#crtext

So I’ve been Googling the new writers, and I found out something great! Shannon Goss (the one who got her start on E.R.) is mixed race Japanese. This is excellent news to me because all-white writing rooms are never a good thing for a show, ESPECIALLY when your show will be introducing non-white characters. (And perhaps, especially, a particular potential Asian caricature known as Mr. Willoughby...)

Look, we’re all fans here, we all feel these emotions, so I hope you’ll all bear with me while I process my ~feelings.

What I need to work on remembering is that no one on the show so far has been miscast.

There’s a first time for everything. NO. CHILL OUT, SELF. Fuirich agus chì thu. Wait and see!

As a tallish woman, I take Brianna very personally. (Additionally, I don’t mind her as a character -- yeah, she’s frustrating at times, but I remember being 20 years old and I was the worst back then so I cut her slack).

I say I’m “tallish” because I’m as tall as the average man -- 5′9″. I know that being this height has a huge effect on how I’m perceived in the world and I know that women who are really tall -- as in, 6 feet and above -- experience this on a whole other level.

Unlike eye color, height affects so much about your daily life. Tall people and short people know this. So, I was pretty disappointed when the actress cast to play Brianna was shorter than me.

I complained expressed my concerns about it on CompuServe and Diana said to me (paraphrasing) “I agree it would be nice to have a very tall Brianna, but it’s more important to have someone who can act the part.” And she’s right, of course. Given that I haven’t seen her act the part... I gotta chill out and wait. Diana also pointed out that Brianna’s height never figures into the plot of the books, and that’s true...

I mean, it usually doesn’t happen that two tall people (6′3″ and 5′10″ as they appear onscreen) have a child whose adult height is shorter than theirs. So it frustrates me that this show seems to be enacting the Teens Are Short TV trope.

Months ago, I heard an audio sample of Sophie’s American accent and it wasn’t great, but I also know that this show takes dialect pretty seriously so I have to trust they’ll get all that ironed out as well.

As for Richard Rankin -- why does he have a beard? Clean-shaven, he looks mid-twenties, but that beard is pushing him into “Bree’s dad, maybe?” territory. I’m fine with Richard, though. No, he doesn’t look like Roger is described in the books (dark-brown-almost-black hair, olive skin) but neither does Caitriona look like Claire in the books (shorter, curvy, light brown hair)

“Hello, Starz, I’m calling to complain about William Shatner.”

I don’t know why adults would continually and continuously work SO HARD to embarrass their own selves, but they are!

Being an active fan of a TV show is a nerdy pursuit. Dorky, even. Believe me, I don’t count “Outlander fan” as one of my “cool” hobbies.

The secondhand embarrassment I feel is the standard human empathy thing, like what you feel when a drunk uncle of the bride gets up to make a super inappropriate speech at a wedding.

It’s not embarrassment, however, at being an Outlander fan. Because seriously, these people are -- as any given singular Outlander fan, including myself is -- insignificant and irrelevant in the broader scheme of things.