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Random Musings
1. After all the BCS Bowls, I am very tired. These were some great games, but they really need to go back to having them on New Year's. I really didn't relish dragging my carcass into work having stayed up past 1 AM night after night.
2. Jesus is Jewish, right? Aren't there any stories about his Bar-Mitzvah? I hadn't thought about it until today, but now that I have, I really gotta know. What was His torah portion? Has somebody already done a "The Bar-Mitzvah of the Christ" or do I have to call up Mel?
3. Scrubs is back on, and it seems to have picked up nicely. They even did a nice bit tonight that did actually humanize Kelso just a little bit. Nice portrayal of the challenge of being in a position to have to make life and death decisions, when you have limited resources. While I do like the idea that we won't have to make compromises - that there is always a right and wrong way... I'm more interested by scarcities. By cases where there really is no obvious right choice. Stories where the question is, how do you make the hard choice. Not making the hard choice because it's there to do or to prove some point about yourself (see Wesley Windham-Price) but because circumstances genuinely require it. And it was great, because Dr. Bob Kelso is a character that no one is going to woobify or romanticize, as happens when the bastard in question is a self-pitying, handsome younger man. We see the glimmer under Kelso, that maybe he does have a heart and he does care. That he's not just a guy who runs a hospital - that he's a Doctor with some of the virtues that the profession can embody. But he's still Bob Kelso, and this illumination doesn't somehow magically excuse what he's been shown to be over the past five seasons. (And flashbacks indicating what he's been throughout his career.)
4. Continuing from above. Joss Whedon is creative and very clever. Bill Lawrence is better.
2. Jesus is Jewish, right? Aren't there any stories about his Bar-Mitzvah? I hadn't thought about it until today, but now that I have, I really gotta know. What was His torah portion? Has somebody already done a "The Bar-Mitzvah of the Christ" or do I have to call up Mel?
3. Scrubs is back on, and it seems to have picked up nicely. They even did a nice bit tonight that did actually humanize Kelso just a little bit. Nice portrayal of the challenge of being in a position to have to make life and death decisions, when you have limited resources. While I do like the idea that we won't have to make compromises - that there is always a right and wrong way... I'm more interested by scarcities. By cases where there really is no obvious right choice. Stories where the question is, how do you make the hard choice. Not making the hard choice because it's there to do or to prove some point about yourself (see Wesley Windham-Price) but because circumstances genuinely require it. And it was great, because Dr. Bob Kelso is a character that no one is going to woobify or romanticize, as happens when the bastard in question is a self-pitying, handsome younger man. We see the glimmer under Kelso, that maybe he does have a heart and he does care. That he's not just a guy who runs a hospital - that he's a Doctor with some of the virtues that the profession can embody. But he's still Bob Kelso, and this illumination doesn't somehow magically excuse what he's been shown to be over the past five seasons. (And flashbacks indicating what he's been throughout his career.)
4. Continuing from above. Joss Whedon is creative and very clever. Bill Lawrence is better.
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Oh well. I'm sure there's still got to be some comedy gold to be mined from the concept.
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Okay, having visions of . . . Mel haunting the Bible section of fanfiction.net.
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But a formal Bar Mitzvah started in the middle ages. Originally, as soon as you could read, you started studying Torah.
Jesus fanfic, what a concept. And if there's slash JC fic out ther, I don't want to know. I have minimal standards, but I do have them.
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You really are evil.
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Scrubs
Two new Scrubs episodes every Tuesday? My brain is about to explode. Good lord, how many classic bits of comedy can you stuff into one hour?
Turkiot; "hard cider"; dolphin suit; idiot handle; jiggly ball; kung fu/betrayal five; Safety Dance; Sacred Fart; Mr. Countertop (and the Yeast Infection in room 403); "there's screaming in my head"; "are they laughing at the word 'duty'?"; banana and nuts...
I could go on forever.
They didn't cop out with Kelso. Thought he'd sneak underprivileged patient into the treatment program. The brutality of Kelso's darwinian choice was startling, but realistic.
Re: Scrubs
And the interesting thing with Kelso, though, is how it's pointed out that picking the rich guy also means neo-natal care. But without any real out of the way effort to soften the character.
Now, some of this is because Lawrence doesn't need you to like Kelso. But in general, the show doesn't seem to have the drive that, if it's going to focus on a character, it "needs" you to like that character. That said, there are still constraints because the likeability of JD or Cox has an impact in ratings and the shows viability. But, point being, beyond what's needed to keep a show on the air, it doesn't seem to have a need for "please you have to like me" that some shows can fall prey to...
Re: Scrubs
Even though I don't like Arrested Development too much (if the Bluths are going to be that shallow, the satire should be sharper), Mitchell Hurwitz went his own way with the characters, and I admire his determination to stick to his guns.
But I agree--Lawrence doesn't feel the need to make you unconditionally love his doctors. JD is still a self-involved manchild, Turk is self-confident to the point of obnoxiousness, Elliot is a neurotic mess, Carla has a touch too much den mother in her, and both Cox and Kelso are bastards of differing types. (I love 'em all anyway, though--maybe another reason why I prefer Scrubs to AD.)
Re: Scrubs
Heh. This is quite true. One of the funny things, in comparing AD and Scrubs, is how to me anyway, Scrubs doesn't really have "Fandom". Or at least, not that I'm exposed to it. I guess it may come down to stylistic things. I do like a show that does its thing with, IMO, telling me I'm supposed to care about one thing or another... Which is not as condusive to feeding a fandom as more conventional melodrama would be.