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Old 07-30-2007, 06:11 PM   #1
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Tim Minear and Angel

I think this will interest some and annoy others!!

http://www.stakesandsalvation.com/20...im-minear.html

Cordy/series 4 referenced about halfway in.
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Old 07-30-2007, 06:36 PM   #2
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Same old, I believe.
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Old 07-30-2007, 06:57 PM   #3
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I don't like that evil Cordy was always planned, but it would have been a damn site better than Cordelia sleeping with Connor. It would have had Angel fight her, his love for her being tested, and he would probably end up saving her. It might have made Season 5 better as well, because Cordelia could have been dealing with her actions in Season 4. I still would have liked there to have been some form of relationship there, but I guess they never wanted it. They obviously just wanted Angel to love her so she could break his heart. Btvs Season 2 anyone??
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Old 08-01-2007, 05:15 AM   #4
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As mentioned in the article Minear really did favour Kate and Darla - and Lindsey.

You could always tell when Minear had written an episode Kate and/or Darla took the forefront and everyone else fell back. Especially Cordelia who was often relegated to a blink and you'll miss her line.

I've never been able to do it with any other writer - by the end of the teaser, before the credits have rolled, you can tell who the writer is. That's not a good thing, the drama/comedy/musical should hook you so that you're not thinking about the episode's construction it just is - you should almost be surprised that it was written at all, that it didnt just happen.

I've never liked Minear - and I don't think he was that good a writer. Anyone disagree?
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Old 08-01-2007, 10:40 AM   #5
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I'm with you Bert. I read this article and made my rant in another forum yesterday with my frustrations, so I'm not going there again lol

Long story short, I didn't appreciate how he disrespected Charisma by saying her pregnancy was a "medical condition"(he made it seem like she had an illness...she was creating life not dying), and since she was "laboring", they created a character that wasn't "laboring" to take over. BS BS BS! They could have worked around CC's pregnancy. Lots of actresses do it all the time. Pregnant women aren't invalid.

See! I went there...well...a little. This isn't even the half of it, but you get the drift. ...Tim
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Old 08-01-2007, 11:44 AM   #6
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Minear wrote some great stuff (Darla, Are You Now...), but if he didn't get a character, well, that character stayed not gotten. I consider Wesley in the group of not gotten characters, BTW. He was also way prone to the "wouldn't it be cool if..." disease that struck ME in its later years.

So I'd say he's good, but he's not as good as his reputation says he is or as good as he thinks he is.
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Old 08-01-2007, 01:57 PM   #7
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Quote:
Originally Posted by nikkiwawa View Post
I'm with you Bert. I read this article and made my rant in another forum yesterday with my frustrations, so I'm not going there again lol

Long story short, I didn't appreciate how he disrespected Charisma by saying her pregnancy was a "medical condition"(he made it seem like she had an illness...she was creating life not dying), and since she was "laboring", they created a character that wasn't "laboring" to take over. BS BS BS! They could have worked around CC's pregnancy. Lots of actresses do it all the time. Pregnant women aren't invalid.

See! I went there...well...a little. This isn't even the half of it, but you get the drift. ...Tim
Well they did work around it - they could have dropped her arc completely! It's difficult to see what else they could have done. She had to have time off to have her baby, and while Jasmine seemed a weak character, I suppose it seemed a good idea at the time! I seem to remember an interview (Vincent Kartheiser maybe?), saying that Charisma's doctor did not want her to return to work at all.
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Old 08-01-2007, 02:37 PM   #8
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They didn't work around CC's pregnancy. They worked around the *inconvienence* of her pregnancy. Wrote her into a coma for which she did not come out of for a year, and then killed her off after a 53 minute reunion.

If they needed tips on working around the lead actress's pregnancy, they could have asked around. Lucy Lawless was pregnant during Xena's fifth season, and they managed to work around that just fine. The writers were lazy, and Joss wanted to give his out of work Firefly actress a gig, so there you go. I apologize for my tone, but I'm still pretty steamed about how CC was treated. Even if they wanted to have her off completely and could only do it by bringing in Jasmine, they didn't have to keep her in the coma forever. She could have easily come back, if they chose to have her back.

They chose not.
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Old 08-01-2007, 04:45 PM   #9
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Coming from someone who grew up on and still watches soap, I always laugh when this topic of conversation comes up. It is pretty damn sad when so called "primetime" writers can't even deal with something that soap writers deal constantly.

I can't remember how many times an actress on GH has gotten pregnant and they have either written around it or filmed around it. They either make the character pregnant or they put her in baggier clothes and put her behind tables and desks. Wow, what a concept.

Soaps also write around actor absences incredibly well. Tony Geary (Luke on GH) only works for a few months out of the year. Whenever an actor needs to take a break, they always have some way to write them out. (Off screen adventure, death in their family, saving someone in their family, kidnapped, etc). Rick Hearst recently had emergency throat surgery and they dealt with it fine. When Ted King had a death in his family, his character went off for a while.

And those are YEAR ROUND story arcs. Not just a couple of months of shooting and stories, when you factor in the hiatus and the repeats. Maybe Tim Minear needs to go write on a soap for a while. I would love to see how he would handle the "medical conditions" there.

It is just really poor writing when you can't think of another way around something other than to destroy characterizations and treat your actors like shit. Not really a surprise that most of his shows haven't made it past a dozen episodes since. Lots of women in Hollywood, lots of high profile working moms, and stuff like this, it gets around.
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Old 08-01-2007, 06:01 PM   #10
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look at chris carter and gillian anderson, that was the 2nd yr. of the series, at the beginning, and they worked around it, they had her in the lab, they put coats on her, things in front of her, and she was still able to do some gritty stuff, yes you could tell the actress was pregnant but didn't think about it and it brought a whole storyline that lasted through the series.
jennie garth was also pregnant during "90210" and "what i like about you" and they hid her.

they could have cordy working at the hyperion behind the desk, she could have stayed with TPTB, cordy could have just gotten pregnant. instead they reused a storyline of a beloved character going "evil". can't they think up different stories?
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Old 08-01-2007, 07:32 PM   #11
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Here's another example:

Debra Messing from Will & Grace; during the sixth season she became pregnant and her portrayal and effort had declined noticably. Her role was severely reduced each episode until the last 6 or so where she was not featured in any way whatsoever and it was up the the rest of the cast to carry the season. Their excuse was that she was ill.

Last edited by Childe of Blade; 08-17-2010 at 10:41 PM.
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Old 08-01-2007, 08:40 PM   #12
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She showed dedication to that show by coming back hours after giving birth and filming, and they screwed her. She said she wanted some time off with her son, but she said six months. Most of those were gone by the time S5 started. They could have brought her back earlier than YW, and they could have carried her character on. Oh, wait, no. They had all those other characters that were so much more interesting than her, like Eve, Harmony who was basically a S1 Cordy copy, and Spike. I say crap to that. The show died without her, and it will probably carry on dying, because I know for a fact that they have already lost a lot of Cordy fans and C/A fans.
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Old 08-01-2007, 09:11 PM   #13
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Childe of Blade View Post
Here's another example:

Debra Messing from Will & Grace; during the sixth season she became pregnant and her portrayal and effort had declined noticably. Her role was severely reduced each episode until the last 6 or so where she was not featured in any way whatsoever and it was up the the rest of the cast to carry the season. They're excuse was that she was ill.
I loved what they did when she was pregnant. How it was a running joke about her putting on weight from eating so much all the time. When she put the pillows in front of her. And then when she didn't show up for Jack's nursing school graduation and they made the comment, I think, that she stopped at a bakery or something.

I actually thought they dealt with her pregnancy really well. They just wrote it in like jokes that you might actually hear on the show. Because honestly, how many times did they make fun of how much Grace ate? Like EVERY show.
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Old 08-01-2007, 09:14 PM   #14
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Originally Posted by jujube1013 View Post
look at chris carter and gillian anderson, that was the 2nd yr. of the series, at the beginning, and they worked around it, they had her in the lab, they put coats on her, things in front of her, and she was still able to do some gritty stuff, yes you could tell the actress was pregnant but didn't think about it and it brought a whole storyline that lasted through the series.
jennie garth was also pregnant during "90210" and "what i like about you" and they hid her.

they could have cordy working at the hyperion behind the desk, she could have stayed with TPTB, cordy could have just gotten pregnant. instead they reused a storyline of a beloved character going "evil". can't they think up different stories?
Exactly, that is totally the point I was trying to make. A good writer, good director, can work around something like pregnancy. And they can do it without making an actress feel like she has something wrong with her. I think that is what is pissing me off the most. How many people I see that toss the blame on CC for S4. Minear is basically just an asshole in this interview with his "medical condition" bullshit.

And the whole thing with her sleeping with Connor so Connor would protect the kid? I don't buy that line of wank at all. If Jasmine was that worried, she was controlling Cordy, she could have just told Angel it was a one night stand and let's raise this kid together. You know Angel would have protected her and done ANYTHING (and yes, I think he would have killed the girl too, if he was that attached) for Cordelia and what would be his second chance to raise a baby.

Comes back to my main point. Just. Bad. Writing.
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Old 08-01-2007, 10:00 PM   #15
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I also admired the way Will & Grace handled Messings pregnancy..

Actually, I've been noticing lately that a lot of sitcoms aren't as strict about trying to hide pregnant actesses anymore. It's like they just accept that the audience is smart enough to get that, while the actress is pregnant, the character isn't.

I will say that the way Charisma was treated (along with a few other things I've learned) have soured me a bit on AtS and BtVS.
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