More news: The second half of season 9 is already up for
pre-order at Amazon, although there’s no release date listed for it yet. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CL0MCN0?tag=tvshowsondvdcom&link_code=as3&creativeASIN=B00CL0MCN0&creative=373489&camp=211189
Just a little over a month to the release of Part
1! I’m so hyped for it.
I just wish the box art was different. It seems
sad to not feature the other characters across the top, like with all the other
sets, and instead just have Perry alone. It feels very final and melancholy and
makes season 9 feel way different aside from its distinction of being the last
season.
And really, it doesn’t start out that different,
in spite of new cast members Richard Anderson and Dan Tobin. The early episodes
are a lot like what we just left in season 8, which isn’t surprising since I
heard 8 and 9 were given continuous production numbers as though they were all
part of one big season. It’s only after getting into it a little more that
things get quite different.
It’s episode 5’s The Impetuous Imp that
brings the first real changes plot-wise, in the form of Hamilton’s assistant
Bill Vincent. I certainly would like to know what the writers’ actual intention
was with the character. The changes are positive in the respect that they throw
more screentime on the district attorney’s office, but when Bill seems so
unable to handle himself in court, I wonder if it’s really a positive change. I
do enjoy seeing how Hamilton deals with the problems, however.
The Carefree Coronary,
episode 6, is probably the first drastically different entry, with one of the
main characters actually being at death’s door. Exploring how the others react
to it results in, I think, a very positive change. It’s heartbreaking, but
encouraging, to see how deeply worried and distraught Perry and Della are over
Paul.
I would cite The 12th Wildcat,
episode 8, as being the first episode in season 9 to really be noticeably
negatively different in formula. Not explaining the crime is jaw-dropping in
any season, including 9. But then there’s the oddity of the court scenes in
both this episode and the prior one, The Hasty Honeymooner, being so
identical. And The Hasty Honeymooner is so weird as it is that I wonder
if I should list it as being the first negative one. It’s not the first oddball
episode the series has ever done, though. But The 12th Wildcat
and its gaping plotholes is certainly something new.
Granted, the show has had plotholes before.
There’s some rather confusing stuff with that pesky locket in The Romantic
Rogue, for one. But that’s still nothing compared to simply refusing to
explain the crime. They always did that otherwise, to help the poor confused
souls who couldn’t put all the pieces together (and to reveal pieces that no
one would have put together).
With the first fifteen episodes (presumably) on
the first set, that will also take us through the utter tongue-in-cheek oddity
that is The Golden Girls and to The Bogus Buccaneers, an episode
I’m particularly anxious to see in its uncut form. I just hope all of its
plotholes will be nicely wrapped up, particularly why Clay gets to be one of
the baby’s three godfathers.
Other episodes I’m especially excited to see
uncut for the first time are The Fatal Fortune, The Wrathful Wraith,
and The Runaway Racer. And I am hoping that if nothing else, the missing
scene with Hamilton in The 12th Wildcat will at least help
explain his off-the-wall behavior in court. (But since the court scenes are so
similar to The Hasty Honeymooner’s, I kind of doubt it.)
Most of the other episodes on the first set I’ve
seen uncut, except for the out-of-town episodes The Cheating Chancellor,
The Hasty Honeymooner, and The Fugitive Fraulein. But I am very
happy that I will get to own all of them uncut, including the ones I’ve seen
uncut before. I especially look forward to taking screenshots on The Candy
Queen. There’s so many actors I particularly like in that one!
And speaking of The Candy Queen, casino
manager Tony Earle briefly wandered into something I was tinkering with
concerning Slim Marcus (of The Singing Skirt notoriety). I finally got
an idea for how to do a character study on Slim, but it ended up being . . .
well, quite a bit different than anything I’d imagined. Slim ends up talking
with a fellow from the Yu-Gi-Oh! Japanese anime series. But don’t worry,
folks; if anyone wants to take a look, there’s only one throwaway reference to
anything really strange. It’s just a conversation between two people each
carrying a burden. http://31-days.livejournal.com/2982905.html
Another rather random idea floating through my
mind involves Hamilton, Sampson, and maybe Leon on some sort of quest (which
quite possibly involves rescuing at least some of the others). It was Village
Lantern, a beautiful song by Blackmore’s Night, that sparked that idea.
I’ve associated it with Hamilton for over a year, and to me it always has a
certain element of both adventure and fantasy to it. It would probably be
similar in nature to the Lux Aeterna theme set I wrote on Livejournal. (And
it would probably also be posted on Livejournal.) But I don’t know if I’ll
actually write it or even to start filling in the details.
I
have plans for the next chapter of The Malevolent Mugging, which I
intend to start writing this week. It would be very nice if I could get all the
rest of the story written before it’s been up for a whole year!
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