Chris Marquette Message Board

I really wanted Joan to have her own Scooby gang.  It's not like God ever said, "Don't tell anyone else about me."  Aside from the early warning that Adam might not be able to handle hearing that (yet), it seemed like it was up to Joan's discretion.  I would have loved to have seen Grace's reaction, and Luke's.  But by that point I'd lost faith in the show, and the show-runners.  I was so sorely disappointed by S2, I'm not sure they would have been able to correct the mistakes there and salvage S3.  But hey, that's what fan fic is for, right?  To set things right that the network execs have screwed up?  Oops, going back to my Quantum Leap obsession there!

Yeah, I was hoping someone else might want to write it.  I'm still working on this ridiculously long project.  It's currently 290,000+ words, and still going.  I've been working on it almost every day for a year and I'm getting sick of it, but I have to finish it.  Maybe I can post part of it.  There was a big scene (actually it went on for a few chapters) with Adam, George, and their two roommates having a Star Wars marathon.  I think it was before I knew Chris would be in Fanboys.  I'll take another look and see if it will make sense, out of context of the rest of the story.  The boys are currently in the midst of a Matrix marathon, but I don't think I have the patience to detail their upcoming LoTR marathon, with the extended editions and all the extras.  Hey, they're all 17-26, so they have a hell of a lot more energy than I do.    The story involves seven of Cillian Murphy's movies, plus a few characters from different TV shows.  If you're saying, "Who the heck is Cillian Murphy?" he was in Red Eye, Batman Begins, Breakfast on Pluto, 28 Days Later, On the Edge, Disco Pigs, and will be in a movie coming out in March called Sunshine.  He's been in a lot of other movies as well, but those are the main ones most people might know.

Once this project is finished, I'm going to need to rewrite some chapters in the middle and do some editing.  I've found lots of little errors and some typos, but haven't had time to correct them yet.  It's hard to do something this size without a beta reader or editor, but the one I had tried to take over the story, removing entire scenes and substituting a lot of her own scenes, and adding details that had personal significance to her but wouldn't to anyone else, so I'm back to doing it all on my own.  Damn, I hope I can finish it soon so I can get on with my life. 

Wow, some neat ideas here!

As I said in the Lost thread, I'd love to see him play a character there.  He could be on Medium, or Numb3rs, either one, and I'd be happy.  He could be a patient on Grey's Anatomy, as suggested, (maybe a recurring patient) because he'd get more screentime than as an orderly.  Now, of course George is my favorite character on Grey's, because he reminds me of Adam in the future, if Adam had gone to medical school.  I'm writing this huge cross-universe project where both Adam and George are characters -- they're not related in my story, though they're friends and roommates, along with a couple of other characters, and I designed the world's best bachelor pad for them.  To me, George looks a lot like Adam's older brother, or Adam as he might look 10 years or so after JoA.

So, a challenge:  Does anyone want to write a story where George is Adam's long-lost cousin or relative of some sort?  If something happened to Carl (face it, the man did not look at all well in Common Thread), and since Adam's still too young to live on his own, and he wouldn't want to live with the Girardi's (can you say 'awkward'?), he wants to get away from Arcadia, and the mess with Joan and everyone who now either hates him or is uncomfortable around him.  So he gets this offer to go live with his previously-unknown cousin in Washington, and works part-time at the hospital when he's not in school (much like his character on Strong Medicine did).  Of course, that would also mean he's related to George's brothers, Dumb and Dumber, but they can be left out of things.  Oh, since both Adam and George are into Dungeons & Dragons, I added that to their storyline in my project.  I think they have more in common that we realize!

Don't mind me, it's just my imagination running wild, and I don't have the time to do anything with this idea. 

I'm planning on seeing "Perfume:  The Story of a Murderer" anyway, because I read the book years ago and it was fascinating.  Plus, Alan Rickman plays a part, which doesn't hurt.  Chris might be a bit young for that part, but maybe not.  Like I said, it's been a long time since I've read it, so I don't recall the character's age that well.

I've had many ideas in the past for roles that would be good for Chris, but I can't think of any more at the moment.  I'll add them when they come back to me!

Okay, that makes sense.  Part of the problem is that I can't see very well, and the TV is half-way across the room.  I couldn't even see that he was crying, and didn't notice his clothes were different.  I thought he was still waiting for her to show up, not knowing (yet) why she wasn't there.  It makes sense that he might have found out a day later, and then be crying about it, because it's not like he'd be one of the first people who would be informed.  More likely he heard about it in school.

In fact, it wasn't till after she was shot that my mom asked me, "Is that the girl who's supposed to meet him?"  Then it clicked, and I said, "Yeah, she said she was going to stop by the store first."  Neither of us was positive it was her at first.  I blamed it on the fact that "all these young kids look alike to me," which isn't really fair, but somewhat true because it's true in real life, too.  I often have a hard time even recognizing people I know fairly well until they get close enough.  That's one reason it's so helpful to go to a message board like this and find out what all I missed!

I just saw the trailer in the theater today, before "The Prestige" (EXCELLENT movie, btw).  I think I'm going to find "Alpha Dog" extremely disturbing.  I only saw Chris briefly in two scenes.  This was much longer than the first trailer I saw.  I'm not sure if it's the one you're all talking about, but I'll try to watch it soon.  I just got home from the movie, and I'm on my way out again.  I've watched all kinds of horror movies, and I frequently watch rather violent TV shows, but this...is something entirely different.

I just didn't enjoy Season 2 nearly as much as the first season.  Maybe part of it was that it seemed like there were so many missed opportunities.  Instead of having Joan and Adam talk seriously about what she told him in the hospital, and how his belief changed, they bring in this obnoxious friend who suddenly is Joan's main confidante.  I guess it's because I've known a few Judith-types in real life, and can't stand them.  Sure, people make mistakes, but in my mind there's a difference between genuine stupidity and willful stupidity (i.e. the refusal to learn from one's mistakes because it takes the fun/spontenaity out of life).  Judith just pushed a whole lot of my buttons, so it set a tone that bothered me from very early on. 

I thought a lot of the characters were off from what we'd seen before, without a sufficient explanation.  I didn't like Lucy, either.  I usually don't like it when shows bring in new characters, for the same reasons you mentioned, Deb.  They take up screentime that could have gone to characters I already know and like, and they all bring their own set of problems that complicate the lives of the regulars even more, and they push them into a depth of intimacy with a main character too quickly for it to be entirely believable (i.e. Dawn in Season 5 of Buffy).  So, instead of delving more into Joan and Adam's relationship, let's bring in an outsider to cause friction between them, because, God knows there isn't enough there already!  Same with Lucyfer.  That just seemed to fade away into nothing.  It's like they had some great ideas, but wimped out on fully exploring them, and decided to take a safer route instead.

In a show about a teen who converses with God, I want to see more about how that affects her life, and less about the problems that we see over and over in other TV shows.  Sure, she's got regular problems too, but it almost seemed like they were using these other interruptions as an excuse to cut back on the God stuff.  Because, you know, the audience doesn't want that weird stuff, they want the same thing they can see on fifteen other shows.  Idiot execs.

Sorry for the long rant.

I agree about the commentaries.  I want to know what the actors thought of certain scenes, or character motivation, etc.  The kind of answer Chris gave to your question is exactly the kind of thing I'd like to hear from actors.  Instead of making fun of each other, or producers talking about aspects of the show most of us don't care about, let us hear from the actors, and maybe the writers of certain episodes.  I want to know what was going on in their minds.  It doesn't all have to be negative; can you imagine the fun they could have with a cast commentary for Book of Secrets or Queen of the Zombies, or even The Cat?  There could be interesting behind-the-scenes info on Only Connect, Wealth of Nations, P.O.V. or Friday Night.  While I didn't like all the episodes, and hated some, I'd like to have commentary on all of them.  I know we won't get it, but it will be interesting to see which episodes they did deem worthy of commentaries.

Thanks!

I understand why they sometimes have to change the music, because it costs so much more to get the rights for a DVD set rather than an aired episode.  Most of the time, I found the music in JoA annoying, because so often it was so loud it seemed intrusive.  I'd rather hear what the characters have to say, than listen to a song that someone thinks represents the scene.  It might help if I knew the music, but aside from a couple of songs by older artists, I didn't like most of it.  But then, my musical tastes are pretty much stuck in the 60s-80s, with one or two exceptions.

I did like the opening credits, though, and the only reason I can think of to cut them was for time (meaning money).  Cheap bastards.

I've pre-ordered it as well.  I can't wait to see the Making of Queen of the Zombies.  It's one of my favorite JoA eps ever.  Any commentary will be welcome.  This will also give me an excuse to have a marathon and watch the whole show again, in order, with no commercials to break up the story!

TeeJay, thank you so much for posting Chris's response!  That's such a relief.  It crossed my mind on occasion that maybe he suggested they make Adam more of a "normal" teenage boy, but I think most of us loved the character because he was so unique.  I'm glad it wasn't his idea, he hated it, and fought against it.  For all the good it did.  It's too bad they couldn't have a commentary from him and Amber for that episode, but maybe by then the studio realized they'd made a huge mistake and didn't want to advertise it.  I actually accidentally taped over "Trial and Error," both copies...it was like a physical Freudian slip.  I didn't intend to do it, but somehow both copies were gone, so I haven't been able to watch it since a few days after it aired.

There was so much interesting potential conflict with Ryan, and the possiblity of Adam doing a lot of things Joan was trying to set right, because he was misguided and didn't really realize the harm he was causing.  I was waiting to see something like that play out, and of course, we never got to see where they would have gone with the whole Ryan thing.

I did watch Ghost Whisperer once, and I thought Jim was pretty nice, but I agree, Joe is more interesting, because he's flawed but they're flaws I can deal with.  He comes across as a potentially real person, though Jake Weber said in an interview that in real life he's nowhere near as understanding as Joe, and he's not sure anyone would be that understanding.  Just like it would seem to be impossible to find a real teenage guy like Adam, but darn it, I at least want my fictional men to be nice, decent, thoughtful guys!

ETA:  If I'd wanted to watch The O.C., I'd have watched it.  I watched Joan because it wasn't the typical show aimed at teens.  I thought it was aimed at all different ages, and though the lead characters happened to be teenagers, they were having more interesting things happen to them than on most other shows.  I think I was also in post-Buffy depression, and so I was willing to give another show featuring teens a shot.  I was nothing like most of the kids I knew in high school, or the kids I see portrayed on TV, or what I read on various message boards.  Yeah, my experiences were different from most, but that's why I can relate to the teenage characters who aren't stereotypes.

BTW, Medium is coming back on November 15 (Wednesday) at 10:00 p.m.., on NBC.  I'm really looking forward to this season.  Javier Grillo-Marxuach has joined as a writer/producer, and he wrote some wonderful stuff for Lost.

I might try to write that scene.  Did they not talk about it at all before they left?  Did they not talk about anything important?  Must not have.  It didn't make the slightest bit of sense to me.  Horny teenager or not, Adam would have wanted to talk about it ahead of time, to make sure it was okay with Joan, and she felt the same way, etc.  He wouldn't have just assumed it was okay with her, when they had obviously not been going in that direction.

Scared writers, network...makes sense to me.  There are plenty of other shows aimed at teens; why take the one with the really different premise and try to make it just like the others?