The Truth is Out There

Best. Thing. Ever.

2009-03-20T23:21:48Z

Really. I swear. Just watch.

Childhood Cartoons

2009-03-04T22:33:40Z

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.

LotS: 1.13 Revenant

2009-03-03T06:56:32Z

Very quick thoughts about the latest LotS episode:

1. Certain scenes will clearly require a re-watch or ten. Oh yes.
2. Amfortas sort of sucks. I ... don't know that I entirely believe his version of what happened. I think that Kieran going mad was at least partially his fault.
3. Was Kieran really confessed? I'm not entirely convinced. In love, clearly, which would make him want to protect Vivian anyway, but confessed?
3. So, putting together a hot young man with a hot young woman who's off-limits - yeah, you're pretty much begging for trouble here.
4. Um, Zedd? Is now the right time to be leaving Richard and Kahlan alone?
5. One of these days, the show is going to have to clarify the difference between being in love and being confessed.

My Weekend Thus Far

2009-03-01T18:04:37Z

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?

First off, I enjoyed the book - don't ask why it took me so long to get around to reading it. The primary feature that differs from the show is that the book is much much darker. The show occasionally hints at bad stuff, but the book describes it in somewhat excruciating detail. I think that the show could stand to pick up a little more of the book's darkness, though not all of it. The main way in which the show is failing right now is in its depiction of Darken Rahl who basically amounts to a stock evil overlord with very little to back it up or flesh him out. I'm not wild about Goodkind's apparent desire to so specifically and deliberately link evil people to bad things done to them in their childhood, but it can help make villains more interesting when used sparingly.

The other area which I hope the show will eventually pick up more of is Richard's powers. Right now in the show, Richard is basically a sword-swinger and "Seeker of Truth" is only a title. I think that it would be effective if the show phases in more of the meaning of what the Seeker really is beyond being able to use the Sword of Truth. There's a lot of room for character development here. I am a little annoyed that the show shortchanged Richard's reveal as the Seeker so much - instead involving choices, it was boiled down to the King Arthur trope.

Having now read the first book, in some ways the show reads like a scatter-shot paraphrase - most of the same elements are there, but reshuffled and in some cases stripped of all meaning (Richard's tooth pendant comes to mind). I don't necessarily mind this as some of the changes are necessary - compelling reading doesn't always translate to compelling TV - but I can certainly see how a fan of the book would be annoyed. Mostly though, I'm happy that the show is picking out its own story - it would be dull if it were a complete re-telling.

There are a few things that I prefer in the show to the book. Richard is a lot more innocent in the show and I like him that way. In fact, I found his transformation in the book to be so rapid as to be beyond belief at times - simple woods guide to full-blown Seeker in no time flat. The show's Richard has more room to grow. Similarly Kahlan is softer in the show than the book. While I get that some are irked by the fact that she's less in some respects, I think that again this allows more breathing room for stories and character development. Richard and Kahlan's relationship is about ten times more fun and adorable in the show, which I also appreciate. In the book, everything is more intense, but I like the lighter tone of the show for the most part.

Fantasy Book Recommendations

2009-02-26T19:09:03Z

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.

High Fantasy - def. Generally inspired by Lord of the Rings, this category is the largest and tends towards the epic, multi-book series.

1. The Belgariad, by David Eddings:
Book names: The Pawn of Prophecy, Queen of Sorcery, Magician's Gambit, Castle of Wizardry, Enchanter's End Game
Why I like them: This series is my go-to comfort series - again, I first read them when I was young. The premise is fairly standard for fantasy - boy, prophecy, quest, etc. - but Eddings infuses it all with very vivid characters and a good sense of humor. The world-building is meticulous and the plot is fun. If you read other series by him, I do have to admit that Eddings recycles both characters and plot, but I love them enough that I don't care for the most part.

2. The Riftwar Saga, by Raymond Feist:
Book names: Magician: Apprentice, Magician: Master, Silverthorn, A Darkness at Sethanon
Why I like them: These books are big, really big, in the epic sense. Feist builds two complete worlds - Midkemia, which is a familiar Middle Earth-type, and Kelewan, which is more alien and has Asian-style influences. His characters follow a more unique set of arcs than is typical for high fantasy and yet retain their core likability. There's more darkness and danger in this series than my other recs, but it's all very engrossing and I highly recommend it. There are several more series that Feist set in this world - personally, I like the Empire books (written with Janny Wurts) and Princes of Krondor, but the others I could take or leave.

Heroic Fantasy - def. Story centers around a hero and a quest generally. This genre has significant overlap with High Fantasy.

1. The Prydain Chronicles, by Lloyd Alexander:
Book names: The Book of Three, The Black Cauldron, The Castle of Llyr, Taran Wanderer, The High King
Why I like them: I first read this series when I was 8 or 9. It's geared towards a younger audience, but still holds up twenty years later. It uses elements from Welsh myths and legends, which gives it an aura of authenticity and a sense of a larger world. The characters noticeably develop from the first book to the fifth and they're all very vivid. Taran, the protagonist, and Eilonwy, the princess, are appealing and probably the first 'ship I ever fell for.

2. Sabriel, Lirael, and Abhorsen, by Garth Nix:
Why I like them: This is series is one of the more unique set of books that I've ever read. Nix came up with an extraordinarily interesting idea for magic - it's all linked to Death and controlled by ringing bells - and ran with it. The protagonists are female, which is a nice change of pace from most fantasy, and there's none of the annoying gender battle crap which tends to mar other fantasy - they're just female with their own special powers. Really, I cannot recommend these books highly enough.

Comic Fantasy - def. Fantasy that's funny. It's kind of self-evident.

1. MYTH Adventures, by Robert Asprin:
Book names: Several, but here are the first few: Another Fine Myth, Myth Conceptions, Myth Directions, etc.
Why I like them: Well, like any good comic fantasy, they're FUNNY. Asprin sprinkles the books with puns, situational comedy, and even has time for some character development and real plot. Skeeve is the sweet, slightly dim, apprentice wizard and Aahz (no relation) is his gruff, scaly, inadvertent mentor who's lost all his powers. The books take you through several adventures, several dimension, and generally just entertain.

2. Good Omens, by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett:
Why I like it: Gaiman and Pratchett are both incredibly entertaining writers, so putting them together was bound to produce something good. They're also both very British, so the comedic style is a little different than what most of us Americans are used to. This book is all about the Anti-Christ and the coming Apocalypse and all the things that go terribly wrong along the way. There are mix-ups, and mistakes, and misunderstandings, and coincidences, and it's all very, very funny.

Contemporary Fantasy - def. Fantasy set in the modern day and age.

1. The Dark is Rising, by Susan Cooper
Book names: Over Sea, Under Stone, The Dark is Rising, Greenwitch, The Grey King, Silver on the Tree
Why I like them: These are some of the best young adult fantasy books ever written and they're still entertaining for adults. If not for the contemporary setting, this series also fits into the High Fantasy genre as they're structured around an epic, on-going battle between the Light and the Dark. What I love is how Cooper incorporates elements from Arthurian myths, as well as Celtic and Welsh ones. The first book is probably the weakest of the lot, but the second can be read as a stand-alone if you wish to skip ahead.

2. War For the Oaks, by Emma Bull
Why I like it: While the premise of the book is built around a war among Faerie, at it's heart, this book is a personal one. It's a bit about a band and the lead Eddie (female) and a bit about a love story. The cross-over between the magical world and our own is handled gracefully. Over all, an engaging read.

Historical Fantasy - def. Fantasy centered around a particular historical time period not our own.

1. Sorcery & Cecilia or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot, The Grand Tour, and The Mislaid Magician, by Patricia Wrede and Caroline Stevermer
Why I like them: Take Jane Austen, add magic, and you pretty much have these books. The first book started out as a letter game between the authors - they wrote letters to each other in character without discussing the plot beforehand. The plot grew quite organically and they ended up with a unique and entertaining book. Of the two sequels, the third is better than the second, but I love all three.

2. Temeraire, by Naomi Novik
Book names: His Majesty's Dragon, Throne of Jade, Black Powder War, Empire of Ivory
Why I like them: If you ever thought that what the Napoleonic Wars were missing were dragons, then these are the books for you. Dragons are pretty much war beasts for the English and the French, but they're also intelligent in their own rights. I'm normally not a fan of dragon-centered books, but Novik does a wonderful job here in building a reasonable set of advantages and limitations to having dragons around. At its core, I suppose, these books are really all about a man and his dragon.

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.

TV wrap-up

2009-01-12T22:02:59Z

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?

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles

2008-09-09T16:13:18Z

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.

So, the opening scene was very effective, I thought. I still love the pool scene more, but it was a neat trick to show everything without words or sounds. I do wish that the promos hadn't spoiled the fact that Cameron was going to turn. The whole exchange with John "seeing" everything - it feels like there was more going on in that missing scene, which I hope will be clarified later.

View Poll: #1256547

So Charlie and Derek had very little to do this episode, but I loved their scene together. Derek was being incredibly obnoxious with the needling and Charlie was all, "I saved your life. Shut up."

View Poll: #1256548

Likewise, Ellison's brief appearance, and his exchange with Cromartie was awesome.

The best part of the episode was John's angst over everything. I liked his dynamic with Sarah and her classic mothering. Also, the tag-team parenting at the end of the day with Derek was a nice touch.

View Poll: #1256549

I'm not entirely sure what to think of Shirley Manson's character. Her delivery wasn't great and she seemed to be veering in a Cylon/God direction which makes me leery. However, her being a T1000 was AWESOME.

Bye, bye emobangs. You won't be missed.

Dr. Who

2008-08-18T05:04:36Z

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.

Rose - I really liked this episode as an introduction to the characters. The plot ... was kind of dumb. But it was fun enough that I didn't mind for the most part. (Although my suspension of disbelief really really got a workout when Rose didn't notice that Mickey had been replaced by plastic.) And ... poor Mickey. Rose really didn't give a second thought to abandoning him.

The End of the World - I liked seeing Rose deal with the new world she launched herself into. Cassandra was over the top as a mustache-twirling villain.

The Unquiet Dead - I enjoyed this episode the most of the early ones, I think. It was a little creepy and had a nice campy feel. The supporting characters worked fairly well, especially Gwyneth.

Aliens of London, World War Three - OW. Except for the fallout of Rose vanishing for a year, these episodes were DREADFUL. The Slytheens sucked as villains. And ... note to the film-makers - if your effects suck, do not spend so much time showing the same thing (the Slytheens unzipping themselves) over and over again.

Dalek - You know, Eccleston really really tried to make the Dalek seem scary. He acted his heart out. But at the end of the day, I just could not get over the Dalek being a flying trashcan. I cracked up every time someone was scared of it, which is not the intended effect, I'm sure. Von Stattan, or whatever his name was, was an annoying stereotype. I think that with better production values and general execution, this episode could have been good, but as it was, eh.

The Long Game - Adam is quite the idiot, isn't he? I'm glad they got rid of him. This episode was ok. I didn't have much of a reaction to it.

Father's Day - Despite the silly monsters, I really enjoyed this episode for the emotions in it. Much like Farscape, Dr. Who is best when it focuses on its leads emotional journeys. This kind of episode is sort of mandatory for a show that relies on time travel, but it was well done for the most part. I normally worry about time travel consistency and the like, but this show does a remarkable job of letting me not think about it too much.

The Empty Child, The Doctor Dance - Now these are probably my favorite episodes in the first season. I love the creepiness and the way things came together in the end. Nancy was fantastic. Captain Jack is kind of an ass, but entertaining none the less. I wasn't a fan of Rose flirting with him, however (I might be a little 'shippy with her and the Doctor). And the happy tag (for once) was just wonderful. It was earned.

Boom Town - Considering this episode involved the return of my least favorite villain, I enjoyed it much more than I expected. It was surprisingly slow, all things considered. And once again, ow for Mickey. Rose's obliviousness where he's concerned is difficult to take. Either cut the boy loose or come back to him. You can't go running around the galaxy and expect him to wait for you.

Bad Wolf, The Parting of Ways - The Daleks again? Oy. The Bad Wolf resolution was less satisfying than I'd hoped. I did enjoy Rose coming back to save everyone - and the Doctor (in a way). The explicit reality show updates were kind of absurd. They felt played out - maybe because I've a) seen Death Race 2000 (the original) and b) hate pretty much all "reality" TV.

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

Book Meme!

2008-06-29T16:03:58Z

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.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen My favorite of Jane Austen's. My husband hates it.
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien As a longtime fantasy buff, OF COURSE I love this
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - J.K. Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials Trilogy - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens Got half-way through, lost track of the copy I was reading. It happens.
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller I had a difficult time with the style here. The book didn't quite grab me.
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare Like everyone else, I've read some but not all. There are plays I mean to get to one of these days.
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier An EXCELLENT book. I highly recommend it to those of you who haven't read it. It's very psychologically interesting.
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien One of my early standbys.
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger Always been meaning to get to this.
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot Started it, but I can't remember why I stopped.
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams Another classic, in my mind. Everyone should read this.
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis I believe, the earliest series that I read.
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis This is kind of redundant.
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden I've heard it mentioned a few times.
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown This I feel as if I should read because everyone else has, and it will probably only take an afternoon.
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery Another of my childhood favorites. I recently re-read even.
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood Of school-assigned reading, one of my favorites. I've read it on my own several times as well.
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan I haven't seen the movie either, but I'm interested.
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert Honestly, I find this overrated, but it is good.
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov Thoroughly disturbing.
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding Not my normal genre, but I figure that I should read at least one chick lit book.
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville Gah. My husband loves it, I hate it. But I did read it all.
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett Yet another childhood favorite.
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray Very odd and not what I expected.
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl I love all Roald Dahl, but this is my favorite.
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo Got most of the way through it and then my copy was destroyed in my swim bag. And it's a daunting book to start over.

The Peacekeeper Wars

2008-06-06T17:18:40Z

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

Like most seasons of Farscape, there was some good, some bad, some awesome, and some "what were they thinking." But, as a mini-series, it was all smushed together. The biggest problem, I would say, is that there simply wasn't enough time to tell the stories that the creators wanted to tell. And that's a damn shame. If I ever get my hands on those responsible for the cancellation of Farscape ... but I digress.

The Pregnancy Plot - First job, as it always is, was to get themselves out of the cliffhanger hole that the writers stuck themselves in last time. And boy, was this one a doozy. So John and Aeryn are just reassembled? Uh, sure. I did like that we finally got to see Rygel in the water (after finding out that he was amphibious oh so long ago), even if it did look incredibly cartoony. Now, I appreciate that Farscape plots always have consequences, but the "consequence" of the baby getting stuck in Rygel was just dumb. Beyond the simple improbability of Rygel just happening to have the baby crystal remain in his stomach, the idea that it was safer to leave it there to grow was idiotic. On that same topic, a 9 day pregnancy? I don't think so. That was clearly a twist that the writers came up with in order to squeeze the entire birthing process into the span of the mini-series. That said, despite the stupid set-up, some amusing comedy did come out of this story. "Honey, you're pointing the gun at the baby."

The Wedding(s) and the Birth - While these were played for laughs more than drama, I did really enjoy these scenes. Only John and Aeryn could have their wedding interrupted twice and then finally get married right before having a baby in the middle of a battle. Plus, Aeryn slapped Stark twice, and that pleases me. What I really enjoyed was seeing John and Aeryn work so closely together. I loved that Aeryn was willing to do things she wouldn't normally (the flower in her hair, for instance) for the sake of John. And that John was actually useful during the birth in both delivering his own child and knowing how to handle Aeryn. The two of them understand each other so well, which is why this is now my favorite TV pairing ever. My favorite line from the whole sequence is, not surprisingly, "Shooting makes me feel better!" Hee. So very Aeryn.

The Eidolons - The whole idea of a magical race that can keep the peace is a little odd. I did like the reveal of how the Sebaceans and humans are connected (and presumably the Interons, but no one cares about them). Not unsurprising, but satisfying, none the less. I'm happy that the two-parter from way back in S4 was revisited. Also, thanks to John and Co., this race got royally screwed over, but what else is new? Considering that Moya has no weapons, her crew is surprisingly good at bringing death and destruction down on everyone that they visit.

Wormholes, Now Even Bigger! - I thought this main arc was quite well done, which is good, considering that it's the fundamental plot point of the entire show. I still don't know how wormholes went from being transportation to weapons in of themselves, but whatever. The final game of chicken with the universe, complete with the destruction of a planet was EXCELLENT. I particularly liked John forcing Scorpius to beg for it - there was such satisfaction in John finally proving to everyone why wormhole weapons were just not a good idea. He's been put through so much, that it was nice seeing him have the upper hand for once. It was like the nuclear bomb moment in "We're So Screwed" on steroids. I am undecided as to how much knowledge Einstein took from John - clearly the weapons knowledge, which John never wanted. But the ability to navigate wormholes? The ability to sense them? John still has his equations, so it's not all lost. I'm just not sure.

Miscellaneous -

Rygel's getting his throne back? Okay. Kinda random, but I guess that it wraps up his arc.

What. Happened. To. Sikozu's. Hair? Eek. Go back to the ringlets, dear. Also, she's a Scarran spy now? The hell? I don't think that that makes any sense with the rest of the show, but I'd have to think on it.

Is Harvey really really gone now? I hope so. John's had enough crap floating around in his head.

Chiana has new eyes? And can control the whole "Seeing" the present? Why did this feel exactly like the Geordi plot in the first TNG movie? Also, let's remember that her Seeing started out as precognition.

No, D'Argo, no! I guess that someone had to die (Jool doesn't count), but dammit, I liked D'Argo. I was surprisingly happy to see him mend fences with Jothee (why did his makeup look full Luxan though?). I still don't really care about him and Chiana as a couple.

Grayza's pregnant? Weird. I know that they had to do it because of the actor's pregnancy, but it made the whole nine-day thing with Aeryn seem all the more silly. Grayza certainly bounced back fast from Braca's coup last season, but I guess that magical boobs help with that. As always, she's delightfully evil.

The christening scene was sort of schmaltzy and predictable, but I liked it anyway, because I'm a sap sometimes.

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.

Farscape, Season of Crichton's Ass (S4)

2008-06-04T23:51:17Z

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.

Crichton Kicks - Why is it that John feels the need to grow a beard every time he gets separated from Moya? Okay, so there's only one other example. But seriously, why? Also, John's crazy. Again. This was a difficult season opener; it had some great comedy, but having Crichton separated from Moya and most of the rest of the cast was tough to watch. Especially with Aeryn gone (hallucinations don't count) - I'd gotten my fill of episodes without Aeryn last season. Notable parts - best Star Trek reference ever. When the bad guys showed up, I and my husband immediately said, "Oh, look. Klingons!" And then two seconds later, John starts speaking to them in Klingon. Hee. Never let it be said that Farscape isn't self-aware. Also, our first introduction to Sikozu, who I quite liked, but really needs lessons in how to tell who to trust.

What Was Lost, Part 1: Sacrifice - I was happy to see John reunited with D'Argo. I was less happy to see Jool and Noranti. While Jool did become less annoying, I've never really forgotten that god-awful scream. And Noranti - I warmed up to her later, but she's such a very odd character and deliberately confusing. Vella, our guest villain of the week, sucks. Grayza becomes about 10 zillion times scarier. Scorpius's torture and humiliation was not fun to watch (and of course helped cement the audience's impressions of Grayza). The rape scene was heart-breaking; John's been through so much already. BB did a fantastic job of conveying in no uncertain terms how John felt, however. This was not a fun, sexy time and very unlike most shows where a hot woman seduces the hero.

What Was Lost, Part 2: Resurrection - Honestly, this two-parter was a little difficult to follow. On D'Argo sending John back to Grayza: I know that this is a huge controversial moment in fandom, so here's my take. Honestly, I don't think that D'Argo got it. To him, rape is not something happens to a man. Call that cultural bias or whatever, but I think that while D'Argo saw copulating with Grayza as unpleasant, it didn't have the same connotations as it would if the gender roles were reversed. None of which, of course, makes what happened to John less horrible or excuses D'Argo's actions exactly. Anyway, moving on. I kind of lost the thread of who wanted what with respect to the probes and the priests and the planet. And then there were all the escape shenanigans and yeah, mostly I just missed Aeryn. I did like the sacrifice of the old Leviathan. And John got a little of his own back by tying up Grayza (in case you somehow missed the S&M themes in this show before - yeah).

Lava's a Many Splendored Thing - Eh. Standard Farscape one-shot. Stupid aliens, some decent comic moments. My main thought throughout this episode was Where. Is. Aeryn?

Promises - Finally! Aeryn's back. I really liked this episode, probably, mostly, because of the reunion. It had just the right amount of angst and bitter-sweet. Also, Scorpius. I like that we know Scorpius so well at this point, that "foresight and preparation" really is a sufficient answer for how he escaped and found Aeryn. I really wish that we had found out more about what happened to Aeryn while she was away. They really skated over the whole assassin thing. Alas, one of the many things lost with the fifth season, I suspect.

Natural Election - Ha. Finally, Pilot demands a captain. The MotW was only okay, the character interactions were much more interesting. Two things: a) I'm surprised that no one voted for John. I get that he's mentally unstable a lot of the time, but no one? When he's usually the one with the plan and the one that everyone listens to? b) Poor Aeryn. I was surprised that she told Chiana (btw, worse confidant ever), but it made sense on one level - Aeryn really needed to talk with another woman. Also, it's unusual to see her position and John's flipped. Usually he's the one begging and she's the one holding him off. It works though, as that situation had been done to death.

John Quixote - Um, odd. I wasn't really sure that this episode went anywhere. I called the fact that they were in the game all along fairly early on, so that made it a little less interesting. While I liked seeing Zhaan again, I really, really dislike Stark. Perhaps that's why, although I've enjoyed other episodes of this ilk (Won't Get Fooled Again, Revenging Angel, etc.), I couldn't quite get behind this one. Though I did enjoy particular comedic moments such as the Pwinceth. Hee.

I Shrink Therefore I Am - Farscape does Die Hard with mixed results. There was some good fun stuff in here. I enjoyed John working with Scorpius. And Sikozu laying out all the reasons why shrinking shouldn't work and then Chiana saying that no one cares. Hee. At least Farscape is aware of its bad science. It makes it easier to swallow. At least some of the time. But lets be honest, shrinking people as a plot is kind of dumb and it had a predictable result. Who's a little Fear Demon?

A Prefect Murder - I know that Farscape loves dropping you in the middle of the action, but wow, was this one confusing. It took me the entire first act to just get oriented. There were so many parts of this episode that just didn't really work. I like it when Farscape experiments, but this experiment didn't come off. Also, Tormented Space? Dumb idea, that they never really exploited enough to justify. The good moments were all John/Aeryn - trying to kill/not kill each other. Again. It was that much more painful to watch knowing their history.

Coup by Clam - Oh no. No no no no no. And ewwwwwwwwww. If ever an episode called for brain bleach, this is the one. I could detail what bothered me about this episode, but that would involve thinking about it, so let's just move on, yes?

Unrealized Reality - Again, odd. I can't really decide how I feel about this episode. I liked some of the ideas, but Bizarro Moya was too much. It just didn't make sense. Claudia Black does do a scary good impression of Chiana. I did like the scenes where John ended up back where he started in the Premiere. So odd, to see this new jaded John Crichton in his old place. The cliffhanger, however, was fantastic.

Kansas - Hee. And aw. I loved seeing the Moya crew dealing with Earth. And John having to deal with his past. The Sesame Street scenes were the cutest bits ever. Chiana being Karen Shaw was a little strange, but I sort of liked it at the same time.

Terra Firma - Now this was the episode we were all waiting for in some sense since the premiere. And it didn't disappoint. This was a much less dark rendition of A Human Reaction, but all the more important because it was real. I was a bit surprised that Earth let the Moya crew travel freely back and forth to the ship, but I guess that John's presence made a difference. Mostly, this episode really drove home how much John has changed and how no one on Earth got that. I loved that John didn't even really try to explain what had happened to him. Because he couldn't. We also got some lovely John/Aeryn progress, with John inching ever closer to the conclusion that he couldn't really give up on her. Particularly since this episode confirmed, once again, his conclusion that he couldn't go home.

Twice Shy - Eh. Stupid bug monster. There were some mildly interesting character moments, though kind of heavy-handed. Not surprisingly, I loved the tag. Finally!

Mental as Anything - Yawn. Basically, Scorpius takes the boys to summer camp and we rehash issues that I thought were already settled.

Bringing Home the Beacon - And, true to Farscape form, the real arc starts. I really liked that the girls got the action sequence. And that John wasn't the one captured for once. The final sequence, even though I kind of suspected it was coming what with Aeryn being separated from the group, was still fantastic. And wow, poor John. After just getting her back.

A Constellation of Doubt - A very different, but very good episode. I love that we got to see more of the Moyans time on Earth and Earth's (predictable) reaction to them. It was so sad to see John's final hopes crushed. I do have a quibble about the language issue, but I'm deliberately ignoring it. I'm allowed to do that sometimes.

Prayer - And Aeryn joins the ranks of those who have been tortured. Sigh. I think that she was the last holdout. Again, an excellent episode. While I never really believed Aeryn's various lies about the other men in her life, I appreciated seeing the way her defenses were slowly stripped away until she was forced to admit what we knew all along - John, and only John, was the love of her life. On a parallel, but different, thread, John's last remaining morals went kaput as he joined up with Scorpius. While I still think that the whole idea of Bizarro Moya is non-sensical, I did like how it was used to show how far John was willing to go. He balk at killing Chiana/Aeryn, but I wonder how much of the impetus behind making the deal with Scorpius was because he knew that Scorpius would follow through on things he couldn't. John only has one thing left in the world that he cares about and that is a very scary thing.

We're So Screwed, Part 1: Fetal Attraction - Phew. I knew that Aeryn had to be rescued, but this was one tense episode and true to Farscape form, it wasn't without consequences. Noranti's character finally got some payoff - quite a change from her crazy mumblings when we first met her. I liked that John's way of beating the Scarran mind probe was to tell the truth - just not the whole truth. It was a bit implausible that Scorpius at least wasn't recognized, but I'm willing to let that slide. Sikozu continues to be useful - and interesting. Harvey's resurrection shocked me a little, but also made sense - of course Scorpius wasn't really going to get rid of his most useful tool.

We're So Screwed, Part 2: Hot to Katratzi - From rescuing Aeryn, to rescuing Scorpius. Things that I loved: John holding himself hostage (again) and going all out crazy (and Aeryn loving it), the way that John and Aeryn just clicked - every scene of theirs emphasized how close they've become, the crazy crazy plan (again) - "it's beer o'clock. Where is my riot?", and the fifty plot twists regarding who's working for whom and who knows what. Downsides? I think that there were some plot holes, but I enjoyed the ride so much that I don't actually care.

We're So Screwed, Part 3: La Bomba - This episode resolved a lot of my quibbles with plot points, like why Scorpius prevented them from leaving Katratzi, and the fact that it made NO. SENSE. for Scorpius to have actually have been receiving transmissions from Harvey. The flower plot was ... interesting. On the one hand, I love that Earth has suddenly been made important beyond John. On the other - flowers? Really? And the Scarrans have managed to keep this hidden? That's a little unbelievable. I liked that we finally got a reason for Scorpius's interest in Stark (even if it was totally retconned - it worked, so shush). I adored John's final descent into darkness and his release of the bomb and his subsequent regret - even John has realized that he's gone too far and isn't sure whether he can come back. Sikozu exhibits special power 257 and well, okay, sure. Braca brings down Grayza and it's AWESOME. D'Argo and Chiana get back together and I don't care. Sikozu and Scorpius get together and EW.

Bad Timing - I really liked the premise for this episode, but I'm a little disappointed that it was tied up so neatly. Having access to Earth cut off was depressing for John, but also killed so many interesting storylines. I had really hoped that this would be the main plot for the PK Wars. I do love the continuing thread of spacing people that you want to kick off the boat. Hee. John's final goodbye to his father was so sad. I'm not actually sure how the Scarrans found the location of the wormhole to Earth. And naturally, being shippy, I loved the final scene. Until the STUPID cliffhanger. Look, I know that Farscape likes cliffhangers. And that TV LOVES cliffhangers. But usually they're a tad more organic. Skittles? Really? That's what you came up with? *facepalm*

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.

Farscape, Season 3

2008-05-30T16:54:10Z

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.

So way back in the beginning of this season, miniglik told me that she thought the most depressing episode of the season was one in which no major character died. And I thought, "Huh? That's a criterion?" And yes, yes it is. Because just in case you were concerned that some actor hadn't gotten a death scene yet, well, that's taken care of here. I said this season was depressing, didn't I?

Season of Death - Coming straight off of "Die Me, Dichotomy" is going to be tough for any episode, but I think that this one did a fairly good job. Mainly, I was just happy to have Aeryn back. I loved John's reaction to seeing her again. The final scene broke my heart. Again.

Suns and Lovers - Go away, Jothee. And Chiana, I know you don't always have the best judgment, but yeeugh. Mostly this episode followed in Farscape's tradition of having all second episodes being mildly to incredibly crappy. Though I have to say that it was better than both "I, E.T." and "Vitas Mortis."

Self-Inflicted Wounds - Maybe it was because I was trying to work during this two-parter, but I found these episodes kind of confusing. Jool is going to drive me completely and totally crazy if she doesn't stop screaming. Poor Zhaan. Though I didn't mind her death as much as I thought I would. Also, I thought that she'd be around for more of S3 than she was. All the wormhole stuff was interesting. I'm sick and tired of Rygel wanting to bail ship every two minutes though.

Different Destinations - Ack! Time travel illogic! Not that I expect much from Farscape at this point, but wow did they do it badly. This episode was just flat-out depressing. Like John needs more guilt?

Eat Me - And the real arc finally starts, although that wasn't apparent until the last few minutes. There was all sorts of grossness in this ep - even for Farscape. It was just one big horror show with everything getting worse and worse. The Pilot's fate was too horrific to contemplate. I did NOT see the two John thing coming.

Thanks for Sharing - This episode mostly felt like set-up for the rest of the season. John's reaction to himself is very interesting and entertaining. He's clearly incredibly threatened by another him being around (not without reason). The rest of the crew just seems bemused. Then there's the return of Aeryn's mother, which, wow. And Crais and Talyn. And somewhere in there there was a plot of the week. The fake Sarova threw me for a loop. It's kind of fascinating seeing how Moya's crew and in particular, John, has this inflated reputation as criminal masterminds. Though, again, not without reason.

Green-Eyed Monster - I really enjoyed this episode and not just because it was written by Ben Browder (all too often star-written or directed episodes fall flat). Mainly it was good because it focussed on what Farscape does best - character development and interaction. Even though it was fairly obvious to me early on that Talyn was the one messing with John, I still had moments of doubt. In particular, I wouldn't have guessed that Talyn had enough insight and awareness to doctor the video in such a way as to really upset John. And of course Aeryn finally moves past all her issues to accept having a relationship with John. Which is how I knew that this John, Talyn John, was going to be the one to die. Dammit.

Losing Time - Kind of an odd one. First off, an episode without Aeryn just feels wrong. John without Aeryn feels wrong. I love John, but obsessive, self-involved John is really difficult to watch.

Relativity - An excellent episode all around. I love that John and Aeryn are finally growing close (Danger, Will Robinson!). And we now see where Aeryn gets her bad-assery from. Derek Reese apparently isn't the only one to hide useful tools subcutaneously. Also excellent was the Crais/John interaction - John hasn't entirely gotten over his jealousy even with getting the girl. It's so interesting to contemplate how far Crais has come since the Premiere. Aeryn's anguish at the end was heart-breaking.

Incubator - Hmmm. Basically a Scorpius episode, and while I think he's a good villain, I wasn't that interested in seeing his backstory. I like that he has revenge as a motivation - and not revenge against our heroes.

Meltdown - Okay, so this was unquestionably a stupid episode. But when John and Aeryn spend the entire time making out, there's a limit to how much I'm going to complain. Just fast-forward through the Stark scenes. Trust me, it helps.

Scratch 'n Sniff - Heeeee. This is the episode where I decided that even though I'm mostly watching The John and Aeryn Show (I know, you never would have guessed), The John and D'Argo Raise a Little Hell Show is pretty entertaining as well. Apparently the odd editing and fast-cuts and Pilot frame story were added later to punch up the episode. I say bravo. I laughed the entire way through. I loved John and D'Argo's constant bickering and Pilot's reactions to everything.

Infinite Possibilities - Oh hell. I knew this was coming, but it hurt so much anyway. Finally John gets everything he wanted - Aeryn agreeing to a long-term relationship, getting rid of Harvey (now that was a scary cliff-hanger), wormhole knowledge - and then he dies. I always liked Furlow, but ack! She killed John! Not directly, but you know what I mean. Blowing up the Dreadnaught was awesome. And poor, poor Aeryn.

Revenging Angel - Talk about a tonal shift. The writers were on craaaack for this one. The Wile E. Coyote sequences were pretty fun though it started to a get a bit old by the end. Not that I didn't know this already, but John's mind is a very strange place. There's the whole plot with D'Argo's ship and it's not bad, but really this episode is about John realizing that all he really wants is Aeryn. And yeah, we know. Cartoon Aeryn was pretty funny.

The Choice - Oh, ow. I wondered in this episode whether Aeryn even remembered that there was another John out there. I found the stuff with Aeryn's mother a little overdone, considering we'd already covered this territory in a way, but it served its purpose in pushing Aeryn forward out of her depression.

Fractures - And ow, again. Watching Aeryn cold-shoulder John was painful. It was like watching a puppy get kicked. I might have preferred that. No wait, don't make me choose. I guess that there was some A-plot stuff going on (ew! puppet sex!), but really the good parts of the episode were all about John and Aeryn. That rift is going to be difficult to breach. I loved that they kept working together anyway. And that Aeryn supported him in the end. And John's message to John.

I-Yensch, You-Yensch - This episode was two parts really good, one part really bad. I hated the stupid blue monkey aliens and the dumb diner owner and his girlfriend/wife. I could not wait for them to all die. But I loved Scorpius and Rygel working together. And Talyn going crazy. And once again, ow, for John and Aeryn.

Into the Lion's Den - Rock. On. This two-parter was fantastic. All the intrigue and the cat and mouse games were excellent. And of course the final culmination in Crais and Talyn's sacrifice and damn, that was good. Crais is certainly not the man we met way back when and I'm glad that John finally accepted that. Also, hey, look! New insane military commander! I can't believe that this wasn't the season finale. They blew up a command carrier!

Dog with Two Bones - What an odd, odd episode, especially for a season closer. I spent most of the time wondering about the weird witch woman and what she was doing to John. The point, of course, which I think that most of the audience realized a while ago, was that John would never really be able to go back to Earth, at least not with Aeryn. He had to choose. And he chose Aeryn, which again, we knew he would. But oof, that hangar scene. I think that it's one of those scenes that means more on re-watch than on the first time through. Going back through it, and knowing that Aeryn's pregnant and that that must be affecting her ... it comes together more cohesively. And poor John, who's just trying to hang on. And then Moya through a wormhole! And John abandoned! And everyone scattered! Yikes.

I have watched a bit of Season 4 - up to "I Shrink and Therefore I Am," but more on that later.

Farscape

2008-05-04T15:57:34Z

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.

Mind the Baby - I adored this opener. It had just the right mix of funny and angst. The only slightly off-putting thing about it was Zhaan being loopy for no apparent reason and the fact that the stand-off cliffhanger from the S1 closer was kind of resolved off-screen. I know that this is largely due to the original opener being moved and re-written, but still. The John/D'Argo relationship really solidified for me in this episode. I love the buddy/buddy thing they have (rock-paper-scissors! Hee!). D'Argo bugged me for a lot of S1, but now I love him, at least when he's with John. Also, not surprisingly, I was really happy that John and Aeryn moved their relationship into a more comfortable pattern - even if neither one is entirely sure how they feel about the other yet. The final scene was lovely.

Vitas Mortis - Yawn. I ... didn't care about anything happening in this episode. And I never want to see D'Argo getting his nipples licked again.

Taking the Stone - Eh. I didn't hate this episode the way many seemed to on TWoP. It was kind of S1-ish. And Rygel had the stupidest subplot I've ever seen.

Crackers Don't Matter - Hee! This is one of those episodes whose plot probably doesn't make a whole lot of sense if you really stand back and look at it, but why on Earth would you want to do that? The episode was almost entirely pure fun - except with the angsty bits about the characters actually meaning some of the things they said while under the influence. I'll leave you with my favorite quote from Farscape, and possibly ever: "I got great eyes, they’re better than 20/20, and they’re blue!" It's all in the delivery.

The Way We Weren't - Oh, wow, this was a good episode. The whole Pilot/Aeryn backstory history came a little out of nowhere, but the emotional payoff definitely justified it. I liked how it tied up some the loose ends surrounding Moya's pregnancy. And I loved all the character interaction dynamics, especially John and Aeryn (I'm going to be saying that a lot, aren't I?).

Picture if You Will - Eh. Did we really need to see Maldis again? I mean, ever? They were clearly going for a Twilight Zone feel, but never really achieved it.

Home on the Remains - Snore. While I like D'Argo and Chiana separately, I can't say that I care to see them together. And I'm very much over Zhaan and her weird plant issues. The only bit that I really enjoyed was John showing off some of his new fighting skills and managing to kill the beast.

Dream a Little Dream - Didn't have it on DVD, so I skipped it. Plus, everyone seems to agree that it sucks.

Out of Their Minds - This episode worked so much better than I expected and was overall quite enjoyable. The body-switch trope is standard sci-fi fare, but the way that Farscape handled it made it much more unique and fun. For one thing - two sets of three-way swaps, twice! And there were two Muppets involved. For two, they actually let the actors imitate the other characters without any annoying dubbing (except in the very beginning with overlap effects to orient the audience). And the actors were good enough to pull it off splendidly. Of especial note: Anthony Simcoe's Chiana - he had the body language and the girly speech down and Ben Browder's Rygel - just, hee. Claudia Black did a fairly good Crichton. I'm really happy that Farscape had the cast to pull this one off as well as it did.

My Three Crichtons - Eh. It was okay, I guess, but sort of predictable. And future John was really, really annoying.

Look at the Princess - During the first part of this trilogy, I thought that this was the stupidest premise that I'd ever heard of. Very much bad Shakespeare meets sci-fi. But, as so often with Farscape, the later emotional payoff made it worth it. In particular, getting Aeryn to finally accept (sort of) how she feels and getting the first inkling that something is very wrong with John. As you might expect by now, I loved the last John/Aeryn scene. *happy 'shipper sigh*
Sidenote: The Moya/Zhaan subplot was dumb and really detracted from the action of the main plot.

Beware of Dog - Aw, I want a Vork. The critter costumes were pretty bad in this episode, but the episode itself was awfully fun. I really enjoyed the twists and turns and did not see the Rygel switch coming. Poor 'lil Vork though. And, uh oh, Aeryn's noticed that John's not exactly right in the head.

Won't Get Fooled Again - The crackiest episode to ever crack. Simultaneously immensely funny, deeply disturbing, and way more important to the overall plot than you'd think would be possible considering that it takes place entirely within John's head. I loved John's reactions to "Earth," and how there was never a doubt in the minds of either audience or John that it was real. And oh so very trippy. Rygel in a gimp costume may have scarred me for life. D'Argo, however, wins for the entire drive-in scene. And Crais! Who thought that I'd ever love Crais!

The Locket - Gah. There are a number of bad Farscape episodes out there and plenty of stupid premises, but this is the only episode that I've really hated. For one thing, BORING. For another, STUPID. And DEPRESSING. And did I mention the mind-numbing BOREDOM? By the end of it, my husband and I had worked ourselves into full on MST3K mode. The only good thing about it is that it effectively didn't happen in the end. Gah.

The Ugly Truth - Not bad. I do like a good Rashomon episode. It wasn't terribly compelling, but I enjoyed bits and pieces of everyone's visions - especially D'Argo's with John as his "yes" man. Hee. Stark, however, I'm ready to throw off a cliff. Such a shame that dispersal isn't more permanent.

A Clockwork Nebari - I accidentally watched this out of order (after the first part of LGM), so I wasn't really paying that much attention. It was a decent episode, if not spectacular. I'm a bit confused as to why John thought that California surfer-stoner dude was the proper persona to put on, but I think that it's just because Ben Browder has an unhealthy obsession with doing (bad) accents. I should note that it was around this episode that I suddenly realized that I sort of liked Rygel. I'm not sure when that changed, but at some point he started being more character and less puppet.

Liars, Guns, and Money: A Not So Simple Plan - I quite enjoyed this set-up, though Stark nearly ruined it for me. Was it really necessary to bring him back? He's like a walking, talking plot device. During the entire teaser, I just kept saying, "Well, that's convenient." I mean, he just happens to run across information about D'Argo's son? And blueprints for a Depository? And magical key things? Eh. Whatever. The good parts of this episode, not surprisingly, involved John and Aeryn, and, oh yeah, Scorpy. I also really liked the fifty plot twists in the first half-hour. John's confrontation with Scorpy was fantastic.

Liars, Guns, and Money: With Friends Like These - Most of this episode was kind of boring. I wasn't all that thrilled that they decided to resurrect S1 characters to help them, but I guess that they needed the cannon fodder. I was more interested in the spiders and the Moya plot. The last few minutes when Jothee showed up, and I just knew, and then everyone else knew, ... wow. Awesome.

Liars, Guns, and Money: Plan B - So in this trilogy, we have gone through the following goals: Rescue D'Argo's son, rob a bank, rescue D'Argo, kill Scorpy, recruit mercenaries, save Moya, rescue John. Now that is one dense trilogy. I really loved this part of the trilogy. Aeryn's refusal to give up, her willingness to do anything (and I do mean anything), the destruction of the Depository, John's madness, and the final realization at the end that getting away does not equal winning. This is Farscape at its best.

Die Me, Dichotomy - Ow. Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow. Unfortunately, I was spoiled that Aeryn would die at some point in the series and I strongly suspected that it would be here. But you know what? Knowing that didn't help one bit. This was the kind of episode where I was curled up in a little ball of tension for the entire thing just praying that somehow, someway, they could make things different. John morphing into Harvey was horrific and the things he did even worse. But then John having to live with it ... Really, Jacob summed it up the best: Scorpy wins, John loses. Everything.

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.

Farscape

2008-05-02T00:42:02Z

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.

Premiere, I, ET, Exodus from Genesis, Throne for a Loss, Back and Back and Back to the Future, Thank God It's Friday. Again. - All these episodes can summed up with the following: John meets strange aliens, hilarity/chaos ensues, the end. And Rygel does something disgusting. Okay, fine, there's also some character development. But besides the Premiere which is kind of necessary to set everything up, these episodes are eminently skippable. Or at least, I wouldn't rewatch them. They're kind of fun in a cheesy, Muppety way, but generally eh.

PK Tech Girl - The first episode that's a little less standard. Gilina is cute! Although, I did irrationally resent her for stepping in between John and Aeryn.

That Old Black Magic - Between Maldis and Crais, it's amazing that the scenery didn't have bite marks in it by the end of it. Despite some egregious overacting, I liked the character development for John and Zhaan.

DNA Mad Scientist - The science stuff was terrible, but this is definitely one of the better early episodes of Farscape. The show really started to move away from the standard sci-fi/Star Trek tropes. And again, the character stuff for Aeryn and Pilot was fantastic.

They've Got a Secret - Despite D'Argo's kind of dull subplot, I really liked this episode. The Moya pregnancy fascinated me as a plot arc.

Till The Blood Runs Clear - Eh. Some good one-liners, but overall not terribly interesting. D'Argo really annoyed me in this ep. I was amused that John continued his habit of climbing things to get away from danger.

Rhapsody in Blue - Eh. Frankly, this episode never made a whole lot of sense to me.

The Flax - Very, very silly, but hilarious. I loved the John/Aeryn development. And this was one of the few episodes where Rygel was actually useful and not excessively annoying.

Jeremiah Crichton - Stupid, but honestly I didn't think that it was that much worse than the beginning of the season.

Durka Returns - Finally, finally, things feel as if they're moving in big arc-like directions. I wasn't wild about the Durka plot, but hey, we got Chiana out of it.

A Human Reaction - I loved, loved this episode. So much. For one thing, it completely fooled me. I went from assuming that it wasn't real at the beginning, to thinking that it maybe was, and then finding out that it really wasn't. The entire feel of the episode is very different from the rest of the season. It's much more polished. And, of course, the John/Aeryn scenes made my shippy heart very happy. Also, the real arc started here. All in all, my favorite S1 episode.

Through the Looking Glass - I know that many fans consider this to be filler, but I really liked it. Okay, maybe not the other-dimensional aliens, but the four Moyas and the running and everything. It just felt unique to me.

A Bug's Life - A standard sci-fi trope, but well done. Mainly notable for setting up the next two episodes beautifully.

Nerve, A Hidden Memory - Oooh, the real arc. I was completely tense during this entire two-parter. Even though I know that the writers didn't come up with this plot until midway through the season, the way they were able to tie in Gilina and Crais and some other stuff made it work very well indeed. I love that the villain, Scorpius, doesn't want to kill John. The dynamic is so much more interesting than standard hero/villain stories.

Bone to be Wild - Its placement in the season was a bit odd, but I really enjoyed the absolute grayness and twists that this ep kept throwing. A good MotW, if not a good penultimate episode.

Family Ties - I didn't love this one the way that I expected. It was sort of slow and there were about fifty zillion goodbyes. Certain things were awesome though: 1. Sweet, innocent John officially vanished. 2. The desperation of the crew. 3. The completely crazy plan that took me the longest time to figure out. Again, I love that because Scorpius doesn't want to kill John, John is able to effectively hold himself hostage. The entire end sequence played out like a chess match.

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.

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles

2008-03-05T22:04:45Z

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.

Yes, yes, I know you all have discussed this already, but I just watched last night.

Things I loved:
The park scene (along with everyone else). One of my big things is for shows to assume that the audience (and characters) are intelligent now and then. I love that we skipped over the "Derek finds about Kyle's relationship to John" moment and straight to how he clearly felt about it. So much more effective than a Big Shocking Reveal would have been. Very nicely done and good call-back to the baseball practice on Judgment Day.

The slaughter of the FBI agents to the tune of Johnny Cash. Yes, on one level it was kind of gratuitous and artsy. But I always love those music/scene match-ups. As soon as the music started, my husband and I turned to each other and said, "There's going to be lots and lots of death." And then there was. I also liked that we didn't need to see the action play out on screen. We knew what was happening. I loved the muffled sound in the water effect, probably because I've spent so much time under water. Now granted, the sound was a lot louder than it would be in reality, but it worked well.

Derek Reese and Brian Austin Green's portrayal of him. And if you had told me that I'd feel that way a few weeks ago, I'd have called you crazy. Derek is just so very screwed up and it's fantastic. His dynamic with everyone is interesting. He can be completely immoral, but it's just because his mission ranks so much higher than everything else. Many people have pointed out his similarity to the Terminators in that respect, but I think that it's more interesting than that. When Cameron does something immoral (for instance, walking away as Dmitri and his sister are killed), it's because she actually doesn't care about anything outside of her mission parameters. (There was the dancing ... but for the most part, Cameron really is just a robot and good and evil are not concepts that make sense to her.) Derek does know and does care, so when he makes the decision to threaten a little girl and then kill Sarkissian or whatever his name is in front of her that's an actual immoral act. I like that he's still living in a mental war zone, hence his willingness to kill the cops. Even more so than Cameron, he's constant proof of what the world really has to fear in the future.

I also love John and Cameron. Thomas Dekker and Summer have really settled into their roles. I love the bizarre relationship between them. I can't tell if it's brother/sister or master/creator or sexual or what, but it's great.

Things I don't love:
The show hasn't quite found its balance yet. Scene transitions feel a bit rough quite often. For instance, the high school scenes always seem a little out of place. I don't have a problem with them per se, but they don't always blend with the rest of the show. Still, I think that given more time (hint, hint), the writers will smooth out the rough edges.

Lena Headey. Sorry. She's not bad, exactly, but the other characters consistently steal the show and as the title character, that's not good. Now, she certainly has one of the more difficult tasks following up such a very iconic portrayal by Linda Hamilton, but she still needs to step it up. She's not quite intense enough. I keep waiting for her to slip into house mother mode and every time she does something bad-ass it feels jarring.

Things I just don't get:
What is the deal with the gangster girl? What did that exchange with Cameron even mean? Why did Cameron give her a gun? Seriously, help me out here.

The whole Sarkissian switch-a-roo. What? Why? Who was the guy that died? Someone on TWoP said that the clerk at the cyber cafe was actually Sarkissian. Anyone care to confirm or deny?

I'm sort of assuming that at some point we'll find out what the deal is with that blond girl that John has a crush on. I realize that the writer's strike massively screwed over the plans, but I hope this thread (and others) aren't dropped next year (hint, hint).

Seriously, what is the deal with the gangster girl?

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

Supernatural

2008-02-15T16:23:01Z

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

I loved many parts of this episode. The multiple deaths of Dean were both gruesome and hysterical. LOVED the simultaneous talking. Overall the episode had a good mix of both horror and humor.

And yet, something about the tone didn't entirely work for me. The abrupt shift midway through the episode when it stopped being funny and started being very, very serious was too much of a shift, I think. The last half of the episode simultaneously didn't have enough happening in it and yet wasn't long enough to really hold that much character development for Sam. Jared was selling the hell out of it, but I felt there were too many scenes of Sam being sad and not enough emphasizing how very screwed up he was. Also, I'll admit that my first thought during the bullet scene was, "Since when can Sam stop bullets?" Yeah, I know, not the point. I think that pulling a bullet out of his chest (as opposed to, say, a leg) was a little too distracting. (No, not in that way. Okay, maybe a little in that way.)

The other issue is one of my recurring problems with Supernatural, which is that I don't think that the motivations of the bad guys are always well thought out. When did the Trickster become Q? Granted, Q is awesome, but again, it was a little distracting. I guess, I can understand the whole screwing with Sam's head (that's what the Trickster does), but then piling on the whole "I'm trying to teach you a lesson" schtick ... eh. First Ruby, then the Trickster ... Maybe part of my problem is that we all know that there's no way Dean is actually dying and going bye-bye at the end of this season so I find all of the preparation for Sam's solo act kind of pointless.

I did love this episode, despite all my whinging.

TV meme

2008-01-29T06:07:56Z

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

Back in the Day: 5 TV Shows You Loved As A Kid

Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (Oh come on, who didn't love this show?)

Gummy Bears - I adored this show and was so sad when it was canceled.

Full House (I know, I know)

Teenage-Mutant Ninja Turtles (I was a little old for this one and used my sister as an excuse to watch it)

Saved by the Bell (Zach was one of my first TV crushes)

Who Would You Do?: 5 TV Characters You Would...Well, It's Self-Explanatory

Sam Winchester (sigh)

Fox Mulder (pretty much the perfect guy - although it weirds me out that my somewhat elderly aunt is even more obsessed with him)

Clark Kent (So he's an idiot, but those eyes ... I knew there was a reason to watch Smallville)

Jim Halpert (incidentally, he came up as my ideal TV boyfriend on that quiz that's been floating around)

William Riker (Not current puffy Riker, but young handsome Riker. Obviously.)

Common link? All tall, not too skinny men. Apparently, I have a type.

What? No, No, I Don't Watch That...: 5 Guilty Pleasure TV Shows

Smallville - uh, yeah, I think that all of you know my love-hate relationship with this show.

One Tree Hill - Stop looking at me like that!

Moonlight - Objectively, it's terrible and yet I keep watching.

The O.C. - There was the good season, and then the others.

Dawson's Creek - I only watched the first season and yet I keep wanting to watch the rest.

What does it say about me that four out five of my guilty pleasures are teen dramas? I think I'm a twelve-year-old at heart.

Wow: 5 TV Moments You Still Remember (And Probably Won't Forget)

Veronica Mars - 1.17, The Kiss. Yes, yes, we all remember this one. But it's rare that a TV moment makes my heart pound and turns me from somewhat normal into an obsessive fangirl.

X-Files - S8 finale. I'm not sure if this is really a good wow, more of a WTF, but I sure as hell won't forget it anytime soon.

Buffy - 5.21 ending. The fifth season is far from my favorite, but the solution floored me. I think I just stared at the TV babbling for a while until my roommates started looking at me cross-eyed.

Dexter 2.01 ending. When the camera just pans, and pans, and good god damn, I did not see that coming.

The Office S2 finale. Oh with the angsting and the kissing. Sigh.

"Tossed Salads and Scrambled Eggs": 5 TV Theme Songs You Know (and Love) By Heart

Fresh Prince - You have not heard this song until you've heard it in Italian.

Facts of Life - So, it's a little embarrassing that I know this one. So what?

Saved by the Bell - I'm not sure if I know it any more, but certainly at one time I did.

Gummy Bears - Bouncing here and there and everywhere!

Veronica Mars - To be honest, I didn't like this song that much at first. But it grew on me.

Eh: 5 Shows You Just Can't Get Into

Lost - I should like this show and yet ...

American Idol - Eh. That kind of goes for all reality TV, but it's double for this one.

Friday Night Lights - I have to admit that I've been enjoying it more lately, but in comparison to everyone else, it definitely comes out as an "eh."

Arrested Development - I even watched the whole first season! And yet ... I feel like I'm missing something.

Alias - I think that I just don't really like JJ Abrams much.

The Starting Line-Up: 5 Channels You Go To First When You Sit Down to Watch TV
Without cable, this list isn't terribly exciting.
NBC
Fox
ABC
CBS
CW - This used to rank a lot higher ... sigh.

This Is An Environment of Welcoming, and You Should Just Get the Hell Out Of Here: 5 TV Characters You Could Do Without

BTVS: Dawn - Ack, just ack.

X-Files: Agent Spender aka Agent Annoying

The Office: Michael Scott. As if you couldn't guess.

Smallville: Lana Lang. For someone who's died/been knocked on the head/buried alive/almost mutilated/nearly burned/stalked/etc. that many times, you'd think she'd be a little less spry.

Gilmore Girls: Kirk. He just annoyed the hell out of me.

That's What She Said: 5 Quotes That Still Resonate
BtVS: "Me." That whole scene is fantastic.

The Office: "I'm in love with you." So I used this scene already. So what?

Dexter: "I think this is a friendly message like, "Hey! wanna play?" and yes I wanna play. I really really do." This is what I love about this show; it doesn't shy away from making Dexter really really inhuman at times.

VM: "You want to know how I lost my virginity? So do I." There are so many good lines to choose from, but this is the one that punched me in the gut.

The X-Files: "The Truth is Out There." Okay, so not exactly a line, but it does resonate with me.

Gimme More: 5 Shows You Can Never Get Enough Of

Veronica Mars
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
The X-Files
Dexter
I can't think of a fifth. There are plenty of other shows that I like, but none that I really love.

Things in Fandom that Make Me Go Huh?

2007-11-09T20:46:59Z

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?

Book meme

2007-10-25T17:46:33Z

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.

1984
A Clockwork Orange
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
A People's History of the United States : 1492 - present
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
A Short History of Nearly Everything
The Aeneid
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
American Gods
Anansi Boys
Angela's Ashes : a Memoir
Angels & Demons
Anna Karenina
Atlas Shrugged
Beloved
The Blind Assassin
Brave New World
The Brothers Karamazov - I swear I'll finish it one of these days.
The Canterbury Tales
Catch 22 - I don't know why I couldn't finish this one.
The Catcher in the Rye
Cloud Atlas
Collapse : How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
The Confusion
The Corrections
The Count of Monte Cristo
Crime and Punishment
Cryptonomicon - I'll probably try this eventually.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time
David Copperfield
Don Quixote
Dracula
Dubliners
Dune
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
Emma
Foucault's Pendulum - Gah. I got bogged down somewhere in the middle. I should give it another go.
The Fountainhead
Frankenstein
Freakonomics : A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
The God of Small Things
The Grapes of Wrath - This has been on my list of things to read for ages.
Gravity's Rainbow
Great Expectations - I lost my copy or I would have finished it.
Gulliver's Travels
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
The Historian : A Novel - Good, but the ending didn't work for me.
The Hobbit - I love this book. It was one of my first big girl novels.
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
The Iliad
In Cold Blood : A True Account of a Multiple Murder and Its Consequences - On my list.
The Inferno
Jane Eyre
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - I enjoyed it, but don't see what all the hoopla is about.
The Kite Runner
Les Misérables - So close to finishing it and then my copy got water-logged! This what happens when one leaves books in swim bags.
Life of Pi : A Novel
Lolita - Excellent, but very disturbing.
Love in the Time of Cholera
Madame Bovary
Mansfield Park
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlemarch - I can't remember why I didn' t finish this.
Middlesex
The Mists of Avalon - My favorite Arthurian version.
~~Moby Dick~~ - Ack. I read this under duress.
Mrs. Dalloway
The Name of the Rose - Much better than Foucault's Pendulum, but also kind of difficult to get into.
Neverwhere
Northanger Abbey - The only Jane Austen I haven't read.
The Odyssey
Oliver Twist
On the Road
The Once and Future King
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Oryx and Crake : a novel
Persuasion
The Picture of Dorian Gray - On my list.
The Poisonwood Bible : a novel
Pride and Prejudice - I love this one.
The Prince
Quicksilver
Reading Lolita in Tehran: a Memoir in Books
The Satanic Verses
The Scarlet Letter
Sense and Sensibility
The Silmarillion - Aren't you proud of me for finishing this?
Slaughterhouse-five
The Sound and the Fury - I love this. It's not for everyone, but it's the only novel I've ever really enjoyed analyzing.
The Tale of Two Cities - Probably the best Dickens.
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
The Three Musketeers
The Time Traveler's Wife
To the Lighthouse
Treasure Island
Ulysses
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Vanity Fair - Really not what I was expecting.
War and Peace
Watership Down - I read this in college way after everyone had.
White Teeth
Wicked : The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West - Very odd.
Wuthering Heights
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : An Inquiry Into Values

39 finished, 6 started. Not too bad. There are a number of books that I really should get around to reading one of these days.

Fall TV

2007-10-23T23:09:49Z

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.

Surprisingly, HIMYM and The Office are the network shows I'm enjoying the most this year. HIMYM consistently brings the funny and has settled into a good groove. Last night was particularly enjoyable with the sandwiches and the hot-crazy line. While The Office has more filler than I'm used to, I absolutely adore what they're doing with all the relationships. Jim and Pam are adorable and I like the Dwight/Angela drama. Last week, I even liked/felt sorry for Michael, which happens never and made me wonder if I should start looking for signs of the apocalypse.

I like both Ugly Betty and Supernatural about the same as I did last year, no more, no less. I particularly enjoyed the latest Supernatural episode with the lucky rabbit's foot. I find Bela and Ruby reasonably entertaining so far and, not surprisingly for me, do not think that this signals the end of SPN as we know it.

Hmmm. Heroes is just awfully slow this year. I remember it dragging somewhat last year as well, but with even more characters to juggle now, everything is moving at a snail's pace. Last night's episode picked up a bit; I liked Monica and the confrontation with Papa Parker. I thought that Elle brought a necessary kick to the Ireland subplot (she's like Bizarro Veronica, this time with a built-in taser!). But Hiro in ancient Japan is sadly uninteresting, I think largely because of the way they're telling it. The idea of Hiro leaving messages to Ando is a cute idea, but I'm getting sick of just hearing about his adventures in exposition. Show us something, dammit. Claire's new boyfriend can go fall off a cliff (not that it would do any good) for all I care. The Wonder Twins have potential, particularly with Sylar along for the ride, but again, move it up with the urgency. There just doesn't seem to be enough things happening right now and I think that either more characters need to be in the same story lines/scenes or they need to be killed/written off. It's a little like reading the later Robert Jordan books where he spends a thousand pages reminding you of where all the characters are and writing maybe two pages of actual plot.

Similar to Heroes, Avatar feels slow this year. Partly, that's because I'm used to watching Avatar without the wait between episodes. I also don't remember Avatar being quite this anviliscious. Enough with the emotional exposition, kiddie show or no. The fourth and fifth episodes were significantly better than the first three at least. Iroh continues to kick ass. Zuko could stand to tone down the whining.

I'm not really watching any of the new shows regularly. I enjoyed the pilots for Chuck and Reaper, but don't care to go out of my way to watch either of them. I have been watching the last half of Chuck every week (just after HIMYM). The Moonlight pilot was, frankly, godawful, but I may watch more of it later if I'm bored. I didn't really like the Gossip Girls pilot, but have enjoyed subsequent episodes much more, which I watched in a marathon this weekend. So that may go back on the schedule. I still haven't bothered to watch Pushing Daisies (don't hit me!) as it looks sorta cutesy, but maybe I'll get around to it one of these days. All in all, eh.

Dexter continues to be awesome, thank god. The premiere really jumped started the second season plot. I haven't watched this week's episode yet, so DON'T SPOIL ME.

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.

The Deathly Hallows

2007-07-22T16:37:19Z

So, Harry Potter spoilers inside, but I will say that I loved it.

Let's get my few quibbles out of the way; the book was awfully exposition-heavy. That's always the risk with finales. You could almost see J.K. Rowling gleefully sitting on this information for years and just so happy to finally get to explain everything that it sort of all poured out at the end. Also, I think she went a little bloodbath-happy; maybe it was the speed at which I read, but I don't remember Lupin's death scene. I kind of feel like she was making up for not killing one of the big three (Harry, Ron, Hermione) by killing everyone else. On the other hand, I'm immensely happy that they all survived.

In Memoriam: Hedwig (sniff), Mad-Eye, Dobby (double sniff), Colin Creevey, Fred (sob), Lupin (tears), Tonks (sorry I forgot you!), and, of course, Snape.

Also gone, but not terribly missed are Wormtail, Crabbe (am I the only one to find that immensely funny?), Bellatrix (yay, Mrs. Weasley!), and Voldemort, duh.

Did I miss anyone? Beyond random people that we met for all of two seconds that is.

What worked best about the book, and in retrospect, the series, were the twin themes of love and death. The idea of sacrifice is an incredibly powerful one; religions, after all, are founded on it. There were the big sacrifices, Lily for Harry, Harry for everyone, but also the little things like Narcissa lying to Voldemort in return for finding out that her son was still alive. Every moment of pity and kindness that Harry showed came back to help in the end from sparing Wormtail to winning Kreacher's loyalty to saving Draco. I also really liked the parallels between Dumbledore and Voldemort; both sought ways to cheat death and were tempted by power, but the former recognized the danger before too late.

I could write an entire essay about Snape. I think that most people suspected (or hoped) that he hadn't really turned, but it was nice that that was confirmed. I did like the reveal that he had been in love with Lily all these years. It fit well with both why Dumbledore was so sure he could trust Snape and with Snape's complicated relationship with Harry.

Finally, I adore Luna. We didn't get to see her much this book, but she had some of the best lines ("Oh, did you change that too?"). Neville truly proved he was a Gryfinndor and I love that he became the Herbology Professor. And of course my favorite pairs ended up together, Ron and Hermione and Harry and Ginny. I hope that Draco didn't marry Pansy.

Yet another Political Commentary

2007-07-11T16:58:22Z

Maybe it's the lack of TV, but once again I feel compelled to comment on politics. I might get a little ranty. I apologize in advance.

If you haven't seen this article, Surgeon General Sees 4-Year Term as Compromised, yet, go read it and then come back. There are variations on this article in most of the major newspapers.

First, the most important (and I'm betting the most ignored) part:

In his testimony, Dr. Carmona said that at first he was so politically naïve that he had little idea how inappropriate the administration’s actions were. He eventually consulted six previous surgeons general, Republican and Democratic, and all agreed, he said, that he faced more political interference than they had.

This is important because it answers the "is this unusual" question. Not that we should ignore other instances of political interference, but let's not kid ourselves and call this business as usual.

Mostly this pisses me off because it's part of a pattern, not only for the Bush Administration, whose penchant for deciding first and tailoring the evidence later is well-established by now, but for a flaw I find in America in general. As a scientist, I'm especially offended by the notion of letting pre-conceived biases overrule any evidence to the contrary. It gets to the heart of the pseudo-evolution/Creationism debate and makes me feel that Americans in general have a lousy understanding of not only science but of the thought-processes that make science powerful to begin with. Maintaining objectivity, deciding after you've seen the evidence and not before, these are difficult things to do. I'm sure I've been guilty of bias before; everyone has. But the whole point of scientific training is to attempt to remove or at least attenuate biases. It deeply bothers me that Americans are not enough self-aware to recognize the difference between believing something because that's the way you were brought up and believing something because of evidence. Completely off-topic, but this is what was going through my head during the Nicki/Margene conversation during the last Big Love episode.

Okay, I got off on a tangent and probably made way more generalizations than warranted. Sorry. I'll just end with noting how incredibly petty it is to discourage the Surgeon General from attending the Special Olympics just because the Kennedys are deeply involved with it. WTF?

I swear I'll start talking about Harry Potter and other fluffy things again soon.

Roswell Part 2

2007-07-01T17:38:36Z

So even though no one really cares except me, I thought I'd write down my thoughts anyway.

Roswell Season 2
The writers squandered a lot of the good will they had built up in S1. The season started out okay, but the whole Tess/Max/Liz triangle was a fiasco, beginning to end. For one, the plot device to keep Liz and Max apart ranks as possibly the stupidest ever, with Future Max (complete with bad hair and bad clothes) telling Liz that she can't be with him or the world will end. The Skins were an interesting idea that were cut short. I think that the whole season would have been far better off had it focussed more on the alien war and less on the love triangle which was just painful. If they absolutely had to have a love triangle, Courtney could have stuck around for longer.

Tess's character was really abused. I get the feeling that partway through the season, the writers decided that she wasn't working and so wrote her off and in doing so retconned half the season. The elaborate Alex mind warp charade and his subsequent death was just idiotic (although, Jason Dohring! Hi!). I actually liked Tess's relationship with Valenti and Kyle and was very disappointed by her betrayal. I would have been happier with her sticking around, but really giving up on Max. I needed a scene where she told him that she knew he didn't love her the way he loved Liz and thus was letting him go. The only good thing about the entire love triangle was that Tess left at the end (and I can't be the only one getting Duncan/coma-baby flashbacks). But the entire Max/Liz connection built in S1 was destroyed and never entirely recovered.

I did like Michael's growth this season and many of the individual episodes (mostly from the first half of the season). Also, Kyle really grew on me. I think it was the Buddhist thing. He's substantially more interesting as Liz's friend than as her ex. The Isabel/Alex thing still didn't work. I just never bought that she had feelings for him. And Alex's character remained underdeveloped until the end.

So overall, definitely not as good as the first season. The main arcs had serious issues (the Dupes, Tess, etc.) and entire sections of the season were just too painful (or boring - yes, I'm looking at you "Off the Menu") to watch. But I enjoyed a lot of the season anyway.

Roswell Season 3
Surprisingly, I kind of liked S3. Yes, it was fluffy and seemed to be missing the core that was present in S1, but overall I found it enjoyable. For one thing, Isabel really matured (and Katherine Heigl as an actress). She was used much better in this season than before. Maybe it's because she always seemed much older than the others, but I liked her marriage to Jesse.

The plot device to keep Max and Liz apart worked much better than the previous season. Parental injunctions can be powerful. I wasn't a huge fan of Liz developing powers, but oh well. I hope this power thing is either unique to Liz (because of her connection with Max) or just a coming back from the dead thing (and she really died? I thought she was still alive when Max healed her.). The body switch thing was completely bizarre, highly questionable from a believability standpoint, and yet I sort of liked it anyway. Probably because it got Liz to reunite with Max and I'm a sucker for romance. Anyway, I'm glad they worked out in the end.

There were certainly bad parts to this season. The whole Kivar thing was dumb and I disliked Max's search for his son. Although, I thought that Tess's return episode was quite strong. The whole alien war thing and the purpose for Max, Isabel, and Michael being sent to Earth in the first place was completely abandoned and that's a shame. Their powers became more of an inconvenience than a central part of the story. I don't think the show ever lived up the promise of the S1 finale.

Roswell

2007-06-30T01:02:41Z

Aliens. High school. Romance. What do these add up to? Why, gymble's new TV obsession, of course. I missed Roswell when it first aired, because I was in college and didn't watch that much TV then. Yes, really, there was a time like that. Living with 2-8 other people can do that. Also, I was busy every Thursday and Sunday night. And ... why am I still talking about college? To make a long story short (too late), I am now marathoning Roswell and loving it. And hating it. And cursing the fact that I'm obsessing over it. So I thought I'd make a post to diffuse some of this excess energy.

I'm finishing up S2 right now, but I'll start off by just discussing S1, because S2 has more problems. I may make another post about S2 later, but only once I know the writers aren't just making stuff up as they go along and torturing me (in other words, the characters, characterizations, and relationships) for the fun of it.

Roswell is not a high quality show in the same way that Buffy or VM are. But it does have good characters and excellent relationship chemistry. A touch of the supernatural in the form of aliens pretty much guaranteed that I'd love it. So I'm easy to please.

Fundamentally, the first season of Roswell revolves around two main issues. a) Max, Isobel, and Michael learning more about where they came from (and why) and b) Max and Liz's romance. Really, the romance is the central plot point and the alien part is the twist. The theme song is romantic and the credit sequence includes much Max/Liz imagery. The show opens with Max healing Liz of a gunshot wound and thereby revealing himself as an alien to her. The bond established between Max and Liz in the pilot is at once engaging and almost problematic. The pair is so clearly drawn to each other and the chemistry so strong that their reasons for not pursuing a relationship immediately seem contrived and silly. Sure there's the minor Kyle problem, but the big stumbling block is supposed to be Max's fear of letting anyone in. But as Liz already knows he's an alien, I didn't quite buy the delay. And when they did get together it didn't seem that anything substantial had changed, just that Max was suddenly willing to go for it. All that said, I love this pair and am way too invested in their relationship. They had some stupendous moments in the season finale. Clearly, they are just right for each other.

Michael and Maria are next best (or maybe even best) set of characters and not so coincidentally next best couple. Sure it was clear from the second or third episode in that they'd pair off, but I like their banter and energy. They make a good counterpoint to Max and Liz's more soulful connection. My favorite Michael/Maria moment is when he's hiding from his father and shows up at her door completely soaked. For all that they frequently abuse each other verbally and otherwise clash, these are characters that very much seem to get each other. Both the writing and the acting is strong.

Isobel is kind of fascinating. I don't think that she's as well-drawn a character as the first four, but she has her moments. I think that Katherine Heigl does a good job of showing both Isobel's pride and vulnerability. Sadly, her human counterpoint is substantially weaker than the main five. Alex seems to be there more for symmetry reasons than anything else. The attempts to turn Isobel and Alex into a couple are very weak (and thankfully not dwelt upon). Alex in general is a fairly useless character. We're told that he's been friends with Liz and Maria forever, but we don't really see it. All in all, I think I would have preferred the parents to get some face time and had him nixed entirely.

Kyle is the other useless character (at least in S1). He's the mandatory jock ex of Liz and I guess is supposed to make trouble for Liz and Max, but really is just there. Again, Liz and Max's connection is so strong that it's pretty hard to take anything Kyle does seriously. I could not figure out why Liz hadn't dumped him by the second episode.

Kyle's father is more interesting. I wasn't sure about him through the entire season, but in retrospect I really liked Valenti's arc, particularly now that I can see the turning point of him shooting Hubble as a real turning point. Going from adversary to advisor worked.

And I've just spent several paragraphs talking about the show and barely mentioning the rather pertinent detail that Max, Isobel, and Michael are all aliens (okay, alien-human hybrids if you want to get technical), which probably tells you something about my focus (if not the show's focus). The initial focus on Topolsky was weak, but the later River Dog arc, Pierce arc, and Tess (argh!) arc worked better. I continue to be confused about Nasedo's motivations as it seems that he mainly got Max and the gang in trouble. As a protector of all them, he sucked.
In conclusion, once again I'm spending way too much time thinking about and watching TV. And now I'm going to go rustle up some Roswell icons. I'm sure they exist.

Neptune Noir

2007-06-25T23:53:29Z

Neptune Noir, for those who don't already know, is a collection of essays about Veronica Mars. And if you don't know what Veronica Mars is by now ... well, I'm not sure I can still speak to you. The essays range through a wide variety of topics, from lying, to conservatism, to Logan and Veronica's relationship. In many ways, it reminds me of when TWoP is at its best, provoking discussion and actual analysis of tv shows. Different authors write each essay so, as you might expect, the tone and point of view change quite a lot. But the unifying feature is that each essay reminds you why anyone would want to write an essay about a tv show. This isn't a revolutionary concept to most people reading this review, but I suspect that it would be to most Americans. This book reminded me why I love Veronica Mars. Because there is, easily, enough material to fill a book of essays. I suspect that if you're one of people who fell out of love with VM, this book might just remind you of the good times.

In the interest of full disclosure, the publishers of Neptune Noir sent me a free copy in exchange for me posting a review of the book in my journal. That said, I really did enjoy it.