In preparation for next Tuesday, this can be the (spoiler-free!) thread where we can talk about the (spoiler-free!) stuff that we’ll want everybody to know going into the show. I figure a dramatis personae list is as good a place as any to start.
Edit!: Maribou said that if she were truly spoiler-adverse, she’d want this post behind a cut. More than that, she said that if one of her favorite blogs started discussing a show that she would eventually want to watch but didn’t have time to watch it yet, she’d just stop reading the blog. So. The rest of this post is behind a cut and, I suppose, future book club posts will also be behind a cut. Sigh.
Olivia Dunham (played by Anna Torv) is Our Protagonist. She is a special agent for one of the acronyms. It is her picture on the front of the box (along with the next two folks). When wacky stuff starts to happen, she’s the special agent who starts investigating it.
Peter Bishop (played by Joshua Jackson) is Our Other Protagonist, kinda. He’s the son of Walter Bishop (we’ll get to him next) and had a pretty rough childhood, as far as we can tell. He’s a genius, speaks multiple languages, has multiple gambling debts, knows multiple shady characters, and has multiple issues with his dad…
Walter Bishop (played by John Noble) is the mad scientist. He is the reason you will be watching the show. Not just because Walter is awesome, but because the stuff that Walter did way back in the 70’s and 80’s (which, coincidentally enough, was on the highly theoretical versions of the stuff happening today). He’s spent the last 17 years in an asylum, though. So he’s sorta missed a lot of stuff.
Astrid Farnsworth (played by Jasika Nicole) is the lab assistant lucky enough to be assigned to help Walter in the lab and/or field. She’s good enough that you can see why they picked her to get that particular job, except for the whole thing where you don’t see how she would have ticked off the person she must have ticked off in order to get it.
Phillip Broyles (played by Lance Reddick) is Olivia’s boss. He has a great “exasperated” face.
Charlie Francis (played by Kirk Acevedo) is Olivia’s immediate supervisor. Nice guy.
Nina Sharp (played by Blair Brown) is the Personal Secretary of William Bell (we’ll get to him later) and William Bell is the guy who runs Massive Dynamic. The corporation is even more insidious than it sounds. It’s like Waynetech if Waynetech was run by Lex Luthor. (Note to self: That sounds like a pretty cool place to work. Good benefits.)
And, of course, The Pattern. There’s a lot of wacky stuff going on. Wacky, wacky stuff. Seriously, wacky stuff. As I said earlier, it all seems to be related to the stuff that Walter worked on back when there still was an East Germany and now the time has come to figure out what the heck is going on.
Now, when it comes to the discussion we’re all going to have, I know that some people really care about spoilers and some people don’t. If you’re one of the people who don’t, know that my personal inclinations are with you (edit: seriously, I totally, totally am). That said, we should also do what we can to accomodate the people who really care about not finding out that WALTER IS A SPACE ALIEN!!!! (note: Walter is not a space alien (note: there are people who would consider finding out that Walter is not a space alien to be a spoiler as well)) and to accomodate them, I’m going to ask that we use, you guessed it, rot13 encryption.
Just go here, paste in the comment you’d like to make, press the button, and post the seemingly gobbledygook into your comment. To unencrypt it, repeat the process. That way the people who want to discuss spoilers can discuss them and the people who want to avoid spoilers can avoid them and they can co-exist within the same thread. If you suspect that what you are writing is, in fact, a spoiler? Just encrypt it. (I’ll do my best to include a link to the rot13 site every discussion thread as well, so it’ll be as painless as possible.)
That’s for the people who care about spoilers… however, there’s no such thing as a spoiler for the episode we’re set to discuss in any given week. If the punchline of the television show is that WALTER IS A SPACE ALIEN!!!, well, we’re going to talk about that in the post, above the cut (there’s not going to be a cut, actually), and we’re going to talk about his space alienness in the comments without worrying about encryption. Now, if it turns out that, in season two, Walter’s space alien co-horts are going to start eating the brains of people, we should consider talking about the brain-eating as if it were a spoiler… but when it comes to what we know in the episode we just saw? We will assume that, hey, we saw it. (Oh, and the “did you notice that he ordered a cow brain sandwich???” kind of observations about an episode we just watched will not be considered spoilers that ought to be encrypted… though any answer to the question “why is *THAT* important??” that goes into more detail than “it’s important next season” ought to be.)
We ready? Any questions? Concerns?
Maribou tells me that a husband placing a “sigh” at the end of a paragraph discussing a wife is the equivalent of saying “that goddamn termagant”.
Let me say that I had to look “termagant” up and, as such, could not possibly have meant that.
I like your wife. She sounds smart and delightful 🙂
Yeah, she’s pretty cool.
I just finished the pilot, it was the Saints Row: The Third of television pilots.
Can’t wait for the next one, though the wife ways from now on I have to watch by myself.
Don’t make it complicated or anything.
Uh-oh, what’s too complicated?
Not too complicated, just more complicated. The encrypting is fine, I’m just teasing.
We can practice! (We probably should practice.)
V bevtvanyyl jnagrq gb pbzr hc jvgu n shaal wbxr sbe guvf cneg juvpu jbhyq znxr gur rapelcgvat/harapelcgvat cnegvphyneyl erjneqvat ohg nyy bs gur wbxrf gung znqr zr ynhtu jrer rvgure cnegvphyneyl pehqr be cnegvphyneyl cbyvgvpny be cnegvphyneyl obgu naq V qvqa’g jnag gb yrnir n ynzr wbxr urer orpnhfr, yrg’f snpr vg, gung jbhyq or n uhtr qvfnccbvagzrag evtug gurer nf jryy. V fhccbfr V pbhyq unir gbyq gur “neeee, vg’f qeviva’ zr ahgf” cvengr wbxr (gung’f nyjnlf n tbbq bar) ohg vg’f xvaqn obeqreyvar. Nf fhpu, V whfg ubcr gung lbh jrer vafcverq gb genafyngr gur grkg lbh fnj naq sbhaq guvf cnentencu (JEVGGRA WHFG SBE LBH!!!) gb or fbzrjung fngvfslvat.
Boo, rot13 is blocked by work.
What, like you should be working or something. Geez!
I actually didn’t realize this was being led by initiates-and-afficionadoes. That slightly intimidates me. I may lay back on the contributions a bit until I get a sense of the show for a couple eps. I might ask questions, but then I might not be thrilled to get the answers out of sequence. We’ll see – but I’ll be watching and reading along!
I’m watching for the first time, too, so you can join me as a neophyte. JB is just laying down rules so those that know don’t spoil it for the rest of us.
Remember, this is a J.J. Abrams show, I’m not convinced that his shows can actually be spoiled. That would require the earlier episodes to logically flow into the later episodes, if Alias and Lost are any indication, there will be no such consistency and any “facts” are subject to be changed, ignored or forgotten at will.
Dude. It’s us.
Don’t be intimidated.
Aw man, I like my posts like my men. Uncut!
+1
It’s like Waynetech if Waynetech was run by Lex Luthor.
Awesome description!
I don’t care about spoilers, because I’ve seen all the seasons except Season 1, and I’m already spoiled for a fair bit of the stuff that happens during Season 1.
So, how much are we watching for Tuesday? Just the pilot?
Just the Pilot.
I’m thinking two episodes per club meeting after that but if that’s too heavy (or too light) we can change if we get a general feeling from everybody.
I have to get this out there, for anyone planning to participate:
Do not watch while eating.
Why?
You never know when it might make your eating experience suddenly less pleasant.
Now I have to do it. I don’t know why, I just feel compelled.
Mac n’ cheese.
Seconded. Do not sit down to watch the pilot with your dinner. I have not yet watched any episodes since, but when I do, it will not be during a meal.
Yes, I will confirm what Will has just said.
I have turned episodes off because I was eating a slice of pizza at the time and thought something to the effect of “this pizza will not be as good tomorrow while this episode will be as good tomorrow”.
Spoiler-free warning: one of the branches of science that is heavily explored is biology. In all its biological glory.
Anything with tomato sauce seems to be a really bad idea. Or green sauce. Or white sauce. Just avoid sauce. Crackers and cheese are okay.
All of these teasers have just wet my appetite. If I wasn’t going to watch Fringe before, I am now.