ladybug_archive: (ginger_lou)
So I got plunnied hard for a Ginger and Lou piece when I watched the Hart to Hart pilot. I rarely ever like pilots as much as I like a series proper, and this was no exception; I really thought it was gross how Jonathan kept manipulating Jennifer into helping him solve cases and would also just decide to pick up more cases without even asking her first. It felt like he really thought more of other people than he did his wife's safety. It was honestly hard for me to believe that they were really in a healthy relationship in the pilot. I think that was dropped in the series proper, thank goodness, and they were equally into solving cases in the series. I also think a lot of the time the cases just dropped in their laps instead of them always being asked to look into things or deciding to look into things. But anyway, the pilot has them undercover and pretending to not know each other (and in Jennifer's case, to not like Jonathan). So my plunnie involved Ginger and Lou undercover and pretending to hate on each other. They have a reason for it, of course; it's not just randomly being done.

I wrote several pages of that since getting plunnied, and then I got another plunnie while watching Perry Mason and decided I could incorporate that one into the fic too. The plunnie was horrible, involving Lou being accused of killing Ginger after an argument. Unlike a story I did some time back, this time there would be a body and Ginger would really be dead. That was unacceptable, but I tweaked the plunnie into Lou getting accused of hurting Ginger and Ginger unable to back him up because he's unconscious from the attack. The fact that they had been pretending to hate each other didn't help, either.

The story altogether is twenty pages long and thirteen of those pages were written in the last 24 hours. As much as I love to write, things don't often flow quite that easily, so I'm thrilled. I think it's finished, unless I want a little more to go into the epilogue scene, so I will hopefully be posting it soon.

Meanwhile, my Big Valley story decided it refuses to be a oneshot. I have enough material for three chapters and more to come. I kept trying to think of it as a oneshot, but when I saw the direction it wanted to go in and how there are several clear chapter breaks in what I wrote, I gave up. (And I am so grateful again to one of my steady reviewers, who is apparently a Big Valley fan. He is once again the only one commenting. Oftentimes, he and a woman are the only commenters. What I'd like to know is, why is it that the people who actually frequent some of these story categories are rarely interested enough to comment?! They read; I can see it from the hit counts. But 99% of the time, they never want to say anything!)

Yesterday I was thinking that I had two frames of mind battling for control. One was an extreme desire for a hurt/comfort fix, specifically with Ginger as the victim. The second was an extreme desire to watch Don Knight in more stuff. I got to see him on Kojak, so that hyped me up, and then later that day we got a Hawaii 5-O disc with his first guest-spot.

That was an interesting experience. In the Kojak episode he is totally a secondary bad guy, but still pretty bad, really. The Hawaii 5-O episode was ... hmm. Actually, there didn't really seem to be any "Big Bad" in that episode. There were three jewel thieves, and in their own ways, each one was sympathetic.

The episode starts out with the police chasing Don's character, who has a girl next to him in his car. There's no indication of what's been happening that led up to that point. (And they're playing the musical cue from the car and helicopter chase in Christopher's episode. Heh.) Suddenly the girl wakes up and starts fighting Don's character Jack Larsen for the wheel. That goes about as well as can be expected, and she finally opts to fling herself out of the car instead of staying with him. The jump ends up being fatal, and one is left wondering what on Earth kind of a horrible person Larsen is that the girl would basically kill herself to get away from him.

It's not until the fourth act when things really start coming together and we see that perhaps things aren't what they seemed to be. Another of the thieves is totally in love with the girl and insists on believing that Larsen stole the jewels from their hiding spot and killed the girl because he didn't want to share. But Larsen doesn't have the jewels and is looking for them too. And he really hadn't killed the girl, even though he did apparently beat her trying to get her to talk (ugh). Larsen insists that the girl double-crossed them both. But the girl has left a coded message for her guy, revealing the new location of the jewels to him. The guy goes a bit hysterical, screaming again that Larsen double-crossed them and killed the girl, and shoots him down. Chin Ho later informs us that Larsen is still alive.

Anyway, there are two possibilities of what happened. 1, That Larsen did steal the jewels because he was trying to cut the others out, the girl found out and stole them back, and he beat her and tried to get her to tell the new location. 2, That the girl stole the jewels because she was trying to cut Larsen out, Larsen found her and beat her to get her to tell the new location. The first way seems messier and more confusing, so it seems more likely that they intended for it to be the second way.

The question remains as to why the girl wanted to cut Larsen out. Either she found out he was especially awful or else she just didn't want to share because she wanted bigger shares for herself and her guy. I'd be more inclined to believe the latter, because while Larsen definitely seems to be somewhat cowardly and was horrible to beat her, the other guy is prone to violence as well. He almost killed one guy before Steve stopped him, and Steve later had to intercede when he was beating up Larsen. And then he shot Larsen. But since he was so emotional because he actually really loved the girl, I did have some level of sympathy for him. I loved that the girl loved him too. It's not often that you find crooks in shows who genuinely care about each other. But I didn't like that she wanted to cut Larsen out of their deal. And I also didn't like that Larsen beat her. But he really didn't kill her; he was shocked when she leaped out of the car. There's no indication that he wanted her dead, although it's certainly possible that she leaped out because she figured he did. Or maybe she was just that determined to keep him from getting the jewels because she wanted her guy to get them even if she couldn't share in it.

So in the end, everything is just up in the air enough that I am mildly curious about Larsen and kind of like all three of the crooks, even though at the same time I of course do not condone stealing jewels or some of their other behavior.

I kind of wish I'd taken pictures from the Charlie's Angels disc. I had debated whether I'd want to, but it's so time-consuming that I opted not to. However, I really knew that I was well on my way to including Don among the darlings. He was already pretty close to it and the more I watch an actor on the cusp of it, the greater the guarantee that they'll make it in. I would definitely say he's in. I want to watch the Mannix episode again and I should really take pictures from that. Paul Gantry is still my favorite of his characters and I think I need an icon. Plus, Tumblr seems to have a deficiency of Don Knight content, so I need to correct that as I try to correct the deficiencies they have regarding the other darlings.

Also, I finally got my second gift card after two months, only to discover that Amazon has changed their policies regarding free shipping again. It wasn't that long ago that they changed to $35 as the minimum, and now they have two different options: buy $25 worth of books and they and anything else with them ship free, or buy $49 worth of non-book merchandise. AURGH! Seriously, WTH? When they switched to $35 I thought they were just greedy, but now I'm wondering if they're in financial trouble because maybe most people try to get free shipping and they're actually losing money by trying to fill all the free shipping orders. It costs so much money to ship things that I can't believe even a Prime member's yearly fee could cover all the shipping costs if, say, they're the type to order things left and right all through the year.

So I've been trying to decide what to do. Part of me wishes I hadn't bought some music a month ago with some of my first gift card. I had actually intended not to use the gift card, but for some reason, Amazon doesn't give me the option to not use an attached gift card to pay for digital music, like it does on regular orders. I really wanted those songs and I never get to buy digital music, so I can't fully regret it, but now I'm in a position where I have to either wait for a third gift card or else spend $13 in cash in addition to the gift card money, just to reach the new minimum free shipping amount. Or I could go the book route, since there was one book I really wanted, but I wanted several DVD sets right now too and if I get $25 of books, I can only get one other thing with them if I'm trying not to go over the gift card amount. So I feel like I'd really be happier getting the DVDs right now. Part of me keeps hoping for that third gift card, but I'm in a stretch where I'm not qualifying into too many surveys for that company right now, so it could be a while before I can even get the smidgen needed to get the gift card. And prices on Amazon fluctuate, as everyone knows, so I don't know whether waiting is a good idea. (And since I already had to wait so long for the second gift card, waiting even longer isn't really appealing.)

Then if I get the DVDs now, I need to fully decide what to get. I really decided on season 1 of Rockford (the only one I'm missing) and The Big Valley season 4, but then that leaves one slot that's difficult to fill. Everything I want most is slightly less that the needed amount, so I've been considering other things I wanted but not quite as much. I think I decided on Vega$ season 2, volume 1, but now part of me wishes I could get one or two Charlie's Angels sets. But season 2 is also slightly less than the needed amount and season 5 is outrageously priced compared to all the others. Sigh. It's so frustrating that normally I'd be thrilled for some of these DVD sets to have such low prices, but that right now I just wish one of them would be a dollar or two more so that they'd fit in the needed slot....

I had been going back and forth on whether to get The Big Valley or Cannon, since I want to support the new Cannon releases. And I don't think I have many season 1 Cannon episodes recorded. But I think Cannon does air uncut, whereas I know The Big Valley does not. And season 4 has so many episodes with darlings (1 Simon, 1 H.M., 2 Richard, 2 Don ...). So I kind of wanted The Big Valley right now, but I fully intend to get Cannon too.

And I really need to have a Hawaii 5-O tag. But going back and finding all the instances where I talk about that series to tag them is not going to be fun. So time-consuming....

Also, my Lalaloopsy order arrived from Build-a-Bear's website and they stuffed pretty firmly everywhere ... except where I specifically asked them to! I didn't want a floppy neck and they didn't stuff the neck firmly! Now I have to go into the store and fix that, in addition to getting something for her to wear. I'm hoping I'll get to do that right away; I can't even fully enjoy holding her and such when I'm worried about the extreme floppiness of the neck. If I buy from the website again, I think I'm just going to order unstuffed since I'd probably always have to go into the store anyway to have it done over right.

Heh.

Apr. 5th, 2016 08:19 pm
ladybug_archive: (schrank)
Turns out my script was already here when I was typing yesterday's post. I didn't learn all I'd hoped to, but it provided enough interesting tidbits that I made a new blog post out of it: http://thepathofthestars.blogspot.com/2016/04/the-script-of-riptides-pirate-and.html

I also watched two of Don Knight's Bonanza episodes. He played good guys in both and it was quite delightful. The first episode reminded me of The Big Valley's episode Earthquake!, and I had to suspend disbelief over why anyone would build a courthouse over a MINE, but the plot of Ben and four other people being trapped in the basement of a collapsing building was so intense. And everybody got out of there alive! I was really afraid someone would die, probably Don's character. But he didn't. And he was exonerated for a crime he didn't commit!

I wondered how I'd feel about the second episode I watched, since it was from the final season and Dan Blocker and Hoss were both dead. Gah. Hoss is my favorite Cartwright, so that was definitely a dread. But I liked Jamie, so it was okay viewing. It kind of felt like a cross between Bonanza and Little House, though. I wonder if that's how the final season was in general. But there were cute dogs, which is always a plus even though I don't agree with hunting for sport by any stretch of the imagination.

I hear Don plays the bad guy in the other Bonanza episode. I couldn't catch it on MeTV today and wasn't sure I'd go out of my way to do so anyway, but maybe I'll try looking it up now too.

I also saw the first of his Charlie's Angels episodes. He was a bad guy in that, although he didn't reveal just how bad he was until he discovered Kelly was a private eye. Then he pulled a gun on her, threatened to kill her, and made her drive away in his van. Kelly deliberately pulled a dangerous traffic stunt to get a nearby policeman to come after them, whereupon Don's character threw his gun out the window. Bosley, who was following, picked it up and brought it over to the van after the officer stopped them. Don's character's expression when Bosley said, "Excuse me, Sir, you dropped your gun out the window," was priceless. LOL. He started to sink down in the seat.

(Bosley, by the way, is still awesome. I love him and I love all the girls. I think there's two basic ways to look at a show like Charlie's Angels. One is that it's filled with threadbare plots, beautiful women, and exists pretty much only so that men can ogle said women. The other way is that it's about strong female characters fighting crime, and in spite of the sometimes silly plots, that's the way I look at it. Every one of the girls seems to be a good role model (except I definitely wouldn't recommend dressing the way Kris sometimes does ... yikes). They're all good people determined to not let the bad guys win, resourceful, intelligent, and very human. I have trouble picking a favorite. Usually it's either Sabrina or Kelly, but I love them all. Interesting that when I first saw the show, I wasn't sure what to make of Sabrina or whether she was as smart as the others; in the episodes I saw at first, I got the impression more of her maybe not being as all there. But as I watched more, I realized I must have just been seeing some of her undercover personas. She is very smart and on top of things, and her actress Kate Jackson seems to be generally hailed as the best actress of the bunch. Out of all the girls, Sabrina also seems the most like she really wants a romantic relationship, so I was happy for her that when Kate left, they wrote in the show that Sabrina was going to get married and have a baby.)

Before any of that, several days ago I saw Don Knight's first Big Valley episode. It was the really creepy one where Adam West was a psycho. Don's character was a twisted mix of selfishness, greed, and some genuine remaining goodness. Even though he had agreed to keep quiet about the first murder in exchange for sharing in Adam's character's high living, he didn't want any other murders to happen and tried to prevent them. Adam's character eventually killed him, which I figured would probably happen. I got plunnied and wrote a fic, but it keeps feeling like it's not complete and I'm not sure what to do with it.

(I actually feel a little like I've been in a fanfiction slump the last couple of weeks. It's just been crazy here and there hasn't been much time for writing, and it seems like when I do, I can't advance very much on the stories. I don't know whether this Big Valley one is holding things up and I feel I can't concentrate until it's done or if it's a slump in general. I feel more like I want to write Ginger and Lou fics for a while instead of continuing the fics I've been actively working on at FF.net. But I feel like I can't fully devote myself to Ginger and Lou fics when people are waiting on those others, or at least on the WWW one. I really wish I could get some input from Riptide fans on the Riptide one; the only person even reviewing it isn't even a fan of the show, so I'm pretty honored that he likes my writing enough to read it. I certainly didn't ask him to. But while I'm thrilled that he's reading, he of course can't provide much advice on the characters and such. There are silent readers, but the only Riptide person who actually said something only commented on the first chapter and expressed her dissatisfaction with the thought of there being real ghosts. I don't know if she even read on enough to see that things are still up in the air regarding the ghost angle, which is just like the season 2 episode that dealt with ghosts was like. I don't think they fully eliminated the idea of ghosts until towards the end. But so yeah. It seems like lately, my only real writing interests have been work, Ginger and Lou fics, The Big Valley fic, and non-fiction blog posts. I don't imagine it will last long, but it is frustrating when I gravitate to the non-fiction rambling posts here instead of working on stories.)

I feel the urge to watch Julie London's Big Valley episode again sometime soon. Her character was also a curious mixture of selfishness, greed, and some remaining goodness. She was a traitor to the North during the Civil War, but not because of changing ideologies; she wanted higher living and she was promised that if she turned. At least that's how I remember it. She showed up after the war and was understandably shunned by the town, but as I also recall, they took it way too far and actually tried to harm her and her old friend in the Barkley family tried to help her. I can't remember now whether it was Jarrod or Nick. He couldn't come to terms with what she'd done either, and it seems like even though she was sadder and wiser, she wasn't terribly apologetic or sorry for her actions, which only made things worse. I remember it ended with her leaving town. I wonder what kinds of interesting interaction might happen between her and Don's character were they to ever meet. I revived his character in my fic, naturally. Hmm, future plunnie.

I often think of The Big Valley as the poor man's Bonanza and/or an inversion of Bonanza, since The Big Valley has a woman at the head of the wealthiest family in town and some of the concepts and set-ups seem similar to Bonanza (and since the show only lasted four seasons as opposed to Bonanza's fourteen). But one interesting difference is that while the Cartwrights seem to be respected and well-liked, the Barkleys seem to be looked down on because of their wealth. Usually shows do the cliche of arrogant rich people so much that it's really a drag. The Big Valley has the flip-side of arrogant poor people, which isn't seen as often but is just as hurtful and damaging. And while I enjoy both shows, sometimes I feel like The Big Valley has a lot more heart than Bonanza. Maybe that's at least partially because there are women in the main cast and they bring something to the show that Bonanza lacks. On the other hand, I'm not saying I think Bonanza should have had a female lead. Each show is what it is and is enjoyed for what it is. I think a female lead probably would have ruined Bonanza, because that was not the angle it was going for. On the other hand, remove the women from The Big Valley and something is very missing.

I find it intriguing how quickly Don Knight proved himself a capable and awesome character actor. He just showed up to start acting in 1965, and it was only like three-ish years later when they were starting to bill him as "Special Guest Star" and/or list him at the top of the guest cast list. It's like what happened with Luke Andreas and Christopher Cary. With all of them, they were sometimes given small parts, but the show's crews quickly realized their talents and that having them around was a feather in the cap. They'd then be given meatier parts sometimes, or else even if they didn't appear much, they were still credited very high on the list. And as frustrating as it is when they're not in something much, like Christopher in that 1970s Captain America movie, it's still extremely exciting when they're given such high billing.

And I'm sure there was something else I wanted to talk about, but I don't remember what it was.

Oh, I just remembered. Star Wars: The Force Awakens came out on DVD today. I'm still undecided whether I'll buy it. I just can't bring myself to consider it absolute canon, even though yes, I know that as far as Disney is concerned, it is. And I can't see myself re-watching it much. But I love Rey and Finn and BB-8, so I figured I'd probably buy it for them, at least. I can't get it this week, though, since my account is cleaned until the weekend. And then I need to think about still getting to Build-a-Bear to get an article of clothing for the Lalaloopsy plush, since I wasn't able to include that in the order. I also need to think about getting the big Rey figure, because Wal-Mart finally got a huge shipment in (probably in anticipation of today). I just hope they'll still have some when I have money....

Some spoilers, just in case someone still hasn't seen the film but wants to )

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