baleanoptera | You come at the king, you best not miss

I'm stuck writing a paper and so I'm procrastinating and talking about fandom instead.
Snagged this from

wildtiger7 who tagged me with Band of Brothers, BSG & The Wire

Comment and I will give you 3 fandoms and then you have to answer these questions.

1. What got you into this fandom in the first place?
2. Do you think that you'll stay in this fandom or eventually move on?
3. Favorite episodes/books/movies/etc.?
4. Do you participate in this fandom (fan fiction, graphics, discussions)?
5. Do you think that more people should get into this fandom?

The Wire

1. The excellent pimping done by

queenofthorns. She basically said "Go forth and watch!". I did, and I've been eternally grateful since.
2. It is hands down my favorite series ever and I've been fortunate enough to have a great f-list to discuss it with, so I don't want to move. In fact you'll have to take this fandom/series from my cold, dead hands... Which is probably an unfortunate image when it comes to the Wire but so be it.
3. I find it difficult to talk about favorite episodes in the case of The Wire so I'll go with story arcs instead - it is a toss up between the Stringer Bell story (We don't have to dream no more) and the whole of season four.
5. Definitely. I'd even go so far as to say that The Wire is one of the seminal works of the last few years, and it set a new standard for visual storytelling. It is also a damn good story and engaging even without some pretentious statements like the one I just made. People should just watch it, if just for Stringer Bell and Omar Little alone.

Band of Brothers

1. A chance buy some five years ago. I watched it all during one weekend, and when I was finished I immediately started re-watching.
2. Well, I've actually more or less managed to make Band of Brothers part of my job, so I doubt I'll be going anywhere any time soon.
3. Favorite episode would be Bastogne, as I consider that a perfect hour of television. But Crossroads, The Breaking Point and Why We Fight all come close for various reasons.
4. Not as much as I'd like. Part of it is actually because of work reasons, as I hope to get my own stuff about Band of Brothers published, and therefore I have to be careful about what I post where. I have slowly started to lurk in the fandom though.
5. Hmmm... it depends. If you are interested in history and epic series then I'd urge you to watch it. It is one of the best mini series ever made, and quite possibly my favorite rendition of a WWII story. That said I know WWII stories are not for everyone

BSG

1. The glorious mini-series, the characters and lines like "The lady is in charge".
2. BSG and I have issues. Pigeon size issues and most of season four to be honest. At times I feel like this series resembles a relationship that started out wonderfully and then ended on an abusive note.
3. I LOVE the mini-series and all of season one, with the double cliffhanger of Kobold's Last Gleaming being a favorite. I actually feared for Adama there. With the later seasons I'd say that Unfinished Buisness is also highly loved. Snarky, messed up pilots for the win.
4. I did. Then at the start of season three I got so annoyed with the show that I took a break. When I started to watch season four I went from annoyed to angry, and so I opted out of any discussions about the show because I couldn't trust myself not to start ranting rather vilely.
5. Oh, difficult one. I think the first seasons of BSG were excellent and promised great things, but the rest is just a downwards spiral into annoyance and confusion. So I guess I'd only recommend them to people strong enough to handle the fact that it will all turn to pigeon-poo.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I really need to watch at least one of those shows. It's quite embarrassing that I still haven't. I tried watching The Wire one time, but I kept forgetting when it was on and then - well, I didn't watch it. Whoops?

My best advise regarding The Wire would be to just borrow or buy the dvds. It is a series best viewed in as few sittings as possible. That said I find watching the The Wire in no way a hardship - but instead something of an obsession. I can pretty much guarantee that you will fall in love with many of the characters and become very nervous by the various storylines.

The same view-it-in-few-sittings advice goes to Band of Brothers actually. To be honest I sometimes feel like that series is better viewed as a very long film. ;)

BSG is watch at your own peril...

Edited 2009-05-13 11:15 (UTC)

Let's see ... The Wire is £90 on DVD, Band of Brothers is £18, and BSG isn't even available yet. I think I know which one I'm going for first. I'm sure that I'll spot an offer on The Wire that I can't refuse soon enough. Oddly enough, I think I want to watch BSG the most, though. It sounds right up my alley.

[Also, can I have three? I need new ways of torturing my wrist.]

Well, BSG has its moments of being pure kickass especially in the miniseries and first season. I think on a whole that it is well worth seeing, its just that the later seasons don't live up to the expectations of the first. But there are spaceships and gritty realism rolled into one, and that is always good.

As for fandoms I'll have to go with things I associate with you, so Tolkien - specifically the fëanorian aspect, Italian football and Greek myths (I blame the aegean punk for the last one) ;)

Speaking of the Greeks it should be mentioned that The Wire is in part inspired the old Greek plays and The Iliad. Seriously, you can have great fun identifying the Achilles character and so forth. Its about as happy as a Greek tragedy also...

I'm surrounded by people raving about The Wire (I think at least one season aired her on tv as well) but I never felt any interest in watching it. Sort of like with the Sopranos. Also, for some reason I always thought it was British. LOL

I watched BOB on TV when it aired, and not being a huge fan of the genre, I was pleasantly surprised that I managed to follow it through to the end. I consider it a great compliment to the series, cause believe it or not, I'm a tough audience. ;)

As for BSG, same thing as The Wire... Just one of those shows I couldn't bring myself to watch, even though it aired in my country and everything. I don't know, something about the visual look of it, it was so dull and austere, it just failed to draw me in. Probably way too intellectual for me as well... :P

Do me! :)

If it is any consolation I've never managed to sit through a whole episodes of Sopranos, and gods know I've tried. The Wire on the other hand took me a few episodes to get into, but by episode four of season one I was hooked. As I said to

finnygan I think that series is best viewed as a whole, as an episode a week gets a bit confusing.

I'm a tough audience. ;)

*radiant smile* The glory of BoB can win over even the toughest audience. I think the series main strength is that it focuses on the humanity and friendship of the men instead of generic re-enactments of historical events.

Its also slashy as hell, which helps. Ahem...

(also, if you liked BoB I'd recommend checking out Generation Kill which is based on the Iraq war and is a sort of anti-theses to BoB, but excellent in its own way. )

Probably way too intellectual for me as well

Hee. First of I'd say I highly doubt any of the shows mentioned here are too intellectual for you. Secondly BSG is a lot less intellectual than it likes to think. The whole thing about the series creator talking to the UN just baffled me.

As for fandoms you get ASOIAF (naturally ;) ), Rome and Northern Exposure. (Because more people should talk about that show.)

Oooh, you always make the best picks! :D I'll do this on the weekend, when I get home from the trip. :)

I'm going to be the first person to buy DVDs of The Wire when they hit India. I know they can be rented somewhere, but I still haven't discovered where! And I will thank you for it when I finally do get embroiled in it. :D

* raises hand for meming! *

I can think of few things that would please me more than you watching and loving The Wire. Its like a police mystery meets political intrigue meets cultural anthropology meets Greek myths. But I'll stop my gushing now.

As for memeing you'll get Tolkien, Lymond and Iron Man. (the latter can be answered in A CAVE)

(and you have a Zak Efron icon don't you? ;) )

Band of Brothers never really grabbed me--I'm torn between liking the RL interviews that framed the eps and the great look of the episodes and my knee-jerk hatred of Tom Hanks and the Greatest Generation rhetoric. But of course I agree about the other two! *Wonder Twin high-five*

Meme me!

*high-fives you right back, sweet twin of mine*

As for the meme you get The Wire, BSG and Deadwood.

Band of Brothers is definitely knee deep in Greatest Generation rhetoric, and I'd say the problems the series does have are largely caused by the Good War/Greatest Generation narrative framework. But unlike say Saving Private Ryan I feel Band of Brothers does manage to rise above that framework on occasion, or at least tries to raise a few questions about it. Still there is no getting around the series semi-mythical feel and its Ryan-legacy.

(btw - have you watched Ken Burn's The War? I understand that he has also done a Civil War documentary. Was that also saccharine? )

I watched part of The War but honestly can't recall anything about it. The thing about The Civil War is that it's really hard for me to separate out everything it did with it being saccharine. So you have this as the huge, hallmark change in documentary style--when this premiered on PBS here, it was an instantaneous hit. And that's not something that ever really happens on public broadcasting! I believe it remains the highest-rated thing, or certanly the highest-rated documentary PBS has ever had. And it really caused such a huge shift to the use of archival photos, voiceovers, etc. Interest in the Civil War, which has never really waned here, certainly kicked up a lot. On the other hand, it made a new star out of Shelby Foote, not without some controversy: he's super-Southern and fairly apologetic for the Confederacy. There are also complaints that African Americans weren't represented as much as they could have been, both in terms of archival material and in terms of talking heads. But for what it did to really renew interest in the war and in archival materials, I'll always have a soft spot for it.

There is a pretty hilarious--but also disturbing, in terms of what historic materials it uncovers--mockumentary called C.S.A. that I'd recommend for you. It's a dead-on parody of Burns's style and also a kind of fun protest against that Southern sympathy...

That C.S.A. film looks just epic - I think I'll have to get a hold of that. I think I must watch "The Civil War" as well, because I need to know how much of what he does in "The War" is Burns' style and how much is good, old "Greatest Generation" narrative topoi. Don't get me wrong - I like "The War" and find it engaging in places, but it does fit nicely into the mythic story of WWII.

You come at the king, you best not miss

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