Sick and VM-y

[mrissa]

As for the cold: it has moved up from my throat -- yay! solid food! -- to my nose and ears. For those of you who are new, that means my first two navigational systems are down. "What happens," you may be asking yourself, "when someone who is extremely scent-oriented has a head cold?" She is sad. Very, very sad. Also she bumps into stuff a lot due to not being able to smell it there. "What happens," you may further ponder, "when someone who already has an ongoing inner ear problem has a head cold?" She is sad. Very, very sad. Also she bumps into stuff a lot due to not having a reliable sense of the vertical. Sigh.

So. I have been watching a lot of Season 3 Veronica Mars with timprov because it's something I can manage without -- sing it with me, kids! -- bumping into stuff a lot. We're enjoying ourselves. But a few (deliberately non-spoilery) things:

1. Some of you have complained about having difficulty keeping The Million And One Blondes Of Veronica Mars straight. I live in Minnesota, where telling blondes apart is a major life skill. But even I will admit that Parker and Meg look way too much alike, and it's a darn good thing they aren't around each other. Because dang. Hair, features, facial expressions, postures. Wow. If they did it on purpose, I'm not getting what the resonance is supposed to be.

2. Okay, so Wallace: I am a huge Wallace fan. Always have been. But one of the reasons his character worked is that he was never Sexless Black Sidekick Man. It was never that his life revolved around serving Veronica but they never had any romantic interactions because he was *whisper* black. */whisper* He very clearly had a life of his own. Romantic involvements of his own -- including, if I remember rightly, with a white girl, so it was extremely clear -- and the dialog and body language had made it clear in the first place -- that he and Veronica were not involved because they are not into each other that way, not because he's black and she's white.* Wallace also had non-romantic relationships with people other than Veronica. Wallace had -- be still my heart -- robust subplots. In Season 3, it's more like, "Oh, right, wasn't she friends with that other dude? Quick, make them have lunch together! Before the viewers get restless!"

And even aside from squandering high-quality Wallace Potential, it squanders some potential for interesting stuff in the transition to college from high school. They could easily have had not nearly enough Wallace for me by making things different for Veronica still living at home while Wallace lives on campus. They didn't. They just propped a Wallacebot in the library behind a MechE textbook.

3. See also: Weevil. The impression of Weevil having an actual life with actual stuff going on that doesn't revolve around Veronica has been replaced by Weevil being The [Spoiler]. And The Insufficiently Appearing [Spoiler] at that. Bah. Bah, I say!

4. I miss the Veronica Mars Voiceovers a little bit when they are occasionally replaced with lame dialog reminding us of the same points. I know, I know. Only a little bit.

5. I am all about the ethnic names, I swear I am, but -- Stosh? Piz's real first name is Stosh? You ask yourself, "What could make a person go by a name that is the bastard child of piss and Pez?" And then the answer comes out: his alternative is Stosh. I now expect it to come out in the last four episodes that Piz horribly murdered his parents over spring break, because they hated him so much as to name him Stosh Piznarski. (Note: I have not actually seen the last four episodes, so I apologize if this constitutes a spoiler. But: Stosh Piznarski. My land.)

*Incidentally, is anyone else totally creeped out by the fact that EHarmony ads on the TV only feature couples who look like siblings? If people want to date their relatives -- I can't say as how I recommend it -- can't you meet your cousins for free at family reunions? How dumb do you have to be to pay someone to date only within the gene pool's equivalent of the bathroom sink?

Comments

[columbina.livejournal.com]

Every time I hear that you have a head cold, my brain dredges up a passage from Gnomes (yes, yes, the book that everyone and his brother owned once upon a time, don't give me any guff, I rather like it) which talks for, I don't know, several paragraphs about the outstanding sense of smell gnomes have and how they depend upon it extensively in all walks of life, and then concludes:

"As you can imagine, a cold in the head is no small matter to a gnome!"

Not that you are a gnome, you understand, but my brain moves in twisty ways.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Indeed, no small matter.

[jebbypal]

I think weevil's story lines suffered because Capra, the actor, came down with a very bad skin condition of some sort that made him very sick and all. At least, I gave the benefit of the doubt.....

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Ah. That would make some sense -- although, as with Wallace, I think they could have given him less screen time in a way I would have liked better.

But really, I think that not knowing how much season they were getting made the show suffer, too. Having it renewed piecemeal: bleh. It was never an episodic show, and forcing it into weird truncated story arcs is not a good plan.

[zalena.livejournal.com]

I've only seen a few episodes of Season 3 and it was looking pretty grim. Is it worth watching the rest?

Re: online dating, siblings, etc.

There is actually some concern that online dating means that people are increasingly dating people who are already like them, rather than the growth opportunities of falling in love with someone odd or inappropriate and working at making them fit within their lives. I heard some experts talking on this subject once, but I have no references for this observation.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed it, but I think I had lower standards for it than for the first two seasons. Certainly I was not short of gripes, and there were things they dropped that they never would have in the first two seasons. And when you've made a show successful partly on getting the details exactly right, the shift out of that mode is pretty rough.

So here's the question: which characters are your favorites? The answer may well determine whether you should bother with Season 3.

All of my friends are odd and inappropriate, so I am firmly in favor of modes of dating that get them more dates.

[zalena.livejournal.com]

All of my friends are odd and inappropriate, so I am firmly in favor of modes of dating that get them more dates.

And some people would say that online dating also means that oddballs can find each other with specialty sites etc.

But my experience with online dating is that no one is really looking for the things that make me worth dating. Most of the filters on dating sites are about height, weight, occupation, etc. This utterly fails to represent me in any meaningful way.

Anyway... VM... I like Veronica's dad. The realization that I found him attractive was one of those moments I realized I was more of a grown up than I'd previously guessed. (And a relief. When I was younger I used to worry what would happen when I was old and the only thing I would still be attracted to was teenage boys. Thankfully, my tastes have matured as I have.)

I'm embarrassed to say that I'm also a Logan fan. I like the way he says the most utterly inappropriate things. Season 2 was all about Logan's one-liners. Reformed Logan is no fun at all.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

There's a fair amount of Keith and a fair amount of Logan in Season 3, but not all the Logan is Reformed Logan. He has some good Classic Logan lines in there. Also some Classic Logan misbehaviors as well as some misbehaviors I found less convincing. Keith handles some things in perfect Keith fashion, and in some ways his relationship with Veronica grows up a bit in Season 3.

I have some pretty odd friends who found each other through online dating, but I have no idea how they made it work.

[redbird]

Incidentally, is anyone else totally creeped out by the fact that EHarmony ads on the TV only feature couples who look like siblings? If people want to date their relatives -- I can't say as how I recommend it -- can't you meet your cousins for free at family reunions? How dumb do you have to be to pay someone to date only within the gene pool's equivalent of the bathroom sink?

I know Eharmony is, to put it kindly, heteronormative--but this starts to sound like there's at least an undercurrent of racism, of the "don't marry outside your own kind" variety.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

The ads don't feature any interracial couples, which in 2007 looks pretty damn racist from here. But it's beyond that. We're not talking about people having a similar range of skin color here. We're talking about them having the same noses and chins. And you know from past conversation that I have higher standards for saying "you two look like siblings!" than many people do.

[jenfullmoon.livejournal.com]

VM's budget was SO low during the third season that they couldn't afford to have most (or more than 2-3, tops) of the regulars in most of the episodes. That's why there's hardly any character mixing, or Wallace, or Weevil (well, that plus his medical condition)- they didn't have the money and Veronica, Keith and Logan were the only three who got to be in every episode.

I loathed Stosh Piz's name. Yes, it is indeed SO HORRIBLE. WTF?! Who thought this was cute?!

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Okay, so that explains why they didn't have all the Wallace, Mac, and Weevil my heart could have desired -- but I still think they could have handled the lack better.

And the lowered budget combined with the uncertain renewal means, well, of course things were a little shaky.

Sigh.

[hbevert.livejournal.com]

Don't know if this makes the name any easier to deal with, but in Polish-American areas, Stosh is a common nickname for Stanley or Stanislaus. Perhaps the spelling and pronunciation of Stanislaus are a bit different and include a "sh" sound in there. So now you can be horrified that the parents may actually have given this character the birth name of Stanley.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

The thing is, the only character who calls him Stosh is Keith Mars, who is (don't know if you watch the show) well-established as calling teenagers by their full first name rather than any nickname. So this seems like it's supposed to be the Polish-American equivalent of the girl I knew in college whose mother had written Debby on her birth certificate rather than Debra or Deborah.

[timprov.livejournal.com]

Doesn't he call Mac "Mac?" He certainly never calls her "Cindy."

The only one I'd call well-established is Eli. And I can see why Keith would have trouble calling anyone "Weevil."

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. I don't remember if he ever calls her anything. I will listen for it in my re-watching of Season 2.

[scottjames.livejournal.com]

I am apparently alone in this, but I am singularly un-horrified by a character named Stosh Piznarski going by 'Piz.' It's an abbreviation of his last name. I'd imagine there would come a point at which one just stops fighting a nickname when *everybody* can come up with the same one. If his name was Stosh Johnson, I would fight 'Piz.' As it is, meh.

I have noticed the pigmentally similar couples on the eHarmony commercials, but perhaps they were afraid of having a couple of, say, one white and one non-white person, while subliminally sending the message, "Meet white people at eHarmoney.com!"? And at least this way they show that they have ethnicities of both genders? Just a thought. I think they went overboard the other way, but maybe that was their intent?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

No, it's not that I'm appalled that Stosh Piznarski goes by Piz, it's that I'm appalled that his parents named him Stosh Piznarski. Once that is known, going by Piz is really the only sensible option.

Or, like, Joe. Or Mike. Or something.

Also, I think that "meet white people at [company here]!" is an inevitable message unless you're specifically geared towards minorities only. It's kind of what being in the majority means: that most people are in that category. No real shortage of white folks, it turns out. And since the commercials have something like five couples per commercial, having more than one thing would be quite possible within the framework they've set up. Like, having a black guy and a white girl for one couple, and then two Hispanic people together for another, if they were really concerned that "we will introduce you to white people whether you want one or not" was their message.

Even having white people with less similar features would be eye-rolling but significantly less weird and scary than the people they actually show together.