Post-Guilty Pleasures

I'm too old to care about if I'm supposed to like something or not. Young enough to be enthusiastic.

[postguiltypleasures]

Came across a post that said tv being made today has much more of a point of view/message than tv from the 1990s. I’m not sure if I agree with that, but it made me think that it is once again time for me to post a list of what I am currently watching as ongoing series to let people know how my impression is effected.

On Monday I finished season two of the original run of Twin Peaks. I do intend to continue with Twin Peaks The Return, but I need to watch Fire Walk with Me first, and that might take a week of two.

Last night I finished Hacks, which was great and probably is influencing my impression on television today.

I have yet to finish La legge di Lidia Pöet/The Law According to Lidia Pöet. Sure it’s only six episodes, but the family members with whom I watch it have not been able to sync our schedules enough.

Last week included the fifth season finale of For All Mankind and the premiere of Star City. I have yet to watch a full episode of Star City, but I intend for it to be one of the series I’m currently watching.

Widow’s Bay

That’s it for now. Kind of relieved to have such a short list at the moment. There are other series I’d like to try and catch up on, including some new ones. But I’m going to try and catch up on some movies and wait until finishing at least one of the above mentioned series before that.

[postguiltypleasures]

Remember back in like 2007 when Natalia LaFourcade went to Canada, hooked up with some classical musicians and made an instrumental EP called Las 4 Estaciones del Amor?

I just listened to it for the first time in years. It’s still great.

[artofdoubt]

Deborah and Ava + Ava's hands

[inthedarktrees]

Sheryl Lee | Twin Peaks

[postguiltypleasures]

Nadine Hurley coming out of her teenage delusion was unexpectedly moving. The idea that the choice people made that what was “best for her” was going along with this fantasy was also a way of ignoring someone in real pain and trouble. Waking to an extra layer of isolation.

[postguiltypleasures]

The characters of Audrey and Ben Horne are essentially reset in the post Laura Palmer section of Twin Peaks. (They also endure the terrible "re-writing the American Civil War" plot.)

But I kind of like the “Ben tries to be good and honest, and reveals that he’s Donna Hayward’s biological father causing pain and chaos” plot. It works for me. I wish Donna and Audrey got a chance to talk about it.

So many of my TP wishes/thoughts about what it should have done boil down to more screen time for the teen girls.

[389]

Twin Peaks | S02E17 Wounds & Scars

[postguiltypleasures]

Season 2 has a lot of problems with many dropped plots and not knowing what to do with the original characters after Laura’s murder is solved. But this line hints at what led Audrey to relate to Laura so much despite not being close, (and maybe rubbing each other the wrong way) .

It gets at what made the early episodes so intriguing.

Too bad it’s too little too late.

[postguiltypleasures]

In 1987, on the Dynasty spin off, The Colby's the character of Fallon saw a UFO and then went with it.

In 1990 on General Hospital there was the Casey the extra terrestrial plot.

The second season of Twin Peaks, which aired in 1991 has a plot involving one character's mysterious short term disappearance connecting to another's involvement with the creation of Project Blue Book.

What was going on with the world that led to multiple shows that were apparently soap operas having UFO plots around then?

(I keep referring to Twin Peaks as a soap opera, knowing that a lot of people probably don't like that. But I am under the impression that it was pitched as that. I have a complicated relationship to soaps.)

[postguiltypleasures]

My take on the Shelly Johnson/Gordon Cole plot is "this isn't what she needs!" and also "I don't know what she needs, but if I saw it, I'd recognize it."

[postguiltypleasures]

A reason I’m glad Twin Peaks exists is that it gave us more scenes of Kyle MacLachlan and Jack Nance besides that awkward encounter in Blue Velvet, and whatever happened in Dune 1984. (Which I haven’t seen)

But I also have to say the show dropped the ball by not having Shelly, Donna and Audrey interact regularly before the Miss Twin Peaks plots line. Shelly in particular is so isolated for much of the series.

[postguiltypleasures]

Ted Raimi as a “Heavy Metal Youth” on Twin Peaks! I had no idea he was on this show at all.

This is not the first time I have been distracted by Ted Raimi’s presence. When I watched Candyman 1992 for the first time and he showed up in the prologue as the babysitter’s bad-boy boyfriend I was like “that’s not a bad-boy, that’s Ted Raimi!”

[isbtwneotsfbous]

HELP, she was so excited when she started calling 😫

[gotinterest]

Gonna be honest a lot of people deep down view cheating as worse than abuse which is why so many people view downright controlling and manipulative behavior in a relationship as 100% permissible so long as that behavior is centered around either preventing or discovering cheating.

[gelphienation]

I think ariana should be able to shoot one Arianator a day with no consequences. And if she doesn’t want to I’ll do it

[postguiltypleasures]

Imagine having the audacity to tell someone that they are not being true to their authentic” selves?

Someone you don’t even know personally?

And to claim that you are speaking for a whole group of people?

I don’t publicly say how much I hate the way the word “authentic” and its derivatives in these contexts. About ten years ago I thought we, as a society, had gotten to an understanding that there is no such thing. Every time I see otherwise I’m disappointed that we have not.

[postguiltypleasures]

I’m excited to see how different Soviet history is in this timeline, but as this is fictional television made for western audiences, I feel I’m setting myself up for disappointment. Like, I’m thinking huge differences like Trotsky winning the battle to be Lenin’s successor, or at least a much less murderous paranoid Stalin. A less disastrous casualty amount in WW2. But I doubt they would do anything that departs that much from our reality.

[postguiltypleasures]

I should mention that all my Soviet alternative time posts are inspired by having recently read Júlia Ioffe’s Motherland: A Feminist History of Modern Russia from Revolution to Autocracy. (Highly recommend reading this.) I know there must be a lot that is outside of that book’s account, and my imperfect memory of that.

Just trying to acknowledge my limits.

[postguiltypleasures]

I knew they would find signs of extra terrestrial life this season, but part of me is intrigued by the idea of a series that involves space travel, where they keep looking for signs of it and never find it.

But I guess the better part of three seasons of For All Mankind of this is as much as I’ll get here.

[postguiltypleasures]

I’m excited to see how different Soviet history is in this timeline, but as this is fictional television made for western audiences, I feel I’m setting myself up for disappointment. Like, I’m thinking huge differences like Trotsky winning the battle to be Lenin’s successor, or at least a much less murderous paranoiac Stalin. A less disastrous casualty amount in WW2. But I doubt they would do anything that departs that much from our reality.