Reality Is Almost Always Wrong

Canadian TV fangirl, right here.

2009-11-14T06:29:49Z

You know all those stories I've told over the years, of hilarity and wonder on the annual Gemini Awards broadcast?

Well, YouTube--being the gift to humanity it so obviously is--provides, and now you can see what I've been blathering on about. NO WAIT COME BACK I DIDN'T MEAN IT I SWEAR!

...no, I totally meant it. WATCH MY COUNTRY'S FAUX-EMMYS, DAMN YOU!

*beam*

If you watch nothing else, WATCH THIS ONE. It's from the broadcast that made me a Geminis Fangirl, back in the mid-90s; I am really not kidding when I say that I shrieked and flailed when I saw it was online. From 1996, when Albert Schultz hosted (and I'm so sad there aren't more clips from this broadcast, because he was awesome--like, he opened with a musical number, and did a skit in which he played a grown-up Casey from Mr. Dressup), and was up against Paul Gross in the Best Actor category: Paul Gross fears for his life, and a reference to a recent political event brings the house down. (Everything pre-winner-announcement was scripted; everything afterward...not so much, I'm thinking. :D)

From 2003: Wendy Crewson does what every straight, red-blooded Canadian woman would, given the opportunity: she molests Ian Hanomansing. HANOMANSING. ♥

From 2007: George Stroumboulopoulos is careless with his words about the prairies.

Also from 2007: a look inside the retirement home for TV puppets, Felt With Feelings.

From 2007, again, some more: Kristin Kreuk and Sarah Chalke get acting lessons from Shaun Majumder.

From 2008: Yannick Bisson cannot keep a straight face when making raunchy jokes.

*~*~*

This year's broadcast is a) on Global and b) hosted by Ron James, so I'm not expecting, you know, brilliance. But since it's on Global, there will most likely be a red carpet, which is always good for finding out who gets drunk before showing up.

:)

La la la ICONIC YAY.

2009-11-14T03:31:09Z

Smallville, 'Idol': SV! That was wonderful!

...I don't know what to do with myself. I'm all a-flutter!

--CLARK & LOIS: AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW! Welling and Durance: YAY! General impression: :D

I really enjoyed Lois's therapy sessions. Her puzzling through a) her conflicting feelings for Clark and the Blur, b) her realisation that they're the same person, c) Clark's reasons for maintaining the dual identity, then d) her disappointment that they're apparently not one and the same, and her ensuing decision to say the heck with the Blur and go make out with Clark--all that was gold, and a much-needed grounding for Lois and her role in the triangle-that-isn't-really.

And Clark...actually, while I know there were other really happy-making things about Clark in this ep, I'm kind of stuck on how very pleasant he was just to look at, both in a series of button-up shirts/snazzy ties and out of them BEHOLD THE TORSO OF WELLING!. *happysigh* Yeah. :)

--GLASSES. ♥

--Okay, I could've done without David Gallagher's presence, which only served as a reminder that 7th Heaven was ever a blight upon the televisual landscape. *traumatic flashbacks* But making him a friggin' Wonder Twin kind of made up for that by dint of pure cheese, so. (Kind of. *TRAUMATIC FLASHBACKS*)

*a-flutter*

*~*~*

This weekend: NEW DOCTOR WHO. \o/

Also? GEMINI AWARDS. \o/

I honestly cannot tell you which one has me more excited. IT WOULD BE LIKE CHOOSING A FAVOURITE CHILD.

HELP I CAN'T FIND THE FOURTH WALL.

2009-11-13T03:31:42Z

Supernatural, 'The Real Ghostbusters': I say this in the spirit of the dialogue I feel the SPN PTB have encouraged with the fannish types in its audience:

Dear Kripke,

Have you met your fanbase?

Just wondering,

Jayne

--I counted one pair of female LARPers talking to the cops at the end, and possibly one random chick on her own in the audience. To quote Doctor Ellen Piccolo from Doctor Sexy, M.D.: Seriously? Seriously?

--Somewhat related to the first point: I feel like Becky was actually kind of out of place in this episode, as she seemed to represent a different type of fannishness than the LARPing army upon which the ep was focused: Becky doesn't want to be the Winchesters (at this time, I choose not to discuss the suggestion that the only reason LARPers do so is because their real lives suck, except to say that it is possible for fiction to be a diversion, as opposed to an escape), she wants to write about them. (Or maybe I've just internalised that geek hierarchy chart a little too well. *g*) Of course, it is noteworthy that ~~Kripke~~ Chuck gets SPN's canonical fangirl in the end.

Noteworthy. Yes. *pats him on his widdle PTB head*

--Astonishingly, while I didn't get fanboys making out, I did get ~~TWOP staffers~~ fanboys in a long-term, committed relationship. Who had to keep reminding Dean of the line between fiction and reality!* And who saved the day! I can give points for that.

*Oh, the meta knots in which one could tie herself, trying to parse the meanings of "fiction" and "reality" in this constructed fandom-for-a-book-within-a-series-that-has-a-fandom! SOMEBODY DO IT SO I DON'T HAVE TO. :D?

--"It's not jumping the shark if you never come back down." Well said, sir. Well said. *g*

I reserve the right to expound upon any/all of this later.

*dashes to work*

To be read solemnly, with atmospheric Spanish guitar accompaniment:

2009-11-12T08:49:13Z

"When judgment is passed upon the souls of men
And Armageddon comes to collect its due,
Will we sink in the sea of the damned,
Or sail on the wings of redemption?
The critically-acclaimed, hit CW series Supernatural. Available now, on Dusk."

I have heard that, like, eight times tonight. I thought I would share.

*g*

Clever, title people. Clever, clever.

2009-11-12T03:16:58Z

Being Erica, 'Under My Thumb': ahahahaha. You Yanks with SoapNet will have to tell me whether they make any significant cuts to this episode. Something tells me there might be one or two. *g*

--ETHAN. Poor Ethan. Poor, hopelessly vanilla Ethan. Poor, hopelessly vanilla Ethan, who watches HYSTERICALLY AWFUL PORN. :D

...I'm actually kind of fascinated by Poor, Hopelessly Vanilla Ethan, because as Erica's "Be a man!" Freudian slip suggested, our culture is predisposed to thinking of (and our media is predisposed to portraying)men as the sexually-aggressive (or at least -assertive) ones, while women "need" to be coaxed out of their reserve so they can realise that Non-"Romantic" Sex Can Be Fun.

Have I mentioned that I love how refreshing this show can be sometimes? 'Cause I LOVE THAT ABOUT IT.

--SAM. And KAI. On the COUNTER.

...um. *fans self* Yeah.

...yeah. *g*

--SAM HAS DITCHED JOSH. \o/ I'm sure this won't be all there is to it, given that she was willing to go back to him and there's still a tonne of story to play out re: them, but STILL. \o/

--I am in the odd position of being mad at Brent, and feeling sympathy for Julianne. THIS IS NOT IN THE NATURAL ORDER OF THINGS. (Although Brent's casually earnest, "Six to eight times a day." is still making me snicker. Hee.) In light of this craziness, it was good to at least have my automatic Skeeve Cringe when it comes to Jeff Seymour fully validated by Friedkin's rampant asshaberdashery. (Clarification: I have nothing whatsoever against Jeff Seymour! He just does such a good job of playing utter SKETCH. Gaaah.)

--Doctor Tom and Doctor Fred: ~~CAGE~~ OFFICE MATCH OF MILD-MANNERED DOOOOOOOOOOM. Given their snippiness, and the rooftop argument between Doctor Tom and Doctor Naadiah in 2.01, I think we can now safely assume that Time ~~Lords~~ Therapists might just have every human interaction possible with quotations. Which leads me to conclude that a Time Therapist sex scene would be FRIGGIN' HILARIOUS. ("'...harder for me...' Plutarch." "As Kathleen Turner said in Body Heat, 'Oohhhhhh.'")

Hee.

What can I say? I like it when my existence is acknowledged.

2009-11-08T12:06:23Z

I've been thinking about this whole "interactive storytelling" thing TV's trying these days, and the difference, for some shows, between what it says on the label and what's actually in the can.

Heroes, in particular, has always been high on its interactive extras, the side-narratives told in comic book form, or as games, or in webisodes accessed through the show's official site. The thing about those extras, though, is that they're not designed to allow the audience to interact with the show's stories as much as with the network's marketing department: the entire purpose of those extras is to get people to spend a lot of time on the official site, because in this new age of downloads and PVRs that can skip past aired commercials, that's where the show's/network's advertisers can have a captive audience. Think about the Sprint ads Heroes is doing this year, the ones (badly) disguised as a side-plot about Lydia the carnie: they air a "minisode" commercial during each episode that not only features loving closeups of Sprint phones and dialogue about features offered by Sprint's service, but also directs the viewer to the website to "interact" with the story through various games...while being exposed on all sides to the Sprint logo, as well as a few others. NBC's even using Sprint to provide "Interactive SMS", in which "mobile users can play along with the show as it airs" by getting quizzes, polls and behind-the-scenes info on their cellphones during the show.

While it may look fan-friendly and -engaging on the surface--because if you're a fan of a show, wouldn't you be interested in "interactive questions and messages that'll take you deeper inside the broadcast than ever"?--really, this sort of "interactive extra" is the network interacting with its audience on a marketing level. Despite having dressed up their ads in Heroes clothing to catch the eyes of the people who care enough about the show to want more related content than the weekly episode provides, under the clothing, most of those extras have less to do with appealing to the audience's fondness for the show than with exploiting it to sell more ad space. (And then there's the way the "Interactive SMS" thing, by sending its content out during each new episode, seems designed to take your attention away from the show--or at least from your experience of the show as an episodic/serialised narrative. As a tactic for distracting the audience from the inanity and ridiculousness that tends to make up an episode of Heroes these days, it's probably a solid plan; on the other hand, to my fannish mind, there's something incredibly counterintuitive about an extra that purports to "take you deeper inside the broadcast" by making you look away from said broadcast every few minutes to answer your phone.) This, to my mind, is not "interactive storytelling"--it's interactive marketing.

Contrast that with Castle's recent Halloween episode, which featured numerous nods-and-winks to certain castmembers' roles on other shows. Or with what Supernatural's been doing since--well, since 'Hollywood Babylon', really, but more pointedly since 'The Monster At The End Of This Book' and its fourth wall-chinking revelation that the show exists within its own universe as a book series that is an object of zealous fannish attention. Castle's been described as "a show by geeks for geeks"; SPN, meanwhile, has won a lot of flak from parts of fandom for lampshading its status as fangirl bait--not to mention the way it hung a spotlight on certain types of fans with the canonical inclusion of Becky the slash-writing Samgirl. Regardless of whether you're pro- or anti-SPN's meta commentary on its fandom, however, it seems obvious that "a show by geeks for geeks" describes SPN as well, even beyond its many throwaway-dialogue references to things like Star Trek and Batman: what equates it to Castle's (admittedly gentler) acknowledgement of the nerdcore demographic is the way each show has embraced interactive storytelling--by which I mean storytelling designed to interact with its audience.

By having Rick Castle dress up as Mal Reynolds for Halloween, Castle's writers spoke directly to the viewers who followed Nathan Fillion from Firefly: "You enjoyed FF, we enjoyed FF, Fillion enjoyed FF, Rick Castle enjoyed FF. We understand your fannishness, and we want to encourage it." It doesn't matter that the fannishness the Castle PTB want to encourage isn't as much for FF as it is for their own show; what matters is that they chose to go about courting that level of diehard fannish love by using their show--their character--to acknowledge the existence of the fannish spirit in their audience and appeal to it directly. (Because, frankly, is there a FF fan in existence who didn't find herself filled to the brim with goodwill towards Castle after that scene?) Where Heroes' interactivities a) are accessed extra-episodically through new media technology designed more to generate revenue than to provide narrative entertainment, and b) seem to have less and less to do with the actual show or any desire on the PTB's part to court fannish engagement with the actual show, Castle's PTB seem willing to use the show itself as the medium for direct communication--direct interaction--with their audience. They spoke to us through their main character and his story; they expect us to speak back through our loyalty to and enthusiasm for their product.

Which brings me back to SPN. The SPN PTB also spoke directly to their fannish audience when, using the device of a fictional book series in which each book equates to an episode of the TV show, they had the Winchesters discover fandom and fanfic, then meet a Sam/Dean slashfic writer. Certainly, SPN's acknowledgement of keen fannish interest is both more direct and more pointed than Castle's, and we could argue for days over whether the SPN PTB intended their message to be a loving poke at their fangirls or an annoyed and vindictive one. (We could argue that, but we won't in my comments, right? :) In any event, the basic technique is the same: rather than try to woo their audience('s disposable income) with technically-interactive material external to and separate from the audience's experience of the show-qua-the show, the SPN PTB recognised the emotional connection between their audience and their show, and made deliberate use of SPN's actual content to provoke a response from their fans. (Positive or negative doesn't matter; what matters is that the response is strong enough to keep the show at the forefront of the audience's attention. [Storytellers trying to tell stories that will get a reaction from people?? Why, I never! Whatever will they think of next?!? *g*]) If that's not interactive storytelling, I don't know what is.

There is a difference between SPN's use of the technique and Castle's, however: in SPN's case, TPTB didn't initiate the interactivity. Rather, their creation of the Supernatural book series and Becky the Fangirl was their response to their fans, to the oodles of fic fanwriters have produced about the show, the high levels of passion in online debates, and the discomforting behaviour occasionally displayed. Historically, the fans of a particular source have laid unofficial claim to its narrative through fic and vids and discussion--what Henry Jenkins calls "textual poaching"; historically, the PTB responsible for those sources have had mixed reactions to the appropriation of their work into a "participatory culture" that may have little to do with the PTB's intentions and/or wishes. Because of this, there's been a pretty firm divide between the fannish world and the source's world: a source's PTB wouldn't even speak of their more fervent fans unless it was to disavow knowledge of their products (ie, those PTB who've said they don't read fanfic because they want to avoid any whiff of plot or character contamination), disallow their activities (Anne Rice), or deride their very existence (Aaron Sorkin); the fans, meanwhile, fearing legal reprisals based on issues of copyright, maintained their own general policy of non-engagement with anyone professionally involved in the making of the source material. Therefore, historically, the relationship between the makers of a show and the people in its audience has been either nonexistent, or structured around a rather pervasive sense of "us versus them". This is why the SPN PTB's decision to engage their fandom--to give a specific, knowledgeable, and direct response to the ways in which the fans have been making their own interactions with the show for years--is so interesting, and so important: it's an example of PTB who are willing not only to share their show with their audience (as Castle's PTB seem to want to do), but to have a dialogue about it--show and fandom--as well. Rather than simply creating a product, throwing it to the wolves that comprise the viewing public, and going home with a cheque, these PTB are using interactive storytelling to acknowledge (perhaps, if we stretch a bit, even validate) the fannish view of TV shows as experiences to be invested in, appreciated, and above all, shared.

By geeks, for geeks. (See? I told you it applied. Took me a bit to bring it all home, but I got to it eventually. *g*)

*

By referencing a long-cancelled genre show from another network, the Castle PTB admitted to the fannish types in their audience that they shared the fannish experience of Firefly--and, moreover, that they were open to creating and sharing new fannish experiences with Castle.

By creating in-canon characters to comment on the existence, society and creativity of fandom, the Supernatural PTB turned one-sided fannish appropriation of a source into a two-sided dialogue about the source and its fannish audience.

By offering gameplay, trivia and behind-the-scenes tidbits, all of which are extraneous to the experience of the show as a narrative entity, the Heroes PTB lured their audience to their website and counted the minutes each person spent there, exposed to the ads splashed hither and yon, so the bean counters would know how much more they could charge for that ad space when their current contract comes up.

...one of these interactive storytellers is not like the others. Personally, I think a large part of the difference between the way Heroes has embraced audience interactivity and the way Castle/Supernatural have can be explained by a difference in the PTB's and/or the network's concept of television as a medium: I suspect Heroes is seen by its higher-ups in the traditional view of television programmes--as vehicles for selling soap--while Castle and SPN are being treated as salable products in and of themselves.

Isn't it amazing how much difference a little change in perspective can make?

*~*~*

It has been...many years since last I wrote an essay.

I have been staring at this thing for hours.

I hope it makes at least a little bit of sense to somebody, somewhere. Somehow.

It's bedtime.

*faceplant*

FINALLY.

2009-11-08T06:16:17Z

Merlin, 'The Witchfinder': my favourite part was when Gaius made his forced confession to the court, because once Uther sentences Gaius to death, if you look at Arthur--who's only visible for, like, two seconds waaaaaaay in the background of the shot--his full attention is not on his father or Gaius or the witchfinder, but rather completely fixed on Merlin. And the second Merlin starts disrupting the scene, Arthur is out of his throne like a shot, getting Merlin out of the room before he can bring any more damaging attention to himself. Then, when they're alone, he casually and understandingly turns aside Merlin's attempt to punch him, and proceeds to get Merlin into Gaius's cell so the two of them can talk privately.

That is the kind of scene that really makes me believe that Arthur cares about Merlin as a person--as a friend--not just as a servant or a subject or someone who's saved his life and is owed some form of loyalty in repayment. All the grand gestures of s1--Arthur risking his life to get the flower that would save Merlin after Merlin drank the poison meant for Arthur; Arthur making amends for killing the unicorn by drinking the death-juice so Merlin wouldn't have to; Arthur going to help Merlin's home village fend off Doctor Bashir's invading hordes--never really struck me as slashy because, to my eyes, each of those acts was way more about Arthur fulfilling his own sense of noblesse oblige than about him having any emotional connection to Merlin, specifically, motivating him to act. Whereas in this episode, it was made clear that Arthur: a) knows Merlin well enough to expect him to act out when Gaius's life is threatened; b) likes him enough to want to keep him from attracting the attention of shady elements who could get him locked up or killed; c) doesn't take offense when Merlin lashes out at him (although, to be fair, it's not like Merlin presented any kind of real physical threat); and d) sympathises with him enough to want to give him whatever small comfort is available, even if it's just a moment or two to see and speak with his condemned father figure.

Last week did some good work with this, too, when Arthur immediately disbelieved Katrina's assertion that Merlin stole her family crest, and helped Merlin hide from and escape the guards. And as for Merlin's side of the relationship, there was the tag scene, when he assumed he'd be getting a hug along with Arthur's thanks for helping break Katrina's hold on Uther: that moment, played entirely for laughs though it was (Bradley James and Colin Morgan, your comic timing is a thing of beauty and a joy forever!), told us that Merlin has reached a point of such utter familiarity with Arthur--the person, not the prince or the dragon-foretold Other Side Of Merlin's Destiny-Coin--that he'll just wander merrily across normal master-servant lines. Given that he was basically dragooned (heh) into the role of Arthur's secret protector and that of his manservant, I've been disinclined to buy that he feels much actual, personal affection for him--which has gotten in the way of me being able to buy any attraction between them.

The reason I fell so hard and fast and thoroughly for Clark/Lex back in the day was because, after a ~~very brief~~ miniscule period of "the weird rich guy is paying a lot of attention to me!" awkwardness, their relationship was figured as a genuine friendship in which both Clark and Lex cared about and acted for the wellbeing of the other. Up to this point, the relationship between Merlin and Arthur has come across to me as way too professional (for lack of a better word) for me to buy into their slashiness--but if they continue in the vein of the last couple of episodes, they may win me over yet. *g*

I can't be the only one who keeps an outtakes file.

2009-11-07T11:32:10Z

In lieu of doing the paragraph-DVD-commentary meme that's going around ('cause I still don't have all my fic up on DW yet, 'cause, uh, I've written kind of a lot of fic over the years and my patience for coding and back-posting is finite), here's a deleted scene from Primogeniture. (Well, "deleted" in the sense that it so didn't fit the story at all, but I'd already gone to the trouble of writing it, and I liked it, so I stuck it into my outtakes file in case I could find a use for it elsewhere. And this is apparently that use!)

She meets Chuck Shirley almost completely by accident. His hospice room smells like unwashed human, marijuana, and sour alcohol; a dialysis machine whirrs next to the nightstand. On the swing table, a laptop sits open, cursor blinking sluggishly on its blank screen.

His grey-pale cheeks are sunken, skin clinging to the contours of his skull. As she enters the room, he turns his head towards her and says, "No need for introductions, Claire."

She stops a few steps from his bedside, wary. "You knew I was coming."

"Yeah. I also know you're gonna leave upset." He shrugs, bony shoulders barely rising in his threadbare robe. "And that's about all I know. I can't help you."

"Why not?"

"Because I only know what they want me to."

She doesn't see the problem. "So tell me what they want you to know."

"It's not--" He exhales, letting his head fall back to roll listlessly against his pillows. "These days, what the angels want me to know is bullshit. It's like I'm subscribed to the YouTube channel of the way they wanted things to go last time: all I get anymore are home videos starring customised Ken dolls with Zachariah doing all the voices."

Claire looks at the laptop. "But you're still writing."

"Zach won't let me die, but he won't pay my medical bills, either." He raises one skeletal hand, weaves it dismissively through the air. "Anyway, all the post-apocalypse books are apocrypha. Reading them for truth would be like watching Touched By An Angel for realism."

Claire deflates, tired and frustrated and wishing she hadn't bothered to come at all. "Can you tell me anything?"

The corners of his mouth curve up, utterly without humour. "I know things aren't even close to being over."

She leaves. The gaze from his hollow eye sockets is heavy on her back as he calls after her: "Tell Castiel I said die in a fire."

TV Catchup

2009-11-07T06:56:04Z

A Thought re: next week's SPN: this probably falls into the same "the mere thought makes me grin for hours on end, but it's never going to actually happen" category as my wish for 'The End', but if they make any kind of attempt at some form of generalised realism with this whole fan convention thing, it would not be much of a stretch for some of those Sam and Dean cosplayers to be making out.

I am just saying.

*~*~*

Vampire Diaries, '162 Candles': Lexie and her cool-big-sister-y relationship with Stefan were wonderful. Therefore, I called her death about two seconds into her second scene. (She mocked his king-of-pain broodiness! And his inability to dance! I heart her.)

You know who else was wonderful in this ep? Bonnie. With the feathers to cheer up Elena, and the raised hackles on Caroline's behalf, and the increasingly hostile caution when it comes to all things Damon...Bonnie is awesome, and I heart her, too.

You know who else I heart? Caroline. Because, yes, she's shallow like a kiddie pool, but she doesn't want to be, and the only reason she is is because she's an insecure teenager who long ago adopted cheerful vapidity as her default interface with the world, and now she's pigeonholed herself. Plus, you know, she's got Damon messing with her ability to make--and understand--her own life choices every five minutes, which has to be making her more and more insecure in herself every time it happens. Plus, the actress is really good. Therefore: ♥

*~*~*

Smallville, 'Kandor', aka The Epic Love Story of Zod and Jor-El, aka Kryptonian Soap Operazzzzzzzzzzz.

I...have never really had a great deal of patience for the Kryptonians and their seventies-deco accoutrements and their Big Giant Heads and so on. *shrug* Sorry, Clark!

*~*~*

And then there was Flashpoint, 'You Think You Know Someone', which featured The Epic Love Story of Ed and Greg. (How did Ed know Haley wasn't some secret girlfriend of Greg's? Because he didn't know her. Awwww, bald man love!)

Also:

Spike: What, you have a thing for Wordy, too?
Ed: Who doesn't?

Yet again, Ed, you speak the truth. Wordy! ♥

meta meta meta meta meta

2009-11-06T03:21:22Z

Supernatural, 'Changing Channels':

AAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!

...hee. *g*

And then! NEXT WEEK. I...oh. Oh.

Oh. *battens hatches*

(When does the last ep before winter hiatus air? I find myself in need of knowing this.)

Alien like...

2009-11-04T10:04:49Z

Being Erica, 'The Unkindest Cut': monimala, I think you will approve of this episode. *g*

So. What We Learned This Week:

--Kai's native time, where he is dealing with the crisis that made him say yes to Doctor Fred's offer of therapy (drug overdose/attempted suicide due to guilt over his friend/bandmate Travis's suicide), is somewhere in the 2019-2020 area.

--The Kai Erica's befriended is 22 years old of body, but 32 years old of mind. (Convenient, that. Conveeeeeeeenient. *g*)

--Kai has stranded himself mid-session--or, as Doctor Fred calls it, he's "resisting therapy", and Doctor Fred seems unable to just drag him back to his native time. Which suggests that the patient has more control over the time travel than the therapist does. (Unless the mechanism of the travel isn't actively controlled by either one, and rather has more to do with the patient's sense of having fulfilled his/her purpose in going back? Like, the therapist enables the travel back, but it's only once the patient has internalised the necessary lesson that the timeline automatically snaps him/her back to their native time?

...I'm totally overthinking this, aren't I? *g*)

--Sebastian Pigott had fun playing Bitchy Rock Star Kai. *g* (I covet his two-sided slimline TV. [And way to go with those future-tech devices, CBC visual effects people! I didn't know you had it in you.] The future needs to happen now. *grabbyhands*)

So, my thinking on this show's concept of time is--

--not within my ability to render into text, apparently, as I just wrote and rewrote four different paragraphs of tl;dr pseudo-sci-babble before getting whirly eyeballs and deleting my last attempt, for which you're all very grateful. Suffice it to say: the Kai Erica met in 2019 was clearly pre-therapy, so his memory of being 22 and working at Goblins does not include Erica, as without Doctor Fred's intervention, it's entirely likely Erica a] never patronised Goblins at all, and therefore b] was not part of Kai's original timeline, which means we've now seen multiple time travellers skipping around on multiple, coexisting, active timelines, and *WHIRLY EYES*.

You're very grateful I deleted the other stuff. Very.

And as if the time travel stuff wasn't enough, we also got some very down-to-earth family drama about Erica's middle-child need to be the fixer in her family, as well as the younger generation's distance from their parents' religion/belief structures! Which I thought was handled really nicely. (The biscotti scene: HILARITY. "See this penis I'm holding?" And Ethan's FACE. :D) (Sometimes I write things without context just to make anyone who hasn't seen the ep yet and is reading anyway go o.O. *eg*)

In general, this episode made me go \o/.

*~*~*

V: as with Battlestar Galactica, I am too young to have caught the original, or even to have been aware of the original before a somewhat recent marathon on Space, so I have no idea what it was like or how good it was. As for the new version (which, like Flash Forward, is packed to the rafters with actors I like): I was with them 'til they skipped ahead three weeks in the space of a commercial break, at which point I was completely flummoxed. Those three weeks could've driven a whole heck of a lot of story! Story that I was kind of interested in seeing! Like, wouldn't it have been nifty to see how the people who were skeptical of the Visitors found out that they weren't as benevolent as they seemed? Wouldn't it have made for a more emotionally-gripping narrative if we'd had the chance to get to know our central characters as people, so we'd understand why they took the sides they did in this episode? Frankly, I could've waited 'til at least halfway through the first season (or, more preferably, the s1 finale) to get the resistance meeting/slaughter/revelation that Morris Chestnut and Alan Tudyk are infiltrators--but then, if the breakneck pace is coming from uncertainty over whether the show will last even to the end of its initial order...

I'll give it its first four episodes, 'cause--again, as with Flash Forward--I like most of the cast from other things, and the pilot didn't suck. Beyond that, though...well, as much as I love Gabrielle Union and Jack Davenport and John Cho et al, I've fallen asleep during the last two episodes of FF, so clearly, Actor Appreciation can only take me so far. *g*

A post about defying stuff.

2009-11-03T09:44:23Z

James Parriot tells us all what would've happened had Defying Gravity not been cancelled. He also makes a revealing (and unsurprising) comment or two about ABC's treatment of the show.

Some interesting stuff in there, especially about Nadia, Eve, and Mars. It would've been nice to see how everything unfolded.

*~*~*

I flirted with doing NaNo this year, but ultimately, the sheer, gut-wrenching, two-year-old-tantrum-ish levels of "I don't WANNA!" that spiked every time I seriously anticipated having to wring 50,000 words of original story out of my brain in a single month convinced me not to.

Is my inner tantruming two-year-old something I should probably make myself get over at some point? Yes. Yes, it is.

But not this month.

*~*~*

I heard a radio ad the other night in which a man with a Very Serious Voice posed various questions about the nature of the human soul, what happens after death, whether true evil truly exists, whether there's a force for good to provide counterbalance, and if so, what happens when those opposing forces come into contact--and conflict--with humanity?

And now I'm desperate to hear it again. Because it turned out to be an ad for this.

*g*

I would have revealed the recasts to have been evil robots.

2009-10-31T08:13:29Z

This week ended my dream of Jonathan Jackson's return to General Hospital retconning every damn thing that's happened with the character of Lucky Spencer since 1999.

I would just like to say upfront that I have a great deal of sympathy for Greg Vaughan. He took over the role of Lucky after it had already been irrevocably damaged by the first recast (the astoundingly miscast Jacob Young--who, I hasten to add, can be good in roles that suit him; unfortunately, the role of Lucky Spencer...did not), and not long after he arrived, Lucky as a character became a marginalised idiot: among other things, he became a cop, which, on this show, is more or less the death knell for a character's intelligence, competence and personal life (and, therefore, screentime). Still, even though he's not the Greatest Actor Evar!, he's a decent soap actor--in that there are things he does really well inside a particular behavioural niche--and when the writing let him play to his strengths (guy-next-door, family man, romantic lead, shirtlessness) he was just fine.

The only problem was, he wasn't really Lucky Spencer. While I can wholeheartedly buy that Lucky would have a really good nesting instinct (something he inherited from his mother), he should also have a bunch of other stuff going on, good and bad (inherited from both his parents), and Vaughan's strengths as an actor do not extend to layering--or edging--his Good Guy performance. To be fair, the writers never seemed particularly interested in giving him material that would allow layers or edges, either, but the upshot is that Lucky Spencer qua Lucky Spencer hasn't been on GH since Jonathan Jackson, the role's originator, left.

So now that he's back...

Okay, beyond the superficial rightness (physically, Jackson [and Julie Marie Berman, and I WANT SIBLING SCENES, SHOW *impatient*] is totally a possible love child of Tony Geary and Genie Francis), Jackson's Lucky has always characterised a blending of his parents: he's had Laura's gentleness, Luke's resourcefulness, Laura's bravery, Luke's confidence, Laura's sensitivity, Luke's ability to be hurtful (emotionally; Lucky would never in a million, billion, squintillion years, ever commit rape), and both his parents' intelligence and capacity for devotion*. All of that came through in Jackson's performance throughout the 1990s--and all of that was again evident in his performance in the first two days of his return, when those traits have either been very one-at-a-time or completely nonexistent since the first recast. Of course, it helped that the writing provided him the kind of material that let him put a multi-faceted characterisation across--although that really makes TPTB's (heretofore only suspected; now, I think, reliably proven) disdain for Greg Vaughan's Lucky incredibly obvious, which is just unprofessional as hell--but regardless...Lucky Spencer was on GH this week, for the first time in a decade.

And that may have made me flail and grin. (Lucky and Elizabeth, together! Lucky and Nikolas, brothers!** Lucky and Luke, complicated! SOAP PEOPLE OF THE DAYS WHEN I LOVED THIS SHOW UNRESERVEDLY, HOW I HAVE MISSED YOU.)

*I'm talking about the real Luke Spencer's capacity for devotion, here. I'm just enough of a soap crazy that I choose to deny the very existence of the Ethan retcon and its attendant Luke-cheated-on-Laura nonsense.

**I also choose to deny the existence of this godforsakenly appalling affair between Elizabeth and Nikolas. Because NO. NO NO NO NO NO. *tinfoil*

*~*~*

White Collar: I have a problem with this show. In expository scenes where necessary information is being relayed, they keep cutting to Neal, and when they do that, everything goes out of my head except my awareness that Matt Bomer is freakishly gorgeous. So when they cut away from him again, I'm left thinking about his eyes or his cheekbones or the way he wears a jaunty hat or whatever, and have no clue what's happening plot-wise.

...it is totally a problem, okay? THOSE EYES, OMG. He was not this pretty on Traveller! I remember! He wasn't! What happened??

inner wail

2009-10-30T08:47:03Z

...no, seriously, Work, why do you hate me and want me to suffer???

(You wouldn't think I'd be so desperate to know with only two and a quarter hours left before WEEKEND, and yet.

And. Yet.)

Normally, I'd've been done everything by 2:00. I STILL HAVE THINGS LEFT TO DO.

2009-10-29T08:40:36Z

Dear Work,

Why do you hate me and want me to suffer? What did I ever do to you???

Eyes fixed resolutely on the weekend,

Jayne

*~*~*

I have yet to see Jonathan Jackson's return to the role of Lucky on General Hospital, mostly because I've been so worn out from work this week I haven't been able to drag myself out of bed in time to watch. But that's what YouTube and this coming Friday evening are for! (This coming Friday evening is also for costume prep/dry run, as I am actually going out for Halloween this year! If I manage to look halfway decent, I shall take pictures.)

*~*~*

Just over two hours 'til I can go to bed. And then just one more shift 'til my weekend. ONNNNNE MORRRRRRRE.

"I like it!"

2009-10-28T08:30:04Z

Castle, 'Vampire Weekend': oh my god, ♥ ♥ ♥.

I can really get behind this trend of TV shows acknowledging not just the existence, but the worth of fannishness. Whether with outright guest-starring turns like Supernatural's Becky, or quieter, non-commented-upon nods and winks like having Rick Castle dress up as Mal Reynolds (and Esposito as his Generation Kill character, and Ryan as a murderous doctor [that would be his General Hospital role as Doctor Ian Devlin, Inexplicable And--Perhaps Not Oddly--Incompetent Assassin, for those of you who may not have caught that one]), the overall message is the same: "We made this in-joke because we get it, too."

Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. *g*

ALSO. Castle and Alexis and she's very mature but he still has to use the Dad Voice once in a while and YAY THEY ARE ADORABLE. :D

*~*~*

Being Erica, 'Shh...Don't Tell': I like the Jenny-centric episodes we've had this season, I do. ('Cultural Revolution' did a whole lot of things very, very right, and was an entertaining episode of TV, to boot!) I just...find I don't really feel much of a need to comment on them. *shrug* Sorry, Jenny! *g*

Oh, one nonspoilery thing, though: Brent. Brent, Brent, Brent. (I am amused by Brent. He is...amusing. :)

Next week, according to the promo, we're going to get at least one absolutely atrocious wig. So, there's that to look forward to.

My vague germophobia also contributes to my o.O reaction.

2009-10-27T08:30:18Z

Driving home yesterday, I heard one of the morning radio hosts talking about an invitation she'd received to a party being held for moms and their kids aged 5+, where the attendees will hug and kiss and play and share cups and spoons while they drink gingerale and eat chicken noodle soup in the hopes of contracting a mild case of H1N1.

In other words: people are organising swine flu pox parties. Which said people apparently thought was a good idea because, apparently, said people have also participated in chicken pox parties (which I would've thought would be utterly, pointlessly redundant and a waste of effort on the host's part, what with the way kids of chicken-poxing age spend most of their time sharing their belongings and breathing recirculated air and eating each others' lunches and otherwise effectively licking each other in this place known as "school").

Maybe this is because I do not have kids and will never have kids and became utterly divorced from the world of kids pretty much as soon as I myself stopped being one, but it is my general opinion that pox parties for any illness are A Bad Idea. Perhaps less so nowadays, with the first world's basic level and availability of medical care, than they were back in the days of Octavian Nothing--but then again, given the essential nature of contagion, perhaps as much as ever.

...pox parties. No.

*~*~*

This week's Dexter, 'Dirty Harry', informed us that Astor is apparently on Team Edward, information that leads me to comment that she is indeed her mother's daughter.

I'm enjoying this season about as much as I enjoyed s3, which is to say that, after the dizzying heights attained by s2, I've resigned myself to almost anything else being incapable of measuring up. I am, however, utterly grossed out by two things this season, those two things being Quinn and his journalist girlfriend. Why so many sex/pillowtalk scenes for those two, Show? Now that we're all inured to Dexter's (increasingly infrequent) murder scenes, are you actively trying to disturb and disgust your viewing audience in other ways? If so, A++! Job well done.

Mainly, I'm still very much Team Deb (with a side order of Team Morgan Siblings), who may indeed make some very stupid choices in her life, but who is always entertaining. (Oh, the scene in the parking lot with the ugly crying and the hug! *heart*) After this ep, though, I've developed suspicion and fear: suspicion that, in her downtime while she recovers, Deb will start focusing her energies back on Harry's indiscretions, find that Laura Moser gun on the mantlepiece, and go confront Dexter while he's in the middle of dealing with Trinity; and fear that she'll wind up condoning Dexter's murderous vigilanteism because her first knowing exposure to it is in the form of retribution for Lundy's death. That...would not be the Deb-reaction I'd prefer.

Here we go, here we go, here we go...

2009-10-25T06:53:39Z

The verdict on Unseen Academicals: \o/

--That was a hell of a long way to go to make a David-Beckham-underwear-model joke.

And yet: AHAHAHA. :)

--I cannot be the only one to have heard all of Juliet's dialogue in Catherine Tate's "Am I bovvered?" voice. I simply cannot. *g*

--Pratchett does this thing sometimes. He'll have you paging away through the text, skating happily on the every-other-sentence humour, easily into it, wickedly amused as you please, when suddenly he'll drop this sentence. And on the surface, the sentence may look like nothing special--or maybe like one of those entertainingly-phrased observations he's so good at--but a millisecond after you've read it, you'll realise you've just learned something absolutely awful, because that sentence has the heaviest damn subtext in the universe.

Pratchett does that thing on page 88, and does it effortlessly.

*WORSHIPS*

--Gosh, there's a lot of sex in this book. Including some choice Vetinari/Margolotta insinuation and a blatantly-suggested threesome involving two men and a very manly female dwarf.

...like, there a lot of sex in this book.

--Due to its subject matter, I did not expect to be overly engaged by this one. But, as the refrain went throughout, it wasn't actually about football. And it wound up being engrossing.

♥

*~*~*

And now, since my flist has been all abuzz for the past two days, I'm gonna watch White Collar.

Friday night siiiiiiigh. unwinds

2009-10-24T05:34:32Z

Smallville, 'Roulette':

1) Hey, did Oliver just stumble out of a bar under the same overpass as the cheap motel where Sam and Dean stayed in 'Sympathy for the Devil'?

Oh, Vancouver. :)

2) Dear Hartley,

BE MORE SHIRTLESS.

Shallow affection,

Jayne

*~*~*

Flashpoint, 'Coming to You Live':

1) Michael Riley yay! (I know they were homaging somebody with the full-beard-crazy-hair-glasses look, but I am drawing such a friggin' blank. Like, I keep coming back to Farley Mowat, but I know he's not it. Very annoying.)

2) "He's a geek with combat skills. That's why the ladies love him." Truer words were never spoken, Ed. Truer words; never spoken.

*~*~*

Dollhouse, 'Belonging': um...

...no. Way to undermine your own attempts at self-conscious storytelling, DH! That worked out great for you guys, really it did. *EYEROLL*

*~*~*

Defying Gravity, 'Kiss': Space freaked me the heck out with some random feed difficulties that made me think the ep was going to cut out fifteen minutes early. Fortunately, that did not happen.

This was...an odd final episode. Like, yes, I know nobody knew when they were making it that this would be the last ep ever, and I can see what they were going for--and on certain levels, it works really nicely--but...I dunno. They focused on certain elements...oddly.

*hands*

--I really liked how they used Paula's "miracle" (her dog having survived being hit by a car was only miraculous in that she'd blocked out the fact that the guy who'd molested her had saved the dog) as grounding the "miraculous" nature of Zoe's survival: whatever Beta/Gamma did to ensure that Zoe made it back with Gamma may appear miraculous, but who knows what was really going on? As Steven said, miracles are just reality with certain key explanations missing--and even if the majority of the crew decides to look on Zoe's experience as a Trials of Job situation, there's still a large part of the explanation for how she survived that's missing.

--Jen can't see Gamma, either! I appreciate this, and would be looking forward to the explanation if, you know, there was a chance in hell of ever getting one. *fistshake*

--Donner finding out about Zoe's abortion = YES. (Okay, so a part of my appreciation of this development lies in my amusement over the way Donner's ~magically reversed~ vasectomy became very public knowledge in the space of an instant. Still, though. *g* [AJAY. You've known something was up re: Donner's motility since THEN??? *flail*])

Oh, show. I wish I could have more of you. As it is, though, I shall simply add you to the (long, long) list of Really, Really Good Shows I Really, Really Liked That Died Before Their Time.

*salutes*

*~*~*

I am currently about halfway through Terry Pratchett's ~~Chavs In Ankh-Morpork~~ Unseen Academicals, and all I can say is: ♥.

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Tuesday nights at niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine!

2009-10-21T03:25:07Z

All right, Former Canadian Idol Guy, you've won me over. (Interview has very minor spoilers for this week's Being Erica.) It's that final little exchange that did it; I find it difficult to object to someone with that kind of sense of humour.

Speaking of this week's BE, which I believe is called 'Yes We Can':

--So somebody died because of Kai! Presumably, that's the hitting-bottom moment that got him into therapy; now, of course, the questions are 1) who died, and 2) how was Kai responsible.

I assume we'll find these things out eventually. Call it a hunch. *g*

--Ethan: so vanilla. So very, very vanilla. *ruffles his hair* That said, I liked that Naked Doctor Tom's subtle chastisement of Erica for deriding Ethan's discomfort in the sex club--the thing he said about how, maybe, Ethan was simply the kind of person who liked his displays of affection to be private--wound up hitting home for her, making sense to her, and being the grounding she needed to stand up to Julianne and Friedkin about the sex book. Because there is nothing whatsoever wrong with vanilla! Or privacy! *g*

--I'm on Erica's side of the whole "Ethan doesn't like that she's friends with Kai" thing: platonic male/female friendships ARE NOT A MYTH, DAMMIT. Unfortunately, this ep conflated that issue with the "Erica can't tell Ethan about her therapy" complication--which is a valid complication, as, without rock-solid evidence (which Erica cannot provide), the average rational human being is just not going to believe their girlfriend/best friend/sister/whoever is a time traveller. So now we've got that very classic soap-opera-triangle thing in which the lady has something good with Guy A, yet has something unique with Guy B--something it's impossible for her to share with Guy A--and that something will inexorably draw her away from Guy A.

I'm just happy that romantic attraction is a very low priority on the list of reasons why Erica's drawn to Kai: it may be there, but it pales in comparison to her desire to be able to talk about her therapy with someone who a) won't automatically think she's crazy and b) has a personal understanding of the experience.

--Oh, Sam. *GLARES AT JOSH*

--Naked Doctor Tom. I'm just noting the fact of his presence, here. That is all. *g*

*~*~*

House, 'Brave Heart': see, this is what I mean by calling this show Greg now: if the Dibala storyline had happened at any time in the first three seasons, House would not have limited his commentary to Chase's need for psychiatric help. In fact, House would not have been the one advocating Chase's need for psychiatric help; that would have been Foreman. House would've been in the role that--INEXPLICABLY--went to the random, nameless priest in this ep: that of ideological debator and challenger to Chase's denial. (But, totally unlike the random, nameless priest, he'd have been effective. Also, with layers of scientific fascination--and, I'd wager, a soupcon of envy--for flavour.) And he'd damn well have had a few better arguments than, "What's sacred about a doctor who kills?" Like, I've been anticipating the conversation between House and Chase in which House incisively yet cavalierly dismantles the justifications Chase has been using to deal with what he did...but that's nothing close to what the show's given me. I wanted a Philosophy Special out of this storyline, dammit. I mean, since when have I watched this show for its soap opera?

Upshot: at the end of the ep, when Wilson whispered happily to his dead girlfriend (...yeah) that House was "getting better", I replied, "No, he's getting less interesting." And that makes me sigh.

Typing to stay awake...

2009-10-18T18:45:44Z

An observation made while rewatching some s2 Merlin: The thing about 'Lancelot and Guinevere' is, Lancelot was operating from a faulty premise when he told Merlin he wouldn't "come between" Gwen and Arthur. Being the foolishly noble kneejerk martyr that he is, Lancelot undervalued the reality of Gwen's feelings for him while overvaluing her feelings for Arthur: he assumed Gwen and Arthur had the kind of relationship for which his presence would be problematic, when in fact, the extent of Gwen-and-Arthur at this point in time is a mutual crush that neither of them seriously believes will--or even can--develop into something worthy of open acknowledgement. Gwen's reaction to Lancelot's unilateral decision to bow out of the triangle (FOR NOW) showed that, as far as she's concerned, Lancelot's actions foiled the relationship that actually had a realistic chance of success--Gwen and Lancelot--by placing Arthur in the middle.

There's also an argument to be made that Lancelot's sacrificial attitude towards Gwen/his relationship with her represents his automatic deference to Arthur's droit de seigneur. But since that argument suggests even less pleasing things about Lancelot's view of Gwen as a person with her own opinion on who she wants to be with in this scenario...I'm not gonna make that argument. I'm just gonna reference it. *g*

*~*~*

An observation on current events in Supernatural: This season, it's starting to feel like they're hammering kind of pointedly on the fact that people being possessed can, if they fight hard enough, regain control of their bodies for at least a crucial moment or two. Within the first six eps of this season, we've seen two instances of human will overpowering that imposed upon the body by a supernatural hitchhiker: Bobby wrested control of his knife-wielding hand long enough to stab himself in the gut to kill the demon within, and Jesse's biological mother took time out from birthing the antichrist to throw salt down her throat to force DemonDaddy out. Twice in six episodes, when the entirety of the first four seasons gave us one such example: John re-commandeering his body to give Sam a chance to kill Azazel. (Unless I'm forgetting another instance, which is possible, since I'm rounding Hour 23 of Being Awake right now, and am feeling a mite fuzzy in the head.)

So, basically, now that I've noticed this, I've decided to start preparing myself for Kripke Et Al to deliver a proper tragedy in the final act: Sam and Dean will both say yes to their respective angelic suitors; during the final battle, Sam will be able to take control for One Crucial Moment, holding Lucifer still long enough for Michael to deliver the killing blow; Lucifer's death = Sam's death; Michael, his job done, will vacate Dean's body and flutter on back to Heaven with the rest of the angels; Dean will live out the rest of his days in drooling catatonia.

But then, maybe that's just how things will appear on this plane of existence, while in the next, Sam and Dean--for their great service and sacrifices in the course of fulfilling the Ineffable Plan, or whatever--will be reunited with each other, and with John and Mary, and with Jess, and with the sea monkeys Dean had when he was six, and EVERYTHING WILL END WITH HUGS AND PUPPIES.

...I mean, it's got to be at least an academic possibility.

*~*~*

An observation I meant to mention when I wrote about this week's Vampire Diaries ep: I have to give Nina Dobrev credit for her performance in 'Lost Girls': Katherine and Elena are night and day.

It pleases me to see a former Degrassi actor embracing the demands of a lead role in a fantasy series. I think she may be the first to do so; it seems to suit her. *g*

This is a GIP.

2009-10-18T07:09:21Z

145 years later, she writes epic Wincest.

Tee hee hee. :)

In case you thought I didn't like the episode or something...

2009-10-17T10:33:17Z

Re: Merlin: Secrets & Magic 2.04:

1) Lancelot's return set to the Foo Fighters' 'My Hero': *DIES LAUGHING* Oh, BBC music-clearance people. I've enjoyed your work in the Doctor Who Confidentials; I'm glad to see you continuing your meta efforts with Merlin. ;)

2) Angel Coulby = \o/ I like you, Ms Coulby. I really do. ("I think Gwen feels a bit bad about the whole thing [...] whereas I might quite enjoy it." HEARTS.)

3) Buddy who kidnapped Gwen and Morgana in 2.04 (not Hengist; the actual kidnapper) will be the main bad guy in s3 of Durham County. Because everybody's doing Canadian TV these days, apparently. (I'm not complaining! If my TV shows want to conflate themselves for my amusement, I am perfectly happy to watch them do so. *g*)

*~*~*

In yet another instance of dialogue springing fully-formed from my brain while I tried to sleep:

They lie together, warm and comfortable beneath the rough blankets Lancelot still prefers, even though Arthur's knights may have the smoothest fabrics and warmest furs. Sunlight streams through the high window in the wall opposite the bed, a bright beam that cuts through the chamber's dust and shadows.

Gwen, her head resting on Lancelot's shoulder, her fingers playing idly on his skin, asks, "Do you remember Hengist?"

"Mmm. I had forgotten who I was." His voice rumbles in his chest, soft and indulgent. Turning his head, he presses his lips to her brow and murmurs, "You reminded me."

"Who are you, then?"

She feels him go still beneath her. When he sits up, she does as well, her eyes fixed on the blanket pooling on their laps; when he touches her cheek, she lets him tilt her head until their gazes meet. His thumb brushes her bottom lip as he says earnestly, "I am Lancelot, a knight who loves his lady." A moment passes; then, in a tender echo of her demand, he asks, "And you?"

Arthur had turned to her that morning, kissed her and stroked her and loved her, gently and attentively, with his whole body. "Tell me," she'd whispered as she held him close, as he trailed open-mouthed kisses down her throat, "tell me who you are."

He raised his head and met her eyes; her breath caught, as it always did in such moments, at his solemnity, his open desire, his beauty. "I am King Arthur," he said, "in love with my queen."

Lancelot is watching her, his dark eyes serious, searching her face.

"I am beloved," she answers simply, for she knows it to be true.

"I have the internet on my phone."

2009-10-17T04:27:28Z

Smallville, 'Echo' (which I was sure was gonna be called, like, 'Perception' or something): I spent the majority of this ep wishing Hartley would take off his damn shirt already. I find Oliver--and his murderous emo manpain--so much easier to take when he's at least partially naked.

*objectifies men*

Also, since Supernatural got me in the Good Omens mindframe, I found Tess's entrance to the cantina a particularly strong argument for her as War. Because...yes.

...and that's all I've got.

*~*~*

Defying Gravity, 'Venus' (and a bit of last week, which was 'Solitary'): I SWEAR TO GOD, SHOW, IF YOU END ON A GODDAMN CLIFFHANGER, I WILL BE VERY, VERY SARCASTIC. Tv.com says there's one more ep left, which means they might be able to tie up enough threads so the never-going-to-get-any-more-ness of it all won't be too too horrible, but...*sigh*

I'm guessing they won't have enough time to tell us anything about the guy Nadia keeps hallucinating--which sucks, because Nadia's really the only character whose demons we know exist, yet haven't spent any time examining. And poor Paula--who, based on what was suggested in 'Solitary', clings so tightly to her "miracle" beause it's what she uses to block out the trauma of having been molested as a child--is just starting to realise that she needs to reconcile her faith with her life experiences. And then there's Jen, who's still bitter over not being able to see Beta, and who's counting on the Venus mission/the retrieval of Gamma to give her "something [she] can see" so she can share in the feeling of purpose that everybody else seems to have from Beta...

*SIGH*

Oh, and: "It was always Zoe and Donner." Yes, Eve. That's been kind of BLINDINGLY OBVIOUS from the VERY FIRST EPISODE. (I'm assuming that Zoe's going to miraculously be able to get back with Gamma before Venus's atmosphere melts her suit. Because even if they knew they were gonna be cancelled, I don't really see TPTB killing off Laura Harris's character, especially when "It was always Zoe and Donner." Narrative inevitability, woo!)

*~*~*

I have a surprise long weekend this weekend! Kind of. I've got first aid training on Monday and Tuesday, which means I'm not working Sunday through Tuesday nights (because if I were working those nights, I would then be falling asleep during my first aid training, which would very much defeat the purpose). And I was just informed of this on Wednesday; hence, the surprise.

Upshot: two-day work week! Plus two days at the St. John's Ambulance building! A change is as good as a rest, etc etc. :)

Okay, these two actually do make a pretty great Thursday night team-up.

2009-10-16T09:36:55Z

Supernatural, 'I Believe The Children Are Our Future': given Kripke's publicised appreciation of Neil Gaiman, I'm going to go ahead and assume the writing room was well and truly familiar with Good Omens when they broke this ep*. Unfortunately, when it comes to outre depictions of certain aspects of apocalyptic mythology, for me, SPN kind of can't help but come in a distant second to that book. Thus, when it comes to the human-raised antichrist who unknowingly inflicts his reality-shaping powers upon the world in amusingly child-mentality-specific ways...Jesse is no Adam Young. (I know I know I know, it's unfair to compare. One's a novel, its theatre consisting of the advantageous extravagance of the written word and my imagination; the other's a bootlace-budget TV show on The CW. But still. ♥Pratchett&Gaiman♥) Especially since the conclusion of Jesse's story/presence on the canvas of the apocalypse kind of wasn't anything of the sort; I really hope TPTB plan to revisit him at some point down the line, 'cause the way they left things here was a complete and utter non-ending.

Points for Dean's hairy palm and the Castiel action figure, though! HEE.

*Yes, I've seen that casting spoiler/character name for that upcoming episode, and yes, I bounced and squeed and am looking forward to how that's gonna shake out LIEK WO. :)

*~*~*

The Vampire Diaries, whatever tonight's was called:

Dear Show,

OKAY, FINE, YOU'RE AWESOME. Consider my earlier derisive words about you eaten. With relish.

Starry-eyed adoration,

Jayne

As I have not read the books this show is based upon, I have no idea if this thing about Catherine having been a) a vampire and b) the vampire that made Stefan and Damon vampires (supposition! don't tell me if I'm wrong! if I am, I want to be surprised!) is book-canon. BUT HOMG I LOVE IT. I figured it out, like, five seconds before the reveal (my thoughts proceeded thus: "Hey, wouldn't it be nifty if Catherine was a vampire? But she totally won't be, because this is a cheesy teen vampire show and OH MY GOD SHE IS THAT'S EXCELLENT." And then I may have flailed), because the show had done such a good job of leading me to assume that Catherine had been Elena 1.0: The Poor Waif Whose Life Was Ruined When Vampires Came To Town. But no! Because Stefan was that Poor Waif! (And Damon was Caroline! DAMON WAS TOTALLY CAROLINE. :D) Moreover, clearly, Catherine was a young lady vampire of fine taste and discernment, given that she chose those two gorgeous specimens of manflesh for her eternal threesome. I want dirtybadwrong fic now. Waaaaaaant. *lackofshame*

Also, the whole present-day thing with Damon using Vicky to pass the day ("You are so damaged." "Yep." "You don't have even one hint of self-esteem." "*sniffle* Nope." !!!!!), then turning her--out of boredom and spite more than anything else--that was blackly hilarious and creepy as fuck and YES. GYAAAAAAHHH, YES.

This show has done a wonderful job of making me underestimate it: its first few episodes were just so very Twilight-reminiscent, and it courted cookie-cutter-Teen-Vampire cliche so carefully and actively. But all that was apparently a ploy by TPTB! Who I also underestimated, as they come from (among other shows) Dawson's Creek and CSI, both of which I have mocked in the past! (Yes, they both have their merits, too, but still: targets of mockery. *g*) I admit it: I am impressed.