretty much sums up season 4.

By season five, the show had rediscovered its path, and once again, it reminded us of all those things we once went through as young adults. High school first love gives way to complicated relationships. Buffy and Spike. Anya and Xander. Perfect examples of relationships that weren’t easy to explain. Early adulthood is where we might lose a parent, as Buffy does, or where sibling rivalry turns to closeness. In Xander’s case, it was where he was able to move out and leave the abusive home he’d been living in. College is where some people come out of the closet, as Willow does, sometimes to their own surprise. With our newfound independence, we no longer need our parents in the same way, hence Giles’s departure. Perhaps by losing a family member or a friend, our previous feelings of invincibility give way to a fear of mortality. Buffy dies; the rest of the gang loses a friend. Buffy’s return is not exactly like something we’ve ever experienced, but in a way it’s like a friend of ours leaving for a different college wearing Ralph Lauren and returning in the summer wearing a safety pin through their nose and a Sex Pistols shirt.

There are some Buffy fans who say the series would have been better off ending after season 5, but perhaps that reveals an innate resistance to growing up. Just as life after high school was full of confusion for us, we resist Buffy and the gang changing. Perhaps we wanted Willow to be the consummate wallflower, and not the evil veiny Willow of season 6. Maybe we’d rather see Xander remain the class clown, and not the sad contractor who tells Dawn in season 7 that sometimes he feels like the guy who just fixes the windows every time they’re broken. Giles was no longer a librarian, and instead became the owner of a magic shop, constantly at war with Anya. But these are reflections of real life, and while Joss gave us the doses of reality, he couched them in his incomparable storytelling that kept us glued to our sets. Veiny Willow gave way to goddess Willow. Contractor Xander rejoined the good fight, and lost an eye battling alongside the Slayers. Giles went away, but he returned suddenly at the end of season 6, in my number one favourite moment of the series.

I listed off a bunch of moments from the high school years that made us cringe or laugh or cry, always in sympathy because we remember those years. But the last three years of the series boasted even more powerful moments, because we’d seen the events and changes leading up to them. Moments such as:

• Buffy finding her dead mother on the couch.
• Tara and Willow floating above the dance floor, completely in love.
• Anya’s fruit punch speech.
• Giles singing to Buffy that he’s just standing in her way, and it’s time he step aside so she can become the independent woman she was meant to be.
• Xander conquering wicked Willow by telling her how much he loves her.
• Buffy telling Spike that she’d been in heaven, and refusing to tell her friends what they had done to her.
• Spike telling Buffy how much she’s meant to him after her friends have shunned her for putting them in danger.

Often, during these more difficult and complex story arcs, fans idealized the high school years of the show. But isn’t that like life? Brian K. Vaughan, one of the authors of the new Buffy season 8 comic book series, was asked how he would write the final scene of Buffy if he were given the chance, and he replied, “I always thought it would be kind of poignant to just have Buffy and [her friend] Xander be the last two people left, and have them reminisce about high school. The point being that, while you’re going through high school, it seems like hell, but once you’re old you begin looking at high school like it used to be paradise.”

He’s not the only one who feels that way. We might think we hated high school, but if that were so, we wouldn’t take such pleasure in old John Hughes films and the first three seasons of Buffy. Joss Whedon stuck his high school on a hellmouth to indicate just how awful it was, but seven years later, at the end of the final episode, after they seemed to have grown up and moved on and changed so much... Buffy and the gang end up back in high school. As they stand in the hallway, with the camera circling around them as they discuss what they’re going to do once they’ve conquered the baddies, they momentarily revert back to the gang we’d seen seven years earlier. Buffy wants a new pair of shoes, Willow is eager and excited about a new store in the mall, Xander jokes about mini-golf... and Giles mutters to himself that the kids won’t pay any attention to him, and the earth is definitely doomed. And in this scene, Joss lets us know that no matter what happens in their lives, Buffy and the gang will always be back at that high school, for that was where they became who they are.

Just like we did.

Slayage Conference, Day Two

Hello everyone (yes, I'm back in Toronto, and while I've actually used "y'all" for a year or so now, due to my fascination with Britney Spears, it's wearing off). It's taken me two posts to do day two, so let's keep going!

Day Two began with a keynote from Elizabeth Rambo, who gave an interesting talk on "Restless" ... or so it seemed. She acknowledged that others have covered Restless and its echoes throughout the season (in my book I do it, too, though nowhere nearly as detailed as the others, where I mention "Restless Moments" throughout other episodes) and instead she took the theme of going back to the beginning (something else I outline in my episode guide of Bite Me, but again, nowhere nearly as detailed as Elizabeth's talk was). She focused on the first couple of seasons of Buffy, pointing out some moments that echoed later in the final season. Her talk was great, and she really made me rethink the series and want to go back (yet again) and look at how Joss brings all of his seasons together through his weaving of threads throughout all seven seasons. Her new book is called Buffy Goes Dark, about the last two seasons of the show. How much do I love that title? Not only did the series end, therefore going dark, but Buffy (and Willow and everyone) goes WAY dark. Love it. It'll be out early next year by the sounds of it, but you can preorder here.

After her talk we went to watch Rhonda Wilcox, a.k.a. The Mother of Buffy Studies, as she delivered her speech, entitled, "'Can I spend the night / alone?'": Segments and Connections in 'Conversations with Dead People.'" And what a speech it was. She focused on the opening of CWDP where you see the title card (something you never see before or again on Buffy), and a band setting up and singing a song that Joss wrote, and how the words reflect the rest of the episode. She showed the clip, then began analyzing the words against the ep:

Night Falls
I fall
And where were you?
And where were you?
Warm skin
Wolf grin
And where were you?
I fell into the moon
And it covered you in blue
I fell into the moon
Can I make it right?
Can I spend the night?
High Tide
Inside
The air is dew
And where were you?
Wild eyed
I died
And where were you?
I crawled out of the world
And you said I shouldn't stay
I crawled out of the world
Can I make it right?
Can I spend the night
*Alone? Alone? Alone?
I fell into the moon
And it covered you in blue
I fell into the moon
Can I make it right?
Can I spend the night?
Alone?

The question discussed after the paper was the actual question, "Can I spend the night alone?" Does it mean "Please go away, I need to spend the night alone," or, as Rhonda suggested, "Am I able to spend the night alone, or will something happen to me?" The paper made me look at the episode differently, and want to watch it again. Two things she mentioned worth noting: The French title of the episode was "Connivances." (I loved that detail.) And I've often disagreed rather vocally with those who call to task Joss and Co. for the death of Tara and then the use of Tara in this episode (as many of you know, Amber Benson was supposed to appear to Willow rather than Cassie but her schedule wouldn't allow it... or so I was told by both Amber and David Fury, despite later comments by fans to the contrary, who say Amber refused to appear because it would further tarnish an already tarnished memory of Tara). People accuse Joss of creating a lesbian character just so he could kill her (which is ridiculous, in my mind, considering how incredible that character was... and secondly, who exactly is the one who should be rethinking things when those same fans are referring to Tara as "the lesbian character," as if that's all she was and had absolutely nothing else to offer?) Anyway, in this episode in particular, fans said that Cassie being there instead of Tara was a blessing, because making Tara the first would have been the final stake in that character, so to speak, and even by evoking Tara's name it was bad enough. But Rhonda argued that it's in Cassie's insistence that Willow commit suicide that we are cued to know it's not Tara, which speaks to her character... we know Tara wouldn't have done that, and it's Willow's connection to Tara that prevents her from doing so. Thank you, Rhonda! It was my favourite paper of the conference.

Next up was lunch. I'm not sure if I mentioned this earlier, but there are no eateries around the campus. There's really not much of anything around the campus. I'm thinking marks at Henderson must be really high, since students really don't have much choice to do anything but study. So what happens is at lunch you hop on a shuttle, and usually the people on the shuttle all decide to go somewhere in particular and you all go together. We lucked out (though from the people I met, I'd think I'd luck out no matter who I ended up with) and went to a Chinese buffet with an amazing group of people. A bunch of them told me how much they enjoyed my speech the night before, and one of them explained that it's exactly the sort of thing you want at a banquet after a day of heady papers -- something entertaining and moving. So I was pretty thrilled that she considered my speech to have fulfilled both of those requirements. Lunch was pretty good, actually, though despite all the culture shock I've mentioned so far, it doesn't matter where you go in the world: Chinese buffet decor is all exactly the same.

After lunch I went to a Giles and Joyce panel. These were the papers:

"A Sexy Fuddy-Duddy and a Woman Who Knows How to Moisturize: Adulthood, authority, and Sex in BtVS"
"'Gladly wolde he lerne and gladly teche': Giles as Teacher

Sadly (in what would become a little too common throughout the conference) the person delivering that first paper with the fabulous title didn't register and didn't show up, so the person delivering the second one was on his own. The paper lost me a little bit -- it was delivered in sort of a point-form fashion, as if it weren't fully developed yet (the author didn't pretend it was: he was up front and asked for advice and took notes during the discussion, which was really cool). And in a room full of teachers, it was an interesting paper to discuss. Sadly, I'm not one, so his theories on pedagogy sort of went past me, and I'll admit I zoned out occasionally. He was challenged a bit by the attendees, who suggested you can't look at Giles as merely a teacher and remove him from his other roles (like that of father figure or mentor), but "teacher" is just one of the many things he does. The presenter went over several instances where Giles is using various techniques as a teacher, for better or for worse, and again, some in the room suggested that Giles is teaching from a privileged position -- one teacher, one student -- that other teachers don't have the option to do. I wanted to suggest that in season 8 of Buffy, we see what happens when his classroom balloons to thousands of students (and they're right; his methods no longer work) but the presenter had admitted that he hadn't actually read the comics yet. I also wanted to ask about what he thought of Giles deciding not to play the teacher role in "Helpless" when Buffy has to deliver her final exam, so to speak, and instead he pulls her out of the situation when his fatherly devotion trumps his role as a teacher. But I was worried the presenter had actually talked about it and I missed it. The good thing about this paper was it gave me a lot to think about, which is something that could be said for all of them.

The next session was Fans and Fandom. Papers:
"New Lines: The Fan and Textual Poaching in the Work of Joss Whedon"
"Success of the Fittest: The Evolutionary Appeal of BtVS"

And, once again, the second person didn't register, didn't show up. The first paper was delivered by Ian, the guy we'd been hanging out with that first day, and he'd given us a quick summary of his paper. I was intrigued, and I certainly wasn't disappointed. His paper talked about how Joss uses material from other pop culture media in his movies as a nod to the fans who can find it. He told us ahead of time that he had to take his 30-page paper and bring it down to 10, but what we heard was great. I especially liked his suggestion that the scene in "Innocence" where Buffy and the gang face down the Judge is from Raiders of the Lost Ark.

The last session was entitled "Willow." Anyone who knows me would know there's no way I'd be in another session if there's one on Willow (well, okay, maybe a session on Wesley would cause me to be in a panic trying to figure out which one to go to, but that's it). The papers:

"The Rage of Willow: A Kleinian Perspective on Witchcraft Performances"
"The Dark Redhead: Willow and Her Fury, or 'Are you kidding? She's like Dark Phoenix up there"
"'This is a witch symbol': Willow's Queer Identity"

And again (sigh) the presenter of the first paper didn't show. Which is too bad, because I loved the title of the paper. The presenter of the third paper actually went first, and she was an undergraduate student -- the only undergrad delivering a paper. And she was great! She admitted to being extremely nervous, and said so, but despite a fast delivery, the paper was wonderfully written, and contained some great lines. In a study of Willow's witchness as a metaphor for her queer identity, she compares her to Buffy, who she said was "closeted as a Slayer" and "her sexual prefernce is for the undead." Ha! Loved it. I thought the paper was excellent.

The next paper, which was fantastic, was about how Willow's red hair is the trigger that she's uncontrollable, and that traditionally, "all the kick-ass girls have red hair." Jessica Rabbit, Lucille Ball, Jean Grey, Clara Bow... she had lists and lists of them. Her paper focused on a comparison between Will and Jean Grey, and she put up some of the panels from X-Men showing exact scenes that mirrored Willow's development. My favourite was the obvious one where Cyclops tries to stop Jean from destroying the world, and in the panel tells her that she'll have to kill him first if she's going to do it (the scene actually gets a shout-out in the season 6 ender, when Andrew says that Willow is like Dark Phoenix, which is the name for Jean Gray's character at this point in X-Men). Both women have to work on controlling their power.

One thing I was going to ask but was beaten to the punch was when someone asked the presenter what she made of Willow's hair going black when she was at her most out-of-control, and the presenter expressed her frustration of it, saying that in television you need visual cues to show what is going on quickly, and that's what they did, but in doing so they undercut what they were trying to establish with Willow's red hair. It was a great paper.

At the end of the day, just as Sue and I were trying to figure out what we'd do for dinner, David Lavery came up and asked if I'd be interested in going out to dinner with the next day's keynote speaker. I was very excited about her keynote, and so I eagerly said yes, and it was one of the most fascinating dinners I've had. Next post: The woman who helped shape Joss Whedon.

Buffy Slayage Conference, Parti Deux

Hey y'all. I'm sitting here in the Arkansas airport in Little Rock, where we came early because we hitched a ride with another conferencee who was flying out earlier than we were.

When I last left you, I was heading out to a final session of papers, and the topic was Buffy and Feminism. The first paper was reading Willow's addition to magic as her going through a 12-step program of recovery. The presenter compared each stage of Willow's descent and ultimate recovery to one of the steps of the 12-step program of AA or NA, and it was a really good paper. I took some notes because it was a topic that interested me -- in my book, Bite Me, I argued that Willow's use of magic as a metaphor for drug addiction (or any dangerous, destructive addiction) just doesn't work, simply because her magic is actually used for good, and there's no good use of drugs that I can think of. I mean, would the world be better off if Angelus had remained soulless at the end of Becoming, Part 2? What about at the end of season 5, where Giles was gravely injured and Willow had to put the protective barrier around the hovel where everyone was? Or where Buffy went so far into herself in Weight of the World that Willow had to descend to her world to pull her out? It's where this thesis doesn't work for me. That said, I really liked her paper nonetheless, and it made me revisit this whole arc in my head. She suggested that an addiction often culminates in the addict completely destroying his/her world, and Willow literally destroyed the world around her, and was intent on bringing down the universe. I liked that parallel, and hadn't thought of it that way before. Someone pointed out the flaw of the paper, that Willow somehow finds out a good way to continue magic, whereas the essential thing in NA recovery is total abandonment of the addiction. An audience member offered the possibility of arguing that Willow is more like Overeaters Anonymous - you NEED to eat, but there are good and bad ways of eating. I loved that idea.

The next paper was presented by two women, and was called "...And Yet: The Limitations of Buffy's Feminism." The paper was superb, both intellectually and structurally. I say that, however, even though I didn't really agree with it for the most part. It was refreshing to hear a paper that wasn't a positive look at Whedon's world, despite wishing there was SOMETHING positive in it. The paper pointed out all of the ways in which women are not exactly role models on the show. In one section in particular, they talk about Walsh, who should have been a positive role model on Buffy, cut down because she's a woman. Buffy tells Giles that she thinks Walsh is the smartest woman she's ever met, and Giles, full of jealousy, goes down to confront her, and calls Buffy a girl. Walsh corrects him, calling Buffy a woman, and Giles shoots back, "Oh forgive me for choosing my own words" (I'm quoting from memory, so I could be off). The paper argued that in this scene, we're meant to root for Giles, the one who infantilizes Buffy and cuts down Walsh just because she doesn't. But I would argue that Giles, in that scene, is acting like Buffy's father, not her teacher. He's jealous that this other woman has usurped him as a mentor and parental figure, but he's also very protective of Buffy. He believes this woman isn't treating Buffy the way she should be treated, and he is trying to set things straight. I absolutely see the point of their paper -- and like I said, as a paper it was beautifully done -- and I agree with many points of it. But I also detected sort of an underlying hostility toward the show (despite the presenters having watched each episode so many times they can practically quote the entire series from beginning to end) and while I'm the first to snark where I see an opening in which to snark, I rarely become hostile. It was just not for me.

Next up was my keynote. The banquet was across the street from the university. I got in there and met Rhonda Wilcox, who I'd briefly met earlier in the day, and David Lavery, which was great because I'd worked with him as his editor on email for over a year, and it was nice to actually MEET one of my authors! He was lovely, and madly began introducing me to everyone there. Sue and I met up with our buds from the ride in from the airport, Ian and Ryan (whom I called Mark in an earlier post... Sorry. I was high.) and they sat with us.

The dinner was fine, but because the banquet had apparently been moved at the last minute (another conference in town wanted the same lodge we did, so they offered more money and the lodge cancelled our booking and took theirs. NICE.) they didn't have a podium for me. I said no problem, swept aside a few plates with pies on them at the front, and said I'll just stand here. I totally killed. Nyar. Ah, I'm kidding, I'm a really bad judge of an audience when I'm not a part of it, but from my perch, I felt it went well. I was happy. Earlier that day, I had had my paper all written up, and then saw the first keynote of the conference, and immediately thought, "oh my god, I can't compete with that!" Out of four keynotes, I feared I'd place sixth in the estimation of the conference-goers. So, I decided the only way to deal with it would be to simply be up front with the audience, tell them how daunting I found it, and make a joke or two that I knew they'd sympathize with, and we'd be fine. I rushed back to the B&B and wrote up a new opening to the talk where I filled them in on some experiences I had getting to the convention, and because they all probably had similar experiences, they were roaring with laughter (yay!), and it eased me into the rest of my talk. I'll post my keynote here soon, but here was the opening I ended up going with:

Hello, and welcome to the non-academic portion of your weekend. When David and Rhonda graciously asked me to come and give a keynote at the conference, I was flattered, honoured, and terrified. I wrote them back, saying, “You do know I’m not exactly scholarly, right?” “Don’t worry,” David emailed back, “We know that. We’ll put you at the banquet.” Oh, that’s better, I thought. Now people will be too busy eating their mashed potatoes to notice that I’m not talking about Foucault or Lacan and mirrors and such. I would love to thank David and Rhonda for having me here, and to the volunteers who have been so accommodating and amazing, especially Kevin, Brent, and Jeremy. I am so thrilled to be here; I wanted to be at the 2004 Slayage conference, but I was 7 months pregnant at the time, and unable to fly. This time around, I have a second bambino, who is now 8 months old, and I thought again that maybe I wouldn’t be able to come because he’s a little guy and I’ve never been away from him.

But then I thought to myself, look, I did my Masters in English Literature at the University of Toronto, studying under Linda Hutcheon and other theorists who always inserted pop culture references into their teaching, and when friends of mine went off to do their PhDs, I began writing books about television shows. Surprisingly (to me at least) my profs were thrilled. Linda says she still tells her students that someone she taught a few years ago graduated and wrote a book about Xena. So delivering a keynote at an academic conference on Buffy the Vampire Slayer was just too good to pass up. It’s like my two worlds FINALLY came together.

Not that it’s been easy to explain, mind you. Matthew Pateman’s fantastic keynote this morning made me think of my own problems with trying to explain what I mean when I say I write books about television shows. I’m sure you can all sympathize. I’m from Toronto, and flew out of Detroit. As I was crossing the US/Canada border with my friend Suzanne who accompanied me on the trip, I handed over my passport and declared my Canadian citizenship. “Purpose of the trip?” asked the border guard. “I’m attending an academic conference in Arkansas, and we’re flying out of Detroit,” I replied. I was remembering my husband’s advice that I don’t let on that I’m giving a talk, lest they think I’m “working” in another country and then they pull me over and want visas and such. “Are you both teachers or something?” she asked. “No, it’s actually a pop culture conference on a television show, and we’re both fans so we’re heading down out of interest,” I replied, purposely keeping it vague. It didn’t work. “What show?” she asked. Sigh. “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” I said, maybe a little too sheepishly. She cocked an eyebrow, silently handed back the passports, and waved us through. My friend Sue and I were in stitches as we pulled away, and Sue said, “Well that was easy; now she thinks we’re a couple of big geeks who couldn’t possibly do anything bad in her country.”

And then again, on the plane. Guy beside me is silent for most of the trip, and then begins chatting with me 20 minutes before we land, asking me what I was doing in Arkansas. “Academic conference,” I said, and he asked what it was on. I explained that I wrote books on television shows, and this was on one of those shows so I’m delivering a talk while I’m there. “Oh really?!” he said, genuinely impressed. “What show, The Sopranos?” Sigh. “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” I said. He laughed, “Really?!” We chatted for a bit about television, and then we were silent for about 5 minutes. Then he looked at me and said, in his thick Arkansas accent, “You know, if you really want to write a book about a show that would sell gobs down here, write one on Walker, Texas Ranger.”

The audience really seemed to enjoy it, and as David had said to me right before I got up, "You'll love this audience -- you won't have to explain a single Buffy reference, because they're right here with you." And man, were they ever. I was in Buffy discussion heaven.

That night we went back to the B&B (which was gorgeous, it's called Henderson House and was this gigantic mansion that was stunning on the inside. It took your breath away when you walked in the door) and all the keynotes were staying there, so we hung out on the veranda (see the veranda here) until late into the night discussing Buffy and other television, with Rhonda Wilcox, David Lavery, Mary Alice Money, Elizabeth Rambo, and Matthew Pateman. As Matthew would say in his lovely British accent, "It was fanTAStic." The air was warm, there was a nice breeze, a few people had smuggled in some alcohol... the only downside were the absolutely ENORMOUS bugs that reduced me to a squealing little girl whenever I'd see one. They're AWFUL. Rhonda said they were palmetto roaches, and they could fly (that freaked out Sue and me even more) and they're the size of your thumb, they're black, and they glide on the floor like they're on roller skates. In other words, gaaaahhhhhh :::shudder:::. I sat the entire time with my legs pulled up and my feet on my seat, for fear they'd run up my legs or something. :::shudder::: again. And then we went to bed, anticipating Day 2. What a lovely Day 1!

Pulp Censored

Hey y'all... we're sitting here in Arkansas at the end of the Buffy conference (I'll have LOTS to report on that later) and we're watching Pulp Fiction on VH1... this is the WORST censoring job I've ever seen on a movie. If you'd never seen it before, you would have no clue what is going on. There's dubbing, and then there's, well, this. Examples.

We tuned in during the scene where Bruce Willis runs into Ving Rhames and they begin their fight. Most of it is cut out, and then Bruce runs into Zed's. At one point one of them yells out, "You motherf*ckin'" something-or-other, and it was overdubbed to "you pipe-fittin'" something-or-other. Pipe-fittin'? WTF?!

Butch and Marcellus are tied to the chairs with the red balls in their mouths, and as Zed enters the basement, my friend Sue and I started saying, "Bring out the gimp."

But the line never happens. THE GIMP never happens. Instead a bunch of lines are removed, and Zed is suddenly sitting in a chair, drumming his fingers on the leather hood of the gimp. You can't SEE the gimp (they've zoomed in on the scene and are using pan and scan in the most invasive way possible) and we just knew he was there. They grab Marcellus and pull him into the other room. Butch gets out of his binds and runs upstairs (a bunch of the scene is removed so you don't hear too much yelling) and then goes back downstairs. I say to Sue, "How the hell are they going to deal with the scene with the backdoor action?" (OK, in my original post I put a phrase that rhymes with "maynal mape" but someone posted the very good observation that I might be deluged with the wrong sort of people googling my blog). Butch throws the door open, and there is no maynal mape scene. Instead, we have a closeup of the one post and the back wall, and you can hear some sounds, but you see NOTHING. We were screaming (literally). Butch impales the one guy on the sword -- mostly off-camera, of course -- and then Marcellus gets the gun. He shoots Zed in the groin... not that you'd know that if you hadn't already seen the movie.

But WAY better. In the Bonnie Situation segment, Vincent turns around in the car and asks Marvin what he thinks about divine intervention, and the gun goes off. The screen goes BLACK (seriously!) and we hear a voiceover of Vincent saying, 'I shot Marvin in the face.' The rest of the scene is completely gone. Cut to Marcellus saying he'll deal with it, and then Wolf showing up. Wolf goes out to the car with Vincent and Jules, and the camera zooms in on Keitel so that we never see any blood in the car.

At that point, we turned it off.

Why censor a movie that badly? There's overdubbing, and then there's this. Why show it at all? If you don't want to show it either in its entirety or in an overdub, then show Steel Magnolias instead.

I wish we'd been able to stick around and watch it... it was worth it for the shock value. Pulp Fiction in 90 minutes, with no swearing or graphic violence. Fun.

Live, From Arkansas... It's BtVS!

Hey y'all. Nikki Stafford here, reporting live from the Deep South, where I'm attending an academic conference on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I'm doing a keynote in a couple of hours, and I have some extra time in between panels.

We had a fun experience crossing the border yesterday (I'll talk more on that later) and then on the plane I sat next to a burly guy with massive shoulders who was half into my seat, just because he couldn't get all the way into his own. He was clearly a former football player (he had a big championship ring on his finger) and he kept apologizing for being in my way, and I told him not to worry about it. As I said to him, they size airplane seats for toddlers, and assume the rest of us will fit in them. He pulled out some chewing tobacco at one point and stuffed it into his mouth, and I'm thinking, "Don't you have to spit that out?" He had that covered -- he pulled out a Diet Coke bottle and began spitting into it. By the end, it looked like it was half-full of Diet Coke... I prayed he wouldn't leave it behind. He was actually a really nice guy, and was totally shocked to find out what I did for a living. He's a big fan of The Sopranos and The Wire, so we had LOTS to talk about.

We landed, and were met up in the airport with the guy coordinating the shuttle, who told us it has JUST left Arkadelphia an hour away, and we'd have to wait. We met up with some other attendees, Ryan (a.k.a. Mark), Ian, and Sonya, and it was an awesome discussion all the way from the airport to Arkadelphia, as we chatted about Buffy, Firefly, Angel (they hadn't watched Angel! AH!), Dollhouse, Nip/Tuck, 90210... I was in heaven. We were informed at the airport that Arkadelphia is in a dry county. I didn't think those existed outside Utah! So they suggested we go to a liquor store on the way into town to load up. Mark was 20 so unable to drink, I don't drink, and the others decided to pick up something quick. We walked into the liquor store (which advertised in bold letters outside, "NEXT 5 COUNTIES ARE DRY! STOCK UP NOW!") and it was like a booze warehouse. I'd never seen a liquor store so big. I asked one of the coordinators how a town with two colleges in it could possibly be dry, and he explained that the residents are conservative, and the students generally are from out of town so they don't vote on it. Wow. I had no idea this existed still, but apparently it's pretty common here. I feel like I'm in Footloose!

After we'd checked into our hotel, we met up again to hit a tex-mex restaurant called Ta Molly's (we LOVED the name of it; it's like tex-mex meets Irish) where they served sloppy cheese-covered enchiladas that hit the spot (they closed at 9... NINE!) and then we were back to the hotel.

This morning we got here for registration in the morning and then listened to keynote speaker Matthew Pateman, who is from University of Hull in England. His talk was fantastic, and he referred to my book, Bite Me, as a seminal work.

Seminal!

ME!

I could have gone home happy right that moment without seeing anything else.

His talk was on the whole snobbery within academia that surrounds talking about a television show and dissecting it, and in the discussion afterwards the audience was talking about how in the last century English scholars were scorned for not studying the Classics, then in the 60s, film scholars were spurned by the English scholars for not studying literature, and now film scholars are spurning TV scholars, and the future will bring a cultural shift. He discussed a scene in "The Harsh Light of Day" where Xander spots a television in Giles's apartment and yells to the others, "Giles has a TV! Hey, everyone, Giles has a TV! He's shallow like us!" It was brilliant.

The next session we checked out (there are 3 panels happening simultaneously during each session) was under the topic of Gender, Sex, and Violence in the Buffyverse. Check out the paper titles:

"It's just... painful": Love and the Wounded Vampire
"Nothing Left but Skin and Cartilage": The Body and Toxic Masculinity
"Here endeth the Lesson": Spike's Torturous Romances and Life Laid Bare
"Wham Bam Thank You Ma'am": The Evolution of Faith

The papers were all astoundingly good, ranging from talking about the vampiric body and how it represents the sacrifices Angel has made; to the toxic masculinity portrayed on the show, and how shows like The Zeppo, Go Fish, and Reptile Boy show testosterone at its worst; to using Julie Kristeva's theory on how the infant abjects the mother to move on, and how Spike's difficult relationship with his mother reversed that, where he became her sire and she abjected him (I loved this paper); to how Faith has evolved through Buffy, Angel, and now the comic book series. It was a great discussion afterwards on gender relationships in the show, where people made observations such as Buffy feminizing Spike by constantly threatening to penetrate him with a stake, or how the men on the show, when they are bad, split themselves into William/Spike, Angel/Angelus, Giles/Ripper, whereas the women remain themselves and must make a constant progression back to the side of good (Willow and Faith choose to be good, for example). I loved this conference already.

After lunch (where we went to a Sonic, a drive-in eatery just like the old 50s diners, and if you don't have a car, you push a button on a pole and order like you're in a drive-thru), we headed to David Lavery's talk. One of the authors of the essential "Fighting the Forces" book, David gave a talk on Joss Whedon's progression as a filmmaker, from bad to worse to Serenity. He compared him to Michael Bay (to often hilarious results) and it's amazing that Hollywood can be so short-sighted on things like this. But then again, Transformers is making $700 million, and Serenity $38 million. Bwah.

Soon I'll be heading back to check out a few more papers and deliver my keynote, and the one that intrigues me is one on Willow. I'll report back later!

Goodbye, Hillary Widmore

Three people have emailed me this clip this morning... why did I have to miss The Daily Show last night of all nights? This is SO hilarious, I was laughing out loud through the entire thing. Mostly because, as any of my friends will tell you, this is how I talk about EVERYTHING. Whether I'm listening to someone talk about their day or I'm sitting in a traffic jam or I'm eating in a restaurant, I always compare it (usually unfavorably) to my favourite television shows. I LOVE this guy.

You can check out the clip here (it's been taken down from YouTube).

Lost: There’s No Place Like Home, Revisited

I’ve been preparing my speech for my keynote talk in Arkansas this Friday at the Buffy conference (woo!) and I’ve now scrapped it three times and completely rewritten it. Somewhere around 9pm last night I finally got a version that I really liked, to the point where I could finally test it out on my critical husband, who loved it. So now that’s done and ready, and it’s just a matter of packing. Which means, I will postpone packing until the last possible second and think about Lost instead. :)

First of all, you guys are totally amazing. I’ve been reading every single comment posted to the original blog on the finale, and wishing I had more time to jump on here and discuss, but whenever I think of something, you guys say something before I can post it. So here are some of my thoughts, and favourite questions and comments from the forum so far. I’d love to keep discussing the finale and all of season 4 well into the summer (eight months until season 5, people, EIGHT MONTHS!) so let’s keep talking!

Jin:
Is he dead or is he not? Some people said they think he’s dead, others are convinced he’s not and are holding out hope. Some were confused by the episode “Ji Yeon” and thought he was already shown to be alive in the future. To clarify: What the writers did in that episode (and what some viewers thought was a little too manipulative) was they showed us a flashback of Jin in 2001, trying to bring a panda to a client who works for Paik, and a flashforward of Sun in 2005, giving birth to a daughter alone. Why was there a grave in that flashforward? It could have been one of a number of things: She put the grave there believing that he’s dead. Or maybe Paik or someone in the family put the gravestone in there when he thought both of them were dead (if you look closely, it’s a two-sided grave, with Sun’s stone beside it). Why do I believe he’s alive? Because I think it would make for a better story. First we’ve got Sun believing that he’s dead, and she’s angry at Jack for telling the pilot to leave, she’s angry at the pilot for leaving, she might be angry at Desmond for letting Jin stay behind and not bringing him up to the deck with him, she’s angry at Ben for putting them through all of this... she has a LOT of reasons to be pissed right now. In the finale, we see her approaching Widmore, as if she’s recognized the rest of the Oceanic Six have aligned themselves with Ben, so she’s choosing the other side of the battle. It would make for a better story to see Sun sort of go off the rails, maybe eventually being redeemed, only to find out that Jin was alive all along (and maybe finding him alive would be her redemption). I’m so intrigued by what her character could do now. (Does anyone else feel a sudden need to go back and watch those season 1 episodes again with the two of them? It must seem like a world away now.)

The Frozen Donkey Wheel:
What exactly was Ben doing? (If I could answer that, I think I’d be in the writer’s room right now and not sitting here typing away in my living room while the baby sleeps.) I think everything that happens at the Orchid will be tied into the Faraday stuff, the time travelling, and several of the flashforwards that we’ve seen. Ben knew about the Orchid. Ben knew about that tin that was lying in the dirt along the way. Ben has clearly been there before. He knew what was hiding behind the teleportation chamber. How? It was sealed up. Who sealed it? How had he been there before? Again, the timeline is what remains the fluid factor here... Richard Alpert does not age. Is that because he’s immortal, or is something else going on? Is Ben really as young as we think he is? Could Widmore actually be 400 years old or something? The more questions you ask, the deeper into the vortex you fall, and it seems like there’s no way out.

The last we see of Ben he’s crying and upset, because he’s moving the island, and he knows there’s no going back. Presumably, Widmore had been on the island and had been forced to move it in the past, and now he can’t go back. But something is drawing him back to that island and he would do anything to get back there. So, he sends out Desmond. He hates the guy anyway, so what does it matter if the guy fails at his mission? But something tells him he won’t. Somehow Des finds his way to the island, but it’s under some sort of cloud of electromagnetic energy. Penny stumbles onto what her father’s been doing, and all of his tracking systems, and discovers that he’s sent Des to find a mysterious island of eternal youth and healing. So she begins to watch it, and sends a couple of guys out into a wintery wilderness with some of her daddy’s equipment, and tells them to watch night and day until the island reveals itself. When the Swan station goes kaboom, the guys see it, call Penny, and she rushes to her father’s equipment to monitor things for the next couple of weeks. Perhaps she does it surreptitiously, rigging her father’s tracking system to a video monitor and alarm system in her own apartment, so when Charlie removes the thing that was jamming all signals from the island (which had been put in place by Ben to keep Widmore away), she gets an alarm, and rushes to the video monitor to talk to Charlie immediately. He tells her Desmond is alive, and she begins to put things in place to come and rescue Desmond. But so far she just has some British rock singer’s word for it, until three days later she gets a phone call from Des, and that proves he’s alive. She puts a team of people together on a boat, follows the coordinates from Charlie’s signal, and finds Desmond.

Of course, while she had been talking to her guys in the tent in the blizzard, her father’s more sophisticated equipment had picked up the same signal, and he got Abaddon to put together a crack team of people to get to the island as quickly as possible and find Ben. He needs to put an end to the game they’ve been playing, and just wants to get back to the island. So the freighter folk and everything we see happen there was sparked by him. But only some of the freighter folk are loyal to Widmore – Keamy and his team of psychos are following his orders, but Captain Gault is wary of what is happening. He tells Sayid and Des what is up, and they try to help him.

This is what I can surmise so far, but there are so many questions left open by all of this. What is the history between Widmore and Ben? Are they immortal? Widmore flat-out tells Ben that he knows he can’t kill him... is that part of the game, or is it just not possible? Was Widmore part of the ancient civilization on the island? We know there was one – they built the four-toed statue, we’ve seen hieroglyphics all over the island, and usually wherever there are hieroglyphics, Dharma isn’t far behind. The frozen donkey wheel looked ancient.

What do you think the donkey wheel did? We see a bright flash and then the island disappeared. It didn’t sink. It didn’t float away, it simply disappeared. The donkey wheel could have been acting like something anchoring the island, and by turning the wheel, it pulls up the anchor, so to speak... but taken literally, that would lead us to assume the island would float away. But I’m thinking it’s a mystical anchor that’s holding it in one time-space, and by pulling it up, it moves to another. The island could be in 1880 now for all we know. MAYBE (and this one is for fb and all of us who were SO upset at her death) the island went back in time by 15 years, and Rousseau will be back? Maybe we’ll actually see her arrive? The possibilities are endless, really.

We do know that Ben is ejected to Tunisia. He’s been there before, as we know, but could that be any indication of where the island is? Most importantly, if he knew he was going to be ejected from the island if he turned the wheel, why turn the wheel? Ben always seems to think of himself, so what good is an island if he’s not on it?

Dharmic Preservatives:
One of the best questions asked in the comments section of my blog on this episode was by reader “Dogtown,” who asked, “Why were the 15-year-old crackers such a big deal? They got more air time than some of the characters. Are we missing something?” I read that comment, and my head began to spin with the possibilities. I mentioned in my original post that I’ve had some crackers in my pantry that go stale after a few months without ever being opened. Wouldn’t 15-year-old crackers be mouldy? Someone replied that if you put crackers in a tin, they stay fresh longer, but even that person admitted that 15 years is a bit of a stretch. My daughter found some crackers on the weekend that were unopened, and she opened them and started eating them and said they were “delicious,” but when I tried one I thought I’d gag. So how could Hurley keep eating them? I know they’re on a long trek, but 15-year-old crackers would be enough to choke anyone. Then I thought back to Tricia Tanaka and how Sawyer and Hurley find the beer, and Hurley says it’s probably from 1982. The beer would taste like aluminum and be completely undrinkable if Sawyer had opened it. I don’t care how thirsty you are – if someone hands you a pint of turpentine, you won’t drink it. Same goes for very very old beer.

I’m thinking both of these things are hints that we should be looking deeper. The crackers are 15 years old, according to Ben. The beer, about the same. (Hurley says the beer is over 20 years old, but we see Ben kill his father about 15 years ago, so he was off by a few years.) Did Dharma use wicked awesome preservatives? Or could the crackers and beer be existing on another plane? Is it possible that there are several different timelines happening simultaneously on the island? Could 2004 Locke be having a conversation with 1962 Alpert? They’re both in different times, but speaking in a neutral time zone, the island? Could the crackers exist in 1990, but 2004 Hurley could be eating them and they would SEEM fresh? Am I making any sense at all? (I’m starting to feel like I just drank 1989 beer.) It DOES seem like more than just an onrunning joke to keep coming back to those crackers.

Mister Locke:
So Locke is the guy in the coffin... (anyone else more intrigued by Sawyer possibly being there??) First he usurped Ben as the leader of the Others. Now he seems to have usurped Christian, and is in a coffin and being taken back to the island, just like Christian was. How did he end up in L.A.? Was he using passports like Ben was? If so, when he left the island, could he walk? Was his paralysis healed permanently on the island, or only while he was there? If the island really has curative properties, one would think he’s cured, not to get it again. But then again, Ben had a tumour on his spine. Could he have gotten it by one of his travels off the island? The island keeps him safe until he left it? Perhaps the island cured Locke of his paralysis, but made him susceptible to something else after he left.

My major issue with Locke being the guy in the coffin is the obituary from a year ago. I’ve seen prop errors in this show – too numerous to count – but was all the information in it manufactured to make us think one person when it’s really another?? If so, that’s a pretty crappy thing to do to the fans who spend all their time seeking out this information. Here’s hoping Locke discovers a long-lost teenage son. Ahem.

So why the name change? My husband wondered if it was always his real name, and we’ve been led to believe John Locke is his name, when it never was. Does that mean the flashbacks were all phony? I think the writers would have a mutiny on their hands if it turned out all the background stuff was misinformation as well, so I doubt that would happen. But I really find it hard to believe that he would suddenly change his name and the Oceanic 6 would refer to him by his new name, when they only knew him as Locke beforehand. I know someone who went by a fake name all throughout university, and post-university he finally told his friends what his real name was, and those friends STILL call him by the old name, 7 years later. It’s just not something you can easily break out of; you think of someone by that name, and that’s their name.

How did his information get out at all? Who put him in that funeral home? Presumably it was Abbadon or someone who desperately needs the Oceanic 6 back on the island... the only way to do it is for Locke’s obit to bring them all back together again, and they knew one of them would see it. Will Locke come back to life if he returns to the island? Will he become a spiritual guide like Christian?

How will the Oceanic 6 be able to find their way back to the island? Ben’s still looking, Locke’s dead... is it Aaron?

Claire and Aaron:
Darlton have said Claire is most definitely not dead. (UPDATE: Turns out I was misinformed; someone told me Darlton said in a recent podcast that Claire was not dead, when in fact they said she wasn't GONE and we'd see her again... not the same thing. So let's go back to talking about how she's probably dead.) So how could a mother of a new baby just serenely let him get taken from her? Again, Darlton say it’s because she’s been told he’s where he’s supposed to be. What does that mean? What is Aaron’s importance to the larger story? Way back in season 2, in my first book, I suggested he’s the most important person on the island, and it’s starting to look that way again. What is his role? Remember, the camera lingers on Penny holding Aaron and cooing and talking about how amazing he is, and she’s the direct connection to Widmore... could there have been some significance in that scene? Why would Claire appear to Kate and suggest she shouldn’t bring back Aaron? Was her happiness in knowing he was going to leave the island? Does BEN need the Oceanic 6 to return, and not Jacob, and that’s what is causing the rift?

What have I missed?

Save Dollhouse!

I'll be posting a longer Lost piece tomorrow, with my thoughts on the finale (and later in the week, my thoughts on the season) but in the meantime, here's a public service announcement urging fans to help save Dollhouse from cancellation. Hey, it's never too early to start the fan campaigns. :) This is so brilliant.

Reminder: Big TV Night Tonight!

Actually, this is rather embarrassing... I know I'm supposed to remember something important for tonight, but I just can't think of it. I wrapped a string around my finger and everything. Let's see... CSI is on, but it's a repeat, so that can't be it. Oh, and I don't watch CSI. Definitely not it. Um... So You Think You Can Dance? The premiere was pretty entertaining last week, once you get past the dumbasses who can't actually dance. But I don't think that's it, either. A&E Biography is on Pee-Wee Herman. That's bound to be entertaining. But PVRable? Probably not.

Hold on, where did THAT photo come from? Mmmmm... let's just look at that, shall we? That reminds me: tonight at 8, ABC is re-airing the previous episode of Lost (There's No Place Like Home, Part 1) with some added footage of the Oceanic Six press conference that was cut to accomodate Grey's Lobotomy.

Oh, and speaking of Lost, I was quoted in a piece from the Cleveland Plain Dealer on the show.

And now back to staring at the Desmond pic while I try to remember what else is on tonight...

Michael Emerson Interview

A new interview with Michael Emerson has gone up at Cheap Pop. Check out the little preview that was posted before it where Emerson talks about his favourite mustache (a fave topic of the Web site). Emerson discusses the acting process on the show, and how many different storylines are being filmed at once, causing most of the actors not to see each other as regularly as they'd like. There aren't really any spoilers -- he's very vague about the finale tomorrow night (tomorrow night!!!!!!!) So it's a safe one to check out.

In Fall TV, You Are Either In... Or You Are Out

The networks have finally made their decisions and rolled out the new schedules for fall 2008. There are plenty of new shows (a couple of which I've already discussed), plenty of returning shows, and as usual, the inevitable cancellations to make way for said shows. However, the writer's strike has caused fewer cancellations than normal, simply because the networks didn't get as many pilots as usual, and most of the new fall 2007 shows weren't given a chance. So this year we add a new category: The second chance one.

Cancelled:
Aliens in America. I LOVED this show... I didn't write about it nearly as much as I should have, but it never failed to make me howl out loud at least once an episode. This show had that daring, very uncomfortable political incorrectness where a character would make a racial slur (often unbeknownst to them) in the vein of Archie Bunker, and yet somehow the show made it funny. There was plenty of teenage self-discovery, for better or for worse, and Justin's voiceover always had that perfect sarcasm that added humour to every scene. Recently there was an episode where Justin was assigned to read Madame Bovary, and he intends to read the Cliff's Notes until one parent protests by saying it contains too much sexual content... whereupon Justin reads the entire book (and concludes it TOTALLY lived up to its billing). After he reads it, he begins drawing pictures of naked women, an obvious metaphor for something else. When his mother discovers his notepad full of the pictures, she shows the father, who confronts Justin. He says it's okay if sometimes you feel like going to your room and doing something like this, and Justin confesses that he's been doing it for a long time, and begins tossing one notebook after another on the bed. His father (Luke from Gilmore Girls), runs bewildered back to his wife, and says, "He's been drawing so much I'm surprised he's still able to hold a pen!" I was howling with laughter. The show was so wonderful and clever, but I don't know a soul besides myself who actually watched it. I'm really sad to see this one go. Then again, it was axed by Dawn Ostroff, who brought down the axe on Veronica Mars and Everwood, so... not exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer. She should go work for Fox. They'd LOVE her.

Moonlight: Not sad to see this one go. However, I've heard that maybe the Sci-Fi Channel will pick it up, because the show does have its diehard fans. Maybe the execs could go away and come up with an original idea and not hand us Forever Angel next time. I didn't last beyond episode 3 on this one.

Shark (never saw this one)

Scrubs: Ok, not really... NBC cancelled it, ABC picked it up.

Back to You: While this one wasn't one I actually watched, I envisioned it as that can't-lose comedy that would pull in the millions of viewers who loved Frasier and Everybody Loves Raymond. I was shocked to see it go. But then again, it's Fox. If there were ever a place where a show goes to die, it's there.

New Amsterdam: This had a lot of promise. I PVR'd every episode and then started watching, imagining a marathon. I lasted a few minutes into the second episode and was bored. Did anyone else continue? I'm interested in hearing from others who stuck it out, even if the show is now over.

Second Chances:
Several new series showed promise in fall 2007, but weren't given a fighting chance, simply because the writer's strike came along, pushed them off the schedule, and then they were never able to claw their way back on, simply because some reality show or other had squatted in their time slot in the meantime. But thankfully, the best ones are being given a second chance, even though they didn't return after the strike.

Dirty Sexy Money: This show was great -- an adult version of Gossip Girl. I loved the intrigue, the sleaze, and the soap operyness of it all. That said, here's hoping they have a recap to remind us all what happened.

Pushing Daisies: I love love love this show. I've never used the word "sublime" to discuss a television show before (though I probably should more often... it's a great word), but I did when it came to this one. The colours, the oddities, the breaking into song, the 1950s dresses... this show was kooky as hell, and amazing. And few people can make me laugh like Chi McBride does.

Chuck: How much do I love Chuck?? No recap needed for this one; I remember everything on it. He's adorable, the theme music rocks (great, I'm thinking of it now, and it'll be in my head for the next two days), the stories are really funny, and the ensemble cast is great. I can't wait for its return.

Returning Shows:
If they aren't listed in the cancellation section, or didn't have their series finale, they'll be back. I won't waste your time by listing off a bunch of shows that are coming back that are just obvious. Oh wait... I'll mention one... FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS! WOOT WOOT! Okay, I'll mention two of them: Heroes premieres on September 22, with a one-hour recap followed by a two-hour premiere. YEAH!

New Shows:
There are a ton of new shows starting up, as usual, so I won't go into detail on all of them here, but just some of the ones that caught my eye.

Fringe
Dollhouse

90210: A remake of the early 1990s classic, this new show on the CW brings us back to that posh zip code in California. It's on the CW, which means it had Dawn Ostroff standing over it with her hand wavering over the CANCEL button, but it has a lot of potential. That said, I'm pretty hooked on Gossip Girl right now (if 90210 is about the very wealthy, Gossip Girl is about the disgustingly wealthy), and the CW will have two warring "rich kids" shows on their network. Is that network big enough for both? Time will tell... That said, it will have Kelly and Donna on it! Kelly will be a guidance counsellor, and Donna Martin graduates to the owner of a posh Bev Hills store. It's sorta like Degrassi: The Next Generation in that sense.

My Own Worst Enemy: Christian Slater stars in this Jekyll and Hyde type of show, where he's a family man in his one life and a covert operative in his other. We've seen it before, but here's hoping it's good. I do love me some good Christian Slater.

Sit Down, Shut Up: This will be a midseason start, so more likely January 2009. It's a show that uses live action backdrops with animated characters laid over them, and it's by Mitch "Arrested Development" Hurwitz. This is certainly the season where our most beloved creators return. The show is about a bunch of teachers at a high school and their relationships with one another. The voices include Will Arnett, Henry Winkler, Jason Bateman (here's keeping my fingers crossed for Michael Cera, David Cross, and Tony Hale to be added), Cheri Oteri and Will Forte. (Fox)

The Office Spin-off: Still unnamed, still unconfirmed which character will move to this one. In fact, latest word has it the show WON'T actually feature anyone from The Office, and they'll be casting someone new to helm it. So, um... how does that make it a spinoff? Well, they did it with Laverne and Shirley and Mork & Mindy (they show up once on Happy Days and boom, they're a spinoff) so they'll probably have the character show up in the first episode of The Office and then they'll start their show a half-hour later.

Life on Mars: This is a remake of the BBC version of the show. The BBC one was good, but didn't hold my interest beyond the first season. The remake is done by David E. Kelly. No offense to Ally McBeal fans, but this guy has never done it for me. So I'm mentioning it, but I don't intend to watch it.

The Goode Family: The new animated series by Mike Judge will be on ABC as a midseason replacement... I LOVE LOVE LOVE King of the Hill, so I'm excited about this.

In fact, there's surprisingly little that interests me this fall. I'm glad they'll be giving some of the great 2007 shows a second kick at the can, because those are the ones I'll be watching.

HBO's Recount

Every time I see the letters H, B, and O associated with a television series or a film, I get giddy. And I heart Kevin Spacey in a big, big way. So when I heard about HBO's new film, Recount, starring Kevin Spacey, well, there were no words.

The film is a re-enactment of that interminable month following the Bush/Gore presidential campaign in 2000, when the numbers were too close to call, where the Gore camp wanted a recount of the ballots following Bush's questionable win. I remember a lot of this happening on the news at the time, and watching it brought back a lot of memories (including the stunned, wow, was that really 8 years ago???) Kevin Spacey stars as Ron Klain, who is Gore's elections manager, and who spurs on the recount. John Hurt is Warren Christopher, the former Democrat Secretary of State who advised the Democrat camp on how to conduct themselves during the process. The amazing Tom Wilkinson stars as former Secretary of State James Baker, who is advising (and pretty much running) the Republican side of things. Laura Dern puts in a brilliant turn as Katherine Harris, who was the Florida Secretary of State, and unfortunately, the decision-maker in the process. As soon as she appeared on screen with her fake smile and WAY too much makeup, my husband and I were laughing out loud. I totally remembered this woman during the whole debacle, appearing on television every night in a "Hey, look at me! I'm on the TV!" kind of way. She couldn't have cared less about democratic process, and just wanted to make sure her makeup took on just the right glow on camera.

Throughout the show, you'll feel your blood boil as you watch Harris do what she wants and the Republicans stand in the way at every turn of the recount process, arguing against it, as if they knew a legitimate count of the ballots would have them lose. One asks the obvious question: Wouldn't they want to have a genuine win?? But this is George W. Bush, people... the guy who made shit up just so he could send troops into a country and devastate it. He's the sort of guy who skipped ethics class so he could go golfing instead.

I was amused and thrilled and surprised and delighted to see that Danny Strong was the screenwriter on this one -- yes, Buffy fans, THAT Danny Strong, the little guy who played Jonathan on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Looks like he's come down out of that clock tower and done got himself a REAL job!!

That said, as far as HBO films go, I expected a little more than what this film offered. One thing I found endlessly irritating were the constant subtitles running across the screen, as if the viewers were all from Florida or something and couldn't follow a simple plot. In the dialogue, someone says they have only 8 days left, and that at this point Gore is only 300 ballots behind or something. In the very next cut, as we go to the Republican side of the action, along the bottom of the screen it says, "8 Days Left... Gore Trailing by 300." Thanks. The subtitles pretty much stated the obvious (like someone introducing Secretary James Baker, and when we see him it says "Secretary James Baker," like we were expecting the Pillsbury Dough Boy). That said, I'm sure it was some producer or distributor who insisted on it, and not the screenwriter. At least, I hope it wasn't. But I do recommend the film to get a better handle on what really happened during those tumultuous days.

Recount airs this Sunday, May 25, at 9pm, in the U.S. on HBO and in Canada on The Movie Network and Movie Central.

New Lost Book!

So while some TV viewers are watching the season finale of Grey's Anatomy, I still want to talk about Lost.

A lot of people have emailed to ask me if I'll be writing a season 4 Lost guide. Yes, I will, but not for this fall, unfortunately. Next fall (as in 2009) I intend to bring out a combined season 4/5 volume, since maternity leave gives me very little opportunity to write anything beyond this blog.

However, I'm pleased to announce there WILL be an awesome Lost book out this fall. The book is called Lost Ate My Life: The Inside Story of a Fandom Like No Other, and as the editor of the book, I've had the pleasure of reading it already, and I can't recommend it enough. The book is written by two Lost "insiders" -- one is Jon Lachonis, otherwise known as DocArzt, who runs one of the best Lost blogs around (if not THE best). The other author is Amy J. Johnston, also known as "hijinx" on The Fuselage boards, and she runs Lost Editor Bryan Burk's official website, and is one of a small handful of people who has the trust of the show producers.

Darlton are very careful about the publicity of their show. Worried about impending spoilers, they have entrusted only a very, very few people to see advance screeners of each episode: Michael Ausiello of TV Guide, Doc Jeff Jensen of Entertainment Weekly, and Kristen at E!... DocArzt and hijinx are two others who get advance copies of each show, even if they don't actually watch them ahead of time. So when I say these are insider fans, I mean it.

The book is the inside story of both Lost, and the fandom surrounding the series. We read how the world of The Fuselage grew to what it's become today; how the producers began sticking in certain Easter eggs for the fans after finding out what they were searching for; how Lost came up with ingenious marketing ideas never before seen. There's a chapter on the original script of the pilot episode that was never filmed, and how the actual Pilot episode came to pass. There are some laugh-out-loud moments throughout the book, including one as Bryan Burk talks about how difficult dressing the set has become when fans are scouring every book on the bookshelf and using them as clues.

I'm used to seeing raw drafts of manuscripts, and was pleasantly surprised at how solid the writing was from the outset. You'll enjoy the conversational tone of it, and how they invite you in to the inside world of Lost Labs, so you watch the whole thing unfold.

The foreword of the book will be written by former executive producer Javier Grillo-Marxuach, and the book contains interviews with a lot of the key people on the show. I devoured the manuscript, and then sent it back to the two authors full of suggestions for additions, and I'll be getting round two from them in a couple of weeks. As they furiously rewrite the book, I'm sure I'm not their favourite person currently, but hopefully when the editing is back in my corner, the love will fill the room once again. :)

I can't wait for y'all to read this book: Lost Ate My Life is due out in stores in November. Click on the link at the left to pre-order. And maybe I'll be able to lure the authors on here for a Q&A with all of you... stay tuned!

Lost: The Man on the Plane

A few people have emailed me or posted comments to my post on There's No Place Like Home, Part 1, asking about the man on the plane who Decker nods at. When she first walks back to the Oceanic Six, she looks to her left, smiles and gives a little nod. I remember pausing the scene several times when it first aired, but I couldn't see anyone. A few people have reassured me that there is definitely a bald man sitting in the seat.

Here is the clip from YouTube. Pause it at exactly 1:18, and you'll see a bald head. You can tell it's Aaron's... it's too far in the foreground to be someone sitting that far back.

Keep watching, and then pause again at 1:39. He's small, but this is the point where you see the man in the chair. I can only make out the pair of legs, but no face or head. As someone said in a comment, it's reminiscent of Jacob in the chair in "The Man Behind the Curtain." Can anyone with HD make out this person? Who could it be? It's not Christian, or Jack would be going nuts. Ben? Abbadon?



In other news, here is a brief interview I did with the New York Post on Lost. :)

Welcome to the World!

This is totally unlike me, and not my usual blogging style, but I just can't help myself anymore. 'Tis the season for families to become bigger... I've had a TON of friends give birth in the last few weeks, and one of my closest friends just had a baby a couple of days ago and I'm giddy with excitement right now. My tiny, tiny baby is now an 8-month-old crawler, and I'm already missing how eensy he once was. I'm sure every once in a while I get that look in my eye, and my husband has that other look in his eye that says, "I know what you are thinking, and you can take that thought, turn it around, and march it off a short pier."

So, welcome to the following bouncing babies, in order of appearance... I hope to hold each of you in the very near future: Jack; Fischer; Beck; Marlo; Ally! (Those last three have all been born in the last week!) Hey, maybe we can all hook up and try to bombard the Lost casting offices to cast all of our children as Aaron at different ages (whew, there we go... my post is now relevant to my blog).