cheezwhiz346

I think your last reason gets the most to what bothered me about Lorelai's attitude in the April season 6 arc, which was that it felt so unusual (to me, at the time) for Lorelai to react so passively. Now, that might not in fact be the truth; I would have to go back and watch her with her other love interests throughout the show to see if she tended to be more passive, but at the time when I was first watching it felt out of character, as I normally associate Lorelai with being more outspoken. When put in the context of her friction with Rory at that point, though, even aside for how she might generally respond to conflict in romantic relationships, it definitely makes a lot more sense (also obviously agree about female characters tending to get blamed for these things more).

I think ultimately people respond the characters in certain ways for myriad reasons- which is kind of a cop out, but I really do feel like people's reactions to BtVS characters in particular are pretty complicated- I mean, there are a lot of people out there who will defend Spike and his 'redemption arc' until the end of time but will hate Faith and her arc with equal fervor, and I will never understand that, myself. W/r/t Xander, I was always bugged by how hard he could be on Buffy when it came to Angel, and how he treated the women in his life more generally. I don't think he was some put upon saint for dealing with Anya's inappropriate jokes and violent past, because he chose to be with her, and I think he had a tendency to put both her and Cordelia down when they were dating, way too much for my taste. That said, I don't think his concerns about Angel should have been brushed aside as driven solely by jealousy, and I think ultimately he was a good-hearted decent person and definitely a worthy member of the scoobies. I also didn't like the credit he seemed to get from a lot of fans for being the 'normal' one, nor did I like the idea that he was the heart of the show, as while I did think he was a good and decent person, I didn't think he really quite earned that title. It felt like an overreach, like an 'oh, he doesn't have special powers but fights anyway; that must mean he has more emotional intelligence' kind of thing. IDK, I know this is a ramble, but I guess I've always been more in the middle on Xander, never able to get on either side of the fence w/r/t liking or disliking him and his behavior. That said, I feel like that about a lot of characters on Buffy, including Willow. My biggest problem with Xander's character actually was probably what I saw as Joss Whedon's lack of interest in really doing any real character work with him past season 3 or 4.

I'm sure I have a lot of answers for this, but right now what I've been chewing on is how much my annoyance for a certain character is tied to a)how fandom at large reacts to said character and b)if fandom's reaction (or a particular attachment to the actor) influences the show's direction more than, say, the actual story. (Exhibit A: Spike, which is why, even though I really enjoyed watching him for the great majority of the time he was on BtVS and I think the actor did a wonderful job, I literally feel my teeth clench when I hear someone talk about how great he was before even mentioning the show's titular character or one of the Scoobies).

I have weird feelings re: Xander and Ross, because I enjoy watching both of them, but I agree with a lot of the issues people have with them, and I think part of that is because a)I watched BtVS and Friends when I was much younger, and wasn't as critical a TV viewer as I am now, and b)I think the actors do a tremendous job with the characters. That said, it's weird to me how in a lot of communities in which I participate (read: feminist), hating on these guys is like toeing the party line. It's not that I don't agree that they had their moments, esp. w/r/t Xander, but IDK. I feel like with Xander he got so much cred for being the 'normal guy' who 'fights the good fight' and I think that was really overblown (I see it somewhat on smaller forums like on Storywonk), but the criticism in reaction to that became more like outright hatred of everything he says or does, and I'm not comfortable with that either. I want to be able to discuss each characters' flaws without starting from a place of unequivocal hatred, which fortunately bigger forums like Previously.tv allow. (This is not meant to be discussing fandom behavior, and I tried to keep it general; but I think my feelings of the characters are somewhat tied to the reactions of others online).

Wow, I'm so glad this thread exists! There are so many for me, for so many different reasons. Mainly, I will love a female character if she's written as a strong, fully-realized character. So there are many well-written character-driven shows (like Brooklyn Nine Nine or Nikita) where I love ALL the female characters for this reason. But the ones I have felt the strongest connection to in my years of TV watching have been the following: Veronica Mars, Veronica Mars: OMG this character is everything I've ever wanted and I wouldn't change a THING about her. This isn't to say she's perfect, but her blend of toughness and meanness and her ability to walk in different worlds and communicate with different people and just how difficult she could be at times... it's just absolutely everything that a lot of female characters never get to be and I didn't know it was missing until I saw it onscreen. Cristina Yang, Grey's Anatomy: for many of the same reasons as VM, actually. She was allowed to be so badass on GA I still can't quite believe it. Grace Polk, Joan of Arcadia: there is a scene in one of the early JoA episodes when Joan looks between these popular cheerleaders laughing on one side and Grace pounding the sh*t out of her locker on the other, and this is so in-character for Grace that her outburst is never explained or addressed, and I loved her immediately. It should be noted also that Joan herself was no slouch. I have seen complaints about her self-absorption but I thought that was so recognized and called out on the show and so amazingly realistic. Joan was great. Lorelai Gilmore, Gilmore Girls: Despite the issues I have with the show overall, I will always be enamored with this character. She, especially in the earlier seasons, got a level of childlike joy out of life that I really aspire to have as well. Olivia Dunham, Fringe: Oh, thank god for this character and her low-key emotions and facial expressions and grim determination. I love about Olivia what I love about a lot of women on this list: they play against what we typically think of as female 'types.' They do not necessarily like to wear dresses or makeup or talk about their feelings (not that there's anything wrong with any of that, of course), and they do it in such a believable way. They are not trying to prove anything, they are just trying to be themselves in a world that seems to want them to be softer and more typically feminine and feelings-oriented, and I can deeply, deeply relate. Dana Scully, The X-Files and Stella Gibson, The Fall: I know they're different characters; I just figured since they're played by the same actress I'd list them together, and I love them both so much. Gillian Anderson is amazing. Joan Watson, Elementary: This is another one of those shows where I love everybody, but Joan in particular- I love the way Lucy Liu plays her. She's so determined and hardworking and restrained in such a relatable, flawed way. Zoe Washborne, Firefly: There are no words, really, but she was truly amazing and I still can't quite believe she came from a Whedon show (though Buffy herself is probably one of my favorites as well, because of just how much she was able to lead that show. Such an amazingly strong character). And OMG Faith. And Willow. And Cordelia (though I had some issues with the writing for the latter two in later seasons). Jackie Harris, Roseanne: There is not enough praise in the world for that character and the actress who gave her so much life. She was hysterical and hilarious and real. Honorable mention goes to Abbie Mills (who I love when she actually gets to be a focal point on the show, which was not as much in season 2, but season 3 is around the corner and I can't wait!), the women of Friends, and any character played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus. And there are so many more, honestly.

I definitely feel like the writing for Emily was uneven. Sometimes the conflict between her and Lorelai felt really organic, and sometimes (as noted I think somewhere on these threads) she acted like Snidely Whiplash, downright cartoonish in her manipulative villainy. In those times I felt like ASP was trying to manufacture drama in a way that left me asking why Lorelai didn't just cut herself off from her mother entirely. The stuff in season 5 in particular was way over the top for me, and the notion that Lorelai and Emily could successfully reconcile after that without some serious, serious growth on Emily's side was not credible at all to me.

I've been rewatching season 7, and just got past "Introducing Lorelai Planetarium" where Rory writes the scathing piece on Logan's trust fund friends and he (rightly) calls her out on it; the thing that most caught me off guard (other than the general money issues that I have to suspend my disbelief for within Gilmore Girls) was Rory's insistence that she didn't realize the article was mean, no matter how much she was told otherwise. I suppose it's similar to "Die, Jerk," but that was three years prior, and you'd think she'd have learned by then to notice when she was being to mean in her writing. IDK, something about Rory not being able to tell when she was being really cutting and hurtful (even in "Die, Jerk") just bugs me. Maybe it goes with her lack of self-awareness overall as a character, but she always seemed to me to be more generally aware of the feelings of the people around her. Any thoughts?

Agree with those who list Leverage as a best and HIMYM as a worst. A recent fave of mine that I thought was really well done was Psych. Lassie deliberately not hearing the end of Shawn's message, the chief and Juliet working together, the proposal that was basically from Shawn and Gus, Henry teaching, the Monk reference at the end, etc. etc. I wasn't so much a fan of that last season as a whole, but that finale was on point. Though I was never really a fan of Everybody Loves Raymond, I liked the way they chose to do their finale, which essentially ended just like every other episode but with little more of a feel of everyone spending time together. It worked for the show.

I feel like Popular as a whole really gave us a taste of what was to come with Ryan Murphy, both good and bad. Season 1 will always be amazing to me, however.

There has been some talk in the Nitpicking thread about how much Lorelai really knew/accepted about Rory, herself, and how much she was projecting her own personality onto Rory (and Rory going with that and then that changing throughout the show, esp. in the later seasons). ITA with that whole point, and I just wanted to post on here to say that I've come back to the show quite a bit since its original run (I was Rory's age when it first aired), and who I 'side' with, particularly in terms of Lorelai and Rory, still switches back and forth frequently, even though now I'm closer to Lorelai's age. I actually think I've become more sympathetic to Rory's side of things over the years than I once was (though she still grates on my nerves a lot of the time, just personality-wise), because I can look back and see how hard it's been as I've become a fully-grown adult to really convince my parents of that fact, and that I'm of the age at this point where certain things are just part of my personality and cannot be brushed aside as things I will grow out of. Rory's growing independence was actually very realistically done; I just wish it was characterized by behaviors that still allowed me to like Rory as much as I did to begin with. Because even though I acknowledge that she was becoming her own person and that in itself is a good thing, I still don't really like the person she seemed to become in the later seasons. Not that she was a bad person, just not a character I liked anymore.

I'm rewatching Dead Uncles and Vegetables, and this is such a small moment, but this is the episode where the farmer's market is competing with Doose's Market, and at the town meeting everyone's waxing poetic about the farmer's market veggies and Babette's delivery of "Sexy. It's Sexy Squash" complete with hand gestures had me cracking up. Also, this is the episode where I lose it every time Luke gets to the part of his casket rant where he calls his uncle King Tut.

Yeah, BtVS was frustrating because it wasn't supposed to be quite so morally grey, like Angel was, and yet by the end of the series Buffy and the Scoobies had done some really egregious things. I mean, I understand as you grow up you see more of the shades of grey in things, but when you examine that kind of thing in a TV show you have to be careful, because you're messing with the show's entire mythology.

Yeah, I definitely feel that too, whenever he puts stuff like that in his writing (which is often, but not quite as much as certain other writers) it feels so separate from the plots/characters themselves; it's like, "okay, everybody, pause; here's Joss's message." And it's not even a good, well-thought out message; it's overly simplistic and cheesy and often it feels like the plot/scene/whatever was twisted to get there. YES. I still get chills, sometimes, with the little girl, despite myself, but it does feel like pandering. Oh, all we need to do is stand up, you say? Well golly, there we go then. No more violence against women/systemic issues/patriarchy here! I get that it's a metaphor and I like the message of sharing power but they could've done it better, I think. I like the treatment of the slayer spell in that one episode of Angel season 5 where the girl in the institution gets powers. I still don't like how it ends, but at least it's an acknowledgement that maybe things weren't quite as simple as they were presented in 'Chosen.'

1. Who are your five favorite characters? Lorelai, Lane, Sookie (early seasons), Paris, Luke 2. Who are your five LEAST favorite characters? Rory (I have complicated feelings about Rory as a character overall, though), Logan, Anna, T.J., sometimes Emily in the later seasons 3. What are your three favorite romantic relationships throughout the series? Lane/Zach (this is not endorsement of Lane's pregnancy storyline, however ;)), Luke/Lorelai, Sookie/Jackson & Babette/Morey are tied 4. What are your three LEAST favorite romantic relationships throughout the series? Luke/Lorelai, Rory/Logan (I don't actually hate Logan, I just didn't think his presence brought anything actually good to the show), probably Rory/Jess 5. What are your five favorite non-romantic relationships? (Friendships, familial relationships, etc.) Paris/Rory, Lorelai/Rory, Lorelai/Luke, Lane/her band, Emily/Richard (obviously they are romantic, but I enjoy them as a partnership in general), Babette/Miss Patty, Luke/Jess, I'm sure there are more. 6. Name one hypothetical romantic pairing that you might have liked to see. Paris and anybody Paris didn't actually date on the show; I think Jess would be interesting, but there are plenty of other guys I think they could've brought on that Paris would've clicked with. 7. Rank all seven seasons from favorite to least favorite---no ties :) 1, 2, 4, 3, 5, 7, 6 8. If you could keep just 15 episodes, they would be___ These change pretty frequently, and are not necessarily the ones I find myself rewatching the most right now, but they're the ones I think I'd want to have: Love and War and Snow Forgiveness and Stuff The Breakup, Part 2 Red Light on the Wedding Night A-Tisket, A-Tasket Dead Uncles and Vegetables One's Got Class and the Other One Dyes They Shoot Gilmores, Don't They? A Deep-Fried Korean Thanksgiving A Tale of Poes and Fire The Lorelais' First Day at Yale Last Weeks Fights, This Weeks Tights Raincoats and Recipes Pulp Friction Bon Voyage Man, I feel like there's so much wavering and conditions in my answers to the first few questions. This show does that to me.

I always go back and forth on this, because I have no idea exactly what people are looking for in journalism students who are still so young and inexperienced. I mean, it's good to be assertive, but I also think it's crap to offer someone an internship for journalism experience, then only give them clerical and administrative experience, and then claim that, based on a few weeks of work in that internship, they don't have what it takes. Now, I can see someone like Mitchum, who I think probably has a very skewed view about the job market and what it means to be a young woman (esp. Rory, who has been particularly socialized to play up her niceness more than her ambition, I think) in a competitive field like that, saying what he said, and I do think as a journalist Rory would need to learn to be more assertive, but things like that can be learned, and take time. His expectations for that short of a time period were unreasonable and out of touch, IMO. Regarding Logan and his influence on Rory, I think, as others have discussed, that Rory was influenced because she could be. I feel like she had much more backbone in the earlier seasons, and later on wavered between wishy-washy and agressive. I've never been a big Logan fan, but much like Rory's relationship with Jess, it's Rory's behavior in the relationship that bugs me more than anything else.

ITA with all your thoughts here. Though I do enjoy the various ways people can fanwank the changes and inconsistencies in the BtVS world, ultimately for me I just see the writers not really thinking things through, esp. w/r/t these two issues. Faith has a line in a later ep about the scythe feeling like hers, and saying to Buffy, 'I guess that means it's yours.' And I have no idea how much meaning was intended to go into that line, but I loved it b/c I have unending empathy for Faith and her arc is possibly my very favorite, and that line almost felt, to me, like an acknowledgement from the writers of the dynamics of the show.

I just want to comment on this part here because I think you really get at something about differing opinions people might have about Luke and Jess. I don't dislike Jess as a character; but I definitely enjoy watching Luke more, and I think it has less to do with who either of them are as characters and more to do with how they interact with the Gilmore girls. Something about the way Rory was with Jess (even though I totally agree they had great chemistry) just really irked me. I thought the way she acted with him and how she defended him to her mom and how she was in denial about her feelings for him, etc. etc. made sense, but I really had no interest in watching it, especially with as long as it went on. And with Luke and Lorelai (though I'm more a fan of the potential of the two of them than the execution) I just didn't feel that way. And so I tend to be less sympathetic towards Jess in a way that's unfair to Jess as a character, because my reaction has more to do with Rory and how she was around him/in that relationship than to Jess himself. (I hope that made sense; I'm lacking sleep and that felt a little circuitous. :))

Thank you for discussing the general lack of enthusiasm in the first few episodes here. In some ways season 7 just feels like a completely different show to me; like everyone's kind of drained and no one's really friends anymore. There's just this listless feeling that really comes through, and I don't know if it's the actors, or writers, or what. Also, Beneath You is one of my least favorite episodes, for the reasons you described here: the totally unnecessary over-explaining to the audience about things that happened in the past; the weird 'wrapping up' of the attempted rape; and Spike's shirt.

I was also kind of surprised by the hate for 'As You Were.' I actually don't mind Riley there, or his little 'wheel' speech to Buffy, though I can see why it grates with some as condescending. I also definitely don't like that (I assume) he was brought back like this by the writers to kind of avenge his character (like, wasn't her running after the helicopter in Into the Woods enough? We get it, writers, you think Riley's awesome and Buffy should never had let such a catch go). When I can separate myself from that, though--which for some unknown reason I can for 'As You Were'--I actually like the ep. I think it's partly because I like Sam. I don't think she's perfect, honestly, I just think she's mature, and Buffy has every right to feel totally petty about her and what happened, and that could be why Riley and Sam seem so perfect in the ep, because we're seeing it through the worldview of s6, which was a dark place. But really they're just two people in a good place in their lives who have been good for each other and have helped each other grow. It happens. Apparently I had more thoughts on this episode than I thought. :)

"According to "Entropy," it's not because she's keeping it a secret from her friends, or because she's doing non-vanilla things like cuffs or butt stuff, or really even because she's using him, although the previouslies make sure to cite that so she can be redeemed, which she doesn't need. No, according to "Entropy," it's because she's having sex with someone she doesn't love." Yeah, this was... this was a rationalization that didn't need to be there. The whole Buffy/Spike S6 relationship was primarily an expression of where Buffy was at, head-space wise, just like her other relationships in the show (or lack thereof) at that point in time. Being with Spike in the way she was was a symptom of what she was feeling at the time, and that doesn't mean it was bad in and of itself, but it was made clear that she wasn't feeling right about it. But that summing up of 'because I don't love you' is a weird rationalization. I mean I guess I could see Buffy herself making that rationalization, though, so in that way it kind of makes sense. But I also think this gets to your whole point about how it felt like S6 was written by so many conflicting viewpoints. I think that plays out especially in the Buffy/Spike dynamic.

Yeah- like I know some viewers don't mind retcons and think that shows should be able to do that if they want, but when it's done like it was done here it just feels like a lack of forethought/consistency. Like I'd be okay with retcons if they didn't feel so lazy a lot of the time, like the showrunners are depending on their audience members not to remember that far back, which is disappointing.

While I was not a Paris/Doyle fan at all, I did actually think Lane and Zach were pretty sweet. Although I love the scene where Lane asks Rory if she thinks she's in love with Zach, because Rory's face must have been most viewers faces at that point (esp. since Lane never actually broke up with Dave, that anyone saw, from what I remember). I felt like ASP was just being self-consciously transparent, there, saying yeah, we know this is kind of a cheap plot move, but we're doing it anyway. But I still thought they were sweet together. I feel like I will never understand Zach's freakout on stage before they broke up, though. Was a reason ever actually given for that or was he just out of his mind? Really I think Lane/Zach works for me on a surface level because I thought they had a lot of good moments and I just never thought about their relationship in too much depth. The pregnancy storyline tested that, because Lane had actual dreams of being a musician and had never shown a real interest in having kids, esp. that young, so while they still managed to make the plot amusing (I also think I just always liked the way Lane, Zach, Mrs. Kim, Brian and Gil interacted, so their scenes were always generally fun for me), it made less and less sense.

I can't either, but I also think the writing for Lindsay was symptomatic of the way ASP wrote a lot of the young female characters who were not Rory/Paris/Lane. I mean, like Jess's girlfriend Shane, or the girls Lane refers to as trollops, or the other girls Rory went to high school and college with. Characters who were not main characters were often pretty flat, and the stereotypes among young female characters were particularly sucky.

That artificial light has seriously always bothered me on TV shows in general, mostly because it makes the morning look so inviting and like it's so easy and lovely to be a productive morning person; I remember especially when I was back in high school thinking what a load of bull that was and how dark it was when I would blearily stumble around and get dressed in the morning. Even as someone who likes to get up early, it can be really tough to get going if I want to go out to breakfast early on a weekend and it's super dark outside.

I've been listening to the 'Return to Stars Hollow' rewatch podcast and they recently did 'Nick & Nora/Sid & Nancy' and had a bit of a discussion about Jess writing in Rory's book, and how at first Rory's kind of offended and what Jess did was disrespectful and boundary-crossing, but Rory actually liked it because she liked what he had to say. I really agree with that interpretation. When I look at it now I can't really see it as anything but disrespectful (you don't steal my stuff and write in it, assuming that your thoughts are so brilliant that I won't care; that kind of arrogance is what makes me dislike watching Jess some of the time), but Rory wouldn't necessarily see it that way.