Really. I swear. Just watch.

So tonight I found out that The Smurfs were originally a Belgian comic strip. I suddenly feel the need to re-evaluate my entire childhood.

Very quick thoughts about the latest LotS episode:

( Cut for those who haven't seen it )

So pros and con list:

Pro - I am in the Italian Alps at a ski resort.
Con - I spent the last 24 hours getting here.
Pro - I have a whole week of vacation ahead of me during which I will bum around said resort.
Con - I have had maybe two hours of sleep in the last 26 hours, none of it in a bed, and my body is seriously confused about the whole 9 hour time difference.
Pro - I read Wizard's First Rule during this journey. And I have opinions! But more on that later.
Con - I only have one other book with me (the second in the series) and might run out of reading material by the end of the week. Once again, I have underestimated my reading speed, especially when trapped on planes.
Pro - I have internet access!
Con - I have not gotten a chance to watch the latest LotS episode because, you know, traveling and won't get to for another week as I suspect that the bandwidth here is not sufficient to support hulu.
Pro - Did I mention the Italian Alps?

( Wizard's First Rule vs. Legend of the Seeker )

Hello to everyone new on my flist. In honor of my new crack show, Legend of the Seeker (yes, it's cheesy standard fantasy, but it's very pretty and fun, and shut up), I'm doing a post which I've meaning to get around to for ages: recommendations of fantasy books. For all of you who don't know me, I read a lot. Specifically, I read a lot of fantasy despite my mother's best efforts to get me to read other things (which I do, just not as often). For this post, I'm going to stay away from the truly obvious such as Lord of the Rings and Mists of Avalon - I do recommend them, just you all have heard of them already.

( Recs inside )

This is not even close to an exhaustive list of stuff to read, but hopefully you found something new. Do me a favor - if you're ever in Berkeley, stop by The Other Change of Hobbit on Shattuck Ave. It's a small independent fantasy book store with a very helpful staff who recommended several of these books to me originally.

I was thinking about about doing a post on my life as it's been a while, but then I thought that I'm not terribly interested in talking about me at the moment. For those of you who are interested, here it is in short form: a) After a terrifically crappy year, I managed to graduate (finally!). b) I moved to Pasadena. c) I'm now officially over-educated and under-employed and facing a truly terrible job market. d) I'm spending my days job-searching, which generally involves people not calling me back and watching a lot of TV, 'cause what else am I going to do? I was sick all last week, so I REALLY watched a lot of TV. And that segues into my wrap-up.

New (to me) shows that I've been watching and thoughts there of:

Weeds, through part of Season 2 - This is a odd sort of show. I kind of like it, but I'm not sure that I like any of the characters in it, which is why I haven't continued watching. Nancy seems perpetually smug. The plot is engaging though.

The West Wing, Season 1 - Surprisingly, I love this show. I didn't think that it would be my kind of thing, but it really makes full use of Aaron Sorkin's considerable talents. I love the witty dialogue and most of the characters (Mandy and Sam being the notable exceptions). Charlie is AWESOME. I love Josh and I really love the Josh and Donna dynamic. Just about every supporting character is good, even the one-shots. I look forward to seeing the rest of the show. I am mostly unspoiled, so normal spoiler-phobia applies.

Sports Night - After seeing The West Wing, I decided to follow through on all those VM4 recommendations from so long ago and finally decide whether Dan or Casey is cooler. And my answer is ... I don't know. I do know that Dana's dating plan sucks. This show was uneven in a lot of ways, but it managed to strike greatness every now and then. Dan's on-air apology was the moment that convinced me to go on with watching.

Mad Men, 1 1/2 episodes - I realize that rampant sexism is kind of the point with this show, but UGH. When I despise nearly every character, it makes it really difficult to watch. Don't know if I'll bother with the rest of it.

True Blood - Speaking of uneven shows ... I loved a good two-thirds of the first season and then the season finale just fell flat. I like how this show doesn't feel like a knock-off of every other vampire show/book out there. It has a lot of unique elements and many of the characters are very engaging. At the same time, there's a fairly heavy trash element. Vampirism has equaled sex since ever, but there's sex and then there's made-for-cable sex. It's certainly approaching if not firmly ensconced in soft-core porn. Jason alone - good Lord, boy. Because of the crappy finale, I'm no longer sure how I feel about the show as a whole, but there was a lot of good stuff in it. And sex.

Shows that I mean to catch up on soon: Dexter, Battlestar Galactica, the rest of The West Wing, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

What have you all been watching?

I know! A TV post! About TV that's actually on right now! I hope I haven't forgotten how. I did forget how annoying commercials are. A summer of marathoning spoiled me.

( 2.1 Samson and Delilah )

So I've never seen this show before, but everyone else seems to watch so I finally got around to it. The new series anyway - there's no way I'm slogging through all thirty years of it. So far I've seen Season 1.

I like it quite a lot, though it does have some rather glaring flaws to get past. The primary one is the utter ugliness of its look. The show began in the 60's and still looks as if it were filmed in the 60's. The special effects are AWFUL. The villains generally look dumb, with especial mention for THE villain - the Daleks. Flying trashcans with evil plungers are ... stupid. Almost everything is filmed on set, and it looks it. It's just not an attractively filmed show.

What generally rescues the show is the acting by the leads and the fact that the show likes to have fun - it doesn't take itself seriously. Rose is adorable and I love Eccleston as the Doctor - I'm really going to miss him. The show does a good job with continuity - which is no joke when time travel is involved. The emotional journeys add a needed weight to a show which is otherwise rather silly.

( Episode reactions )

I have not seen anything past Season 1 (except for "The Girl in the Fireplace" and "Blink") - so no spoiling me.

This is probably more for my benefit as any of yours as, once again, I'm out of stuff to read. And, although this list is flawed (what with the weird duplications), I can never really resist a book meme.

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
4) Reprint this list in your own LJ.
5) (Special rule for me, because it comes up too often) - Bold & italicize books you started and didn't finish. That always seems to happen with the classics for me.

( The Books )

Okay, folks, this is it. Really. Unless, I do just one more pimping post. Until then, my thoughts on the mini-series.

( S5, the short, short version )

Well, it was a fun ride, and I'm sorry to see it end. I hope that the promised webisodes and comics actually both occur and don't suck.

Well, that's it except for the Peacekeeper Wars (which I've seen, but gets its own post). Sigh. It's been a fun ride. Season 4 was rockier than S3; a lot of the time I felt as if I knew what they were going for, but they didn't always pull it off. Still, as usual, the final arc of the season and some midway episodes were excellent and smoothed over any other flaws.

( Episode reactions - well, you know the drill )

I swear I'm going to talk about something other than Farscape eventually. I apologize to all those on my flist who don't care.

Probably because I watched S3 in a somewhat disjointed fashion, I'm still processing how I feel about it as a whole. It certainly didn't have the clunkers that marred S1 and S2. But wow, S3 was difficult to watch.

( But what you really want to know is how I feel about the episodes ... )

Season 2 of Farscape >> Season 1. They smoothed out a lot of the problems (if not all) in this season. Having a fantastic season arc helped, as well as everyone being more comfortable with what the show is really about.

( Specific episode reactions )

And on to the rest of S3! I watched the first episode already (because how could I not?), but nothing after that, so don't spoil me.

As I alluded to in the last post, I've watched a lot of Farscape recently. So I thought that I'd tell you all about it.

The premise of the show is standard and yet very appealing - guy gets lost in space, meets up with aliens, has adventures. Unfortunately, the writers didn't really think beyond that premise for oh, say, most of the season. Thankfully, they eventually figure out what they want to do with the show and then it kicks into high gear, but you have to suffer through some clunkers to begin with.

The aspects of the show that good from the start are the characters and characterization continuity with only very rare exceptions.

John Crichton - Our hero. Sort of. He's basically a goofy jock type for nearly all of Season 1. Early on, he claims to be a scientist, but he's really not. He's more an engineer/mechanic - he's good at tinkering with things. Except that he can't open doors. No, really, there's an episode where he can't open the doors. It's amusing. Also amusing is the fact that he gets beaten up by everyone. Warrior, he is not. At least not yet. He makes a lot of pop culture references to the point where he almost puts Lorelai Gilmore to shame. I said, almost. Of course, no one around understands them and that just adds to the hilarity. He's a very appealing character. In all sorts of ways.

Aeryn Sun - The resident badass and not so incidentally John's primary love interest. Between John and Aeryn, they really drive the show. While John is the technical protagonist, Aeryn is really just as important in some ways. Aeryn is much more of a mystery than John. She's more reserved.

D'Argo - I really didn't like D'Argo at first. He was far too similar to Worf/generic Warrior-type character. Thankfully, he becomes substantially more interesting over the course of the season.

Zhaan - Unlike D'Argo, I liked Zhaan more initially than later. She alternates between being the wise advisor and severely hypocritical. I like her, but she can be excessively irritating when pulling her "holier than thou" crap.

Rygel - Rygel really, really annoyed me for most of the first season. Part of it was that it took some getting used to a Muppet being a main character. He didn't blend with the rest of the crew. Also, he almost always ended up with the B-plot and that didn't help. Particularly since the B-plot usually sucks.

Chiana - Kind of crazy, but fun. I like her dynamic with John, which is sort of kid sister/sort of unrequited lust.

Pilot - Pilot is great. Unlike Rygel, Pilot's Muppetitude never bothered me. It helps that he's fixed in one place, I think. After John and Aeryn, Pilot is my favorite character.

Farscape takes some getting used to. The humor is frequently childish and the mix of live action with Muppets is odd to say the least. It never really looks realistic. The science is laughable - I find it's best to think of it as fantasy and all the "science" as magic. There are frequently large plot holes. And yet, I find it immensely enjoyable because of the character development and the character arcs (once they get going).

Unlike its sci-fi counterparts (Star Trek, Babylon 5, Battlestar Galactica, etc.), it's not about big world/universe changing events. It's very much a character-based show that happens to be set in space. Our ragtag bunch of travelers has no hierarchy - they're together more by circumstance than by choice. There's no captain. The writers clearly make up new worlds and new aliens on the fly. This is fun and allows for more story possibilities, but at the same time the Farscape universe doesn't feel as if it has the same depth as some other shows. But because the show never takes itself all that seriously, it's very easy to just sit back and enjoy it.

( Some specific episode notes - SPOILERS! )

I'm nearly done with S2, so please don't spoil me for anything that happens later. I'd like to keep discussion in this post mostly to S1. I meant to post this days ago ... and didn't. Oops.

Can I just say that I love this show? I'm kind of surprised how much I love it, considering that I originally watched the Terminator movies under duress with my high school boyfriend. Granted, I have a greater appreciation for good action movies now, but they're still not really my thing.

( Let's talk about the finale )


FOX, surprise us for once and renew the damn show already.

Wow, I haven't talked about a TV episode in forever. Good job, Supernatural.

( GROUNDHOG DAY! )

Look! I'm talking about TV! Snagged from westcoastlovin:

( Because I'm bored )

Wow, I really don't post much anymore. Blame it on my general feelings of "eh" when it comes to TV.

So anyway, through a combination of browsing etc., I ran across the following post discussing the news that Dumbledore is gay. The post itself was fine, but some of the comments perplexed me, namely the labeling of Dumbledore as a "token gay character" and the concern over the only homosexual relationship in the books being doomed. All this made me realize that I just don't get how certain portions of fandom think. Who cares if Dumbledore is the only officially gay character in the books? So? I always get a bit annoyed with excessive complaints about how there must be a character of this or that race or sexual orientation or really any other other minority group. Books, TV, and movies are entertainment not political staging grounds. Particularly with sexual orientation - characters could be gay, straight, or love goats (really, Aberforth?), but a lot of the time it's just not relevant to the story and so it doesn't come up. That doesn't mean that the authors/writers are biased or non-inclusive or whatever.

And this brings me around to all the hoopla surrounding Dean's use of the word "gay" as an insult. For the record, I don't think that "gay" should be used in a pejorative manner. On the other hand, it was entirely within character and I don't think that this automatically makes Dean evil or even particularly bigoted; mainly, it just means he's insensitive and probably slightly homophobic, which describes at least 50% of all the guys I've ever known. The word usage also doesn't mean that the writers think that it's okay to use it as an insult or really anything at all. Characters, interesting characters, have some flaws. It does amaze me how things like this get built up far more than, say, a character killing someone else.

There are numerous examples from my VM days where I similarly spent a lot time perplexed by fandom reactions, but I don't want to drag them up now. I just don't attach the same sort of meaning to things classified as entertainment as other people seem to do. Entertainment is just that and I'm happy to discuss plot holes or mis-characterizations or sheer dullness, but judging something on its political correctness doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. Unless it's clearly written with a political message in mind (His Dark Materials for instance), I don't try and dissect the show or book trying to find one. Stories don't have to mean anything.

Did this make any sense? Am I crazy?

Stolen from lots of people, but most recently r_a_l_i_g_h.

These are the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing's users. Bold what you have read, italicize what you started but couldn't finish, and strike through what you couldn't stand.

No, I haven't fallen off the face of the earth. Yes, I still watch TV. It just hasn't been terribly inspiring lately and I've been busy with work. But here's a review of stuff I've been watching.

( The sitcoms: HIMYM and The Office )
( Thursday night drama: Ugly Betty and Supernatural )
( The Comic Books: Heroes and Avatar )
( The New Stuff: Chuck, Reaper, Moonlight, etc. )
( The Only Show to Live up the Hype: Dexter )

I miss having shows that I'm really excited about. Sigh.

I haven't forgotten about the Italy post. Most of it is written; I just have to finish the Florence section which will hopefully happen tonight.