deannie

I thought I'd clarify something about these commentaries, because an outside friend asked me about them. No, I was not spoiled for either film. I had no interest in seeing them and therefore wasn't anywhere I needed to ward against spoilers. And any friends who might have had an inkling that I might someday become interested in watching the films were smart enough not to spoil me because they're stellar like that!

I also wrote the commentaries during my initial watching of the films. Often in this house a film can take me up to a day or two to watch (for instance, I was interrupted by an abrupt and unscheduled end to naptime at about 35 mins into Winter Soldier and got back to it 8 hours later. Gives me more time to think about the scenes I'm commenting on, but I do not watch parts and then come back and comment. Which means I probably comment on things in a way that is totally and completely wrong in the final analysis.

But that's the fun, right?

Again, drop in that disc and play along.
( Your commentary begins here... )

Now I really do need to go watch Agents of SHIELD, because I wonder what they did with it once Winter Soldier happened.

And I have to write the Cap fic that's been trying to burrow its way out of my brain since I started watching Winter Soldier (which, for the record, took 52 hours to watch. Seriously. Welcome to my life on the weekends (if I hadn't had deadlines on Friday, I'd've watched the whole thing in one go).

I was born into fandom. Seriously. My parents were Doctor Who and Star Trek fans back when William Hartnell was The Doctor and William Shatner was the Captain. Star Trek was my lunchtime fare as a kindergartner. I'd come home from school and plop down on the kitchen stool in front of reruns of the adventures of the Starship Enterprise while I downed my PB&H sandwiches.

My parents bought me a TV/radio/minitape recorder combo unit when I was a tween and I used the minitapes to record the audio of Blake's 7 off of the local PBS station so I could listen to Avon's mellifluous tones again and again and again.

My dad took me to my first StarCon when I was 15.

It's in my blood, I guess. I've been writing fanfic since I was a tween, too. Thank God for you all I didn't post THAT on AO3!

But almost seven years ago now, stuff started happening. We started a family, lost a child, had a few more... I got busy. And I thought I grew up. And honestly, for that first year after our son died, I was kind of... Chris Larabee with less brooding anger and more depression.

I didn't watch, I didn't read, I didn't write. Fandom was dead to me *throws up hand in warding*! Dead, I say!

Except it wasn't. It was sleeping.

About this time last year, I starting watching some Magnificent Seven, which I'd liked but not ficced, at the time it was running (I was busy with Sentinel and Stargate Atlantis at the time), and was overcome by the powerful need to FIC IT! Which, of course, I did. At the same time, my wife started watching the four-plus years of Supernatural we were behind... I caught up toward the beginning of season nine and now wait with everyone else for the next season. SIGH!

Arrow is cool, and I watched the first two series of Sherlock, though I haven't gotten to more than the series opener for three yet. I'm looking forward to NCIS:NOLA and Flash, and contemplating MORE Losers and Magnificent Seven fic—that last prompted by evil people like those what run fic_promptly ...

Anyway, my point is, my brain has decided that I need to fan and thinks it's missed some big things. It's probably right. So I'm falling back on my teenage years for a way to deal with the problem.

When I was 14, I decided that I was woefully under-read, so I made up a list of "summer reading" that had a ton of books I should have read by that age. I slogged through it between school years. Some of it I loved (Shakespeare, pretty much in his entirety) and some, not so much (two words: Herman Melville). I figure, while I'm waiting for next season, I'll do the same this summer. 

And I want you to help me.

Here's the simple rules. Feel free to OpReFan yourself! I can help with older fandoms you might have missed. :)

1. Ideally, it must be free for me to watch. Cable, Netflix, and Amazon Prime are currently paid for and therefore "free". HuluPlus is not, but Hulu on the computer is fine.
2. I can bail on a series after three episodes (If, like Stargate Universe, it doesn't get good until episode five, do let me know now).
3. I can't be expected to watch the entire run of a series. One season only. I'll watch more later if I can, but dude, I got KIDS!
4. I must comment. Will post here and crosspost on LJ. Possibly will #OpReFan on Twitter.

Here are the things I already have on my list, including the ones people have suggested that I want to check out:

Fargo (the series)—Heard a scene from it on Fresh Air on NPR today and now I wants.
Falling Skies—Can't imagine why I wasn't immediately sucked in to Noah Wiley fighting aliens!
The Hobbit movies—Can you have too much Tolkienesque...nesss...? No.
Vikings—I started it a few months ago and ran out of time. Liked what I saw, though!
Castle—We stopped watching during second season, I think. Kind of a long way to go there, eh?
Survivors—Sounds like a post-apocalyptic show I can get behind, though my plague squick might get in the way. We shall see.
Fringe—Not sure about this one. Sometimes Cop Falls Into Chasing Monsters doesn't work for me. I give you Grimm.
Orphan Black—I'm gonna try it because so many people like it, but it doesn't really sound like my thing. Y'all mostly have not sucky taste, though, so we'll see :).
Luther—Hell, like I was gonna pass up an Idris Elba vehicle?
Haven—Sounds like Eureka Goes Darkside (which it sort of did all on its own, but I digress). I'm in.

What else, people? Talk to me! Leave a show or a movie in the comments and let me know why you think I should watch it. I'll do books in the winter, maybe, but for now, TV and film, baby!