That’s what I mean. They Addammses would not have used the word strange in its pejorative sense to describe themselves. They thought of themselves as strange in the sense that, oh, MacGuyver is strange–able and willing to do things that most people can’t even attempt.
ETA: And Gomez and Morticia certainly felt sorry for married couples who didn’t love one another as instensely as they did. And they were probably right to
And they were certainly right about their decor being awesome. They were wise enough to buy stuff they liked, not stuff that would please BETTER HOMES & GARDENS.
Star Trek is sci-fi for idealists. Lexx is sci-fi for cynics.
In Star Trek, the heroes always defeat the villains. Good always triumphs over Evil.
In Lexx, the heroes usually die early in the episode. The survivors are flawed mortals, with petty grudges, personal agendas, and ulterior motives.
The villains may dream of being Darth Vader, but most of them are petty bureaucrats and schoolyard bullies. Despite the cosmic background, the battle between Good and Evil occurs on a very human scale.
And the universe doesn’t care. The villains win as often as the heroes, and either way, it owes more to blind chance than to anyone’s skill or courage.
While you’re overall correct about the idealism/cynicism thing, it’s not true that the Trek heroes always defeat the bad guys. Assuming we’re talking about the original series, on at least one occasion Kirk decided that his enemy of hte week probably had a point (the Gorn incident)., and in the Organia incident, I think we’re meant to conclude that both Kirk and Kor had gotten so caught up in patriotic fervor that they were both arguing for a war that neither actually wanted to fight. And it’s pretty common for there to be no black hat at all.
The anime Another is the opposite of every anime harem comedy ever. Its a horror series with only one (creepy) girl and a normal guy.
Madoka Magika is the opposite of every magical girl anime.
The girls get there powers form an alien who could care less about them and the girls end up turning into horrible monsters when they use their powers too much.
On the /reddit/community message board, a common statement is that “Big Bang Theory is a dumb show about smart people, while Community is a smart show about dumb people”.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say they’re polar opposites*, but I read Ellen Kushner’s Swordspoint recently and kept thinking that the setting and content were pretty similar to The Princess Bride** while the tone was completely different.
Both are set in what seems to be a Renaissance era “Ruritania” and feature swashbuckling heroes, beautiful ladies, political intrigue, kidnappings, fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, and (arguably) true love. Swordspoint plays this mostly straight, though.*** There’s some witty dialogue but it’s not really a comedic book, and while the very beginning and end present the story as a sort of fairy tale there’s not a framing story as in The Princess Bride. In The Princess Bride Prince Humperdinck’s plot to start a war with Guilder is basically a MacGuffin (there’s a little more about Guilder in the book than in the movie, but not much), while in Swordspoint the political schemes of the nobility are a major part of the book.
*Not that this will stop me from posting in this thread!
**Best known as a movie, but originally a novel.
***In the sense of “serious” or “unironic”; the central romance is actually a same-sex one.
