| On the events of Day Four |
[10 Jul 2009|04:30am] |
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Dear Torchwood,
( SPOILERS. )
Finally, I'd just like to say that this Capaldi dude who plays Frobisher is awesome. That is one hell of actor, right there. *approves*
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| Ahhhhhhhhhhh. *relaxes* |
[04 Jul 2009|01:17am] |
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I spent the hours of Canada Day I wasn't working (holiday pay WOO!) watching fireworks out my window and the Due South marathon on CMT.
I am pleased to report that both the fireworks and the vintage Paul Gross were very pretty, and a good way to appreciate my country on the anniversary of the day of its official birth. *nods*
And now, happy fourth of July, Americans! Be glad you're getting a full long weekend, instead of a random Wednesday off. (Not that I got either, but did I mention the holiday pay? *g*)
*~*~*
I take it there wasn't new Burn Notice this week? *siiiiiigh*
My consolation prize: yesterday, I went out and got myself a netbook. It's an Acer Aspire One, which I have decided to name Westen. (Because it is sleek and unassuming, yet it can do anything. Seriously, it's about as powerful as my current desktop.) I anticipate it will bring me much joy. *knockonwood*
*~*~*
Goddammit, Polaris, why must you schedule all the panels I want to attend at the exact same friggin' time???
Next Saturday night is going to be an acrobatic feat of time management, I tell you what. (There's a Being Erica panel! Directly opposite a Supernatural panel! WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DOOOOOOOO???!?!?!?! *sob*)
...so, yeah, I'm going to Polaris this year. Should I be on the lookout for any of you, my fine flisty folk?
*~*~*
One may know that Brett Parker is a jackass. Nevertheless, one can forget just how much of a jackass Brett Parker can be until one rewatches certain episodes of Power Play and gets some incontrovertible reminders.
...dude, Brett's a jackass. (Also: SO CANADIAN, OMG. There's a line in 'The Jumper'--Brett says, "Yeah, darn it, eh?"--and my hand to God, Riley has never sounded more like he comes from southwestern Ontario. Which, you know, he does--and, more importantly, Brett does--so it's not out of place or anything. But STILL, the HILARITY. :D)
Hee.
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| Godless in the broom of day |
[30 Jun 2009|06:01am] |
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I think my new favourite TV channel might be TVTropolis. Which is unsettling for me, because it's owned by Global, and my Issues with Global are legion--but, see, here's the thing: TVTropolis airs Due South at 9:00 Saturday mornings, Once A Thief Monday nights at seven, Power Play Tuesday nights, and Traders on Thursday.
If only they also aired Black Harbour, Forever Knight and ENG, I could relive the whole of the 1990s-era Canadian television landscape as experienced by me. (They do also air North of 60--weeknights, 6pm--but in the Great Mid-90s Mountie-Off, Tina Keeper just didn't do it for me the way Paul Gross did.)
Anyway. This week's OAT was 'Drive, She Said', and of course I watched, because I am helpless in the face of Murphy and Camier--as so many were, ultimately--not to mention John Kapelos playing a Nunkies Addict. And all the other Forever Knight in-jokes Bedard and Lalonde sprinkled so liberally throughout that episode.
The thing about OAT is that it was so wholly, utterly itself: the way I see it, its PTB started with two utterly dissimilar sensibilities--Japanese action (if not outright anime) and mid/late '90s CTV-produced CanCon--and not only married them, but got them to procreate. And the offspring was this hugely talented (if extremely unfocused) entity that did bizarre impressions of everything from art house to X-Files.
I remember reading a review of the show back when it premiered that described it as an "adult, live-action comic book". And that review was not wrong--but it's interesting, as I rewatch episodes now, to compare it to the current shows that were designed around the "live-action comic book" notion, shows like Smallville and Heroes. For them, the "comic book" element (setting aside the fact that SV's about Clark Kent and Heroes pretty much ripped off X Men) comes down mostly to visual style: we've all heard the SV commentaries in which Beeman waxed rhapsodic over the show's panel-like use of colours and framing, both of which he forwarded on to Heroes. With OAT, though, the "comic book" descriptor could be applied to the style of its content. Not the content itself, as the other two shows clearly hit the nail squarely on the head in that regard, what with the aforementioned Clark-Kent-and-X-Men thing--but the sheer, cracky, over-the-top Style of OAT's 'verse (shadowy government Agency), everyone in it (trampoline-loving mob princess Jackie Janczyk; Murphy and Camier, the Estragon and Vladimir of gentleman assassins; transsexual seal tamers), everything that happened in it (bad guys dress up as clowns to kill people who wear fur; a foreign prince and a stripper are kidnapped by a guy who makes snuff films); and the way all that stuff was presented (pig squeals on the soundtrack as the Director and LiAnn are accosted by redneck jerks; judicious use of freeze-frames).
I'm not saying that any show did or is currently doing "comic book" better or worse than any other--because "comic book" can mean many different things to many different people, and value judgments are subjective, etc etc. I am noting that SV and Heroes both have something OAT really didn't--money--and that, when viewed with that fact (as well as the old maxim involving necessity and mothers) in mind, the compare/contrast of these shows is really fascinating.
And that's the topic under the Cancelled Canadian TV Show Category I've been thinking about tonight. (I know, I know: I have so many. *g*)
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| I have watched a lot of Burn Notice this weekend. :) |
[28 Jun 2009|03:11am] |
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I am kind of maybe just a little bit in love with the fact that Jeffrey Donovan giggles when they've blown a take. It's just so adorkable, and in marked contrast to his Michael Westen badassery! ♥
Also, I find myself pondering Fiona. I have all these questions about her, and about her-and-Michael, and while I have it on good authority that some of those questions are going to be answered sometime in the current season, I can't stop wondering.
HMMM.
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| Whose job is it to deal with drunken idiots tonight? NOT MINE! |
[27 Jun 2009|02:17am] |
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Guess where I am! C'mon, guess!
I am IN A HOTEL!!!
...okay, so you're all, "So what, Jayne? Aren't you in a hotel almost every night at 2AM?" (Um, in case you didn't know, I work the overnight shift at a hotel, so the preceding sentence is not, in fact, my big declaration that I'm a hooker.) To which I respond, Well, yes, but this is a DIFFERENT hotel! One at which I am not employed! One at which I am a guest!
This is very exciting, if you're me. *bounce*
I just got back (...about an hour ago) from a class reunion/casual get-together where I saw and caught up with many people I haven't seen or spoken to in two years. And it was a gorgeous evening, so we sat outside and commandeered, like, two-thirds of the restaurant patio, and man, most of those people have not changed one bit.
And now I am, as I mentioned, back at my hotel, comfortably ensconced in bed with my mom's laptop, hoping (hoping hoping hoping) that the hotel's wireless will allow me to watch this week's Burn Notice.
It has been a pleasant day. :)
*~*~*
Speaking of Burn Notice: I was trawling the internetz for entertainment last Saturday night when I saw one of my American flisters mention that they'd picked up the s2 DVDs that day. As soon as I read that, I sat bolt upright in my desk chair (my usual posture is something closer to an incredibly-bad-for-the-back sprawl), said--aloud, to the empty room--"Season two's available???", and clicked immediately over to Amazon.ca to see if the DVDs were out up here, too. And they were! So I jumped up, threw on some better clothes than the loungeabout ones I was wearing, scurried down to my car and, with my fingers crossed that they'd have it in stock, drove to the 24-hour Walmart--that is across town, to the tune of a ~50-minute round trip--to get them.
At midnight.
I don't talk about it much, and it doesn't provoke more than the occasional, idle desire to be fannishly creative about it, but Burn Notice makes me happy. Thoroughly, consistently happy.
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| Yup. |
[21 Jun 2009|09:54pm] |
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I see why fandom calls it the Slash Dragon.
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| "Hooks up." Heh. |
[20 Jun 2009|01:13am] |
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mood |
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lazy |
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music |
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Umbrellas, 'Sleep Well' |
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Following his unexpectedly awesome turn as Crazy Uncle Derek on Sarah Connor, Brian Austin Green has taken a new role on another show that promises...something else entirely. *is non-spoilery*
Seconding my response to his new role, TWoP has compiled a list of other shows that could make use of BAG's astonishingly not-inconsiderable talents. (The article does identify the show he'll be appearing on come October, so if you'd rather not know, don't click.) Personally, I'm going to heartily agree with the Burn Notice option (because, as we learned from SCC, BAG + guns + snark = A UNIVERSE OF YES), and enjoy the mental image provoked by the following argument for Supernatural:
He could play the new evil demon who hooks up with Sam now that Ruby's dead.
...I can't even tell if Mindy Monez knew what she was writing, there. All I know is that it entertains me. :)
*~*~*
When viewed from the tenth storey, heat lightning over the city looks really freakin' nifty.
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| Where everybody knows your name and the gist of all your plotlines. 'Cause you're 30 years old. |
[19 Jun 2009|05:43am] |
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Previously, in posting about the morning programming that sends me off to sleep each weekday, I have discussed Pucca and MTV's After Show, because my taste in television can be eclectic, if not downright weird. Well, the Family Channel no longer airs Pucca (or if it does, it no longer airs it at 7:25AM), and the After Show has been in repeats for, like, a month; recently, therefore, I have been forced to look for other post-work, pre-sleepytime viewing.
Don't ask me why Peachtree TV--which appears to be local to Atlanta, Georgia--is available where I am--which is local to nowhere near Atlanta, Georgia--but it is. And it airs two back-to-back episodes of Cheers every weekday morning, starting at seven o'clock. (Followed by two back-to-back episodes of Frasier, which is nice on the random mornings when I'm REALLY AWAKE.)
The last time Cheers was anywhere near my televisual radar was sometime in the early 1990s, when one of the local-to-me channels aired it in syndication at a time when I'd flip past it on my way to afterschool cartoons. I managed to pick up who the characters were and the gist of their big story developments through cultural osmosis, and I vaguely remember some of the hoopla surrounding its series finale, but I didn't watch the show, because it was just ending when my viewing habits were just beginning to evolve past afterschool cartoons. So a few weeks ago, when I discovered Peachtree's helpfully-timed programming, I thought, why not? (Added encouragement: I've been reading Ken Levine's blog, which is hilarious and informative and generally interesting, and in which he'll often discuss his memories of writing for Cheers. It adds to my appreciation of his work stories if I have a clearer recollection of the finished product.) ( Twenty-seven-year-old spoilers ahoy! )
Anyway. I'm enjoying the show very much, both as plain ol' entertainment and as a glimpse into pop cult TV history. It makes you think about which shows from much more recent history will still be airing in syndication twenty-odd years from now, available for the folks who missed them the first time around to discover and enjoy. (If syndication still exists twenty-odd years from now, that is. 'Cause it totally might not.)
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| La la la... |
[17 Jun 2009|09:21pm] |
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mood |
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My Sarah Connor Chronicles people! There is a vid that you must watch!
It is here, and it is excellent. Every time I watch, I find something else that makes me go, "Oooh."
Go! Watch! Love! Experience FOX-provoked rage blackouts all over again!
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| Part of this post is as close as I get to RPF. |
[15 Jun 2009|04:36am] |
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mood |
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awake |
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music |
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Andrew WK, 'Party Hard' |
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It's been so long since the last time I saw Band of Brothers, I had forgotten how much I love the scene in which Nix makes his big declaration of love for Winters: ( You know, that scene? )
Aside from the Yuletide archive, which I have already pillaged, where's all the Nixon/Winters fic? I feel a yen.
*~*~*
As I was flipping channels before bed last night, I happened across a rerun of The O'Regan Files (Seamus O'Regan, amiable journalist, sits down for a half-hour one-on-one with artists of various stripes) in which he interviewed Paul Gross about Passchendaele.
I was reminded that, despite his tin ear when it comes to writing women and certain of the more subtle kinds of drama, Paul Gross is a very intelligent, very funny, very savvy guy who genuinely believes in the worth of Canadians taking responsibility for our own cultural narrative.
Then I remembered he's going to be in the upcoming Witches of Eastwick TV series, which may--may; I'm not sure how the timing shakes out for this theory--explain why he wasn't at this year's Genies to accept for Passchendaele.
...Paul Gross, our world is uncertain enough as it is; don't you go upsetting my mental equilibrium re: my idea of Canada's national arts warriors.
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| *happysigh* |
[12 Jun 2009|11:15pm] |
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mood |
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relaxed |
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music |
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Snow Patrol, 'Chocolate' |
] |
This was a long week. It involved various out-of-the-ordinary work-related things (training someone new, which is exhausting, and digging through boxes for paperwork from three years ago, which is dusty and annoying) and nervewracking life-related things (I'm trying out a new hairdresser! Which, if you have hair like mine, is stressful).
Now, however, I have my WEEKEND, a bag of Bugles ("They're the tasty snack that's made of corn!"), Diet Dr Pepper and vanilla vodka, and an approximate mountain of fic to read.
Upon reflection, I imagine this pleases me.
*~*~*
Last night's Burn Notice, 'Question and Answer': ( Moon Bloodgood yay! )
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| Quirk! Quirk! |
[12 Jun 2009|04:55am] |
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mood |
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 impaaaaaatient |
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music |
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Kings of Leon, 'Use Somebody' |
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Webcomic. Crossover. Forever Knight. (Between s2 and 3.) Doctor Who. (Eight, I think.)
Forever Janette.
And with that, your minimum daily surreality requirement is filled. o.OOOOOOOOO.
*~*~*
My Alice In Wonderland phobia is soon going to be put to the test even more than already anticipated (given the Tim Burton version with Mia Wasikowska, which I am totally going to see): Caterina Scorsone (who played Victor's sister Alice/Allegra on Once a Thief, Michelle on Power Play, and a few other roles that have pretty much criminally underused her) and Alessandro Juliani (who I'm sure needs no introduction) are in a modern/crackheaded retelling Sci-Fi's doing along the same lines as their Tin Man.
If either of these versions are any good, I'm thinking I may have to stop calling my feelings toward that story a phobia. I haven't the foggiest what other word to use, though, 'cause the damn thing does creep me out--while simultaneously drawing me in with trainwrecky fascination.
Hmm.
*~*~*
As you may have surmised, I am not dead, just busy. And lacking motivation to post. (But soon it will be the WEEKEND, and then I am going to catch up on ST:XI fic and the Porn Battle and all the other good stuff I've had to deny myself this past week. WOO. *counts the minutes*)
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| *tosses an ear* |
[06 Jun 2009|03:54am] |
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So...that was the second episode of The Listener.
Toby has more chemistry with Joe the Firefighter than he does with either of his female love interests. Accordingly, I shall now be viewing this show with slash goggles firmly affixed. Or hormonal goggles, at the very least. (Because: Toby's shoulders. And the fitted shirts Wardrobe keeps putting him in, that show off the way he...tapers. Yes. *happysigh*)
*~*~*
Burn Notice! Badass Michael has returned to my viewing schedule! (And, I should point out, also is One with the...taper. Yes. *HAPPYSIGH*) YAY.
*~*~*
Julius Caesar was some quality entertainment. It began kinda slowly, but by the time it got to the scene where Calphurnia tries to convince Caesar not to go out on the Ides, it had hit its stride, and the rest rolled along quite well. Geraint Wyn Davies was a very good Caesar (he's such a good Shakespearian actor. You can tell by the way his resume is studded with sci-fi/fantasy TV roles), Tom Rooney was a very good Cassius (only a little insouciant), and the Unexpected Actor Is Unexpected of the evening was Timothy Stickney (who played Cinna), who, as is pointed out in the very last line of his programme bio, you may know best as RJ Gannon on One Life to Live.
This is one of those Shakespeares I've never read, but have picked up mostly through cultural osmosis. I like seeing the Shakespeares I don't know well for the first time (I also like seeing plays I've read or studied, of course, but I enjoy them in different ways) because there's a special kind of thrill in experiencing the big soliloquys for the first time in performance. In this case, that thrill came from Antony's big speech ("Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him...")--which, yes, is pretty darn good as a text, but is really rather excellent as a skilled performance.
As we left the theatre, the Latin-knowledgeable members of our group tried to figure out how to say, "Zombie Caesar wants your brains" in Latin. Because...he did. Brutus's brains, anyway. (I have just received the following from said Latin-knowledgeable people: "Ego exmortuum Julius Casear et volo edi tuorum ores." This is why you should always go to the theatre with geeky types.)
Finally, there may have been some small yet inordinate amount of glee over the way Ger grabbed Ben Carlson (Brutus)'s arm as they walked offstage after the curtain call. Because there's a FK blooper in which he grabs John Kapelos (...or possibly Nigel Bennett?) in exactly the same way, and I am easy to please with fannish nostalgia. *g*
*~*~*
History TV is having a Band of Brothers marathon this weekend, to mark the anniversary of D-Day. Since I haven't seen BoB since the marathon History TV ran on New Years Day, like, three years ago, I figured I'd tune in. If only for Damian Lewis's American accent.
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| TV North and South of the 49th. |
[04 Jun 2009|04:47am] |
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restless |
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music |
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...I have no idea. WTF, radio? |
] |
The Listener premiered tonight on Space (and I am bemused by the fact that this show a] has already aired in its entirety in other countries, and b] is airing on Space before it airs on CTV; there's just so much strangeness about those things), and, of course, I watched it, because--yet again--I'm me, and I have a Thing. (My list of TV-related Things is legion. Legion. [...was that proper grammar? Suddenly I'm unsure.])
First off, I would like to say that I feel all adrift and bewildered, faced with a Canadian TV show whose entire lead ensemble I do not recognise from other things. In that respect, this example of CTV's scripted CanCon is a far, far cry from what I'm used to, and quite frankly, I'm a little frightened. Hold me? *clings* I tell you, if Colm Feore weren't in this thing, I don't know how I'd cope.
Anyway.
It wasn't bad. The procedural/crimesolving elements weren't good, per se--there was one scene in particular that provoked gales of laughter when it was trying for nail-biting DRAMATIC TENSION!!!, which...yeah, no--but the characters are generally likeable, and it looks like there's gonna be a decent attempt at a mytharc, so I'm willing to stick with it. ( Notes on actors. )
--It's a very pretty show (and I'm not just referring to Toby, here). Like Flashpoint, it makes no bones about being set and filmed in Toronto; also like FP, it does this thing with lighting and focus that makes the city look urban while also making its colours pop, sometimes into a weird, almost-pastel range. (I checked, and the two shows do not share cinematographers.) All in all, it makes for a nifty visual style.
So, yes. I'll be tuning in next week, and not just because it's summer and nothing else is on. :)
*~*~*
I've been pondering the final week of In Treatment, trying to come up with something to say about the way the show ended this season, but I've got nothing. Not because the show ended badly, or because I wasn't engaged by the final week of eps, but because, for me, IT's the kind of show that's just always going to end with an anticlimax. While each patient's story is told ep-by-ep, the show as a whole is about Paul--and the meat of his story is in how he deals with his patients and how they impact and influence him. Therefore, the patients all have their breakthroughs or breakdowns in either the second- or third-last week so there'll still be enough time left to see the fallout for Paul...which is fine, except that it makes for a relatively quiet final week of episodes.
I mean, it's a good final week. Just...quiet.
*~*~*
Burn Notice! Tonight! Well, I'll be watching it on Saturday, for myriad reasons (including but not limited to: I'm going to Stratford to see Nick Knight Henry Breedlove Geraint Wyn Davies and the insouciant David Kaye Tom Rooney in Julius Caesar! *twirls*), but the rest of you can watch tonight! Because it's BACK!!!!!
Seriously, scheduling this show's three-month hiatus to coincide with the final quarter of the regular TV season was a glorious, glorious thing for USA to do. It feels like I've had to wait no time at all!
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| I seem to have committed fic. |
[30 May 2009|09:07pm] |
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mood |
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 accomplished |
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I believe that last night's jellybeans were an immense help to my ability to finish this. Sugaaaaaaaaar. And I still have some left!
Fandom: Star Trek 2009/XI/Reboot/AOS. (Has it always taken this long for fandom to come to consensus on a title and I've just never noticed, or is ST just special? I am leaning towards ST just being special.)
People: Spock/Uhura.
Rating: G for Gen.
Disclaimer: I have taken some creative license, but the things I took creative license with are not mine. (Hence..."creative license". *g*)
[ETA:] Notes: Thank you to ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) akamarykate, for helping out with a bit of setting specificity. *headdesk* I meant to say that when I first posted...
( Snow In Mid-Summer )
*~*~*
I find it amusing how, whenever I sat down to work on this, my first attempt at typing "Spock" always came out "Spcok". Amusing and irritating.
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| WEEKEND YAY. |
[29 May 2009|08:35pm] |
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mood |
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 bouncy |
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This evening, I Haz The Night Off. Also, the following:
--an ample supply of lime-enhanced Diet Coke
--a rather spectacular post-thunderstorm sunset
--jellybeans
--a stockpile of the final week of In Treatment
--fic that is one scene away from being finished
--PLANS.
*fingersteeple* Excellent.
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| FOX originally paired this show with *Melrose Place*. Quick, somebody call the CW! |
[29 May 2009|03:23am] |
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mood |
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 amused |
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In the ongoing adventures of Things Jayne Finds To Watch Before Bed:
Make Or Break TV is a half-hour "documentary" series that purports to show the viewer the behind-the-scenes journey of TV series that, for whatever reason, just didn't manage to get off the ground. (Really, though, it's CanWest doing the absolute bare minimum required to claim a thrown-together collection of soundbites, graphics, and cheaply-produced interviews as A Homegrown Production that should totally count towards their Canadian Content quota.) And what quickly-cancelled series was profiled on Thursday morning's ep?
None other than Profit. Which, you know, caught my attention, 'cause I'm me, and I have a Thing.
Now, despite its "documentary" claims, Make Or Break TV really is not much for worthwhile journalistic content: the interview segments--with John MacNamara (showrunner), Robert Greenblatt (exec VP of programming at FOX back in the day), Rob Iscove (director), Adrian Pasdar, Lisa Darr, and some other former exec from FOX whose name is escaping me--are edited to within an inch of their lives; pretty much all the information provided in those insanely edited clips is covered in more detail (and in less careful, more entertainingly casual vocabulary) on the Profit DVD commentaries and/or making-of feature; and, since the show's made on a TVTropolis budget, they can't afford to clear more than, like, a minute and a half of actual footage from the show, so there's a lot more telling than showing going on (which, if you're not already familiar with the series being profiled, gets frustrating and interest-lossy really quickly). So I'm not telling you about this show because it's a must-see for Profit fans, or anything; I'm telling you about it because it provoked in me the urge to comment on two things:
1) In any interview I've ever seen, heard or read about Profit, the interview subject said they loved working on the show--but I think Lisa Darr really loved working on it, and really loved playing Gail, and really continues to think of the show as one of the best experiences she's had professionally. Even in MoBTV's edited-down-to-soundbites interview clips, her enthusiasm and affection for the show are really quite wonderfully obvious. (Which, you know, just makes me like her more than I already did. :)
2) There was one interview segment that wasn't atrociously edited, and was, in fact, hilarious. Clips of all the interviewees describing the character of Jim Profit were edited together; you got this string of the behind-the-scenes guys all, "...blah blah psychopath, blah blah disturbed, blah blah slept in a box, etc etc"--and then they cut to Pasdar, who, Lord love him, said with great, earnest fervour, "He was living the American dream!"
To which I could not help but say to the TV screen, "Yes, Pasdar. Yes, he was."
Oh, Profit. *happysigh*
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