Helpful tip!

[mrissa]

I learned this from watching a handful of romantic comedies in the mists of the past and now from Heroes, and I thought I would pass the useful advice on to you:

If you see the person you are dating embracing another, before you pitch a hissy fit and storm off to destroy the relationship/yourself/the world/whatever, determine whether the embracee is: a) a sibling, parent, or other close family member; b) a friend who has just received bad news; c) a friend who has not just received bad news but would for reasons of their own like a hug; d) someone in need of the Heimlich maneuver; e) ...anything else reasonable. Which covers a lot of ground.

Better yet: do not date people you don't trust to hug other people.

"She's going off to have dinner with someone else! Oh noes! Not--dinner!"

There, just think how much trouble I saved you.

(People who thought Season One of Heroes was good: really? Really? Trite RomCom Maneuver Number Three? This is the good stuff? What's Sylar going to do next, hire a band to sing off-key under Claire's window?)

Comments

[nihilistic-kid.livejournal.com]

I'm reading a fairly mediocre crime novel in which the same exact thing happens. Cop 1 is seeing Cop 2 and Cop 2 dares have a quick bite in a mall food court with a reporter, so Cop 1 shits herself in jealous rage for half the book.

It's amazing that Cop 1 carries a sidearm but doesn't accidentally shoot herself with it, she's so damn stupid.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

It is well known that mall food courts are hotbeds of depravity. One can hardly get something from the onna stick place without falling into lustful embraces with randomly selected strangers.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

Oh, please tell us the title so I can avoid it. Because if I bought it, I would just throw it across the room when I got to that part, unless it's thin enough that I could rip it on two.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

I've seen part of S1, and it just didn't hook me. Probably because I did not form much attachment to 95% of the characters.

As for your broader point: WHAT SHE SAID. In fact, I've got a story in my to-be-written-soon-I-hope queue that involves one protagonist seeing the other being touchy-feely with another woman, and when describing this aspect of the story to people, I've been at pains to point out that said protagonist does not in fact leap to any stupid conclusions based on what she's seen. Because that's what people expect to have happen, and it just gets old.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

For me, Heroes S1 is how not to do several things. It's how not to do "upping the stakes," because a lot of these situations would be a great deal more interesting to me if they were taken without the overarching "blow up New York City" plot forcing them to only graze the surfaces of the situations they've created. It's also how not to do an ensemble cast, because it seems like in every episode we must advance every subplot by two inches, which is not, it turns out, enough for me to care about any of them.

[sienamystic.livejournal.com]

I was hooked on Heroes for the first season, right up until the last two episodes where I realized that all the fun stuff was apparently accidental. It was just that for a while there, I was hooked on the cliffhangers and the momentum, but the finale was just so bad that I knew I wasn't going to be interested in the show anymore. And from what I can tell (my husband still watches it, although it's more out of habit), there's nothing to draw me back to the show. The good stuff that I saw was a mirage.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I was wondering how much cliffhangers were feeling different in DVD form. The "to be continued..." at the end of each show annoys me: of course it's to be continued! The story arcs aren't over, and all of the previous episodes have been continuations of earlier episodes! By the time we are into episode five, we should have a strong sense that this is not a show with single-episode plot arc!

[columbina.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes, the Misinterpreted Embrace. I personally would like to have this one banned and sent to the Tropes Hall of Fame for a well-deserved retirement.

[orbitalmechanic.livejournal.com]

Heroes is much better if you fast-forward through Sylar, Mohinder, and Peter. Once you're doing that you don't have to pay nearly as much attention to the overarching plot, and although it's still not exactly good, I'm very fond of Hiro and I still think Claire and her dad are brilliant.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I like Hiro, and I like the Claire-and-her-dad stuff, too, although it's not the kind of girl and dad stuff I mostly glom onto.

[barondave.livejournal.com]

Heroes was good, or at least interesting, up until the last episode, when they threw it all away. I tried to watch the second season, but it sputtered out of my consciousness, never to return.

I would probably get all Miss Manners over the hug situation. "Wow, my date feels so strongly that she is hugging that person. That person must be worthy and/or need a hug. I shall introduce myself, and maybe proffer a hug myself. Gosh, I'm glad I picked such a caring individual."

[sienamystic.livejournal.com]

I suppose it says something that, although I've searched my memory, I have no real idea who the various components of the romantic triangle were. Was it Peter Petrelli/Poor Doomed Mystery Sock/Simone-the-woman-mysteriously-hated-by-all-of-the-fandom?

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

do not date people you don't trust to hug other people.

"She's going off to have dinner with someone else! Oh noes! Not--dinner!"

Yeah. Really.

I am fortunate in having friendly relationships with all my exes whom I am in contact with, and J doesn't mind at all, in which I am also fortunate (though we wouldn't be together if he weren't like that).

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I had a high school friend who thought it was juicy gossip that I was still friends with scottjames after we broke up, and she was trying to stir it up with markgritter: "What do you think of them still being friends? What do you think of him?" Poor markgritter was baffled by this behavior and was not at all sure what she was looking for, since the person in question had spent a great deal more time with Scott than he had.

"That pathetic jealousy...."

[markiv1111.livejournal.com]

Keep in mind that I am a songwriter myself and a Beatles fan. (No, I'm not really changing the subject.) But "You Can't Do That" (which I have played in two bands) is about the (I hope fictional) narrator of the song throwing a fit when his girlfriend simply talks to another man -- twice. I really have a problem with this (and "Run For Your Life" isn't much better). I think your significant others' caring for other people and wanting to talk to them (and sometimes hug them, and/or meet them for dinner) is a *positive*, not a negative thing. But I have little to add to this discussion that is bonafidely relevant, so will stop.

Nate

Re: "That pathetic jealousy...."

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yah. You don't actually want the Hallmark cards' "You are the ONLY PERSON I LOVE" sentiments to be true. Turns out that's not a good sign.

[ellameena.livejournal.com]

Hiring a band to play under Claire's window would be an interesting and worthy plot development compared to the idiotic contortions and outrageous acts that Sylar's character actually goes through in the show. Gag.

[scottjames.livejournal.com]

Heroes, more than any other show, has drawn me in in the hope of some of the characters dying horrible deaths.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

And we're back around to Why Mris Is Not Watching Boston Legal.

[mackatlaw.livejournal.com]

I actually liked Heroes quite a bit. Perhaps this just shows that I'll watch anything involving comic books or relating to superheroes. . .

The sad thing about the romantic comedy embrace thing is that there are really people who get that jealous.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Sure there are, but they shouldn't be encouraged to think that their behavior is normal and rational.

Speaking of Oh Noes, Dinner!

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

I had an ex whose then-sweetie refused to let us have dinner alone. Lunch, sure, but dinner had to be chaperoned. I found this incomprehensible, and always longed to ask her:

A) Don't you trust him? Especially considering that he left me for her.

and

B) Why is it that you think one can only be unfaithful after 6 p.m.?

Re: Speaking of Oh Noes, Dinner!

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I had an ex-roommate whose mother was convinced that sex and all closely related activities could only happen in the dark. So she would leave my roommate (in her teen years, before we were roommates) home alone all day with boys, no problem, but God help her if there was a boy in the house the minute after sunset if her parents weren't home.

My former roommate considered this to be an eccentricity she could exploit to her own ends, but was baffled at how her mom had come up with this idea in the first place. Also it was rather more revealing about her parents than she really wanted revealed.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

I was just reading Jane Austen making fun of this same trope, in Northanger Abbey.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Oh dear. Plus ca change and all that.

[songwind.livejournal.com]

Good television, like Klingon justice, is a unique point of view. :)

I enjoyed Heroes in large part because of what it wasn't, if that makes sense. I like the underpinnings of the superhero subgenre, even if some of the tropes are lame. It was fun to see a TV show in prime time that dealt with that. I thought it also had a few highlights and points of interest in a mostly mediocre show.

Season 2 lost me, however.

[rmnilsson.livejournal.com]

My old boss John who's in his fifties talks about a former coworker who tried to make trouble by telling John's wife that he was going to lunch with another woman. But since these were group lunches, and John and his wife worked together, this left John's wife more puzzled than ever.

I just think about how much work it would be to be that suspicious. I have enough real issues in my life to deal with without worrying about who p_roqueforti is having lunch with or giving hugs to.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yah, no kidding. You ask yourself, "Shouldn't these people take up knitting or grow begonias, if they have this much free time?"

[guppiecat]

Another of the TV shows/movies that I've always wanted to see, but not wanted badly enough to actually make, is a short half hour comedy series that uses the sitcom pattern, but whenever the inevitable misunderstanding arises, the characters sit down and calmly talk out their differences.

I figure that would leave room in the show for things that are actually funny.

[timprov.livejournal.com]

M*A*S*H?

[callunav.livejournal.com]

Sometimes I realize how much it would baffle people that when Julian tells me she's going to do X with some person who was important in her life before we got together, and with whom she has fallen out of touch, my response is to enthusiastically shoo her toward the door with an injunction to have fun. We're not specifically talking about sex here, but still.

Then I give up, because thinking like that makes my brain hurt.

My life got a lot easier when I realized that in general, there was very little characterized as "a romantic comedy" which I actually would enjoy watching.

[anne-mommy.livejournal.com]

You should suggest that Sylar sing off-key under Claire's window to the writers. They are in serious need of some new material this season.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

They so rarely ask my advice! I would give it gladly if they did! And my rates are quite reasonable.

[laurel]

I've always wanted to like Heroes more than I have (of current series, the same is very much true with Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles).

Critics and fans weren't kind to season two of Heroes so then the writers and the showrunner made a big fuss over how season three was gonna have a lot more action and be way better . . . and of course it's received the worst drubbing yet (deservedly so, though they didn't help their case by talking it up so much).

So since the last two seasons have been so disappointing, a lot of folks really talk up season one or seem to remember it as being better than it really was. Or at least that's what I've noticed.

There was a ton of potential in season one and there were some good bits (like the "Company Man" episode and most of the Hiro and Ando stuff), but it was also slow-moving and inconsistent and messy at times. And the ending of season one isn't satisfying at all really, especially when one sees season two.

It's a show that drives me a bit crazy because there are a lot of talented people involved and there's a lot of money thrown at it and it actually gets good ratings and a lot of support from the network (especially for a genre show on a major network), but it stumbles more than it succeeds.

Season two suffers a bit because of the writers strike as storylines got truncated. And I'm not sure the writers have any kind of long term plan. (Lost floundered bigtime until a deal with struck with the network as to how many more seasons/episodes the show would have; then it was clear the writers mapped out an actual plan and the show got a lot better.)

We continue to watch, but by now we're having more fun mocking the show than anything else. (And yes, I keep hoping for good bits. There was a recent episode with some good bits.) During seasons one and two I remember that I'd find myself puttering on the internet while it was on or playing little videogames on my Palm Pilot. Always a sign that a show isn't truly holding my interest-- it's probably not a good one to give one's undivided attention to!

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I have now seen the end of S1. Meh. Meh, I say! But I will get S2 from the library, with low expectations, and wait for the characters I don't hate, even when I sometimes hate what's being done with/to them.