Art Imitating Life, or Why I'm Dreading Tomorrow

As some of you may know, I have three kids in various stages of teen- and tween-hood. And one of the shows they have watched with varying degrees of consistency is Glee.

(Last season was pretty much a miss to the Davies family, but prior to that, it was must see TV for several of us.)

Yes, I count myself among the Glee-watchers. I started watching to have something to do with my kids, but ended up sticking around for the songs and the storylines. Sometimes we loved it, sometimes we hate-watched, but either way, we watched.

And if every episode there was at least one action or decision by a main character that ended up in a "THIS IS WHY YOU SHOULD NEVER DO THAT" conversation with my kids, well, I took it as a teaching moment.

But last summer, real life intruded on the little microcosm that is Glee, when actor Cory Monteith was found dead in a Vancouver hotel, a death that was tied to drug and alcohol abuse. My kids were saddened but not distraught, and sadly, it was another teaching moment for our family - about how hard addiction can be to beat, and how even people with advantages and resources can get caught in that downward spiral.

Which brings us to tomorrow. The show will be airing its tribute episode, saying goodbye to both Cory and the character he played, Finn. Midkid asked on the way to soccer, "What happened to Finn? Have they announced how he died?"

As far as I know, they haven't. And I'm a little wary of watching the episode, for several reasons. Trepidation over how they'll walk the fine line between grieving for a character and castmate, and putting him up on a pedestal. Concern that the 'cause of death' will be too close to how he really died - or not close at all. And not sure how I'll make it through the episode without a box of kleenex, for me and my kids.

But we'll be there, nonetheless, hoping that this episode, more than any other, the creative team gets it right.

Not An Early Adopter

So a few minutes ago, I finished watching Firefly.

For the first time.

Yes, I know, the show went off the air over a decade ago. Yes, my friends and colleagues and editor had been bugging me to watch it for almost that long. Yes, I loved it as much as they all insisted I would.

But that's me. I'm not, generally speaking, an early adopter.

Sometimes, I wish I was more in tune with current pop culture, and caught up on stuff like this as it happens. There's something a little sad about watching something so awesome when no one else is watching at the same time. (I do so love Twitter for that reason - the few shows I do watch in first run are a blast to chat about in real time with other fans!)

But yes, Firefly. I'm outraged in retrospect by the untimely cancellation of this amazing show, I'm a little bit in love with pretty much every single character, and my not-so-secret crush on Nathan Fillion continues unabated.

So how about you? Do you watch stuff in the first flush of popularity, or do you catch on after the fact? And what other decade-old shows do you recommend I catch up on next?

Will They Or Won't They?

One of the big complaints people seem to have about TV relationships is that the chemistry is "ruined" when the couple actually gets together. Moonlighting is often cited as an example - once Dave and Maddie hooked up, the delicious sexual tension between the two of them disappeared.

And yes, I can name shows where bringing the two characters together takes away something special about them, changing the dynamic of the show for the worse.

But it can be done right, as well. One of my favorite pairings on TV was Chandler and Monica on Friends. Their hook up in London, though shocking when it happened, really did build on the friendship they'd had all along. And the "who knows?" storyline that wove through the first half of that season was delicious.


The best part of their romance, in my mind, was how it didn't change who they were at the core. Monica was still Monica, Chandler still Chandler, and their foibles and issues complemented each other in a way that made their relationship just work.

I'm feeling the same way about Castle and Beckett this season on Castle. Though I'm a latecomer to the show, I love the dynamic between those two, and I think the writers are hitting all the right notes with their blossoming relationship. Even though they're together, there's still enough sexual tension to keep the connection humming for the viewer.

So despite the "Moonlighting Curse", I think it's definitely possible to bring two characters together without destroying the delicious tension between them - and without losing the viewers' interest. And on the flip side of the coin, there's only so many obstacles a writing team can throw up between two characters before the audience gives up altogether.

It's a tightrope, to be sure, but it can be done right. Who are your favorite couples on TV, together or apart? And what makes a "connection" work for you on a show?

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My new TV love: NCIS

I'm a huge fan of police procedurals, that lovely acronym soup of SVU, CSI, and now, NCIS. At first, I wasn't big on the dynamic between Gibbs, McGee, Ziva, and DiNozzo, but they grew on me--quickly and without fail, like a fungus. A really expensive lovely truffle fungus.

What pulled me through until that point, however, was Pauley Perrette. Her character, Abby, is the NCIS lab tech-science goddess. And she. Is. Awesome! The contrast between her bad-ass punk-goth look and her sweet, nerdy side is so fun to watch! Oh... and her farting hippo stuffed animal. Too funny for words. Yes, I am juvenile.To give you a sense of her character, which I *hope* is a reflection of Pauley as a person, more pictures are in order.


Have I mentioned that she likes wearing collars? This appeals to the BDSM author in me--I'd love to write a character like Abby!

Abby and Gibbs, the leader of their NCIS team.

So tell me: Are you a fan? Or is there another show that just does it for you--investigative or otherwise?

Strange and Amazing

So, a week and a half ago, I got a phone call.

Not just any phone call. No, when the phone rang, I had four recording devices and a friend to run them sitting on the couch next to me. Taking a deep breath, I answered.

"Hi Kate," he said. "This is Eric."

"Eric" would be Eric Sheffer Stevens, who played Dr. Reid Oliver on As The World Turns, and my current favorite actor. And through a bizarre and can't-wrap-my-head-around-it series of events, I landed an interview with him for my blog.

Now, I'm not a reporter. I don't exactly have the platform for an interview with one of the hottest discoveries in daytime television in 2010. And it certainly isn't a logical choice for an interview venue. But with some nudging from a friend, I wrote up an interview request and sent it in anyway, figuring what did I have to lose? The worst he could do was say no, or just ignore it.

Instead, I got a yes, which pretty much blew my mind. Because now I had to COME UP WITH QUESTIONS. And actually HAVE A CONVERSATION WITH HIM. And, of course, keep it under wraps just in case it fell through.

But it didn't. Several weeks passed as schedules were compared and he finished up a project he'd been working on, but I finally got an email saying, how about tomorrow?

It was a great conversation, the results of which have been going up this week on my personal blog. We chatted about the creative process, why he'd say no to a part, what's next on the horizon for him. He even answered questions my kids had begged me to ask.

All in all, he's a great, down-to-earth, really nice guy. And I got a great series of posts for my blog. And I've learned the benefit of going ahead and asking anyway, even if it's the most ridiculously improbable idea around.

Because you know what? Sometimes, the answer is yes.

Are You Spoil(er)ed?

I have a love/hate relationship with spoilers.

Up until a year ago, I was an avoid-at-all-costs type of person, someone who'd go see a movie without reading reviews because I didn't want to accidentally find out the ending, who couldn't comprehend how someone could read the last page of the book first. I wanted the discovery, the real-time experience of seeing/reading/hearing something for the first time without prior knowledge.

Then Torchwood season 3 came along. I was absolutely pumped for it - I read the articles, I lurked on message boards, I speculated about the storyline. But as soon as it was released in the UK, I stayed away from any and all discussion of the show. The US broadcast was three weeks after the UK broadcast, and I didn't want to know what was going to happen before I could see it for myself.

But an innocuous post on a blog, purportedly about the radio plays that were running at the same time, blew my happy little bubble to shreds.

Someone on the blog posted a major spoiler, the death of my favorite character.

I clicked out of the site as fast as humanly possible, but the damage was done. I fought with myself for a couple of days, but finally went to IMDB to check, and sure enough, the actor had only four episodes (out of five) listed on his vitae.

I was crushed. I watched the show, but with an aching heart as I anticipated his demise with each episode that aired. And when it did finally happen - I was gutted.

So you'd think I'd go back to avoiding spoilers even more after that, right?

You'd be wrong.

I've become a total spoiler hound, anxiously awaiting each week's posting on the message boards for my favorite shows. I read the spoilers to reassure myself that things are going to turn out the way I want them to, or to prepare myself for situations that won't go the way I hoped.

But sometimes, as with the Torchwood spoiler, I wish I could rewind and erase what I've just found out.

For the past few days, my Twitter feed has been blowing up with news of another character death - again, one of my favorites, and half of a pairing that I was hoping against hope would end up together at the end of the show. Now, however, with this news, I'm facing the prospect of watching another favorite die, and spending the next three months knowing everything that happens on the show will end with this result.

It's not official, of course; I can't imagine the powers that be wanted to have details of how this storyline ends being blabbed all over the internet three months before the show goes off the air. There could very well have been multiple endings filmed, or dummy scripts created, in an attempt to keep the true conclusion under wraps. But signs do seem to be pointing in that direction.

So now I have to make a decision. Do I keep watching, with this knowledge in the back of my head, coloring every interaction I see between this character and the people around him? Or do I stop now, to avoid another Torchwood situation?

I still haven't decided. And as much as I wish I didn't know this particular rumor, I know I'll be back reading the spoilers tomorrow, if only in the hopes that I may find out the rumor isn't true!

So how about you? Do you read spoilers? Are you a last-page-of-the-book reader, or do you want the surprise of discovery?

OTP vs New Romance - What Do Writers Owe?

There's a storm brewing in my newest fandom, and it's fixing to be a doozy.

See, on As The World Turns, Luke has a new love interest, and it's sending some fans into a rage.

If you're not familiar with the background on Luke and ATWT, here it is in a nutshell. Three years or so ago, Luke fell for a supposedly straight co-worker, Noah. Turns out Noah was in the closet, and fell for Luke as well. They became the American soap opera world's first gay supercouple, spawning nicknames (Nuke), fan clubs, even fan events as far away as Europe. Even through the most ridiculous of storylines, fans stuck with them. They survived the Kissing Ban (the network refused to allow them to kiss onscreen for several months after their first two kisses, leading at least one website to put up a countdown clock), the green card marriage to an Iraqi woman, the homicidal father, the college prof who theoretically had a thing for Noah. (Here, again, the censors kept a tight rein on the storyline, causing it to be far more of a whimper than a bang.)

But Noah was blinded in a fireworks accident (and yes, I know how this sounds, as I type it. It *is* a soap, after all), and decided he needed a break from his relationship with Luke, to try to stand on his own two feet. They haven't been a couple for quite a while.

In the meantime, Luke has started falling for snarky, antisocial neurosurgeon Reid Oliver (I know! Give me a break. It's a soap!), and they've even shared a couple of kisses.

To the hardcore Nuke fans, this is a declaration of war.

Me? I'm not an early adopter by any means. I started watching this storyline just a month or so ago (catching up thanks to the magic of YouTube), and I'm a huge Reid fangirl. He's brusque, bordering on rude, and has a snappy comeback to almost any situation. He's also hiding a tender side that really humanizes him.

And the actor who plays him, Eric Sheffer Stevens, is fantastic.

I'm not the only one who's taken notice. The internet is buzzing with fanlove for Dr. Oliver, and the Luke/Reid pairing is gaining a lot of attention.

Me? I'm rooting for Luke to get together with Reid. He's refreshingly honest, he doesn't play games, and he makes Luke act like an adult.

To Nukies, though, that's sacrilege. Luke and Noah belong together because they're OTP (One True Pairing). One phrase I've seen more than once is that the writers owe it to them.

Part of the urgency and backlash, I think, is due to the fact that the show will be ending in September after 54 years on the air. (I said I wasn't an early adopter, didn't I?) Whatever decision the writers make now can't be taken back in the future. Whoever Luke ends up with - or if he ends up with nobody - will be the end of the road.

Maybe I'd have more invested in the Nuke pairing if I'd watched from the start of their storyline. Even then, though, I have to disagree with those who feel entitled to the ending they want, just because they've been fans for so long.

I don't think the writers owe anyone anything, other than a compelling storyline, well-written, with opportunities for all three actors to shine. At the end of the day, it's the writers' story to tell, and the actors' job to sell it.

So what do you think? Is there an obligation on the part of writers to fulfill fan expectations? What if the audience is divided? And what about in books? Do you feel disappointed if an author goes in a direction you hadn't expected or wanted?