Ye olde rant

[ivyfic]

I was listening to the soundtrack for Pretender this morning, by the excellently named Velton Ray Bunch. That soundtrack is awesome. And by awesome, I mean terrible. It's the techno from the show, but as like a bad DJ remix, with dialogue overlaid. I'm telling you, it's gold.

So you guys remember Pretender? I used to obsessed with that show. Listening to it reminded me of some things, though, so this rant comes from a time capsule.

First of all, no show has ever more crushingly disappointed me with its finale than that show. It's worse than, say, the end of Twin Peaks, cause in this case, it got cancelled on a cliffhanger, but then TNT gave the producers the opportunity to make two made-for-TV movies, just enough to tie everything up, and they fucked it up. There will never be a worse two hours of television than Pretender: Island of the Haunted. I include the Lois and Clark five-part Lois gets amnesia and thinks she's the heroine in a trashy romance novel and Clark marries a frog-eating clone arc. Island of the Haunted is THE WORST.

But that's not what I wanted rant about. What I wanted to rant about is this:

Jarod is canonically a virgin when he leaves the center. And there is the obligatory de-virginifying episode. But they can't have him lose it with Miss Parker, the push-pull, will they-won't they antagonist. So he gets his cherry popped by a walk-on, one episode character.

This episode was EXCRUCIATING to watch. I still remember my fiery hate. Here's the problem: you can't have a walk-on character pop the hero's cherry without her being an ENORMOUS MARY SUE. It's not possible. She has to show up as the specialist thing that every specialed. What I remember of this episode is it's some sort of rustic cabin-in-the-woods scenario, and she's a fragile bird type of character, and it's all treacly and soft focus and WRETCHED.

Now I am thinking about this, and what are Jarod's main character traits? Curiosity, wonder, and fanatical obsession. He does things like spend two whole days flipping a coin without stopping. He masters everything sooper fast. Practically every episode, someone's telling Miss Parker that Jarod played pool obsessively for a week and then was the best pool player who ever pooled. And we know that when he experiences new pleasures, he gets incredibly excited about them and wants to share them with everybody. See, ice cream.

He also learns new skills before he goes undercover. And there is an episode where he is a gigolo. I believe before the devirginifying--I don't remember. (ETA: Just double-checked--it is after, and he does leave a copy of the Kama Sutra behind.)

So, given the character of Jarod, this is how I'd actually expect him to lose his virginity: He'd go to a sex club. Probably a kinky one, given the BDSM (leatherleatherleather) vibes of the show, and that Jarod never met anything he didn't skip straight to the advanced level on. After the first time, he'd be going up to everyone in the club like "HAVE YOU EVER HAD A BLOWJOB? AREN'T THEY AWESOME? Here, let me spread the joy." And after three days he'd have worn everybody out, tried everything in the kama sutra and written a new chapter, and be teaching the most experienced dom a thing or two.

Because that's how he encounters new experiences.

Instead we got sweet candlelight and awful awful slow jazz. Oh, Pretender, you are still a disappointment all these years later.