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bunn7culaMan, look.
Hyperfixations are a bitch. But hyperfixations on super sad shit is a whole PACK of them.
I've seen Morgan's Boy before. Twice. Great the first time, excellent the second. Gave me the sads but I could deal because something something Blake's 7, and lots of other people to commiserate with whenever I'd subject myself to "Blake" yet one more bloody time.
I got one of my pals on my B7 discord server (inquire within) to do a Morgan's Boy watchalong with me over the past week or two and we finished Saturday.
What is today? Thursday? Centaxday? Stardate 76160.4? Whatever, I am still on this shit and DEVASTATED.
The third time, my gods, the third time was it. And having a fellow Gareth Thomas fan with eagle eyes and insightful conversation with me this time made it even more...just, more. The more I think about the details, the more I realize just what a diamond this series is. As in hard and gleaming. A show about a Welsh hill farmer--think you're getting some nice cozy twee outing in the country with some dramatic ups and downs? Hahaha, no. You are only getting fattened by superior storytelling, compelling characters, and singular acting performances before getting your throat slashed and your body hung still alive on a meat hook to be slaughtered like The Old Gentleman did all the pigs in Powys.
Like Morgan, I am too soft, boy.
The worst part of it all, though, is I seem to be finally truly mourning Gareth Thomas.
I'm a noob B7 fan. Got into it last year and, after some trepidation and avoidance since I'd already absorbed every spoiler, finished the finale mere hours before Paul Darrow died. (yes, that was just as much the proverbial peanut on the poo-pile it sounds like it would be.) I loved Avon very much, and had the show been his from the beginning he would have undoubtedly been my favorite, but my heart belonged to Blake from the first.
Avon is an obviously complex character, while Blake is much more subtly so. It excites me to no end seeing how other people that agree with me about this have approached his character in fanfic. I don't even have to say that B7 has some of the finest fan writing I've ever encountered, because after 40 years of quality, it speaks for itself.
Anyway, I knew not too far into my early viewings that Gareth had passed away a few years before, and was quite disappointed about it but that, as they say, was then, and this is now.
I've tried watching everything I can find on the internet that Gareth has done, and I've been treated to some fine entertainment (MB, Children of the Stones, Stocker's Copper, Sutherland's Law, naming only a very select few) and put through blessedly few dire messes (Star Maidens, that Hammer House of Horror episode - which are both still worth one viewing respectively for, a) Gareth in some very revealing Levi's, and b) imo peak handsome period aside from, say, 1972. (I may be mourning, but I'm still a shallow, thirsty bitch, okay? And lbr--contrary to Gareth's [deadly charming] self-deprecating remarks about his appearance, the man was exceptionally handsome. Combined with his enormous presence and exceptional talent, he is truly the Extra Large Full Meal Deal in anything he appeared in.)
But this third viewing of Morgan's Boy has somehow really made it sink in that Gareth is gone. It feels strange and quite crazy to feel so forlorn about the death of someone I never knew, and which occurred five and a half years ago, but I know there are others out there that have felt a similar sadness because I have read so many of their accounts. Here is yet another one.
Thanks for everything, Gareth. I'll add to the chorus that it really is a shame, you were a bloody fine actor.
X
Hyperfixations are a bitch. But hyperfixations on super sad shit is a whole PACK of them.
I've seen Morgan's Boy before. Twice. Great the first time, excellent the second. Gave me the sads but I could deal because something something Blake's 7, and lots of other people to commiserate with whenever I'd subject myself to "Blake" yet one more bloody time.
I got one of my pals on my B7 discord server (inquire within) to do a Morgan's Boy watchalong with me over the past week or two and we finished Saturday.
What is today? Thursday? Centaxday? Stardate 76160.4? Whatever, I am still on this shit and DEVASTATED.
The third time, my gods, the third time was it. And having a fellow Gareth Thomas fan with eagle eyes and insightful conversation with me this time made it even more...just, more. The more I think about the details, the more I realize just what a diamond this series is. As in hard and gleaming. A show about a Welsh hill farmer--think you're getting some nice cozy twee outing in the country with some dramatic ups and downs? Hahaha, no. You are only getting fattened by superior storytelling, compelling characters, and singular acting performances before getting your throat slashed and your body hung still alive on a meat hook to be slaughtered like The Old Gentleman did all the pigs in Powys.
Like Morgan, I am too soft, boy.
The worst part of it all, though, is I seem to be finally truly mourning Gareth Thomas.
I'm a noob B7 fan. Got into it last year and, after some trepidation and avoidance since I'd already absorbed every spoiler, finished the finale mere hours before Paul Darrow died. (yes, that was just as much the proverbial peanut on the poo-pile it sounds like it would be.) I loved Avon very much, and had the show been his from the beginning he would have undoubtedly been my favorite, but my heart belonged to Blake from the first.
Avon is an obviously complex character, while Blake is much more subtly so. It excites me to no end seeing how other people that agree with me about this have approached his character in fanfic. I don't even have to say that B7 has some of the finest fan writing I've ever encountered, because after 40 years of quality, it speaks for itself.
Anyway, I knew not too far into my early viewings that Gareth had passed away a few years before, and was quite disappointed about it but that, as they say, was then, and this is now.
I've tried watching everything I can find on the internet that Gareth has done, and I've been treated to some fine entertainment (MB, Children of the Stones, Stocker's Copper, Sutherland's Law, naming only a very select few) and put through blessedly few dire messes (Star Maidens, that Hammer House of Horror episode - which are both still worth one viewing respectively for, a) Gareth in some very revealing Levi's, and b) imo peak handsome period aside from, say, 1972. (I may be mourning, but I'm still a shallow, thirsty bitch, okay? And lbr--contrary to Gareth's [deadly charming] self-deprecating remarks about his appearance, the man was exceptionally handsome. Combined with his enormous presence and exceptional talent, he is truly the Extra Large Full Meal Deal in anything he appeared in.)
But this third viewing of Morgan's Boy has somehow really made it sink in that Gareth is gone. It feels strange and quite crazy to feel so forlorn about the death of someone I never knew, and which occurred five and a half years ago, but I know there are others out there that have felt a similar sadness because I have read so many of their accounts. Here is yet another one.
Thanks for everything, Gareth. I'll add to the chorus that it really is a shame, you were a bloody fine actor.
X
no subject
Date: 2020-09-24 06:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-09-24 09:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-09-24 08:06 pm (UTC)And it's not ridiculous to mourn. It would be ridiculous to pretend or anything like but, but I don't think it's ever ridiculous to grieve the loss of another human being, even if we didn't know them for themselves as such, but only what they gave us through the talents, like acting, writing, singing.
I think of the B7 people, Jacqueline's hit me the hardest, but I've had this before, and the worst and most ridiculous was Alfred Burke. Because I knew he was dead before I watched Enemy at the Door! he lived into his 90s, had an excellent life. And then I watched Public Eye and it and his performance me caught me in such a way that at the end, I just broke down and went full on grieving because it just seemed impossible that this so-real and alive person I'd just spent months watching intensely could possibly not exist any more. So, yeah. It happens. And Gareth was a very, very fine actor, I think, and Blake a fascinating character. And I haven't even seen all his stuff! (I have been too busy chasing down my own particular quarries. Frequently literal quarries, too, of course...)
no subject
Date: 2020-09-24 09:32 pm (UTC)Thanks for the kind words. They really did help. I know I'm not the only person that's ever felt this way, but I do also know that most folks don't get quite as attached to actors in the way I have with this particular one. And truthfully, this has only happened to me one other time, and that actor is still alive, so this is the first time I've felt this level of owwwww. I can therefore fully appreciate your reaction to Alfred Burke--getting into it knowing the've already passed doesn't dull it once it truly sets in, does it? Such is a rather large pitfall of getting emotionally involved with media that's as old or older than you are.
*sends hugs back*
no subject
Date: 2020-09-25 07:39 am (UTC)Oh, how cool! I hope so too. My quarries were only literal on TV. I don't go anywhere these days, even before all this. (I have ME or CHronic Fatigue Syndrome so actually going places renders me useless for about six weeks after.)
Such is a rather large pitfall of getting emotionally involved with media that's as old or older than you are.
It is! Although Alfie was the worst, but that was because of Frank - watching that whole performance through in fairly quick succession while being ill just made me feel like I'd lost someone I knew. I'm sorry about James Maxwell, but I kind of found out he was a ghost before anything else, and the ghost story is pretty sweet at least, although I am sad that our lives could not have coincided enough for me to see him on stage somewhere. And I'm not happy about losing Mr Collings, either. But I have begun to feel what I really appreciate in an actor these days is a good obituary and I really ought to try and rejoin the 21st C sometime.
but, yes, Gareth is really lovely. *sends a few more hugs your way*