2-8-98

Hail,

My ISP is doing some upgrades today, and it's possible that this may interfere with access to this page.  If you're looking around and start having trouble, you should probably just try again later.  By the same token, if any mail bounces today, try again later.

One week to the new season ;)  Not that  I needed to tell anyone that, but still.

Sick, Sad News:
This site will be moving in (when else) one week.  To be specific, on D-Day.  It will be (almost) totally renovated, with old stuff, new stuff, and other stuff.  The new page will be avalible sometime early on Monday, Feb 16th (probably around 7 am MST).  I can't guarantee that all the features will be working, but everthing that's here will be there, although with a new look.
No, the Fashion Club hasn't had anything to do with this "makeover."

Wraith

1-31-98

Hail,

I just recently got the Daria video, now that it's available on-line.  Unfortunately, I feel the need to ramble about it now.

First, I wasn't too impressed with the pilot, "Sealed with a kick."  I can't believe they got this show off the ground with this, but I'm glad they did.

My real problem with the thing comes from the other episodes, the ones they televised.  I didn't notice any missing bits (that would have really ticked me off), but I didn't notice any new ones either.  This means that they've probably been broadcasting the whole shows, and not cutting anything.  This seems rather unusual, unless it's standard policy at MTV to make the shows short and pad them out with commercials.  Given the length of the commercial breaks, this is quite likely.  They only show the intro once and the credits once, which doesn't bug me.  They, of course, stick a couple commercials on before the show starts.

There was one real problem I had with the video, though.  All those little music clips they use were replaced by stock music.  MTV's having trouble getting permission to use clips in their stuff?  Maybe they had to cut it because they're making a direct profit off the video.  (Not that selling commercial time during the broadcast isn't going to make them money, but since when have lawyers cared about common sense?)  The only bit of non-stock music I caught was during part of Brittany's college fantasy, with "The Female of the Species."  Since half of it was replaced (the part with singing), I'm assuming they simply missed this one.
This mightn't have been so bad, but the stock shit they used to replace it seems to have been chosen totally at random.  If you've seen every episode twenty some times, this becomes more than a minor annoyance.  The original music generally fits or comments on the show, and this stock junk just grates.  What are they going to do for later episodes?  Quinn's "looking for the fashion club" scene in "Too Cute" was really music intensive, and selecting replacements isn't going to be easy; assuming they bother trying, since they don't seem to have so far.

This is a really cheap cop-out, everything we've come to expect from MTV.  If they don't do something about this, there really is no reason to buy the video unless you can't tape the show for some reason.  As of now, the only other reason I can see buying the video and any other ones they come out with (the second set of three is supposed to be out soon) is to have a complete collection.  The video quality isn't noticeably better than an SP recording off cable, there's nothing new, and this stock music is incredibly obnoxious.  Is this the first sign of MTV Execs getting interested in the show?  Let's hope not.

Wraith