It's fairly common knowledge that I'm pretty much a neophobe. New things generally fail to thrill me, and I'm not the type to rave about them. What this means is that I usually fail to notice good new things until some years later. This includes things like TV shows; the movie Serenity came out before I even met the LA, and yet I'm only just getting around to watching Firefly. Quite enjoying it, but several years later than everyone else. This tends to mean that I have a Crap Filter for TV.
This doesn't work quite so well on the internet. At the moment, it seems, the Big Thing is this Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, the title of which is discouraging me for a start. Then there's the fact that it's by Joss Whedon; I know this guy's work from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Alien Resurrection, and Firefly. In my opinion, that makes him 1 for three; Buffy was popular, but I never understood why, I prefer not to acknowledge the existence of any Alien movies after Aliens, but Firefly's good (and the music is excellent). I admit to not having watched Dr H, but really, it's by someone who for me misses more than he hits, and it's getting a huge amount of buzz.
This brings me to my point: my neophobia, when combined with my ingrained misanthropy, leads to large amounts of enthusiasm for something generally resulting in my moving from "unbothered" to "actively hostile". That's what prompted this post, in fact; the sheer amounts of (let's be brutally honest here) fanboyish pant-wetting over Dr H have caused me to move from "Hmmm, might be worth a look, especially as it's free" to "No.", and I doubt I'm the only person who reacts this way. The fact that Dr H is being taken down tonight (as if that's going to work) so people can buy it (?) is not exactly making me want to see it, either. In a way, I'm kind of hoping it turns out to be successful, but I've been turned off by the fans, and even if it turns out it's perfectly suited to my tastes, I'm not going to see it until it's too late for my viewership to determine success.
Anyway. Long, pointless rant. Enjoy Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog if you like it, but I'm not going to bother. Ask me about it in five years' time, if it's still remembered. After all, culturally, I'm about that far behind. I like it back here, it's comfortable and unthreatening.
I'm right there with you. I wouldn't have even heard about it if another blogger hadn't created an alternate ending.
ReplyDeleteThe only part of Alien:Resurrection that I liked was the seeds of Firefly within it (and Ron Perlman playing the "Jayne" role [renamed, of course] was simply wonderful). That plus I got that stupid 9-disc DVD Alien thing that had the extended version/director's cuts of all the films. the last time I saw A:R was the director's cut, and it may be different than what you saw (the 3 alternate endings were also amusing).
I just think you need time to know
ReplyDeletethat I’m the guy to make it real
the feelings you don’t dare to feel
I’ll bend the world to our will
And we’ll make time stand still
that’s the plan
rule the world
you and me
anyday
-How can you avoid lyrics like that????
Quite easily, now it's not officially available. I think a better question might have been "how can you resist lyrics like that?", to which I reply that I have a rather low opinion of Joss Whedon's songwriting, I'm no fan of musicals, and I'll check it out by the time it hits Netflix.
ReplyDeleteAt least this is easier to check out than Firefly was while I was in the UK. I was NOT going to spend (roughly) 80 non-refundable dollars on a series I might have hated (and based on Joss Whedon's record to that time, probably would have).