Yeah, they drop in the occasional coming Apocalypse episode, but in the past I've preferred the non-arc DZ episodes better. It does seem to be meandering more than The 4400. (Both shows have their season finales tomorrow night.)

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Mind-blowingly brilliant Dead Zone vid from the Vividcon: [link] With the exception of Lum's "Scooby Road", I thought that was possibly the best vid of the con. It makes me wish the show were as good as the vid makes it look like.

I haven't watched most episodes this season--one I did watch was godawful (something about John and Sarah tracking down a musician from their youth or something. The coming apocalypse storyline in S2 was genuinely compelling. I wish they'd followed that momentum.

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I grew to hate the apocalypse. John was too shrill, and the politician too slickly untouchable.

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I grew to hate the apocalypse.

I get that. The story line got annoying when it went nowhere. I thought the bit with the disfigured guy with the cane was promising, but I gather it didn't get much elaborated this season; more's the pity.

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I thought we were calling him J. Weewee now?

I'm still waiting for someone else to add "j weewee" as a Live Journal interest.

I think he just changed it to Wee, to cut Diddy off at the syllable.

He'll always be j weewee to me.

But for me Illyria was like having the pointlessness of Fred plus a lot of bad sci-fi "what is this thing you call 'love'?" cliches. So it wasn't much of an improvement.

Oh, yeah. I had my Fred moments--moments where I'd start to think I was finally seeing what so many people saw in her, but those moments were always pretty fleeting. One of my favorite Fred moments was her death. I thought it was manipulative, but it worked for me just the same. I think part of my problem accepting the Fred character was that there seemed to be too much of her, too soon. I had the same reaction to Tara in season 4 (although I think Tara later earned it--particularly in s6, but even in s5). The role seemed more prominent--that is, I thought she had too much screen time, for too few reasons (that I could see).

...

Contrary to what seems to be the entire thread, I am excited for a Spike movie, and don't care when it's set. There didn't seem to be any way out of most end-season situations on either show, but there always was. And I don't care if characters come back from the dead, either.

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I grew to hate the apocalypse. John was too shrill, and the politician too slickly untouchable.

I did too. especially when they dropped it for almost an entire season and then just randomly picked it up again. Sean Patrick Flanary is definitely convincing in his smarmy politician role. though there are times when watching him that i feel like i'm watching Christian Kane.

I thought the bit with the disfigured guy with the cane was promising, but I gather it didn't get much elaborated this season; more's the pity.

at the beginning of the season, we had more with this guy. Johnny, in his infinite wisdom, decided he wanted to figure it all out for himself and threw the cane into the river.

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Contrary to what seems to be the entire thread, I am excited for a Spike movie, and don't care when it's set.

Well, you're shallow that way. *g*

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"What if you foretold an apocalypse, and nobody cared?..."

And thus, the Johnny/Stillson arc, in a nutshell.

I wasn't necessarily comparing DZ w/ "The 4400" when I asked upthread if anyone else had seen it. I was just being curious. (You know, "Same Bat Night, Same Bat Channel," and all that.) But, yeah, I've seen DZ on-and-off over the past four seasons; and while I will admit that I find the show a smidge more compelling than "4400" (if only b/c, the subject matter itself fascinates me), I'll agree that the "apocalypse thing" has been going nowhere for the longest time. And I understand, too, that that was the same problem w/ Michael Piller's previous shows, "Star Trek: TNG" and "ST: DS9" (I'm only going on what I've heard or read, since I don't follow that universe): that the standalones were better than the mythology-centered stuff, and that the writers had a hard time plotting story arcs which didn't meander or lose momentum.

ETA: I mean, some people (Whedon, Minear) are good w/ the arc, and some (Carter, possibly Piller) aren't. You know?

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Cindy, I'll watch the new Spike movie with you. Over and over and over, again. He's still my favorite character (next to Buffy.)

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Contrary to what seems to be the entire thread, I am excited for a Spike movie, and don't care when it's set.

As per usual, Cindy stole my brain.

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