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Your Favourite TV Show Intro?

I have no problem with the general staking area or the Vamps in sunlight because both were handled in good fashion and were never a problem for me believability wise. The reflection thing wasn't an issue either because on both shows they only really messed up a few times when it came to showing reflections. However, I always had a big problem with the fact that they introduced the ideas of Vampires not having any breath or not having any blood flow. They went against this in almost every episode and still tried to maintain that the original ideas were true.

I'm a fan of both series and when watching them jut for the heck of it I can let those things slide, but when actually reviewing them, which I will officially be doing for my site sometime in the future, I have to take those things into account. They may be minor mistakes or continuity errors and they may not affect things too much, but I do have to take them into account when reviewing them. That's why there are a few eps of Buffy and Angel that I would have given perfect grades to but I couldn't because of the small mistakes like breathing or bleeding.
 
Cell, don't get too hung up on it... although I admit the "no breath" thing didn't make much sense, really. Not needing oxygen, sure, but they have to move air through their throats in order to talk.

Vampiric circulation was always a difficult scientific subject... but if you get too specific, you do miss the forest for the trees. For example, in "The Zeppo" there are a bunch of zombies running around. Throughout the rest of the series raising the dead is tricky. This never made sense until I read a review that pointed out the entire episode is full of really ridiculous things, intentionally ridiculous. They were just having fun.

Whedon's the kind of creator who's willing to throw continuity out the window if he gets a really, really cool idea that demands it -- and he's not wrong to do it.
 
KoshFan said:
Cell, don't get too hung up on it... although I admit the "no breath" thing didn't make much sense, really. Not needing oxygen, sure, but they have to move air through their throats in order to talk.

Vampiric circulation was always a difficult scientific subject... but if you get too specific, you do miss the forest for the trees. For example, in "The Zeppo" there are a bunch of zombies running around. Throughout the rest of the series raising the dead is tricky. This never made sense until I read a review that pointed out the entire episode is full of really ridiculous things, intentionally ridiculous. They were just having fun.

Whedon's the kind of creator who's willing to throw continuity out the window if he gets a really, really cool idea that demands it -- and he's not wrong to do it.
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Actually Zeppo worked since within the Buffyverse mythology those weren't standard zombies as they were raised differently, etc.. I will disagree about Whedon not being wrong to throw continuity out the window though, doing as such is the sign of someone that isn't good enough to create a great work within the set confines of his own work. A truly great creator is able to still [pump out high quality work but maintain the continuity and integgrity of the universe he is working in.
 
You're missing my point about the Zeppo. They were intentionally playing with their audience, and the zombies were part of it. In the climactic sequence there's a ticking bomb. The display of seconds obviously doesn't match the number of seconds that pass, and in fact at the end the timer slows down as it nears zero.

Whedon did pretty darn well with continuity... but he also knew when not to be shackled by it. Frankly, he's better at creation than any of us here, so I'm going to let him have his discrepencies.

Also, this is a silly conversation to be having in a thread about intros. Let's drop it or take it outside.
 
KoshFan said:
You're missing my point about the Zeppo. They were intentionally playing with their audience, and the zombies were part of it. In the climactic sequence there's a ticking bomb. The display of seconds obviously doesn't match the number of seconds that pass, and in fact at the end the timer slows down as it nears zero.

Whedon did pretty darn well with continuity... but he also knew when not to be shackled by it. Frankly, he's better at creation than any of us here, so I'm going to let him have his discrepencies.

Also, this is a silly conversation to be having in a thread about intros. Let's drop it or take it outside.
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I like you Kosh, but that's pretty much the typical Whedon devotee response. I will ignore all of the many continuity errors in his work and somehow claim that it was smart of him to ignore his own mythos that he created and not be shackled by it. I like the guy and do think he's a great creator, but that line of thinking is just absurd. A major rule of writing is that if you don't want to be shackled by a certain mytho then you shouldn't create in the first place. Another rule is that once you have created a mytho you should be a good enough writer to work within it instead of ignoring it for the sake of a story. For as good as he is, Whedon has a history of failing badly on both accounts.
 
Outside of just listing B5's different openings as ones I like, the two I'm thinking of most right now would be Miami Vice and The Equalizer. Both very... 80s. And awesome. Also worth noting, Millennium and Homicide: Life on the Street.
 
so many great ones here. got to agree with the A-team, Bones, Miami Vice (it's always stuck in my head), B5 Season 5, Buck Rodgers (especially the pilot, with the lyrics), personally i like The Wire Season 1 and finally i have to say i really dig the intro to MASH as well.
 
KoshFan said:
Cell, what part of "silly conversation" was unclear to you?
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The fact that you were doing what most hardcore Whedon devotees do and deflecting any valid criticisms towards the fact that he lacks the ability to craft stories that don't smudge his own mythos was picked up rather easily by moi.
 
You just won't drop this, will you? Okay, then, let's play.

1) Name me three shows that lasted seven seasons (twelve if you include Angel) and didn't violate continuity now and then. Heck, our much-beloved JMS broke continuty repeatedly. I'm even giving him a free pass on War Without End because of time constraints. But the simple fact is, he planned the five-year arc, started dropping hints about what he thought was going to happen, and then changed a lot of things as the arc progressed because they made more sense. And then there's the casting for Anna Sheridan.

2) Continuity is difficult enough for novelists to keep track of, and usually they aren't working on a deadline. Usually they can spread everything out in front of them, check their notes, etc. TV creators have to have a show on the screen on Day X, and they have to move quick for that. They don't have time to backtrack and watch every ep. to make sure they got everything squared away with everything else they've ever done. (They especially don't have time to go through and make sure their vampire never casts a reflection; there are too many reflective surfaces in the world.)

3) The only writers of the same scope and imagination of JMS, Whedon, and the others we're discussing who got anywhere near perfect continuity was Tolkien. He managed it by writing the Lord of the Rings (which is epic but not long) over a period of twenty years or so, and he didn't publish anything until he had it all perfect. Even then, he still had to change a few scenes in the Hobbit, which he'd written first, to bring that book into line. In short, the only way Tolkien managed perfect continuity was literally decades of painstaking labor combined with a little Soviet revisionism.

4) Continuity errors have a long pedigree. Look closely in the Illiad, and you'll discover that some poor sap gets killed two or three times. Similar to today's TV producers, Homer just didn't have time to go back and check everything. If you take the Bible, which is an even better comparison because (B5 being the exception) most TV shows are written by lots of people over time, much as the Bible was, you get loads of continuity errors.

5) Joss's continuity errors are usually small things, and for the sake of a joke -- or purely accidental, which, as I've just mentioned, is pretty much unavoidable. He made a few bigger ones, but again, it was because he'd thought of something better.

6) Continuity errors bug the heck out of me, so I get you. But I forgive them if the tale's well-told. I'd rather have a few errors in a brilliant story than have the creators say, "Well, we had this awesome idea, which would have been inutterably fantastic, but unfortunately it would have violated the continuity of a scrap of dialogue that everyone's forgotten back in season one, so we couldn't do it." Continuity is not the highest standard to hold a story to, although it's in the top three. There are things that are more important.

7) I'm a rabid Whedon fan not because I've drunk the Kool-Aid, or become hypnotized into joining his cult; I'm not going to defend him on every point, either. Season Seven left some things to be desired and equating magic with drug abuse really did kind of come out of left field in Season Six. My defense of Whedon is based in large part on love -- but I don't turn off my brain when I watch his stuff, okay? So don't imply that I'm a fool, like you did in your last post.

8) I wanted to let this drop. I acknowledged my sillyness in sticking up for the guy. I suggested we move this elsewhere. You decided to question my intellect instead, and if I'm not wrong, pulled out a nice ad hominem.

9) Everything I just wrote might be complete and utter hogwash. Maybe Joss Whedon is a bad storyteller because he can't address continuity errors and plot holes you could steer a ship through. Maybe you're absolutely right and I'm absolutely wrong.

10) Now, we're both being this guy:

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so for f***'s sake, we're not having this conversation any more.
 
No, we're not being that guy at all as dissecting literature, film, TV, etc. has nothing to do with something being wrong on the internet. Now, I'm not going to bother tackling all the points you made, because quite honestly they are frivolous and don't have anything to do with the facts as they are presented.

For as good as he is Joss does a bad job of staying within his own created mythos, that is a fact, and it is something he should be taken to task for. Whether other shows have done the same doesn't matter one iota, because we aren't talking about those shows, we are talking about his shows.

The above is the only claim I made and then you immediately got defensive and did take on the classic Whedon devotee defense of, either A) ignoring his continuity errors, B) deflecting the argument onto some other show, or C) hiding behind the "Joss thinks it's silly so therefore it's okay" argument. Also, picking up on your deflection techniques and stating what you are doing is not an ad hominem by a long shot, it's merely a statement of the situation you have presented. If your response to any base criticism of Joss is going to be to ether try and quash the argument right away or deflect it in any of those various ways while trying to make the very pitiful, "no arguing on the internet" joke that doesn't even apply to the situation then there really is no point in talking about any of his shows with you.
 
Ranger1 said:
second
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Nah, you need not worry, I made my points, he made his, the discussion clearly wouldn't go anywhere further so on my end it is done.

Back to the topic at hand, someone earlier mentioned Millennium. I just recently picked up the first season of that on DVD. I remember loving that show when it first aired, even moreso than the X-Files, and I can't wait to check it out again.
 
I have to admit that i loved the intro to Roughnecks Starship Troopers the Complete Chronicles, that was really cool CGI series.
 
3) The only writers of the same scope and imagination of JMS, Whedon, and the others we're discussing who got anywhere near perfect continuity was Tolkien. He managed it by writing the Lord of the Rings (which is epic but not long) over a period of twenty years or so, and he didn't publish anything until he had it all perfect. Even then, he still had to change a few scenes in the Hobbit, which he'd written first, to bring that book into line. In short, the only way Tolkien managed perfect continuity was literally decades of painstaking labor combined with a little Soviet revisionism.
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I've read both versions of the Hobbit. It's funny how the ring is made much more sinister in the revision. :)
 
Sorry Alluveal to get a bit off topic on this but you might want to add Michael Moorcocks Eternal Champion saga or Steven Erikson's Malazan sagai would put that in the same scope as the above mentioned.now back to the topic. Quantim Leap while not a great show had a cool opening.
 
I will assume that Cell and Koshfan are done with the Whedon continuity/discontinuity conversation.

Back to the matter at hand:

All of the B5 seasons, but 3 and 5 were the best.

I always loved original Star Trek's opening. I don't care if it is cheesy by today's standards, it was my favorite childhood show.

I enjoyed the opening "cartoon" of The Wild, Wild West. Good theme song too.
 
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