Who doesn’t love a good party? At birthday parties, you get presents. At costume parties, you get to show off your kick-ass Boba Fett mask. At office Christmas parties, you get to hook up with that intern whose last name you can never remember.

When people get together, food and drinks are served, and a little letting-your-hair-down is added to the mix, occasionally some shenanigans can go down. Put that recipe into a fantasy setting and you never know what might happen. Here’s a look at four of the most interesting parties from the world of fantasy…

Cinderella’s Ball

This one’s a classic, a party that most of us are exposed to at childhood. Cinderella is one of those timeless stories that has not only appeared in almost every major culture in the history of the world, but is constantly told over and over again in modern fiction. Just this decade has given us Ella Enchanted, A Cinderella Story, Maid in Manhattan, etc., etc…

We never get tired of hearing a tale of how true love (or intense physical attraction) can overcome economic disparities, and how for every poor girl out there, her prince will come if she just dreams hard enough. (Rarely is this story ever told with a male central character.)

But of course the centerpiece of the Cinderella story is when dirty Cindy is prettied up with the help of supernatural forces (the specifics varying with each culture that tells it) and shows up at a party looking like a killer hottie. There she catches the prince’s eye and he gets hooked on her something fierce. But beauty is fleeting, and Cinderella only has so long before she gets all grody again, and thus she takes off in a hurry, leaving, naturally, her infamous shoe.

The Tea Party in Wonderland

In Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, young Alice falls down the literal rabbit hole and finds herself in a world far trippier than she could have ever imagined, and perhaps one of the oddest sequences is the tea party with the Mad Hatter, the Dormouse, and the March Hare.

The Hatter, it turns out, was put on trial for killing time, which by its definition is murder — killing time — and has earned the wrath of the wicked Queen of Hearts. Perhaps as retaliation, time has halted for the Hatter and his companions so that it’s eternally 6:00, or tea time.  Their party is characterized by switching places and speaking nonsense to each other, until Alice gets frustrated and leaves. This scene, however brief in the original work, has become an iconic representation of Lewis’ masterpiece, and is often imitated in other stories.

Hogwarts’ Yule Ball

By the fourth book in the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, the once-adorable tweens at Hogwarts are swiftly becoming victims to the throes of puberty, which means hormones are flying as fast as broomsticks in the hallowed halls of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

The school is throwing a Christmas dance called the Yule ball. Harry wants to go with Cho, but she’s going with Cedric, natch. Hermione wants to go with Ron, but he’s too daft to realize it, so to make him jealous she goes with Viktor, and with no dates Ron and Harry go with the Patil girls. And Hagrid is so up in Madame Maxine’s grill that he even uses product in his hair!

Okay, it’s pretty soapy as far as epic fantasy adventures go, and at this point it basically becomes Harry’s Creek. But one of the fun parts of the series is seeing the characters grow and mature, and this is really the first time we get a glimpse of young love causing the kind of mayhem that it does in the real world, and for that, it’s one for the ages.

Lady Helen Sings the Partiers to Sleep

Probable the creepiest party on our list — in the BBC/NBC show Merlin’s very first episode, it’s established that King Uther really, seriously, totally hates magic and magic-doers. No, like, he really hates magic. Even if it doesn’t make much sense. He just hates it!!

Anyway, he executes a young warlock and earns the wrath of said warlock’s mother, herself a very powerful witch, who decides to go all Mrs. Voorhees on not only Uther but his entire court at a feast in which she impersonates a famous singer, Lady Helen. As she walks down the aisle between tables, she sings a haunting aria, which turns out to be a magic spell, and one by one the revelers are all put to sleep and covered in dust and cobwebs.

Fortunately, the young wizard Merlin is there to save the day, and all ends well. But that’ll teach you to think twice next time you get an invitation to a party at Camelot.

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Back again for another highly opinionated look at the week in fantasy. You’ve been warned!

MY COMPUTER HATES ME

So last week, I was uploading our fall movie preview. It contains 15 video clips, so all the code and formatting was a hassle-plus-one.

But as I worked, I somehow kept screwing up the code. I would try to get everything perfect, but it never seemed to work.

I remember thinking, “I’m doing something wrong. Computers don’t make mistakes — people do.” Mathematics is perfect, right? I told myself this again and again.

But after retyping the whole thing four times — and I couldn’t merely cut-and-paste from a previous draft, because that always seemed to bring in the screwy code — it was still all f****d up.

Then the most amazing thing happened. I finally had everything looking absolutely perfect.

I clicked “refresh.”

And suddenly it was all screwed up again. I looked at the code, and there was all kinds of stuff in there that I knew I hadn’t added.

In other words, it wasn’t me! It was the computer! My Dell had been taken over by Skynet! Either that or it was like the slot-machine from the “Fever” episode of The Twilight Zone — you know, the one where the slot-machine follows the guy around the hotel, taunting him, until he finally throws himself out the window?

I didn’t throw myself out the window — but only because I live on the ground floor!

WHEREIN I DISCUSS BUFFY, SEASON 2

So after I wrote last week about my crisis of faith in Joss Whedon (as a result of how stinky Dollhouse was), I decided to go back and marathon Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I’m starting with Season 2, and you know what?

It’s really not that strong. The famous Buffy-speak dialogue is there (pre-dating Juno by about ten years, for what it’s worth).

But the plots are very by-the-numbers and predictable (good finale though).

In my ongoing debate with myself as to which fantasy show is better, Xena or Buffy, I’ve always said that Buffy was more consistently good (fewer “bum” episodes), but that, overall, Xena was more creative.

But now I’m rethinking that. When Buffy got great (in the 3rd season), it stayed great (at least until the 7th season, which I personally thought was terrible — 23 episodes of them waiting around for the finale).

But the fact is, season 2 is pretty unremarkable. If it hadn’t been “Buffy,” I’m — gasp! — not sure I would’ve kept watching. So maybe the show isn’t as “consistent” as I thought.

Speaking of Josh, for what it’s worth, I watched a preview copy of the season premiere of Dollhouse (airing Friday, September 25th). I can’t say I liked it — I’m still not even sure the premise of the show is a good one — but it was better than I expected. If you liked the last few episodes of last season (which is where it picks up), you’ll like the premiere.

And Eliza Dushku is getting somewhat better too.

CINDERELLA WAS A LESBIAN?

So I mentioned a few weeks ago that I was reading some good books. One of them is the new young adult novel, Ash by Malinda Lo (who, full disclosure, has written for this site).

It’s almost breathtakingly well-written.

Yes, yes, it’s yet another “retelling” of a classic story (and the Cinderella story to boot — surely the most “retold” story of all time). For some reason, these retellings are amazingly popular in teen lit right now, and I honestly don’t understand why (they hold almost no appeal to me).

But here’s what I loved about the book (in addition to the writing). First, there’s a small sub-plot where it’s revealed that the hero, Ash, isn’t into the prince, but rather, the town huntress. In other words, Cinderella is a lesbian.

If you’re going to retell classic stories, this is a great way to make them more relevant!

Better still about the book is its rich “fairy” mythology. This Cinderella doesn’t merely have a “fairy godmother” appear and grant her wish. No, it goes into the complicated ways the humans and the fairy folk have long interacted — and how one race has kept its magic while the other has not.

Malinda’s fairy framework — and her description of their world — is some of the most interesting I’ve ever read.

THE TINDER BOX TAKES ON THE IDIOT BOX

Needless to say, we’ve officially entered the fall TV season, which means that each week brings back more of our favorite returning shows from last year, and also the debuts of all the new shows we’re interested in.

For fantasy/sci-fi viewers, that meant last week’s return of Supernatural (which was FANTASTIC!) and the debut of The Vampire Diaries.

This week, it means the season 3 premiere of Robin Hood (Saturday, 9 PM, BBC America) and the season 2 premiere of Fringe (Thursday, 9 PM, Fox — running opposite Supernatural, for God’s sake!!).

I’ll have a review of the Fringe premiere early next week (along with my interview with the star of the show, Anna Torv), but suffice to say that I liked both of them a lot.

Speaking of Supernatural, season 4 (which I thought was the strongest season so far by far) is now out on DVD. (Support The TorchOnline.com by buying it through our link!)

And speaking of television, here’s a preview of this week’s episode of Warehouse 13:

THE TINDER BOX AT THE BOX OFFICE

The movie to see in theaters this week is the Tim Burton-produced animated film 9 — but while everyone seems to be praising the “look” of the film, the reviews are surprisingly mixed (which doesn’t bode well, IMHO, since I think reviewers tend to be kind to a fault to Tim Burton, precisely because his films always look so great).

Movie DVD releases this week include X-Men Origins: Wolverine
(which I confess that missed in theaters and will, uh, probably miss on DVD as well — I’m not sure I’ve ever heard a single good thing about it) and the horror flick Grace.

Well, this week’s flame has sputtered out, but join me again next week when I promise I won’t be nearly so cranky.

Oh, who am I kidding?!

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