Ages?

[ziggy]

Jun 1, 2014 2:42:09 GMT wildhorseannie said:

ziggy, I see your point in that Tess might have been a little overwhelming, but I felt like she and George got along better and better as the episode progressed. If she had stuck around, I felt like they could have made a go of it.

I wish I felt the same. What Tess did to Mr Whittaker (I know he was a bad guy and needed to be caught), it got me worried for George. He won’t be able to contain her. She’s a handful. I don’t want to see my George suffer. I am sure if they had to bring Edna in or someone else, they would find suitable interests for her. She doesn’t have to take a lead role in the show.

[ziggy]

Jun 1, 2014 20:30:58 GMT lovemondays said:

I like Edna but we didn't get to see enough of her. George's love interest has to fit in logically with his work in order to give her enough believable screen time. Besides, I hate to say it, but I worry that any children of George and Edna might end up looking like mole people .

Haha, mole children. Very funny. How do you come up with these things? I never thought of that. Well, at least George will now have his proof that moles really do exist, at least in his world. It reminds me of Mr Spencer in “Some mothers do have them” (a show my parents used to watch when I was a kid). I thought it was funny when he got married and had a baby but then my parents’ reaction was what really had me in stitches. They were genuinely concerned for that child and the unborn ones and what sort of kids they would turn out to be.

[ziggy]

Jun 1, 2014 2:17:08 GMT snacky said:

May 31, 2014 22:02:34 GMT ziggy said:

I love the Inspector.  He is "my best man".

Who are you marrying?

“My best man” is Brackenreid’s favorite phrase for addressing William or introducing him to people. It’s his way of expressing his love and respect for William and how very proud he is of him. I use the phrase too to refer to Brackenreid as my favorite character. In all his bullish ways, he has got me firmly hooked on him. But if I were to marry anyone of them, it will have to be William and George will be the best man.

[ziggy]

Jun 1, 2014 2:16:05 GMT snacky said:

May 31, 2014 21:59:30 GMT ziggy said:

[ziggy]

Jun 1, 2014 2:16:05 GMT snacky said:

May 31, 2014 21:59:30 GMT ziggy said:

I hope you are not swearing at me, Snacky.  I am always very surprised at how different and young Helene looks in real life compared to the Julia character she plays in MM. 

As for the sisterly resentment, I didn’t think anything of it until Julia’s comment in her moment of grief when she let her guard down and spilled her gut feelings.

lol, a "burn" is like a zinger. I meant you burned Helene Joy about her age even if you were talking about Julia. XD

But I agree with you, Helene does somehow look younger than Julia - dang those camera folk! Or perhaps she's doing it on purpose because the character is supposed to be old maidish? This is also something British and Canadian TV does much better than the U.S.: here people never age past 30 on TV.

I'm very curious as to why Julia thinks their father liked Ruby better. How was Ruby different? She's obviously independent and stubborn just like Julia. The only difference is she didn't go into the meddial profession.

It’s alright Snacky. I’m glad you explained though, I can be quite dim sometimes. I am not here everyday so I can’t always join the conversation as it is happening but I will respond when I can. I hope you are the patient type.

I think making Julia look as old as she does is deliberate. Nothing has been said yet to indicate her age but that may change later and I won’t be surprised if she turns out to be at least a year or two older than William. Although I think MM do get the ages mixed up sometimes because they didn’t think the fans would notice let alone nit pick on things like that. Like they had Julia say that Leslie Garland was 22 when he first came and then have him hang out with Emily and George and the rest of that group as though he was mates with them which I think he is (about 28-30). There’s no way any of that lot is 22.

As for the Ogdens, my view is that whilst Ruby is very much like her big sister in many ways, free spirited (I wonder which parent passed that on), independent and stubborn, she reads people better and is a bit more sensitive to other people’s feelings. Julia on the other hand is more self-centered and rash. Their father alluded to that. Ruby is the type that would address their father as “daddy” and Julia would call him “father”. He interacted better with the daughter that was thousands of miles away, either by phone or in person, than he did with the one that was next door to him and that’s not because he loved one more than the other. There’s a coldness about Julia that is hard for anyone to penetrate. I know she has had to get tough to achieve her goals and be where she is today. Even William seems to have the same problem with her. I think that was what HG Wells alluded to (or something else in her past that hurt her we don’t yet know about) when he said there was something missing in her life and it wasn’t Murdoch.

[ziggy]

Jun 2, 2014 3:36:27 GMT lovemondays said:

That would be so nice. It looks like the boards have a lot more people posting when the season is running. There aren't too many of us right now...but what we've got is genius, lol! I'm a big fan of lots of input.

Come on you lurkers! What do you think?

Well, I’m here trying to join in. My views seem very different from everyone else here and it is a challenge being the odd one out all the time. Hope you don’t mind me. I can understand those lurkers feeling a bit intimidated if they were to read the various threads before signing up especially if they have a different take on things.

[ziggy]

I would welcome a new female character but not if she is brought in as a love interest for one of the policemen like I think they did with Emily. It gets too much like the show is about the lead characters and their intimate relationships with eachother. It doesn’t make for good viewing for those fans like me who are more interested in the murder mysteries than in a soap opera. Since the George/Emily ship didn’t quite sail, they don’t know what to do with Emily. Her presence at the morgue displaced Julia (I quite liked Julia in the morgue) and that whole situation with the women is all over the place.

I do like the idea of a female reporter should they have room for one.

[wildhorseannie]

Yay, that's at least four votes for the female reporter!

ziggy, feel free to join in as often as you can! We love to hear different opinions...it just makes the conversation that much more interesting. I try to keep up on conversations too, but I'm so far behind everyone else in terms of episodes watched, that sometimes it can seem like I'm a little "out of the loop." But I don't let that stop me!

[snacky]

Jun 2, 2014 8:40:20 GMT ziggy said:

I would welcome a new female character but not if she is brought in as a love interest for one of the policemen like I think they did with Emily. It gets too much like the show is about the lead characters and their intimate relationships with eachother. It doesn’t make for good viewing for those fans like me who are more interested in the murder mysteries than in a soap opera. Since the George/Emily ship didn’t quite sail, they don’t know what to do with Emily. Her presence at the morgue displaced Julia (I quite liked Julia in the morgue) and that whole situation with the women is all over the place.

I do like the idea of a female reporter should they have room for one.

If the female reporter were brought in as a love interest that would free Emily to be the Awesome Independent Woman she should have been from the start.

[snacky]

Jun 2, 2014 5:06:57 GMT wildhorseannie said:

Hmm...I don't think I quite get it...I thought that was a homburg?

It's not a homburg. It's a graphic image of a homburg.

Referring to Magritte's famous surrealist painting - " This is not a pipe".



Magritte was very fond of painting mundane people and things, like businessmen in bowlers, in impossible in-dreams-only situations. So I'm now nursing a theory that MM is as much Surrealist as Steampunk. If you ever saw The Prisoner, that would be the best example I can think of as an all-out Surrealist TV show. It's also a clear raison de etre for MM to exist on the Ovation channel instead of just renaming it The ARTFUL Detective - laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaame.

[snacky]

Jun 2, 2014 8:32:10 GMT ziggy said:

 especially if they have a different take on things.

This is good reason to start a new thread, so you can find out who agrees with you!

I doubt I'm going to find many takers for my "Is MM Surrealism" discussion, but I'm throwing it out there anyway~

[snacky]

Jun 2, 2014 7:20:46 GMT ziggy said:

I think making Julia look as old as she does is deliberate.

 There’s a coldness about Julia that is hard for anyone to penetrate. I know she has had to get tough to achieve her goals and be where she is today. Even William seems to have the same problem with her. I think that was what HG Wells alluded to (or something else in her past that hurt her we don’t yet know about) when he said there was something missing in her life and it wasn’t Murdoch.

I agree that Julia is meant to come across as an older professional woman, and someone who made a tough choice to achieve that since she is at risk of becoming a spinster.

As for Julia's coldness - I think that's better interpreted as repression. Though this can make it difficult for William to guess what Julia is thinking and lead to all sorts of misunderstandings, I think it also makes it comfortable because he is also a very repressed person. Ruby, on the other hand, can make him uncomfortable because she's so assertive and he has trouble setting boundaries with her.

Regarding the H.G. Wells conversation - I think that was foreshadowing of the issue that Julia couldn't have children, and she was getting increasingly worried the relationship with William would not lead to marriage, since family was so important to him. As that dream crumbled she tried to replace it with a new professional aspiration.

[snacky]

Jun 2, 2014 6:54:53 GMT ziggy said:

Jun 1, 2014 2:17:08 GMT snacky said:

Who are you marrying?

“My best man” is Brackenreid’s favorite phrase for addressing William or introducing him to people. It’s his way of expressing his love and respect for William and how very proud he is of him. I use the phrase too to refer to Brackenreid as my favorite character. In all his bullish ways, he has got me firmly hooked on him. But if I were to marry anyone of them, it will have to be William and George will be the best man.

You asked me if I was a patient person in the other thread. I hope I hope I'm patient. But I also like to tease!

Just teasing!

I love Brackenreid, too. MM really had great casting from the start.

[wildhorseannie]

Ah, I get the "homburg" image now! My problem is that I am not, and never have been, much of an art student. Not that I dislike art, I just lack the interest (and talent!) to pursue it. So, snacky, you're thread for "MM as Surrealism" would be great to read, just not to participate in. 

As for Julia, I can definitely see her "professionalism" or "repressed" tendencies coming off as coldness.  Unfortunately, she's probably unaware of this for the most part.  Women especially tend to think that men will eventually pick up on our subtle hints at affection, but they almost never do.  I actually started to like Julia a lot more during Season 4, after she was engaged to Dr. Darcy, because she wasn't trying so hard to get William's attention anymore.  It made her much more likable personality come out, IMO.

[snacky]

Jun 3, 2014 2:13:02 GMT wildhorseannie said:

Ah, I get the "homburg" image now! My problem is that I am not, and never have been, much of an art student. Not that I dislike art, I just lack the interest (and talent!) to pursue it. So, snacky, you're thread for "MM as Surrealism" would be great to read, just not to participate in. 

As for Julia, I can definitely see her "professionalism" or "repressed" tendencies coming off as coldness.  Unfortunately, she's probably unaware of this for the most part.  Women especially tend to think that men will eventually pick up on our subtle hints at affection, but they almost never do.  I actually started to like Julia a lot more during Season 4, after she was engaged to Dr. Darcy, because she wasn't trying so hard to get William's attention anymore.  It made her much more likable personality come out, IMO.

I tucked my remarks on Surrealism under The Murdoch Trap episode thread for now. Those thoughts are still percolating. The thing is many of the main surrealists were sexist jerks and nutbars rolled in a crispy nut coating. But the idea at the center of their art - the attempt to access dreams/unconscious - usually involved juxtaposing really mundane things in weird ("surreal") ways. Remember how we were joking about the homburg being magic? That's a surrealist touch. Of course the homburg is magic. It's not only part of William's identity when he's awake, it's probably a dream symbol as well somehow standing for that identity. We recognize William by just the shadow of his homburg in The Murdoch Identity and Kung Fu Crabtree. William almost dies in Murdoch Ahoy, and the main thing he's concerned about is he lost his hat. In the Murdoch Identity and the Klondike episode, Murdoch transforms back into himself by putting on his homburg: in fact, it magically appears when he need it. The thing never blows off when he rides his bike or a horse.

We were discussing the rise of secularism and the decline of doctrinal religion in the late 19th and early 20th century. At the same time there were compensatory forms of "supernaturalism" - especially interest in psychic abilities. Who is to say the homburg isn't magic?

Circling back to Julia, I still think her coldness and/or repression was socially dictated. Dr. Tash called her a "pistol", and I bet she is one in private! I read in an interview somewhere that William and Julia are supposed to become more "comfortable" around each other in later seasons, though. While there's quite a bit of flirtation with William, I actually haven't seen anything like the across-the-lap pose with Darcy in Season 5. Now that looked comfortable!