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May. 19th, 2013 03:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
potato_headSo I'm watching the 5th season of Castle, uh...Halloween episode, I'm assuming.
1. Those are dream catchers. Who the fuck calls them 'Indian Wind Chimes'? Is this an actual thing? Do some white people think feathers chime in the wind? I thought it was fairly well known what dream catchers were for, but according to Castle they ~catch evil spirits~.
2. Wow that is the worst not-even-really-a-parody of the film from The Ring that I've ever seen. But I'm guessing they didn't want to terrify their viewers. But it's full of really misused symbols from a LOT of different cultures/religions (I see at least one Buddhist symbol, a thunderbird, there's a...3D ankh like one might find on a goth-themed site in 1999)
3. There is no American legend about a cursed video. Cursed videos are a Japanese (and IIRC also Korean and Taiwanese) urban legend.
4. I did not realize how much people misusing the phrase 'x let alone y' annoyed me until Castle did it in an episode. A professional writer, as written by professional writers, who's meant to be 40+ years old, doesn't know how to properly use it? The more extreme item goes second. The more extreme item goes second. 'I couldn't get out of bed, let alone drive to the bank.' 'Let alone' means 'don't touch/go near'. You couldn't do the first, and couldn't come anywhere near the second. Aarghh
5. Now they are actually referencing 'The Ring' in the episode. This doesn't actually make the episode any better, but I feel like they thought it would.
6. Now Wes Craven is cameoing. What.
1. Those are dream catchers. Who the fuck calls them 'Indian Wind Chimes'? Is this an actual thing? Do some white people think feathers chime in the wind? I thought it was fairly well known what dream catchers were for, but according to Castle they ~catch evil spirits~.
2. Wow that is the worst not-even-really-a-parody of the film from The Ring that I've ever seen. But I'm guessing they didn't want to terrify their viewers. But it's full of really misused symbols from a LOT of different cultures/religions (I see at least one Buddhist symbol, a thunderbird, there's a...3D ankh like one might find on a goth-themed site in 1999)
3. There is no American legend about a cursed video. Cursed videos are a Japanese (and IIRC also Korean and Taiwanese) urban legend.
4. I did not realize how much people misusing the phrase 'x let alone y' annoyed me until Castle did it in an episode. A professional writer, as written by professional writers, who's meant to be 40+ years old, doesn't know how to properly use it? The more extreme item goes second. The more extreme item goes second. 'I couldn't get out of bed, let alone drive to the bank.' 'Let alone' means 'don't touch/go near'. You couldn't do the first, and couldn't come anywhere near the second. Aarghh
5. Now they are actually referencing 'The Ring' in the episode. This doesn't actually make the episode any better, but I feel like they thought it would.
6. Now Wes Craven is cameoing. What.
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Date: 2013-05-20 01:09 am (UTC)1 - whaaaaaaat. Seriously? I though the appearance and function of dreamcatchers was... like, the one piece of American Indian lore that just about everyone knew. How the hell could they get that one wrong?
2 - Wow. That sounds just... fabulous.
3 - If it was going for The Ring style of curse, I can see it being an extension of the "chain letter where you HAVE to do what it says OR ELSE" thing, which America has had going for a while. And every urban legend has so many memetic mutations that a change in scenery of a legend that started elsewhere is fairly plausible. But still, without knowing the context, yeah... that's not a common US urban legend at all, and acting like it is would just come across as... weird.
4 - OMG THIS ANNOYS ME SO MUCH. No one can use it right, and it bugs me every. time.
5 - That seems like the sort of thing they'd toss in as a wink-wink-nudge-nudge that's supposed to be a totally meta reference or whatever... but that doesn't work with something quite that well-known, I don't think.
6 - Um. Okay.
And then I was suddenly not all that sad I hadn't seen more of Castle.
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Date: 2013-05-20 02:00 am (UTC)That's pretty much what I watch it for. To have something going while I work on pixel art, game coding, etc. so I don't get hyper-focused (and forget to eat, get a migraine, etc.) and the episodes make it easy to keep track of how long I've been working on something and give me a naturally scheduled ending point. But as a show it's not really...worth...watching...unless you have time that you actually need to fill with a TV show like I do. For that it's alright. It is also not good enough to distract me from whatever I'm doing.
I though the appearance and function of dreamcatchers was... like, the one piece of American Indian lore that just about everyone knew.
Mee toooooo. Although I have heard the 'evil spirits' explanation around a few times (especially among people who are really into woo) I've never in my life heard them called wind chimes.
RE: #3, they got this 'urban legend' out of an urban legend book that looked like it had been published in the 70's-80's. In retrospect, that just makes it weird on the grounds that IT SPECIFICALLY MENTIONS A DVD LMFAO
OMG THIS ANNOYS ME SO MUCH. No one can use it right, and it bugs me every. time.
I am so glad this bothers somebody else. I was starting to think I had stepped into an alternate universe where the phrase had always been backwards. Because it was like one minute everybody used it correctly, and the next even people who are otherwise really good with language are using it the wrong way around. (Also, same for 'kicker'. There are people who think the term originated on the internet, too. Uhm. My grandma used all these words lol)
Honestly Castle is usually a little better than this episode, and the first four seasons or so are pretty good in general. Season 5 seems to go from...this...to really good, like the sci-fi episode, which had a lot of really well-executed meta references (especially if you're a fan of Star Trek DS9) and the whole thing took place at a con which was really fun. The really bad episodes that stand out are mostly this one, the soap opera one where one of the first suspects was a fangirl of the show and a rabid shipper (they found the most 'Hollywood ugly' person they could, and then IIRC gave her a unibrow, had her live with her parents...all very stereotypical, and obviously meant to be negative characteristics even if they...aren't). And the romance plot takes a stupid twist in the first few eps of season 5 where they get really into all these deep scenes about how emotionally painful it is for Castle and Beckett to not be able to be open about their relationship at work. Oh, those poor straight people, their life must be so hard ; n ;
I do recommend the first three or four seasons, though, for something pleasant and occasionally cute. It's one of the few shows I can watch that's primarily about a straight couple, and Beckett's characterization is...usually...pretty good. She does fall into a few woman cop tropes but she's also a very 3D character, and pretty successfully pulls Castle's head out of his ass regarding raising his daughter/respecting her boundaries when he needs it, which is refreshing to see. And Castle's daughter and mother are both really awesome characters also.