Chris Marquette Message Board

Of course!   I'm looking forward to reading it.

Shadow Chasers was on very briefly in 1985, I believe, from Fall to Winter.  It was a very quirky drama/comedy with paranormal elements, and aired on Thursday nights, opposite The Cosby Show and Family Ties.  Hence its dismal ratings and quick demise.  That's the other way to guarantee a show will tank, set it opposite the highest-rated shows of the season.  Idiots.  It was a bit like the X-Files, but well ahead of XF.

I finally figured out the mystery of Script City's JoA scripts.  If you just go to the TV Scripts - J category and look up the show alphabetically, it only shows nine or so episodes.  If you type "Joan of Arcadia" into the search area, then you get several more.  They also have "State of Grace" and "The Uncertainty Principle."  I don't know why there aren't any Season 2 scripts, but one of these days I'll try to get the other two scripts.  They have scripts from other shows I want, too, but I'll have to wait a while for those.  At least till I've paid off my computer!

I won't be posting much for a while.  Not only are my arms hurting, but when I woke up my neck was killing me.  It's been hurting all day.  Not sure what I did to it, but I'm mainly going to watch TV and read this weekend; I think it will be easier than sitting at the computer.

I have no problem with reading smut!  Or writing it.  Trust me on that.    Quite a bit of my fic is NC-17 or beyond.

I read a few J/A stories on ff.net, but I have to say I wasn't impressed.  I don't remember the titles or authors, but the Adam they were writing was definitely not "my" Adam.  I'm sure my Adam is somewhat different from everyone else's.  I'm thinking about posting some Adam scenes from the huge fic I'm writing, but I'm not sure they'll make sense out of context.  I think there are a couple that will make sense.  But again, it might be a while before I can do that.  Stupid pain.

Joan of Arcadia -- No Future (209)

Another excellent episode!  This one was written by Barbara Hall, the show's creator, which may account for a lot of it.  Well, we didn't learn everything about Kevin's accident, but we learned enough to realize that Kevin made a distinct clear choice (as did Judith last episode).  That changed his life.  It didn't kill him, but it may have made him a better man.  Kevin was pretty much a jock jerk before the accident, and his father had been on his case all day. After the Homecoming game, Kevin went to a party and had an argument with his girlfriend, Beth.  She confronted him about cheating on her and he didn't want to deal with it.  So while she was in the bathroom, he tried to leave with his friend Andy, who was drunk.  Kevin told Andy to give him the keys; Andy insisted he was fine and could drive.  Plus, he said it was his dad's car, and Kevin wasn't insured to drive it, so his dad would kill him.  Kevin tried to insist, but a bunch of "the guys" were around, laughing at him, and Andy was taunting him, attacking Kevin's masculinity.  Well, we all know what that means... common sense and brain cells evaporate.  Beth ran out of the house and tried to talk Kevin into staying and talking to her.  He seemed undecided, but did make the choice to leave.

All the other Gerardi's gave their depositions for the trial; all their memories are slightly different.  Okay, that's understandable, but what doesn't make sense is that the date given for the accident is November 9, 2002.  Which means two years ago.  At the beginning of the series, in 2003, we were told Kevin's accident had happened about 2 1/2 years before, so probably early in 2001.  The ads for this episode said, "three years ago, their lives were changed for ever."  That makes sense if it was November 9 of 2001.  I don't know whether Barbara Hall made a mistake or changed her mind, but that's a glaring error that so far doesn't make sense.

One thing that's nice about the deposition scenes are the way the flashbacks are handled, like the transition scenes of water being poured into a glass to rain outside a window etc..  Joan and Luke look about two years younger, but really Joan should be about 13, almost 14, and Luke about 12, almost 13, and he definitely looks older than that.  They do a great job of playing younger, and there are the visual amusements of Joan's hair in pigtails and Luke's trendy headgear for his braces.  The two of them are watching the Three Stooges on TV, and Joan is teasing Luke about the kite he wants for his birthday.  Luke's birthday is on the 19th, 10 days after Kevin's accident.  This will be important later.  Luke extols the aerodynamic values of this particular kite, but Joan isn't impressed.  They fight over a bag of cheese puffs, which pretty much explodes when they hear their mothers anguished wail.  She's just heard the news about Kevin.

In the car on the way to the hospital, Joan recalls that Luke seemed pretty calm, but she noticed him counting on his fingers.  She knew he's counting the days till his birthday, but he's a math whiz; he shouldn't have to use his fingers.  This indicates to her how upset he is.  We don't see any hospital scenes; maybe the scenes of Judith in the hospital last week were deemed sufficient for the viewer's monthly quota.  More likely, they wanted to save the time and budget required to make Kevin look all broken and gory, so I'm sure some viewers were grateful to be spared that sight.

In the beginning of the episode Joan is in Dr. Dan's office talking about this sort of imaginary childhood friend, a magical sea turtle.  Dr. Dan points out that Judith was real.  Joan continues to talk about the wonderful qualities of her imaginary friend, and we finally get some insight into what Joan saw in Judith.  She saw her as a free spirit, sparkly and fun and magical.  Okay.  She's angry at Dr. Dan for not listening to her, but he says she's projecting her anger at Judith (for dying) onto him.  He says God isn't real.  He (Dr. Dan) took God away from her.  "I destroyed that magical and exotic friendship."  Joan says lots of people believe in God, (Isaac Newton, Bono, and everyone who wins an award), and they're not crazy.  He says they don't all talk to God, and people who do are crazy.  He asks if Joan is seeing God again.  She doesn't verbally answer, but her smile lets us know what she wants to say.

But what about Adam and Joan?  Thanks for asking.  They seem pretty happy for the moment, amazingly enough.  They were waiting outside VP Price's office on a little bench outside the window.  Adam is talking about maybe going to a second tier school, maybe the University of Texas, and talks about some of the filmmakers from thetr.  He only gets to Wes Anderson before he's interrupted.  Joan is leaning against Adam's shoulder.  The source of their interruption by a male, slightly effeminate, secretary, who tells Joan that Price is ready to see her.  Adam and Joan kiss before she stands up, but they are admonished by the Secretary about PDAs (public displays of affection).  Oh, and, Adam is seriously cute in this episode.

Joan goes in to see Price, who's even more of an asshole than usual.  He sneers at Joan's criteria for picking a college; "weather" isn't a good enough reason, apparently.  She says she'll go wherever Adam's going.  Price, in an amazing turnabout, tells her Adam is a gifted student, and she doesn't want to drag him down,  does she?  He says most colleges require an indication of working brain cells, which she lacks.  He points out the fact that she's flunking Physics.  She's upset about the F she got on the first semester final, but the rest of her grades have been B"s.  Price isn't impressed, and tells her she doesn't have what it takes to go to a four-year school, and gives her a brochure for the local community college.  Joan is crushed.  Now, not to dis my TV boyfriend, but when did Adam become "gifted" instead of a troublemaker who's barely getting by?  That seemed to be Price's opinion before this episode.  Whatever.  I'm happy to accept that Adam is brilliant and gifted, I just wish there had been a little more build-up of Price slowly seeing there's more to Adam than he thought.

Somewhere in here, Joan goes to see a psychic.  The psychic, naturally, is another God avatar.  Joan tells her she looks like she's wearing a wig from Cher's reject pile.  Fortune teller God takes Joan's money, but the tarot cards she turns up are blank.  Joan is alarmed, but God tells her it doesn't mean she has no future, but that the present is more important.  Joan is not impressed overall, and gets up to leave.  God emphasizes that it's important Joan remembers the present.

In gym class, Friedman  endangers his future progeny by falling onto the gymnastic bar. instead of balancing on it.  Ouch!  Glynis goes to comfort him.  Friedman was talking to Glynis about Harvard.  Adam says it's like they are all possessed about college, and Price told him he should put in more hours at the design studio if he wants to be accepted at Stanford.  Joan is shocked.  "What about Texas?"  He tells her Price said for what he's doing, Stanford is better.  He assumes it's on her short list, too.  Jonah lies and says, of course it is.

Helen is furious when Joan tells her what Price said, so she marches into his office, Joan in tow, and demands that Price apologize.  She tells him he has no right to ruin students' dreams and crush their spirits, and tells him he's going to hell.  It's hard to say whether he's moved by that threat, but he does sort of apologize.  Mama Bear Gerardi stomps out, followed by Joan, who looks over her shoulder and flips her hair at Price in an amusing gesture he will easily be able to interpret.

During Joan's deposition, she mentioned Luke was counting the days till his birthday.  She mentioned he wanted a kite.  The court reporter asks her to clarify what he wanted.  Then she asked when his birthday was.  Joan answered, then a light bulb seemed to go off.  "Oh my God."  The court reporter just looks at her expectantly.  "You weren't talking about the present, you were talking about...the present.  I bet it was both, because that's what you do."  The odd thing is, neither attorney seems to find this conversation unusual or distracting.  Kevin's attorney had to get Will, Helen and Luke's attention at various parts of their testimony, because they were lost in thought, but he doesn't try to get Joan back on track.  Court reporter God says she's back on the record, and suddenly both attorneys look up and things continue.  Some fans doubted the court reporter was God, but if it wasn't God, she would've asked Joan what she was talking about, and would have made more of an effort to get back on the record immediately.  She shouldn't have asked the question, "When he is Luke's birthday?" in fact, court reporters don't get to ask questions on their own, just clarification or repetition of something they missed.  Both attorneys should have jumped down her throat for that, and they didn't even notice.  It's not like they were frozen in time, either; they were both looking down, taking notes or something.  Weird.  Another example of God being present (ha!) and nobody but Joan actually sees Who it is.

Luke had asked Grace to come to dinner for his birthday; she refused.  He got upset, and told her it was the deal breaker.  Later, she agrees to come, but says she won't sing or wear a dress.  That's fine with Luke.  Will has invited Lucy, his boss, over for dinner, which Helen has reluctantly prepared.  I still think the boss is Lucyfer, and Helen probably agrees.  Luke and Grace come in, and he's surprised to see a stranger there.  He notices the dinner isn't lasagna (which his dad traditionally fixes for him).  Will and Helen have obviously forgotten his birthday.  His 16th birthday.  Shades of 16 Candles!  Luke says he's not hungry, and goes out of the room.  Grace looks stricken, then gives a fake smile and says they both have studying to do.  I can't tell if she's wearing makeup, but she's obviously made an effort to look nice.  Her voice sounds funny, a lot more girly than usual.  I think she's trying very hard to be perceived as a "normal" girl who wants to impress her boyfriend's parents.  She really was making a concession there!

A bit later, Joan finds Luke and Grace in the garage, obviously not studying.  She gives Luke is present, the kite he wanted.  He is thrilled that she remembered.  She tells him to cut their parents some slack, with the depositions and all.  Grace decides to give him her gift, too.  She shows him a well-worn piece of paper. Luke recognizes it. "Our confidentiality contract!"  She tears it up, then puts her hand up to his face and kisses him.  We see Joan, standing near and basically between them, her total confusion plain to see.  ([img]"Luke and Grace?  Kissing?  This doesn't make sense.  And, ewwwww!"[/img]  They go outside to try out the kite, and are having fun when Will and Helen come out, having finally remembered what day it is.  Luke tells them it's all right, but now they owe him a car.  Helen says it's not all right, but Luke very maturely says it is.  He's gotten some unexpected things that night, the kite Joan remembered, Kevin's okay, and they are all there and everything is all right.  Then we focus on the kite, which Luke has finally gotten up in the air.  It turns into Andy's keys, which he's thrown into the air in the final flashback of the night.  The camera pans down to Kevin's feet, on one side of the car, and the keys on the ground on the other side.  Andy is laughing.  Beth gives Kevin one more anguished, pleading look, and he seems torn, but he gets into the car.  The last shot is of his brand-new shoes, which they will have to cut off later that night.

I wish Barbara Hall would write more episodes.  Not enough Adam, but still, an excellent episode.

I'll try to print it out soon.  I can't read things on the screen for very long, and I really need to give my arms a break.  I'm going to try to cut down on the time I'm online, for a while, but I'm looking forward to it.  I'll be happy to give you my perspective.

I'll definitely have to read that fic, as soon as I have time.  Sound familiar?  I haven't read any fic in the last year.  I need to finish that one project I'm writing, then I'm done for quite a while.  My characters usually have fabulous sex lives, probably better than is realistically possible!

Heh, yes, it's true in many contexts! 

It would be nice to see him in some kind of action movie, as an unexpected/unlikely hero, the only guy who will actually to do something, or has some necessary skill that's needed.

I definitely want to see Chris and Alyson Hannigan in a movie together.  Romantic comedies are not usually my thing, but a rom com with the two of them?  I'd definitely pay good money for that!  (Not the idiotic kind of rom com, but the good kind.  A few do exist.  Ooooohhhh, I've got it:  A remake of "Truly, Madly, Deeply."  Yes.  I'm another one with a major hair fetish, so the shaved-head look would not be something I'd want to see, no matter how good the movie or role.  It would be too deeply disturbing. 

Heh, the last post came in as I was typing this.  I prefer a supernatural element.  I can't think, offhand, of any rom com I've liked that didn't have that element.

I want that one, too!  Or I'd settle for the second-best apartment, which has its own library.  That's one fun thing about fic, you can create your own universe, and give your characters things you want for yourself but can't realistically have.

Yeah, that sounds like something I could do.  I had been thinking along the same lines, that if it could be posted on the site, without anyone getting in trouble, it would make it a lot easier for other fans as well.

Sure, I can certainly at least scan the Adam scenes from one script, and see how that goes.  I just downloaded Adobe Reader 7.08, so that might help.  I'll definitely try it out this weekend.

Hm, apparently I have something called PDF Services that I think is part of MS Word, but I have no idea how to use it yet.  I'll try to figure it out this weekend.

My scripts are all on paper; maybe that's why there are different ones listed.  The list I have only shows the paper scripts.

I could try to scan the scripts, but I have a feeling it would take a long time to do that.  Not only is the computer new (I switched from PC to Mac about a month ago) but so is my copier/scanner.  I haven't done any scanning with this machine yet.  I haven't used MS Word much either, except occasionally at work.  I've been using WordPerfect for about 15 years, so I've got a high learning curve with a lot of aspects of my computer right now.  I can try to see if I can scan, then convert to PDF.  I just don't have a lot of free time right now, and I'll have even less soon.  I'm going to start working another hour a day at work, in about a week, and fairly soon after that, try to go to full-time.

I can try to play around with it a bit this weekend, and see if I can scan one of the scripts.  The Adam-related ones I have are, again:

The Devil Made Me Do It
Requiem...
Recreation
Touch Move
Night Without Stars
No Bad Guy
St. Joan

Which one should I try to work on?  Vote!