Joan Of Arcadia - Roger the Tutor Guy

WBoverlay · 01-11-2005, 10:30 AM

I've looked through various Joan of Arcadia forums along with this one and am surprised to see so many conspiracy theories about Roger's intentions. Some of them I found to be quite laughable like "He told her she would make a nice addition to the campus"...whatever did he mean by that, wow how dare he say such a thing to her. Here's another one "He's a college student why is he flirting with her, why did he tell her she had nice eyes". Is it so hard to believe that a good looking college guy might find Joan attractive and flirt with her? Why did he (and oh my God this one is the ultimate sin) he told her she had...potential" without looking at her school records or papers or anything.? This guy actually told her she has potential that might not be easily seen on paper. He told her the high schools were full of Tuckmans who write off students because they don't show it on paper. There is potential in everyone and it's not always seen on a test grade. Roger actually asked her what she was good at and encouraged her to be the real Joan and decide which books to read for herself by just reading a page or so at first.

I know fans of all television shows have their favorite characters and their favorite couples and will go to all lengths to protect them from any threats but come on, this one is a bit much. There may be some problem with Roger down the line but right now he was just what Joan needed. The only problem I see happening is Joan confusing friendly flirtation and banter with some deeper meaning. I think we should stop hating Roger (at the moment anyway) and realize the good that he has accomplished with Joan. Remember GOD told her to go see the tutor guy. If Roger was oily or skeevie, I just didn't see it at all (again at this moment). I thought he was very charming to say the least and Joan might be a bit smitten with his attention but that's her problem. I have 2 daughters and I would definitely be more skeeved out if a sullen looking young boy, with his hands in his pockets, wearing a uni-bomber outfit showed up at my door to hang out with one of them. You better believe I'd be frisking that kid before I let him in the door. It's always the quiet ones you need to watch out for. I'm not saying anything is wrong with Adam but that's just the impression I would get without really knowing him.

**Gabriela** · 01-11-2005, 11:43 AM

I defininitely agree about Roger and I actually like him (oh, the horror)

I agree that right now he's kind of what Joan needs - whether that is just in a friendly way or more. I think it's interesting that they've added this older, more mature element (Roger) into the storyline of Joan and her friends. I have been kind of getting tired of the high school drama and everything, so I am hoping that roger is kind of break from that. I do really hope that they don't just turn this into an "oh no, roger's flirting with Joan - here comes trouble for Adam and Joan" thing.
I do think it'd be interesting ot integrate Roger more into Joan's life though - add that more mature element and see what Joan does with it and how it changes her. Whether Roger sticks around as a potential love interest or just as a friend, I think he's an interesting character and I like him.

Stanne · 01-11-2005, 12:32 PM

In all honesty I M not a regular JOA watcher. I only watched it this week because I heard that Mark Matkevich the guy who played Roger was going to be in it. I loved the show and may continue to watch. I'll definitely keep watching as long as Mark is on it. Concerning Roger I have to say he was very, very, charming and there is obviously more to him and his story than what we saw on that episode. I know how these fan boards tend to focus on all the regular characters but I'd hope the true fans of the show as a whole would give each new character a chance before jumping to conclusions. Mark does tend to play bad boys but it seemed like this character of Roger was different.

Just guessing of course Roger could still turn out to be a jerk but I hope not.

**Considering Disobedience** · 01-11-2005, 12:54 PM

Everybody knows I'm a HUGE J/A shipper but so far Roger isn't annoying me. I really haven't dicided if he's a 'bad' guy or not. I am glad though that Mark has guested on the show.

I've missed seeing him on my screen.

If he continues on the show I hope it's just tutor/friend over anything else

Basia77 · 01-11-2005, 01:10 PM

I admit I was worried about Roger from reading the spoilers, but they actually cut a lot of the stuff that made him sound kinda like a con man and toned down some of the other stuff.

I don't think Roger is a bad guy and obviously he can help Joan, I just think he's kind of a goober. All the "incredible eyes" lines were kinda silly.

But then, I'm not particularly found of the openly "flirty" approach. It just strikes me as insincere and I can't stand it when people try to butter me up. I'm just like, "Cut to the chase, dude."

WBoverlay · 01-11-2005, 03:48 PM

Gabriela, I too enjoy the introduction of a little more mature element into Joan's life and would hate to see it turn into, like you said - Roger's flirting with Joan uh oh trouble for Adam and Joan. (though it still could turn out that way) I think the innocent flirting I saw between J and R in this episode was a way to show Joan that other people outside her VERY small circle of friends, thinks she's special too. The first tutoring lesson joan needed to learn was confidence in herself and her ability to succeed at playing the game even if you don't always win the game. Roger accomplished that and now they'll have to tackle the academics if he appears again.

I saw a poster on another website say she was looking for reasons to hate Roger. At least she was honest about not really being sure why she hated Roger other than he was not Adam.

Stanne, I'm sure there IS much more to the character of Roger like what is his story? He has almost a zen like quality in his manner, maybe he talks to God too. But this show already has too many story lines so don't expect to see that happen.

CountryBumpkin, I think it is wise as you point out to wait and see just what will develop with Roger. Right now all we know is he is a tutor good or bad and that is for each to form their own opinion objectively.

Basia, we are both spoiler junkies LOL. However, I do think Joan benefitted by her encounter with Roger in a postitive way and flirting (though very mildly, I'm surprised it even raised an eyebrow) seems to be Roger's way of getting Joan's attention. I just hope Joan realizes like I've said before that it's just flirting.

My girls are back in school now and I guess I just have too much free time. Thanks to all who posted comments so far.

shrams · 01-11-2005, 07:00 PM

Probably the biggest problem I have with Roger is that I loathe flirting, and I find it extremely offensive in any context that's supposed to be at all business-like. I realize I'm probably in the minority in that regard; most people seem to see it as highly flattering. Since Joan is probably in the other 98% or so of the American population that thinks flirting in general is sweet, harmless, cute, flattering, charming, or whatever, it's probably not as big a deal as I'm making it out to be. I'm glad Roger saw some potential in Joan, but it wasn't made clear to me, as a viewer, what he saw in speaking to her for 2 minutes. He mostly saw her physical appearance; I don't think she had much chance to express herself in conversation for him to make an evaluation on that. Maybe he has the same ability the JoA God does in seeing everyone's potential, but I wish it had been made clearer that he did indeed see more, and it wasn't just a line to get her to sign up for tutoring.

Maybe this is a failing in me, but any stranger that approaches me with a flirty, flattering approach is someone I will do my best to avoid. For some people, that's just their natural, friendly personality, but I'm simplly not comfortable around people who are like that. I prefer a more straight-forward, no bull****, no game-playing approach. However, since Roger was presumably supposed to help teach Joan "Game Theory" I suppose it fits in...along with Luke's "playing" of Grace with the rock. Now that didn't bother me, because I knew the character of Luke well enough to have a pretty good idea of his motivation. We haven't yet seen enough of Roger's motivation to really know where he's coming from, but I do hope he's going to be good for Joan and help her realize her potential. That would be great. If he's there mainly as a plot device to stir up trouble, that's different, but we'll need to see him in more episodes to be sure. Based on the spoiler info, he sure came across (to me) as a plot device rather than an actual character, so it was nice to see some of that cut from the actual episode.l

I was the one who said maybe I was looking for reasons to hate Roger. I've never seen the actor in anything else, so I have no previous bias one way or another, but I have to say the character as presented did not make a good impression on me. I'm not surprised that others saw him very differently, and did like him; it's interesting to try to see that perspective.

Kimberly · 01-11-2005, 09:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by shrams

I was the one who said maybe I was looking for reasons to hate Roger. I've never seen the actor in anything else, so I have no previous bias one way or another, but I have to say the character as presented did not make a good impression on me. I'm not surprised that others saw him very differently, and did like him; it's interesting to try to see that perspective.

Good points everyone!

Shrams how I wish I could just base my opinion on him in JoA. The main problem I have with the Roger character is the actor. I hated his character on Dawson Creek so much that I can't really stand him here

I know that I should get over it. I don't really see him as much of a threat to J/A relationship though. Her daydream was of herself and Adam. She seems to find his attention nice but doesn't seem all that interested. I hope that it stays this way. As for his character I'm really trying to be unbiased.

**Considering Disobedience** · 01-12-2005, 12:42 AM

Kim, You didn't like Drew? *gasp* I loved Drew...okay maybe not as much as the other guys but still I enjoyed his character.

...here is a fun fact for ya (kinds six degree's of Amber) Mark beat out Chad Brannon for the role on DC..but Chad got Zander on GH which teamed him up with Amber creating ZEm (IMO one of the bestest couples GH has ever had) and now Mark is playing Roger on JoA who may or may not be on the show to create some compition for Adam...Why couldn't they have just casted Chad?

WBoverlay · 01-12-2005, 01:28 PM

Hello everyone and thanks for your opinions, we are all entitled to them and lead to interesting conversations. A good conversation is like a good cup of strong coffee, they both keep you up at night.

I think it would be very hard to find a college campus where guys do not flirt with pretty girls and girls do not flirt with the guys. Roger and Joan are no different. It makes us all human and forgive me but, that makes college life even more interesting. Roger is also a tutor (on a college campus, just trying to make some money for school, he's not a business learning corporation) and it's his job to tell students that he can help them find their potential and help them with their grades. When Roger first meets Joan he asks her if her grades suck and if that's the case I can help you with that. In a sense he's just saying to her you do have potential to get into a four year college IF that's what YOU really want. Whether he's known her for a minute or a full term of high school like Mr. Tuckman, who obviously judged her solely on her grades, it's always important to build someone's confidence and support their inner, often unseen on the surface talent. You don't have to be a God to realize there is potential in everyone to achieve their goals, it just has to be encouraged and developed. Joan's obvious facial disappoint about maybe not going to college to be with Adam could not be missed. Sometimes you have to help yourself and in this case Joan with a little push from God, decided to take Roger up on his tutor offer. She definitely needed the encouragement. I also thought the flirting was so mild that it almost went unnoticed by me when I first saw the episode air.

I can really appreciate everyone supporting their favorite characters, it's what draws us into the show and makes us continue to watch. However, if everything on a TV show just went one way and nothing interesting ever happened, we would soon get bored and not have anything to write about on these forums. AND the show would get cancelled.

I also think that Roger is a totally different character from Drew Valentine on Dawson's Creek. I think Mark has played both roles with a natural ease. Like you guys here enjoy your favorite actors, I enjoy seeing Mark Matkevich anytime.

Shrams, some of us are offended by flirting and that's OK. These days young girls do have to be wary of strangers. Like I said I have 2 girls of my own. Thanks for posting your impressions here but I'm still not quite sure why you said you were LOOKING for reasons to hate Roger. It sort of implies that you had made up your mind to dislike him and then went about looking for details that would further discredit his character. I often enjoy your thoughts on the spoiler board you make some interesting points and speculations. Sometimes knowing a few spoilers (that may or may not be true) can cloud are viewing of an episode but I'm still a spoiler junkie.

Kimberly · 03-03-2005, 08:29 PM

Do you guys think we have seen the last of Roger? I can't imagine after he kissed her that she will see him again. What do you guys think?

I kind of felt sorry for him after he kissed Joan. If I didn't love Adam so much I would have like a relationship between the two.

shrams · 03-03-2005, 09:19 PM

Quote:

I'm still not quite sure why you said you were LOOKING for reasons to hate Roger. It sort of implies that you had made up your mind to dislike him and then went about looking for details that would further discredit his character.

Yeah, that's basically what I meant. I am very judgmental; not a good quality, but it's the truth. I did not like the way Roger's character was written in what we knew from the spoilers, so I thought it was very unlikely I would like him on the show. As I said, the whole flirting thing is something I personally find offensive, not sweet or romantic or cute, and especially when he's in somewhat of a position of authority with Joan. If she were a freshman in college and he was a classmate, or saw her on campus, and flirted with her, without knowing she had a boyfriend, that wouldn't have bothered me too much. If he continued it after he knew she was involved with someone, it would make me lose any respect for him I may have had. It was that it seemed he was taking advantage of her relative naivete, and it seemed he was turning on the charm, even after he knew she had a boyfriend. Whether he just wanted her money or a date, either way it seemed inappropriate to me. So I had no reason (in my mind) to try to look for his good side, to try to balance out the character. As it turned out, Roger played out pretty much the way I thought he would, in my opinion abusing Joan's trust. She should have been able to hire a tutor who was willing to help her, but would keep his interest in her body to himself. Or not be interested in her body. It was that initial advantage-taking that turned me off to the character, so I was more attuned to nuances that others might either not notice, not care about, or would find inoffensive.

The difference, to me, between Adam abusing Joan's trust and Roger, is that we had a year and a half to get to know Adam, and we've seen him mature and we've seen many good qualities to him, and it's only been in a couple of the recent episodes that we saw another side to him. The first time we saw Roger was in a situation that I felt put him in a negative light, and I didn't see that he did enough to counterbalance that in the episodes he was in. The first time we saw him he was at the very least hustling Joan as an easy mark for a tutor, and quite possibly as someone who would be seducible. We saw nothing that showed that he was really a great guy who didn't normally operate like that, he was portrayed as pretty much a player and a user, and I have nothing but contempt for people like that. As I said, I'm judgmental, but I have had a lot of negative experiences in real life with people who come across the way Roger does, and none of them showed any indication of being really good, decent, caring people underneath. So I have a strong knee-jerk reaction to characters like Roger and Judith, because they remind me too much of people I know in real life. It didn't help with Judith that she was portrayed by an actress I'd seen for the better part of a season in another show, who played a similar role. In fact, her character on Six Feet Under was nicknamed "DangerSlut". As it turned out, Judith was portrayed as someone I would take pains to avoid, not someone I'd want to befriend because she's such a fun gal to be around.

Hope that clears things up a bit. BTW, a lot of people I've known have been very judgmental about me, and have avoided me because I don't fit into their criteria of people they want to be around, so I've seen the other side of it too. Their observations that I'm uptight, have no sense of humor, and am no fun to be around are true, for some people. Others would be puzzled by that view, but they're both right, depending on who I'm around, so I can't complain too much about their judgment.

Kimberly · 03-03-2005, 09:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by shrams

Hope that clears things up a bit. BTW, a lot of people I've known have been very judgmental about me, and have avoided me because I don't fit into their criteria of people they want to be around, so I've seen the other side of it too. Their observations that I'm uptight, have no sense of humor, and am no fun to be around are true, for some people. Others would be puzzled by that view, but they're both right, depending on who I'm around, so I can't complain too much about their judgment.

Shari that was a very good post. I understand the knee jerk reaction you have to characters like Judith and Roger. Maybe the reason I don't mind them as much is because I have never known that many people with similar personalities.

As for other people being judgmental about you well that is their loss. I always enjoy reading your posts. I think you are a wonderful person, sweet, kind, caring and intelligent, and funny. If people are too insecure with themselves to give you a chance then again it is their loss. I personally am glad that I'm getting to know you better!

btw I don’t think you are judgmental, instead you have intelligent opinions which are very well researched and voiced with respect.

shrams · 03-03-2005, 10:46 PM

Aw, thanks! Like I said, it kind of depends on how people get to know me, what we're talking about, etc.

tableofhearts · 03-03-2005, 11:13 PM

I swear, if they put Joan and Roger together I might have to go put a poopie bag outside the writer's door. The guy that plays Roger scares me, so I'm bias.

Maybe I'm just too much of a Joan and Adam fan, but we all know Joan doesn't have very good judgement at times. She's a minor, I mean yeah I know it happens a lot these days and yada yada, but it was wrong of him and that's what annoys me. If, we think Adam is bad for trying to get into Joan's pants, you think a college guy that flirts and kisses a girl when she had a boyfriend isn't going to be worse? If he was decent, he wouldn't be with a minor.

Gah! Hah, I see shipper wars coming. I don't like shipper wars and anti threads, but I see them coming. And I believe God told Joan to go to Roger, so that the last scene could happen between Joan and Adam, it was a way for her to learn that Adam is human and so is she, and fundementally human's make mistakes. Roger was a mistake which made Joan realise how much Adam meant to her, or else she wouldn't have cried with her mother in that scene.

Personally, I think Mark is ugly. He has no charm or charisma on screen and I can't find him loveable (and I'm not judging those who do, this is just a personal perference). Secondly, anyone that's been on Dawson's creek I can not love (personal perference again). That show I have hated all my life and will continue to do so, along with the OC and One Tree Hill (and yet again personal perference). And with the entry of Roger, I fear that Joan of Arcadia will take the route of sterotypical shows. What I like about Joan of Arcadia is even though the God idea might be far fetched, the interactions between people is real. I realate.

I'm a college student and I'm sorry to say most girls find the guys flirting a little pathetic. It doesn't make college interesting, it annoys us females, because most of the flirting is on a superficial level and the girls in my class do not like that. Shock, horror... gasp we got to university to study not to be gawked at.

Sorry I got passionate.

Shrams I agree. I hate flirting. I personally love your posts, because they say excatly how I feel and you are able to articulate it much better than I can. I just get angry and anger is never good when it comes to shipping couples.

So, I just leave it to you and make my comments later on.