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Joan of Arcadia Ongoing thread (2 Viewers)

Rob Willey

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How come every time an elevator gets stuck, there's a pregnant woman about to go into labor?

Rob
 

Chris

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How come every time an elevator gets stuck, there's a pregnant woman about to go into labor?
Because I'm Rick James..

Oh, never mind.. wrong show.

But yes, it is contrived :)

The IT guy having his kids by home birth.. oddly, I'm an IT guy.. and my last kid was homebirth ;)
 

Patrick Sun

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Wow, 2 months without a post.

I didn't comment on last week's episode because I watched it pretty late in following week, though I thought it was just average.

Last night's episode "The Gift" dealt with Joan being told to find something to give Adam. Joan does some things that pissed off Adam. She has no idea what to give him. He needs a buck for lunch, and she tries to give him $10 as a gift, and that irritates him to no end. Later she looks for clues as to what he wants and rummages through his bag and finds a condom, so she gets the idea that Adam is wanting to knock boots. Joan is terrified by this thought. Joan discusses it with Grace, and Grace just tells Joan to make her own decision if it's what Adam really wants.

Luke is still confused by his feelings and he is easily agitated, and actually chews off his mother's head, figuratively. Luke has feelings for Grace, even bought something that he thought Grace would like. At a study session he gives it to her reluctantly, and Grace plays it cool, but confused.

Kevin is a little too ambitious when he covers the docket of court cases, and an article he write results in a plea bargain that Will work out with the DA being thrown out and the perp (out of work father steals from a place that he has previous knowledge of their security system because he used to work at the security system provider) winds up having to serve 2 years. Kevin is so blase about his role in this case, so Will literally rolls Kevin out to watch the perp being put in a truck headed for prison and his family is looking sad at this prison sentence. Kevin gets the message that both sides need to be investigated before just running with a story idea.

Later, Joan meets Adam at the hotel where he works (as a cleaning crew member) and Joan is leaning towards giving into what she thinks Adam wants. Adam is taken aback by Joan's thoughts, and he tells her that the condom was from health class, and this next level of their relationship isn't what he wants. But Adam confesses to Joan that his father hurt his back and this is why Adam is now working after school, to provide for him and his father while he's out of work.

When Joan comes back home, she's preoccupied with finding the name of a French artist. Her parents ask Joan where she's been and with whom, and why didn't she answer her cell phone when they called. Joan's answers make Helen and Will think that Joan did the deed and are very concerned at this possible develoment. Joan has to allay their fears, and finally Joan gets the artist whom she thinks is like Adam at this point in his life, Helen tells Joan that it was Rodan who have humble beginnings that led to a fruitful legacy.

Later, Joan meets Adam on top of the building, and Joan gives Adam a photo of Rodan and his wife. She explains the history of Rodan, and Adam doesn't think he's of that caliber, but Joan is just trying to give Adam faith and inspiration to hang in there and make the best of his current situation. Joan and Adam continue to deepen their level of communication processes. It was a very tender moment.
 

Adam Lenhardt

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It was a good episode, but that's hardly out of the ordinary for this show. Far more talk-worthy in my over-inflated and not so humble opinion is the preview for the season finale.

God starts talking to Joan's mom instead of Joan.
 

Adam Lenhardt

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I'm dredging up this very old thread because I've just started revisiting this show. It mostly holds up so far. Looking back, I think my memory lumped it in a bit with preachy schmaltzfests like "Touched by an Angel." But it's a strikingly unsentimental show, and God is not a particularly likable character.

In the pilot, shortly after discovering that she's a 21st century prophet, she's confronted with a painting of Joan of Arc burning at the stake. The message is pretty clear: prophets don't have a great track record of happy endings, especially if they're women. At the same time, the show's handling of violence in general, and against women in particular, is never dehumanizing.

In the title role, Amber Tamblyn is prickly and introspective, unmotivated by school but fiercely intelligent and articulate, at times sarcastic and at other times heartbreakingly vulnerable in her earnestness. She is a fundamentally moral person, but she's allowed to fall short, to struggle with what course of action to take, to have complexity of thought and feeling without the show judging her for it. She is not God's unquestioning tool; she pushes back against His/Her/Its cryptic commandments, and is sometimes vindicated for doing so. The role she has been called to fulfill is a burden that requires unflashy but often painful sacrifices. I really appreciate how much time the show spends dwelling with her internal thought processes, and how effectively they're conveyed through nonverbal means.

Her father is an avowed and unwavering atheist, and her mother is furious at God for allowing the accident that crippled her confident and athletic son. Said son's disability is handled with complexity. There's a murkiness and a specificity to the portrayal. His paralysis never feels like a prop, instead it's like the point of impact, with cracks spreading out throughout the family.

Her best friends defy gender roles about as far as CBS would have permitted in 2003; Adam is sensitive, nonconfrontational, artistic and gentle. Grace is brash, ungussied and aggressive who lashes out against authority. But even those neat categories get muddied as the series goes along.
 

Walter Kittel

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Talk about dredging up an older show thread. :) I was a pretty big fan of the series and watched it (ahem) religiously. As much as I later enjoyed Wentworth Miller in Prison Break, it is kind of a shame that we didn't get a third season of JoA to see how his character would have interacted with Joan.

In addition to its unconventional approach to its subject matter, I always thought the casting of the show was strong with a group of actors that included (in addition to Amber Tamblyn) Joe Mantegna, Mary Steenburgen, Jason Ritter, Annie Potts, Sprague Grayden, and the always excellent Constance Zimmer.

- Walter.
 

Stan

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Talk about dredging up an older show thread. :) I was a pretty big fan of the series and watched it (ahem) religiously. As much as I later enjoyed Wentworth Miller in Prison Break, it is kind of a shame that we didn't get a third season of JoA to see how his character would have interacted with Joan.

In addition to its unconventional approach to its subject matter, I always thought the casting of the show was strong with a group of actors that included (in addition to Amber Tamblyn) Joe Mantegna, Mary Steenburgen, Jason Ritter, Annie Potts, Sprague Grayden, and the always excellent Constance Zimmer.

- Walter.

I miss Joan. A show that was cancelled much to soon, it was very enjoyable.
 

mattCR

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I see a thread this old get brought back to life and I think: wait, was there an HD distribution announced I don't know of??
 

Adam Lenhardt

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Tonight I watched the episode where Joan went to the spring formal with the school's juvenile delinquent. Everything goes disastrously wrong; her parents are furious at her, the delinquent gets expelled and then arrested, her already sour relationship with Adam becomes even more fractured. She confronts God and waits to be told how she fell short this time. God tells her that, on the contrary, she didn't fall short at all. She did exactly what was asked of her.

"Fine, I observed Ramsay," Joan tells God. "His life is still ruined."

"His life wasn't the only one at stake," God replies. God (in the form of the late great Kathryn Joosten) nods Her head toward a young freshman. "There's Laura Eason, ninth grader. She plays the flute. She would have been one of the first to go, coming out of orchestra at the wrong time." A clash of percussion in the score rings out like a gunshot as She says this. "And Andrew Bayer; he would have tried to save his friend Lawrence DiStasi and lost his life. And Gavin Price. And three other students in the cafeteria and Mr. Harvey. And Ms. Schmidt in the library. And finally, Steve Ramsey himself. And for each of these faces, Joan, there are twelve more whose lives would have come to an end today, lives altered forever by you. By the simple effect of being present, by entering the light, by joining the dance."

It hit me like a punch in a chest the first time around, and with all of the intervening years I forgot how it ended so it punched me in the chest again. As the show goes on, the tasks God assigns Joan get harder, and Joan becomes more empathetic and more mature. Even eleven episodes in, she is as likely to teach her parents a lesson as she is to be taught one by them. She is good in all of the most difficult and uncelebrated ways when it would be so much easier to stay out of the fray and let things take their course. I know what an unsatisfying cliffhanger I'm headed toward with the second season finale, and it just makes me angry all over again that CBS cancelled this brilliant show.

I see a thread this old get brought back to life and I think: wait, was there an HD distribution announced I don't know of??
Alas, no. The sad thing is that the show was originally broadcast in HD, so the masters already exist somewhere. But like so many shows that predated the popularity of TV on DVD and streaming, it's caught in music rights hell. The DVDs that did come out had to do a lot of music replacement. Even the credits sequence had to be dropped from most of the episodes, since Universal Music Group would only license the use of "One of Us" on an episode by episode basis.

I've been watching my SD recordings of the broadcast versions from back when that I was able to dredge up. As good as the show is, and as sucked into the episodes as I get even with the shoddy recordings, I would LOVE pristine 1080p versions of these episodes. I'd even be willing to pay "Northern Exposure" Season 1 prices to get them.
 

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