January Talking Meme: Current Fannishness
Jan. 11th, 2014 05:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
readerjaneJust to recap: I ran out of prompts for this meme, so I'm shamelessly raiding friends' prompts. If you'd like to ask me a question, feel free!
sperrywink asked rahirah, "What's got you fannishly excited at the moment?"
I'm really enjoying James Spader's new show, The Blacklist.
I haven't been a big Spader fan before. Frankly, I've always thought of him as "inferior Daniel", the guy who played Daniel Jackson in the Stargate movie before it was turned into a TV series with the awesome Michael Shanks as Daniel.
Spader is older now, and the extra years have added gravitas. On The Blacklist he plays Raymond Reddington, long on the FBI's wanted list, who sells secrets and provides services to the highest bidder. One day Reddington walks into FBI headquarters, announces his presence, and says he'll only speak with a rookie agent named Elizabeth Keen, currently late for her first day on the job.
I like Reddington's confidence. He's arrogant, but one gets the impression he's thoroughly in control of his arrogance. Red's perfectly willing to accept restrictions that might feel humiliating to some, when they serve his purposes. He answers the questions he wants to answer; makes only deals that are acceptable to him. He's very secure in his hubris.
Red's on-my-terms relationship with Liz Keen is the emotional core of the series. I'm eager to see where that goes. The big question is whether Red is really Liz's father or not. He has denied it, but he might be lying. I'm hoping he is not her father, because the relationship is more interesting to me if it has more complicated reasons than biology alone.
I haven't got involved with Blacklist online fandom, and probably won't. I don't have the energy for another fandom. But I'll happily rec the show to anyone and everyone who will listen.
sperrywink asked rahirah, "What's got you fannishly excited at the moment?"I'm really enjoying James Spader's new show, The Blacklist.
I haven't been a big Spader fan before. Frankly, I've always thought of him as "inferior Daniel", the guy who played Daniel Jackson in the Stargate movie before it was turned into a TV series with the awesome Michael Shanks as Daniel.
Spader is older now, and the extra years have added gravitas. On The Blacklist he plays Raymond Reddington, long on the FBI's wanted list, who sells secrets and provides services to the highest bidder. One day Reddington walks into FBI headquarters, announces his presence, and says he'll only speak with a rookie agent named Elizabeth Keen, currently late for her first day on the job.
I like Reddington's confidence. He's arrogant, but one gets the impression he's thoroughly in control of his arrogance. Red's perfectly willing to accept restrictions that might feel humiliating to some, when they serve his purposes. He answers the questions he wants to answer; makes only deals that are acceptable to him. He's very secure in his hubris.
Red's on-my-terms relationship with Liz Keen is the emotional core of the series. I'm eager to see where that goes. The big question is whether Red is really Liz's father or not. He has denied it, but he might be lying. I'm hoping he is not her father, because the relationship is more interesting to me if it has more complicated reasons than biology alone.
I haven't got involved with Blacklist online fandom, and probably won't. I don't have the energy for another fandom. But I'll happily rec the show to anyone and everyone who will listen.
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Date: 2014-01-11 11:56 pm (UTC)I rather hope he's not her father too, because that just seems so... obvious.
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Date: 2014-01-12 03:24 am (UTC)Oh, looks like Boston Legal has Shatner in it. I think I'll look for another Spader vehicle.
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Date: 2014-01-12 05:09 am (UTC)(His character in BL is absolutely nothing like Captain Kirk, for what it's worth, and both hilarious and poignant. This is the show that convinced me he could really act.)
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Date: 2014-01-12 12:34 pm (UTC)Also, a couple of interviews I've seen have made Shatner just seem like an unpleasant person. Which doesn't mean he couldn't do a fine job of acting, either an appealing character or an un-appealing one. It just makes me less inclined to try his show when there are so many other options available.
I'll keep BL in mind, though. It's not currently available for streaming on Netflix, and for some reason Amazon Prime only has season 5. But my public library has the DVDs.