new dvds viewing begins!

[schmerica]

Pilot notes, random and various:

+ I love how snotty Fraser is with Vecchio on first meeting.
+ I hate the gold chain around Vecchio's neck.
+ The nose thing is stupid, and the Canadian chick is boring. I don't like this Diefenbaker so much, either.
+ Vecchio and Fraser's head are really, really close together when Fraser is typing and Vecchio is leaning over his shoulder.
+ When Fraser and Vecchio walk together, when Ray Vecchio goes in the wrong direction, Fraser just keeps going and Vecchio has to correct himself and chase after him, whereas with Kowalski, Fraser stops and does the "ray-ray-ray-ray-ray" thing.
+ I love the look on Fraser's face when Vecchio says he has 41 open files.
+ "I didn't know wolves saved lives." "Well, he doesn't always. He'll save you if he sees you."
+ "The last time I saw Ben he was barely tall enough to reach my belt. When I said good-bye, he shook my hand."
+ At dinner at the Vecchios', there is Fraser, Ray, Ray's mother, Ray's two sisters, Ray's brother-in-laws, several children who are presumably his nephews and nieces, and then ... random old guy. Who the heck is the random old guy?
+ That scene in the garage = Fraser is both hot and badass. Same with Gerard later, with the gun and the swearing. I don't think I have ever loved Fraser more than in the latter scene. (Gun! Cursing! Little fingerless gloves! The way he throws the bank thing at Gerard! Leaping over the highway railing!)
+ God, the look on Fraser's face with Gerard after he shoots Drake.
+ Looking through Bob's trunk. And the goddamn drawing! Awwwwwwww.
+ And mmmm, with the gun in the cabin.
+ I love that Vecchio manages to figure out the bad guy all on his own, anyway. Even if he looks hideous here.
+ "You know who he called?"
"Gerard."
"Exactly--You knew?"
"Yes."
"You couldn't have called and told me this?"
"I'm sorry."
"Dropped me a post card saying 'Hi, I've solved the case'?"
"My mistake."
"'Don't bother crawling out of your deathbed and flying up to the armpit of the frozen north. I figured out who did it?'"
"Can I help you get out of that?"
+"When I graduated from the academy, my father gave me one piece of advice. He said always-- (pause) No, he said never-- (pause) Well, actually, he gave me two pieces of advice, I've forgotten the other one, but the important one is this: never chase a man over a cliff."
+ Awwwww, Dief hiding under the bed! Hee.
+ Ray and Fraser punching the guy together, and shaking their hands in the air afterwards.
+ Fraser with the goggles on the dogsled cannot help but make me think of cesperanza now.
+ Fraser stopping in the middle of comforting Diefenbaker to give him a lecture.
+ "I talked to her last supervisor. He suggested transferring you farther north." "Well, that would put me in Russia."
+ The guy giving Fraser's hundred dollars back at the end.

Comments

[cesperanza.livejournal.com]

I'm wildly flattered! *g*

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

Obviously you are very memorable!

[lalejandra.livejournal.com]

The guy giving Fraser's hundred dollars back at the end.

I love that part.

And I actually think it's really important, because it's the "narrator" (for lack of a better descriptor) telling the viewers that despite the fact that Fraser seems to be more than a little unhinged, he's not wrong about the world -- not entirely. That is the show saying, it seems: sometimes the good guys really are the good guys; sometimes the good guys win.

Maybe.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

dude, you are so smart. rock.

[lalejandra.livejournal.com]

Oh, don't say things like that, you'll make my brain break.

I might have to think more about this, because it does seem like in every episode from the first season, the viewer is shown how Fraser is naive and silly -- but that his beliefs are worth something in Chicago, that a lot of the time when he expects people to do the right thing, they will (eventually). And we stop seeing that (mostly) in the other seasons -- after Victoria's Secret, it's almost as though Fraser's entire outlook changes, and he stops expecting people to do the right thing. And even in, say "Good for the Soul"... it's like he's stubbornly clinging to the hope that people will do the right thing, but he doesn't really believe that they will. He's harder.

Yeah, I think the break is Victoria's Secret.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

so basically the entire time in Chicago is basically Fraser's soul getting slowly sucked away?

[shayheyred.livejournal.com]

When Fraser and Vecchio walk together, when Ray Vecchio goes in the wrong direction, Fraser just keeps going and Vecchio has to correct himself and chase after him, whereas with Kowalski, Fraser stops and does the "ray-ray-ray-ray-ray" thing.

And in "Strange Bedfellows" Fraser is walking with Ray K at the end, and Ray turns in a different direction, and it's Fraser who has to correct course to follow him.

Lovely observations. I love my detail-oriented friends.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

And in "Strange Bedfellows" Fraser is walking with Ray K at the end, and Ray turns in a different direction, and it's Fraser who has to correct course to follow him.

Ooh, yes! Good point.

[brooklinegirl.livejournal.com]

I am too highly medicated to say more than this: omg yay love squee dammit I may have to go buy S1 and S2 AGAIN, if only to a) have the pilot and b) have single-sided discs. wheee

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

*snugs tight*

[engenda.livejournal.com]

Single sided discs - dammit. I just can't justify buying them again.

"The last time I saw Ben he was barely tall enough to reach my belt. When I said good-bye, he shook my hand."

This breaks my heart, every time. This solemn little Ben-child with the almost bowl cut but wavier, putting out this little hand to be engulfed in his father's. The child-like formality, the "say goodbye to your father Ben" obligation of it all, is so, so sad. And says so much about the relationship between Ben and his father.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

The idea of wee!Fraser makes me melty.

[cranberryink.livejournal.com]

How did you get them for so cheap, damnit?!?

Also, Fraser in the garage is nearly unbearably hot. It's kind of ridiculous, actually.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

Dude, apparently they're just selling new ones like that. Rocks.

[mergatrude.livejournal.com]

That scene in the garage = Fraser is both hot and badass. Same with Gerard later, with the gun and the swearing. I don't think I have ever loved Fraser more than in the latter scene. (Gun! Cursing! Little fingerless gloves! The way he throws the bank thing at Gerard! Leaping over the highway railing!)

It's embarrassing how many times I replay these two scenes whenever I watch the pilot. It makes me flail helplessly to see his gun hand shaking when he points it at Gerrard.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

*sighs dreamily*

[serrico.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think DS's gonna be my Summer Viewing this year. Because every time I see somebody (mostly you *g*) talk about it online, I feel all nostalgic and yearning. And this post...yeah. Summer Viewing.

Hopefully I can find the new, cheap DVDs *here*, and they're not just a US thing. I've got tapes, but...DVDs are shinier.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

I cross my fingers for you!

[basingstoke.livejournal.com]

Vecchio looks SO much better in second season.

I'm still wondering what it means that I didn't slash-ping for them until the very last episode they had together.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

He really, really, really does. Though even in the first season, he looks better pretty much anytime he's not wearing the ugly snowsuit.

I haven't really slash-pinged for F/V at all, but I read it and can enjoy it a lot. I mean, on a scale of ridiculous to canon, I can certainly see where it's coming from, and I don't really get why it's so depised in F/K fandom compared to the relative popularity of Ray/Ray these days.

[basingstoke.livejournal.com]

I don't know if I would call it despised, exactly, but... I mean, I joined an F/V list because I did write and read and enjoy both at the time, and I lasted about a week, because inside that week, someone posted that F/K fans are clearly mentally and morally deficient, and everyone agreed with her.

So there's still the ugly and inexplicable aftershocks of the Ray Wars. That was basically the end of my F/V career.

I think some of the motivation for the Ray/Ray is to enjoy the Vecchio (because he is a marvelous beast) while not giving any love to the psycho F/V coterie.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

Although most of the people I hang out with closely in the fandom are relatively new -- we're all way post-Ray Wars, in the fandom of the soft little daisies where we all skip around hand in hand. There's still a lot of "F/V, eeeeewww, squick."

But, yeah, I think your main point stands.