![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Boring music and Merlin
Sep. 22nd, 2008 01:23 pmMy god. I've never been so bored.
Listening to this week's Friday Night is Music Night because Daniel Boys was on it, and the Daniel tracks had already been put up for d/l on the comm. Normally there's some extra good stuff that the comm doesn't mention because they tend to be a bit focussed. This one was a Charles Strouse fest (Annie, Bye Bye Birdie, Applause, a few others). Oh my god. Nothing stands out whatsoever. Even Daniel's stuff isn't that interesting. I'm a few minutes into the second act and am crossing my fingers for some Annie songs at the very least.
Merlin : pretty good. Decent acting, interesting storyline and character set-up, and good effects. The BBC once again haven't been able to resist the requisite slashiness. (several of the comments have been 'and cue the Merlin/Arthur and Gwen/Morgana fic is 5, 4,3,2...') Camelot is suspiciously clean. Not that period specific - seems to be a combo of high medieval, some Dark Ages - essentially they've decided to go generic fantasy. admittedly I'd have preferred full-on post-Roman Empire dark ages, but I'm quite happy with non-period-specific.
What I do bloody wish is that some of the commenters would stop whining that it's not TH White or Malory. Seriously. Get a clue. Every generation and take on the Arthurian legend re-interprets it in a different way, picks and chooses which bits, changes the back story of characters, focusses on other ones, dumps stories in it from other traditions. There are no hard and fast rules. You can do whatever you damn well like with it. I didn't see them complaining about the recent King Arthur film (the only problem most people had with that was the screaming historical fuck-ups) or the Merlin that was adapted from The Crystal Cave. Malory grabbed what he wanted and made up other bits, as did TH White. (I have a very low tolerance for either of these versions) Ygraine doesn't have to have been seduced by trickery. Arthur doesn't have to shag his sister. Guinevere can be everything from a servant girl to French princess to very Christian to a British war leader against Arthur's Romans. All of them are equally valid.
Listening to this week's Friday Night is Music Night because Daniel Boys was on it, and the Daniel tracks had already been put up for d/l on the comm. Normally there's some extra good stuff that the comm doesn't mention because they tend to be a bit focussed. This one was a Charles Strouse fest (Annie, Bye Bye Birdie, Applause, a few others). Oh my god. Nothing stands out whatsoever. Even Daniel's stuff isn't that interesting. I'm a few minutes into the second act and am crossing my fingers for some Annie songs at the very least.
Merlin : pretty good. Decent acting, interesting storyline and character set-up, and good effects. The BBC once again haven't been able to resist the requisite slashiness. (several of the comments have been 'and cue the Merlin/Arthur and Gwen/Morgana fic is 5, 4,3,2...') Camelot is suspiciously clean. Not that period specific - seems to be a combo of high medieval, some Dark Ages - essentially they've decided to go generic fantasy. admittedly I'd have preferred full-on post-Roman Empire dark ages, but I'm quite happy with non-period-specific.
What I do bloody wish is that some of the commenters would stop whining that it's not TH White or Malory. Seriously. Get a clue. Every generation and take on the Arthurian legend re-interprets it in a different way, picks and chooses which bits, changes the back story of characters, focusses on other ones, dumps stories in it from other traditions. There are no hard and fast rules. You can do whatever you damn well like with it. I didn't see them complaining about the recent King Arthur film (the only problem most people had with that was the screaming historical fuck-ups) or the Merlin that was adapted from The Crystal Cave. Malory grabbed what he wanted and made up other bits, as did TH White. (I have a very low tolerance for either of these versions) Ygraine doesn't have to have been seduced by trickery. Arthur doesn't have to shag his sister. Guinevere can be everything from a servant girl to French princess to very Christian to a British war leader against Arthur's Romans. All of them are equally valid.
