i first watched this entire series one afternoon/night. i was living in boston, & it was the night before i was meant to move out of my packard's corner apartment (72 gardner street, for those of you keeping tabs on me). all of my belongings were packed & most of them were already brought home. & i hated my roommates. so the options were leave the apartment or stay inside my room. because i was feeling particularly lazy & unhappy at my living situation, i decided to stay inside.
i had almost nothing to entertain me. but thankfully, before i packed my boxes of DVDs into my mum's SUV, i had decided to keep undeclared with me in case i needed something to watch. & watch it i did. the ENTIRE SERIES.
but really, that's not much of a feat. because, like its predecessor, freaks & geeks, this one only aired for one season (an incomplete season at that. one or two episodes never aired at all). which is sad. because both shows deserved at least a second season.
(freaks & geeks deserved a lot more than that, but that's for another blog entry someday down the line).
undeclared is certainly no freaks & geeks. but it's still quite enjoyable. it's pretty light-hearted & fun. i think it pretty accurately portrays college, without getting too bogged down with the emotions involved. but the dialogue & plots are realistic. i believe what's going on.
according to wikipedia, judd apatow has stated, "one reason for the death of college shows is that it's difficult to be honest about campus life on network or basic cable. it's hard to portray truthfully. the truth is, kids are high, drunk and having sex. no matter what you do, you're fudging it."
ok, so maybe judd apatow is right. but they did a pretty good job. after all, lloyd does have plenty of sex. (not that it's any wonder why! look at him! he's a cutie!)
& the gang do their fair share of drinking (they even empty a keg into every single cup in their dorm room & try to drink it all before it goes flat). certainly things were left out of the overall college experience, but undeclared gives it a good try.
i think what really makes it great is the casting. i really love the male casting choices. seth rogan! charlie hunnam! in fact, all four of the main boys do a really good job with this material.
the girls, however, i was less than pleased with. carla gallo, i apparently do not like you in anything you are in. & monica keena! fuck you, i didn't like you on dawson's creek & i don't like you on undeclared. get off my blog!
the true casting gem, however, is in lizzie's (carla gallo, ick) creepy stalker boyfriend, eric.
this is seriously good stuff here.
jason segel, you are always great. you are welcome on my blog anytime.
i have a soft spot in my heart for teenage dramas centering around rumours, sex, drugs, high school, & stabbing each other in the back.
so really, gossip girl is the perfect show for me. i honestly just can't get enough of glossy lipstick, pouty girls, sex-maniac foxy guys, & a cast of characters who cheat on each other, lie to each other, & play each other for their own gain. bonus points if it all takes place in high school.
& while we see very little of these friends actually going to school, they are of the right age & the controversial issues are certainly there. the new 90210 was touted as the west coast gossip girl, but so far from what i've seen (& i'm enjoying the campy 90210, don't get me wrong) 90210 has nothing on gossip girl. maybe it's just east coast fashion (it IS different, i assure you) or just that the acting is so much better, but gossip girl is a show with style.
if the new 90210 is "fuck me pumps"
then gossip girl is "come tie me up & then fuck me boots".
& i honestly do mean that in the best way possible. on both sides. 90210 is what it is. it's not nearly as edgy as it's claiming to be, but it's fun. gossip girl, on the other hand, is dead serious. these kids aren't playing around. they mean business, & man is it a mean business.
i'm not from NY, but i am from the east coast. i guess we have a different definition of drama there. or, maybe it's just that gossip girl is willing to be more controversial. but it's a really glam-ed up & polished end result, whatever the reasons are. the acting is pretty solid, the characters are well-defined, & the plot is, well, wicked. (omfg).
my only complaint so far is how much the narrator sounds like sarah jessica parker. it's almost like gossip girl thought, for five seconds, that it wanted to be the new sex & the city. i've got news for you, gossip girl: you aren't sex & the city. but that's really ok. i much prefer you. you know you love me. xoxo.
so much so, i had convinced myself that it looked really lame & that i would never, in a million years, actually identify with it. i respected people who were into it (i have a few friends who really do like it) but i just always assumed that it wasn't for me.
i was also completely unable to separate supernatural from smallville in my mind. i couldn't remember which was which, & would always use the wrong title when talking about one of the shows. when supernatural disc one began, i even said to myself, "fuck, which one is superman!?" but boy, was i wrong about this show. i mean, seriously, i couldn't have been any more wrong.
this is exactly my type of show. i don't know if i was completely blind before, or just totally unwilling to give supernatural a chance. but i almost hate myself for not having watched it before this weekend.
in fact, as soon as disc one ended, i turned to sham & began brainstorming how we could get our hands on the rest of the season. i texted friends to see if i could borrow it. i even thought about buying it. i was immediately hooked!
the brothers play off each other so well. their bickering is really enjoyable to watch, & funny. because they can interact in this way, their characters seem pretty solid, even though the audience still does not know much about them. the younger brother is definitely more emotional, & the older brother is a bit of a hothead. they are nearly polar opposites & they don't really get along (unless they are putting their heads together to solve a case). but that's what makes their relationship really entertaining to watch. despite all the supernatural events occurring, the brothers are so real that it's easy to get sucked into the show. even if you don't believe in ghosts & goblins, you care about the brothers.
the effects are also top-notch. the first episode began with a doozy & i was pretty convinced the rest of the episodes would not be able to live up to it. again, i could not have been more wrong.
i'm totally hooked on supernatural.
& luckily for me, my dad is going to let me borrow the rest.
supernatural, i promise to never "accidentally" call you smallville again.
so my major memory for this show is that a boyfriend of mine in high school got angry that i watched it one night instead of calling him to talk. what i never admitted to him, & haven't really thought about until right now, is that i was only using this show to avoid calling him for whatever reason. i think it was his birthday, & i was uncomfortable with the expectations that had been placed on me to be the "perfect girlfriend" in such situations. & i bailed, majorly, on calling him. but, i mean, i called him after.
needless to say, i obviously didn't remember much about this show. i think i did watch it. at least a few times. i remembered all the characters, & of the 4 episodes i watched, i remembered the plot of at least two of them.
i think that felicity gets a bit of a bad reputation. every time i mention it, someone inevitably groans & someone else mentions "that time she cut her hair". i mean, yeah, cutting her hair was probably a bad idea. but the show continued for two more years after that ill-fated season. so they must have been doing something right.
right?
one thing i liked about this show before i even began watching it is that there are only 4 seasons. so it's not overwhelming to want to get into, & it exists in it's own little world of college. she begins the show as a freshman & ends it as a senior. i don't know if the last show does any kind of a fast forward so we can see where all the characters end up after their lives at the university of new york, but i almost sort of hope not. i LIKE that the show exists in a little box, like a package tied with a bow. here is college life, complete.
i'm going to be honest here. i liked this show.
more than i thought i was going to, & definitely more than i did in 1998. probably because in 1998, i had absolutely no idea what college was. it was an idea to me only, something i saw in my future but of which i had no real concept. so can i relate to felicity more, having gone through my own 4 (to be fair, 3.5) years?
i don't know. i think so.
in my memory i remember felicity as "that show that tried to recreate dawson's creek for college kids". i mean, she's got a little dawson in her. she's over analytical about boys, life, friends, & classes. but that's about it. she's much more reserved than dawson is. in fact, i liken her more to angela chase than dawson leery. felicity is painfully shy, so much so that, even though she followed ben to new york, she had only ever had two conversations with him before (conversations that she remembers in painstaking detail). it's almost painful to watch her try to interact with ben, noel, her professors, basically anyone she meets. she's awkward & young.
unlike dawson's creek, we don't pick up with felicity already having a strong friend group in place. in fact, when the series begins, she doesn't have ONE friend. & when she does befriend julie, they have a very rocky start (basically due to the fact that julie & ben like each other more than they like felicity).
we also learn that felicity didn't do much in high school. she was very quiet, & seems to have done only what her parents wanted her to do. i don't even know if she had any friends then, either. we certainly never hear about any of them.
so really, we get to see felicity evolve from the very beginning. she's got no friends, no life, & almost no personality. she's got to cut out a place for herself in the world from scratch. imagine, dawson leery at, say, age 3.
i'm going to admit this again. i was into it. i'm not sure where her relationships with ben & the resident advisor noel crane (who has a webpage. seriously, go to that link) will go (although thanks, wikipedia, for spoiling a few details for me). i don't know who she will befriend next. or where her adventures in college will take her. & i'm interested. which has got to be a good sign.
apparently in later seasons, the writers began to run out of ideas for story lines. i mean, i guess there's only SO much drama that can go on during college.... (NOT). also, apparently the original writer was 32 & claimed to be 19 so there was a bit of controversy going on about this show. so i can't really vouch for the entire series. which is why i'm not giving this one more than four records as a rating.
but, i really & genuinely give felicity four records. i'm into it, & i hope that one day i can try out disc two. & who knows, honestly, maybe a lot more than that.
i was in middle school when this show first aired. i was a HUGE fan of the original movie & i remember begging my mother to let me stay up & watch the show when it premiered on the WB. we struck a deal in the kroeber household. my brother & i could each choose one night to stay up later than usual to watch a television show. kurt chose the wayans bros & i chose buffy the vampire slayer (which was ultimately a better deal because his show was only 30 minutes long!)
i was a pretty die-hard buffy fan during the early years. i was already pretty into vampires when the show aired (i even had my own stake & other vampire supplies stashed away in a drawer in my room just in case) so the show only fed into my obsession. however, despite my love for buffy early on, i admit that i wasn't a very loyal fan. by the third season, i was no longer into it. once they left high school, i stopped watching altogether.
when i graduated high school in 2003, the show went off the air (after surviving for two final years on UPN). when i was in college, i saw buffy become a cultural phenomenon. there were midnight showings of the musical episode (i ended up seeing this episode at comic-con this year & walked out after no lie, five awful seconds). there are self-proclaimed "whedonites". & there are even college courses dedicated solely to this show.
throughout the years, i became increasingly fed up with buffy & rather disgusted that people thought it was "good" enough to dedicate a fandom, nevermind college courses. i liked the show when i was TWELVE, sure, but boy did i grow to hate it as i got older.
so when i went back to watch it now, eleven years after the fact, i did so with mixed emotions. i wanted to recapture the love i had for it when i was a kid, but i knew i was coming back to it with the baggage i've acquired over the years. i was expecting to cringe at the stupid dialogue ("what is your childhood trauma!?"), buffy's annoying talky nature, & xander's unrequited puppy dog love. i was looking forward to spike & oz, but sadly neither appears on disc one.
but to be honest, i didn't flinch even one bit. it sort of worked, in that 90s, overly-talky kind of way (think: dawson's creek). the characters are a little annoying, but only because i really don't find myself able to relate to any of them. & the plot, well, the plot is what made this show good to begin with. disc one alone deals with vampires, a potential apocalypse, a witch, & a giant (substitute teacher-shaped) praying mantis.
i mean, that's a pretty solid first four episodes.
even though i was expecting to re-watch buffy the vampire slayer & see the error of my twelve-year-old ways, my reunion with this show wasn't so negative. nor was it completely positive. i do have to admit that i can see why this show was so popular. it's pretty dark & edgy, but just fun enough to attract teenage girls (& goth boys) of all shapes & sizes. but there's just not enough there to keep me properly engaged for an extended amount of time. it's a semi-fun show, but there's really not much to it past that.
i guess my interests have changed.
i mean, i no longer keep a stake hidden in my bedroom.
it's not that i've stopped believing, i guess maybe now i just feel better prepared to take on the world without supplies.
sadly, i don't really have any interesting points to mention about saved by the bell. thanks to sham & wikipedia, i did learn that it's actually a spin-off/re-packaging of an earlier show called good morning, miss bliss. but that's about it.
i mean, this show's not great. there's almost NO back story (probably due to the whole spin-off thing) & i can't really figure out if any of the characters actually LIKE each other.
but it's all fun & quite enjoyable, as long as you can sort of space out or multi-task while watching it. i like to catch this one on saturday/sunday mornings when i'm hungover & there's nothing else on TV. i even own the high school seasons on DVD, & i admit this isn't the first time i've watched them.
but really, there's not much to this show. perhaps i only like it cos it reminds me of my childhood. i'm not really sure.
it's a good time, definitely, & i do like watching it. but it's honestly no gem.
edit: actually, i did think of one other thing to mention. normally, i can't stand tiffani-amber thiessen, & i would never consider her a "good" actor. but here's something to consider: from saved by the bell to beverly hills: 90210, she seems like a completely different person. in fact, i have trouble believing that kelly & val ARE the same actress. so, my hat is off to you, tiffani. perhaps i underestimated your television abilities.
i'm going to go ahead & steal a gem from a review i once read for this one.
if you don't like my so-called life, then i don't like you. seriously.
premiering four years after beverly hills: 90210 blew away the world by openly discussing topics such as sex, racism, drugs, & rape, & four years before dawson's creek shocked everyone with affairs with teachers & teenage sluts (think about that for a moment...when angela chase was 15, dawson was 11. ELEVEN!), my so-called life certainly lacks the controversial nature of other shows geared toward teenagers in the 90s. i mean, imagine this: angela DOESN'T sleep with jordan when he propositions her. whoa.
but what it lacked in the Controversial Department, it certainly made up for in the Realism Department.
my so-called life is the only (not first, or best, but only) show that accurately depicts teenage emotions & the torment that is high school. naturally, not everyone can relate to angela chase. she's miserable, depressed, EPICALLY unhappy, & it's utterly painful to watch her do anything or say a single word. this was certainly not everyone's high school experience.
BUT IT WAS MINE.
angela chase, you are me. you would have understood how i felt in high school. we could have listened to the cranberries in our rooms TOGETHER. we could have dyed our hair red TOGETHER (& oh, how i ached for her hair when i was 15). we could have giggled & obsessed about jordan catalano TOGETHER (i love how he, like, LEANS). we could have just, you know, like, hung out TOGETHER. we would have found solace in each other's misery.
but alas, the world at large couldn't fully grasp what angela chase was all about (much like how i felt it couldn't understand me when i was 15) & the show was cancelled after only one season. but oh boy, what a doozy of a season.
was my so-called life just too REAL for society? too ahead of it's time? like i said, despite the major gay character & a little adultery, my so-called life isn't terribly controversial. it's not the sex & drugs that got this one cancelled; it's the misery. the world at large simply just did not want to know what it feels like to be an unhappy teenager. it's easy to pretend that your teens are happy & enjoying life. it's much harder to know that they hate everything & would really rather not exist (as angela puts it, "you know what i'd really like? to be put out of my misery."). could society really just not deal with knowing what life was REALLY like for teenagers in the 90s?
let's consider the options. on season one, disc one of my-so called life, rickie is tormented for being bisexual. angela deals with the after effects of a nasty (& untrue) rumour that she slept with jordan. then, she has to deal with him telling her that, because of the rumour, she may as well sleep with him. THEN, she has to deal with him telling her that he doesn't have any actual interest in her at all. (epic). rayanne gets wasted & is escorted home by a police officer. brian (oh brian krakow...jordan may be a fox, but you always won my heart in the end) is continually made fun of, put down, & teased for being a brain. sharon is so angry at angela for dropping their friendship that she won't even set foot in the chase household. NONE OF THESE PEOPLE ARE HAPPY. they are all very, very, very unhappy.
at least in beverly hills: 90210, the characters would eventually learn to turn their smiles upside down by the end of an episode or two (even when faced with drug addictions & rape attempts). on dawson's creek, dawson would over-analyze everything until it didn't seem like such a bad thing anymore & he would figure out a solution to any problem. on my so-called life, however, even lasting ONE day at school was nearly too much for angela chase to bear.
& yes, i think that's a reality that society did not want to face.
which is sad, because really, in angela chase, i've always found a kindred spirit. & that last episode...(is it cheating if i discuss things not on the first disc? ok, probably. so i'll leave it vague)...that last episode man, is heartbreaking. & sadly, i'll never know what happens after that last moment between angela & brian. & that breaks my heart.
i miss angela. i wish that we had been able to have more time together.
instead, i've got to cherish what little time i DO have with her. season one, disc 2? disc 3? disc 4? yes. i salute you, angela chase, for showing the world what being a teenager is REALLY like.
& really, i agree with you, "can't people just cheer on their own? like, to themselves?" the world would be a better place if society had opened their ears to what angela chase had to offer.
to be perfectly honest, & despite what i sometimes pretend in nostalgic conversations about my childhood with friends, i watched very little of dawson's creek when it first aired. in fact, i've maybe only ever seen the first season before. & mostly, it was viewed at my friend courtney's house because my parents thought it was a little too "adult" for thirteen-year-old me.
that being said, i'm surprised by how much of disc one i actually remembered, nearly word for word. i'm not sure why i netflixed it to begin with, but once i put it in my DVD player (DVD player...did i even HAVE one of those in 1998?) i was overwhelmed with memories.
oh yeah, james van der beek CAN'T actually act. & that's riiiiight, joey WAS a major bitch. & michelle williams' clothes really are still THAT bad. oh &, you know what, pacey still is that fucking ADORABLE. (i always was a pacey girl, dawson is too pretentious for me.)
other than that, i admit there's very little to say. i COULD go into a long discussion about how it revolutionized teen television. on the first disc alone, pacey sleeps with his english teacher, mrs. leery cheats on her husband of 20 years, & jen admits that she is not only not a virgin, but a major slut! surprise surprise! or, alternatively, i could mention how, without beverly hills 90210 (my personal favourite), dawson's creek would never have been able to exist.
but really, what's the point?
the truth of the matter is, all of the characters are pretty annoying. i don't like dawson at all, & i perhaps like joey even less. jen is tolerable. pacey is, as always, the shining star of the show. the acting is subpar. the plot is a little melodramatic for my tastes. the dialogue is cringe worthy (not because it's so bad, but because it sounds more like an emerson student than a 15-year-old cape cod high schooler). &, as a 23 year old, i find myself able to relate to very little of the show.
but honestly, none of these things will stop me from acquiring season one, disc two. after all, isn't that how all season one, disc ones should be judged? do these three or four episodes keep my attention enough to make me want to invest more time & energy? do i find myself caring enough about if joey & dawson will ever kiss? or what ends up happening between pacey & the english teacher? or if jen & grams ever find common ground?
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