Remember at early Supernatural conventions when Jared Padalecki's spoiler filter adorably/annoyingly kept failing? It's happened again.

( Look away if you don't want spoilers for Supernatural Season 13. Like, seriously. )

I like convention panels, but I do miss the seemingly endless, excruciating wait between seasons to see what will happen. Those months were filled with fan-theories being written in LiveJournals and developed in the comments, or through fanfic set in possible futures for the series.

Then again, those were the days when Supernatural retained some textual intergrity. Things (some, not all) written in one season were often remembered and elaborated upon a couple seasons later. Now, the show is more like bingo, where a randomized writing-room machine generates a number that the writers mark, sometimes sloppily, on a pre-printed card. Some seasons string together enough of a storyline to call BINGO! Others, not so much.

A spoiler drop so soon after the season finale hedges the most fun fandom has had for a while. The Season 12 finale set up some exciting possibilities for Season 13 -- but we are reminded of the chances of inconclusive bingo.

I used to link to my LJ photo gallery. Of course, I don't want to do that now.

What sites do you use to host images?

Yesterday, kadymae and I co-moderated a panel about live action adaptations of comic books on TV, which is a huge trend that shows no sign of slowing.

All four major English-language networks are airing or have commissioned comic book shows. Cable, Netflix and even the Playstation Network are developing comic book shows.

We looked at a list of current and upcoming live-action shows based on comics:
http://www.newsarama.com/22940-as-seen-on-tv-the-full-list-of-live-action-comic-book-tv-shows-on-the-air-or-in-development.html

and a liist of all TV shows based based on comic books:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_television_programs_based_on_comics

We found many differences between earlier TV shows, which are more serialized and produced by people who are producing comics today, have previously worked in the comics industry, or are longtime fans of comics and familiar with the canon.

Some points that were raised:

• As the Comics Code Authority loses its cachet, changes in what comics can show reflected in what TV can show.
  
• The Feels: you used to watch TV for episodic plot, and movies for emotional resonance, but now TV shows convey that sense of intimacy
  
• The technology has improved for special effects and costumes.
  
• New shows produced from a place of love and respect for the material, not from a place that is just using the brand.
  
• Shows are remixing the source material and they are conscious that audiences are aware of the remixing.
  
• This remixing adds a Shakespearan dimensionality to the shows: we're watching how these characters are being interpreted by this particular production.
  
• There are now shared universes on TV and also with movies, whereas older shows were stand-alone.
  
• There is a seriousness to the characters, as we take comics seriously -- in contrast to campier interpretations in the past.
  
• Television producers are now expanding out to feature lesser known characters, like Arrow and Agent Carter.
  
• Agent Carter was great at showing attitudes to women in the 1940s, but it missed out on commenting on the whiteness of the office.
  
• Comics and shows based on them can help us look at things that make us uncomfortable, such as sexism and the long-term effects of PTSD.
  
• You get families on TV, much more than in the comics.
  
• You now see consequences of actions, even several seasons from the initial incident.
  
• There are a lot of ensemble shows.
  
• Some stories deal with how we relate to veterans: we say they're heroes, but we ignore them.
  
• Heroes can be something other than purely good. Sometimes they're rat bastards, creating complexity in the characterization.
  
• There is more diversity now.
  
• Diggle is good with being Diggle, wasn't impressed with being Arrow
  Defenders will be diverse and slashy

Hopes for the future

Hoping they don't all copy each other.

Hoping they continue to reflect the diversity source material.

Hoping the Netflix series are more arc-oriented.

Hoping the shows on cable, Netflix and smaller networks can survive because they don't need huge Nielsen numbers.

Extra!

kadymae wore a t-shirt that says "I read banned comics," which is from the Comic Book Legal Defence Fund. For information about the CBLDF banned comics, visit:
http://cbldf.org/

I just finished reading what’s described by Daily Script as the final network draft of Supernatural’s pilot episode (http://www.dailyscript.com/scripts/Supernatural-1.pdf).

Chunks of it made it to the screen: Mary's discovery of the man in the nursery, dialogue between Sam and Dean when they reunite, when they hit the road and when they wrap the case.

But there are major differences, too. The ones that stood out for me:

1) In the opening flashback, blood drips on a Sesame Street blanket, not on baby Sam directly. The aired version amplifies the irony and the horror of a murdered mother's blood dripping on her smiling, happy baby. Having the blood touch Sammy directly opens up the reading that Sam was infected by that blood. It is also an extention of the blood = infection = AIDS metaphor that dominated horror in the 1980s and 1990s.

2) Sam takes more of the positive action (finding things on the Internet, persuading people to cooperate, deducing things about the case, scamming his way to see a prisoner in a scene that did not make it to the aired pilot). So all the "action" is of the intellectual kind. Yet, he doesn't actually solve the case. Constance's entire backstory is told to him.

3) While Sam's intellectual skills are shown, Dean's physical prowess is only hinted at. This is the reverse of what most shows do: it's easier to show badass punching than badass research. At one point, he only acts when Sam tells him what to do, but Sam only knows what Dean should do because someone told Sam. Passivity begat passivity! Also less dynamic was the scene where Dean reunites with Sam. There is no fight. The fight showed both boys' prowess and introduced Dean as a man of action.

4) Sam and Jessica are just dating, not living together. Their negotiation about how to take the next step (meeting her parents) overburdened the script. The decision to show Sam and Jessica together in the apartment they shared created a parallel to John and Mary's home. Sam is shown to be making a family of his own. So the episode began with the loving, protective Winchester family, then the loving soon-to-be Winchester-Moore family, then questioned John's decisions as a father, then introduced Constance as an example of a protective parent who went overboard. As a result of her somewhat justified obsession, she physicall killed her children. As a result of his somewhat justified obsession, John was stifling his children.

5) Constance's interactions with the first victim in the episode and with Sam in the car later on are very close to what aired. However, her entire backstory is different. It is not tied to any specific myth or urban legend, although at one point Sam says there are a lot of legends about ghost hitchhikers. Because her actions aren't tied to any particular myth, she is like a character from Criminal Minds, a psychopath whose story doesn't have a lot to say about anything else. (Her story could have been tied to LIzzie Borden, though.) Giving Constance a backstory rooted in myth reinforces the show's premise. It also reinforces the underlying theme of what parents will do, however twisted, to protect their children.

Obviously, I'm biased because I've seen the pilot many times, and I've seen the stories that were developed from details in it. But I do think all the changes made the script better. They made the characters more active. They introduced additional layers of story. They drew direct connections between the Winchester family melodrama and mythic stories. This allowed Supernatural to use the procedural format, but to transcend procedural stories. It was the beginning of the epic story of Sam and Dean Winchester.

I loved Jupiter Ascending! It's a science fiction/fairy tale mash-up. I wrote about it in the Sequential Tart article that kadymae mentions here:

Originally posted by kadymae at Jupiter Ascending

Yes, this.

The most common complaints I've heard about Facebook over the years were about the lack of straightforward privacy settings and poor audience selection options. LiveJournal has had good solutions for years.

Meanwhile, Ello is barely usable right now. It has zero privacy settings and doesn't actually seem to be conceived to be a Facebook replacement. For now, Ello is more like Tumblr with no features.

Originally posted by fengi at Serious Suggestion: instead of chasing Ello, why not push LJ?

I'm going to go all pitchman/cheerleader for a moment:

Instead of joining the stampede to half-baked ello, let's encourage people to join the Livejournal. It's far from perfect, but it's more viable than most other options.

It has the features ello testers and disgruntled Facebook users want now. After 15 years of experience, it has slowly learned from drama and errors. It survived the original dot bust and seems ready for the next one.

The free-to-paid membership model has provided ad-free, adult-friendly options for a decade plus, something earnest manifestos usually don't (see tumblr's broken promise).

So why deal with more inflated startup promises and fumbling? Say goodbye to Facebook and hello to Livejournal -- a customizable global social network that doesn't require real names and provides an easy, logical way to avoid ads. [Forgive me for the infomercial language.]

As a longtime user and occasionally harsh critic, I think LJ is flawed but less adversarial and predatory towards users than Facebook, Google and others. Yes, it has an "old meme" image and notorious past service dramas, but in the long term it's become a solid product.

It's a viable alternative to Facebook which is ready to serve users immediately. Click here for their new promotional video, which you can post to Facebook.

""Orphan Black" Conversation w/ Cast & Creators - Nerd HQ (2013) HD - Tatiana Maslany" (Watch on YouTube)

--------------------------------------------
*Recently when an error appeared to override my preferred friends display, a complaint ticket received a polite response and a fix in less than 24 hours - from what appeared to be an actual human. Even in the worst days of LJ, my tickets were handled in a relatively coherent and timely fashioned compared with the inscrutable silence of bigger networks.

Yesterday was a brutal news day: Harold Ramis, Norman Yates and a local fancy stationery shop, Notables, all gone or going. Harold Ramis has influenced taste in comedy and views about TV since SCTV. I see Norman Yates’s grand painting on campus every day. So many of my ideas and so many gifts I’ve given were put into notebooks and gift packages from Notables.

Notables’ announcement:
http://notables.ca/2014/02/moving-on/

Harold Ramis on the metaphors different people find in Groundhog Day:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkEUpymTanA&feature=player_embedded

Norman Yates remembered by the University of Alberta:
https://news.ualberta.ca/newsarticles/2014/february/education-mural-a-fitting-monument-to-norman-yates

Many moons ago, I did a massive cover feature on Norman Yates for the Edmonton Bullet. I’ll try to post that in the next couple of days.

Faith Erin Hicks understands.

I watched Fast Five while working tonight. They loved each other so much but it could never be because Dom lived OUTSIDE THE LAW

…. might be working a bit much lately.

Source: Faith Erin Hicks's Tumblr

Warning: some gory scenes.

Some spoiler free thoughts:

I'm living in the midst of a deadly outbreak of H1N1 (there is also one case of H5N1, the first case of bird flu in North America) and a controversy over whether immunization for health care workers should be mandatory.

So for me, the most chilling scene in the new Syfy show Helix was Billy Campbell's speech about how pathogens can be unwittingly transmitted from individuals to health care workers to the general population. That's the pattern SARS took in Toronto; it's the pattern everyone wants to avoid now.

Helix isn't primarily commenting on specific health care issues. Its canvas is larger, and does a good job of converting societal and personal fears of pathogens, advanced technology, corporations and mortality into horror/sci-fi scares.

Campbell and co-star Kyra Zagorsky are excellent, and the remainder of cast is very good. Hopefully, they'll all get better dialogue in future episodes.

There are three women in principal roles -- Zagorsky, Jordan Haynes and Catherine Lemieux, who all play scientists (go geek girls!) -- which is great. I only ask that the show be less self-conscious about that and let the characters be characters, not merely tokens. Two of the women are vying for the attention of the male lead; at one point, the greater-than-size-2 woman calls attention to her own weight for no reason.

And maybe the inscrutable villainous Asian character won't always be inscrutable and villainous?