Yet more DS

[icepixie]

I totally missed the eclipse last night. It was cloudy up until the point where there was only the tiniest bit of shadow left on the face of the moon. Sigh.

- I didn't mention this in my brief post about it, but David Marciano is really amazing in "Juliet Is Bleeding." That last scene, where he's talking to Fraser about dancing with Irene in PE class, and saying "Everything's gonna be okay," just kills me.

- OMG, Dief's nightmare in "The Edge"? It's right up there for "funniest moment of the series."

- Speaking of that episode...whoa, it's Fraser actually doing work for the RCMP instead of the Chicago PD. How novel.

- I really liked the Mexican member of the NAFTA security team, Anita Cortez, as well. I wish she'd been more than just a one-time character.

- Paul Gross makes a distressingly feminine woman. I have no idea what the plot of "Some Like It Red" concerned; I was too busy either laughing at or being freaked out by "Miss Fraser."

- I loved the drug lord debating grammar with oh-so-grammatically-perfect Fraser in "White Men Can't Jump to Conclusions." Ah, the confusion that can spring from hearing "Mountie" as "mountee"...

- The whole "I've tried to do as you instructed and forget the incident" / "And have you succeeded?" / [flashback, more flashback, really long flashback] / "...no" scene in "Red, White or Blue" was so nicely done. Paul Gross in particular managed to strike just the right balance between sadness and sweetness. It was really quite touching. I think he beats David Duchovny at "kicked puppy."

- Speaking of puppies: awww, puppy Dief!

- "He called me darling again." Camilla Scott delivered this line so perfectly. Aaaand Thatcher's out for blood.

- Of course Fraser and Thatcher know semaphore. Naturally.

- Meg spelling her fist into Ford's face cracked me up a whole lot. Her explaining it as a spelling mistake was also hilarious.

- Ray: What did she say?
Ben: She called me a moron.
Ray: She's a very perceptive woman.
HA!

- The last semaphore conversation was squeeful like whoa. Hee, "red suits you"! Look at that fabulous smile she has in response. And then Ray asks what that was all about, and Benny's all, "Uh...nothing...nothing at all..." Heh. Ray totally grilled him for information after this episode.

- Well, "Flashback" was a complete waste of time. Although I did like the rather desperate inflection Meg put on "You must!" when she was trying to see if he remembered the train incident. Pretty big change from "forget it ever happened," eh? ;)

Comments

[icepixie]

Dude. Yes. I grant you that he doesn't have the walk right, but I saw a screencap from this episode before I'd heard of what it was about, and thought, "Who's the girl? And why is she wearing fake hair?"

[rowdycamels.livejournal.com]

Foolish fool!

BUT. I told Sarah she needed to watch more (we just finished SLIR), and she said she doubted she'd enjoy it because "surely they can't all be that good." So... consider that a challenge. Tell me what we should watch next to ensure that Sarah gets addicted. Muahahahahhaha!

[icepixie]

Mwahahahaha. Okay. I think you definitely need to show her "The Man Who Knew Too Little." I giggled all the way through it. The second part of "Mounty on the Bounty" is awesome like an awesomely awesome thing (not to mention funny as hell), but part one is kind of slow, particularly if you've never seen RayK before, so you may wish to wait on that for a little bit. (It was my third episode and I loved it, but I already knew I was addicted to the show by then, so...)

"The Gift of the Wheelman" is where Bob Fraser's ghost first shows up, and it does a really nice balancing act between comedy, drama, and a certain amount of Christmassy spirit. It's not as ridiculous as the others you've watched, but it makes up for it with a really good story. (And it also shows that the production designers are pretty awesome. There's a car chase set to Sarah McLachlan's "Steaming," and...you know, I'm pretty meh about car chases, but this one is actually gorgeous.)

"The Edge" is a good choice as well. Dief's nightmare is probably the funniest single moment of the series, and the episode is a pretty good look at Fraser's psyche. Oh, and "The Wild Bunch" is a must if she likes Dief. It's funny, at at the same time heartbreaking. "We Are the Eggmen" is a nice Thatcher episode, and has a fairly high ridiculousness quotient. "A Hawk and a Handsaw" is also good, and Fraser is at his most Geoffrey-like here. Of course, he's undercover in a mental institution and quoting Hamlet, so, you know.

I think the best order might be TMWKTL, Wheelman, MOTB, and Handsaw, and then TWB, WATE, and The Edge in any order. Oh, and probably the two-hour pilot should go in there somewhere as well.

If she professes an interest in RayV and likes the dramatic aspects of the show, follow up with "The Deal" and "Juliet Is Bleeding" (they're loosely related, both concerning the same mob family behind the Vecchios' neighborhood). Be prepared to cry starting halfway through JIB. It is so very sad, and David Marciano is incredible in it.

Do NOT show her "Victoria's Secret" or the followup, "Letting Go," until she's well and truly hooked, because they're traumatizing enough that they probably scare away any newbie that runs across them. Besides, you don't get the full masochistic catharsis unless you know Fraser and RayV pretty well. These are trauma on the level of, say, Wonderfalls's "Lying Pig" and "Caged Bird." Only worse. Much, much worse. Yeah. I watched it last week, and this morning when I was grabbing books patrons had requested and saw the name "Victoria," I still twitched rather badly. It's a masterfully written, shot, and acted set of episodes--probably the best of the series--but thing is that they all worked together to cause you pain. *shudders* (Fraser cries in this one. Fraser. Cries. You know it's gotta be painful.)

Anyway. Once you've done those, you don't really need individual recs. On the whole, the first half of season one is not as good as the rest of the series. They don't really hit their stride until "Wheelman," but after that about 3/4 of the eps (at least that I've seen) are golden.

[rowdycamels.livejournal.com]

...

You've just created a dS SYLLABUS. I'm not sure whether to grovel or run away screaming.

Although your comment did appear just as I was thinking, "hmmm, I should dl something while I'm fixing dinner...."

I'll go for TMWKTL for starters, thanks. : D

[icepixie]

You've just created a dS SYLLABUS. I'm not sure whether to grovel or run away screaming.

I'm not the fandom addiction fairy for nothing, you know. I work hard at this sort of thing. (Or perhaps its just my innate tendency towards information organization coming to the fore.)

Mwahaha. You're welcome.