Some generic update, some TV review.
Nov. 1st, 2006 01:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lenora_roseWell, we finally moved the spare bed out of my study: I have room again! I can do exercise routines at home once more! And I have piles and piles of papers and stuff to sort out so i can move some of by boxes and such out of the corner in front of my bookshelves.
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brannie_bird's new place is quite nice; I helped her unpack some on the weekend, far enough to see the light at the end of the tunnel, she said, though I felt a little dismayed (in a rather familiar way from my own moves) about how much was still to do. Alas, didn't get to see Daniel while there, but hopefully we will get together for something soon.
The basement is almost entirely done: alas, I had almost nothing to do with it. Colin's amazing. Every wall that *can* be insulated is, and that plus new furnace means much lower heating bills.
Baronessfrisky_turtle and Baron Hreodbeorht, as ever, had a wonderful Hallowe'en party on the weekend, too, wherein we decided the Director's Cut of Army of Darkness mostly degrades the movie, we all got severely overfed, if only because the food is not only plentiful but excellent (Thank you!!!), and much hanging out with people I don't see enough was accomplished. Alas, I had no costume; SCA garb does not count, my selkie outfit needs a lot of work, and I ahd no money to speak of to find something else.
And only two papers to write in the next two weeks.
TV: As well as being about 3 years behind in "discovering" one quirky show via the recommendations of family and the viewing of one episode (Leading Colin to buy the DVD of the first season), we're actually using Bittorrent even more than before, trying to follow three current TV shows - one so current Canada doesn't have it yet. (In our defense, we buy everything on DVD soon as it's available legally. We do support those we love.)
Of the three we're only a few, episodes into (Or a few episodes into a new season), you'll notice a repeating theme of optimistic and/or slightly wary, but holding out on any final judgements. This shouldn't be surprising; I've been won over before by shows whose first couple of episodes had me dubious about the amount of praise they were getting.
(I'd use Buffy as an example, because my opinion of the first few episodes is that it gets good about episode 5 or so, and still has lapses -- except that the first two expisodes I saw of Buffy were Spiral{only okay without more context} and the Gift {YOW!!!!}, so I *knew* what i was holding out for...)
The round-up:
Corner Gas: If you're Canadian, the fact that I didn't see any of this until this year is somewhat akin to living under a rock. The whole thing is set in and aroudn the gas station (Surprise) and cafe just outside the (Fictional) town of Dog River Saskatchewan, which is pretty much your classic nowhereland to anyone who doesn't live there. It has two police officers, the liquor store is also the insurance office, and the population on average dislikes any change not obviously for the better.
It's classic half-hour sitcom format, a format I typically hate: but it's *witty*. The situations pull the right amount of absurd 90% or more of the time (Usually the sitcom verage is about 50 - up to 70 in a good one), the snappy backtalk is actually smart, and it isn't mean-spirited overall, even about the characters who are the most caricatured and seem the least likeable at first. (One of the characters could be taken as mean-spirited, but it's clear it's that character, not the writer.) And it's equally clear that Brent Butt is sending up small-town Saskatchewan out of love for small-town Saskatchewan. And the characters are varied -- while within one episode they're likely to feel like the usual small town "types", they develop dimensions as they go.
First season was consistently good, and while I've only seen two other episodes, the one from the current season (4) gave me the impression they haven't run out of ideas.
Veronica Mars Season Three:rachelmanija thinks it stinks so far, citing in particular the stereotyped feminist extremist group, Keith's plot-lines, and several major characters from past seasons beign underused. jeffheikkinen thinks it's miles better than last year. So far, I'm more with him than her (And I'm fine with Keith's plotlines, assumign he doesn't stay in failure-or-pyrrhic-victory mode too long. I DO think Rachel has a point on the first, but I'm willing to give them time to develop, as we're only four episodes in, and these are totally new people, and only one of them so far (The most extreme) has had enough screen-time that wasn't mid-protest to say anything about her as an individual. The last, someone pointed out, is a function of most of the actors being signed up for 13/22 episodes, so they'll move in and out of the story; which means that the currently-underused characters will probably have their weeks of prominence, and maybe we'll be doen with Dick Casablancas soon. And my brother is right that the scripts are tighter. So far: Wheee!
Heroes: Superpowers start to emerge/evolve in members of the current human species. Not always to the good. Not sure. The fact that so far we have many many fragmented and so-far barely interlinked plotlines is hurting it as much as it's helping; I like the ambition and internationalism of the set-up, but some of these plotlines have completely different tones from the others, and they can jar back to back. The writing is sometimes stiff, the dialogue soemtiems feels too generic and not enough about these specific people, the actors are good but not enough to always compensate for this; but the ambitious size of what they're doing, the set pieces that ahve overcome this so far, are both enough to let me give it a chance (Kind of like early Babylon 5, where the acting was cringe-worthy, but some of the ideas were cool; and the acting and the dialogue got a lot better fairly fast). Like Rachel, I could do without MSD Stripper-mom, but I'm liking Hiro the Japanese uber-geek, and Mohinder, who has no powers that we know of but might well be the key to getting everyone together. I didn't like Claire at first (Blond super-powered cheerleader - haven't we done that?) but they've given her some of the coolest set pieces (the Episode 3 cliffhanger... alas, it's slightly rewritten in episode 4's opening, and they shied from the neatest possible ramifications), and unlike Rachel I'm enjoying the angsty Peter who started out by thinking he could fly, but now seems to be something else entirely.
Torchwood So yesterday, having no candy available, we hid upstairs and watched the first two epoisodes as our Hallowe'en celebration. So far, there's cleverness, fun, resourceful and technically savvy characters, and slightly silly (but deliberately, shamelessly and in the *right* way) quasi-SF alien encounters. In other words, it's a Doctor Who spinoff with a similar feel to the original, or at least the current original. The difference is it's more earth-and-now focused (has to be by the premise - I'm hoping that means they'll remember to Make Doctor Who less so.), and more open about sex (Um Captain Jack Harkness, anyone?... although of the surprisingly large number of onscreen kisses so far, he hasn't really been involved.) I do find it funny that they've made Cardiff into a kind of Science-fiction equivalent of the Hellmouth (That temporal rift that showed up twice in Doctor Who Season One has effects besides recharging the TARDIS - and recharging the TARDIS itself had another cute effect, if you listen to what Captain Jack says about the Torchwood "Scenic Route").
No clue yet what the Pterodactyl's about.
My one concern is that they're in grave danger of making it too much like the original series in one way: certain unexpected effects of Rose's action at the end of Doctor Who Season One have changed Captain Jack a nudge, and that change, combined with the fact that he's living in a time not his own where he knows a lot more than the locals do, and gets the occasional lonely hero or "it would be nice to be normal" angst, is making him dangerously like a more sexually active Doctor (with a greater number of more competent Companions). Don't need another of those, thanks. I'll wait and see how that plays out, but it's a narrow line between spin-off and clone.
brannie_bird's new place is quite nice; I helped her unpack some on the weekend, far enough to see the light at the end of the tunnel, she said, though I felt a little dismayed (in a rather familiar way from my own moves) about how much was still to do. Alas, didn't get to see Daniel while there, but hopefully we will get together for something soon.The basement is almost entirely done: alas, I had almost nothing to do with it. Colin's amazing. Every wall that *can* be insulated is, and that plus new furnace means much lower heating bills.
Baroness
frisky_turtle and Baron Hreodbeorht, as ever, had a wonderful Hallowe'en party on the weekend, too, wherein we decided the Director's Cut of Army of Darkness mostly degrades the movie, we all got severely overfed, if only because the food is not only plentiful but excellent (Thank you!!!), and much hanging out with people I don't see enough was accomplished. Alas, I had no costume; SCA garb does not count, my selkie outfit needs a lot of work, and I ahd no money to speak of to find something else.And only two papers to write in the next two weeks.
TV: As well as being about 3 years behind in "discovering" one quirky show via the recommendations of family and the viewing of one episode (Leading Colin to buy the DVD of the first season), we're actually using Bittorrent even more than before, trying to follow three current TV shows - one so current Canada doesn't have it yet. (In our defense, we buy everything on DVD soon as it's available legally. We do support those we love.)
Of the three we're only a few, episodes into (Or a few episodes into a new season), you'll notice a repeating theme of optimistic and/or slightly wary, but holding out on any final judgements. This shouldn't be surprising; I've been won over before by shows whose first couple of episodes had me dubious about the amount of praise they were getting.
(I'd use Buffy as an example, because my opinion of the first few episodes is that it gets good about episode 5 or so, and still has lapses -- except that the first two expisodes I saw of Buffy were Spiral{only okay without more context} and the Gift {YOW!!!!}, so I *knew* what i was holding out for...)
The round-up:
Corner Gas: If you're Canadian, the fact that I didn't see any of this until this year is somewhat akin to living under a rock. The whole thing is set in and aroudn the gas station (Surprise) and cafe just outside the (Fictional) town of Dog River Saskatchewan, which is pretty much your classic nowhereland to anyone who doesn't live there. It has two police officers, the liquor store is also the insurance office, and the population on average dislikes any change not obviously for the better.
It's classic half-hour sitcom format, a format I typically hate: but it's *witty*. The situations pull the right amount of absurd 90% or more of the time (Usually the sitcom verage is about 50 - up to 70 in a good one), the snappy backtalk is actually smart, and it isn't mean-spirited overall, even about the characters who are the most caricatured and seem the least likeable at first. (One of the characters could be taken as mean-spirited, but it's clear it's that character, not the writer.) And it's equally clear that Brent Butt is sending up small-town Saskatchewan out of love for small-town Saskatchewan. And the characters are varied -- while within one episode they're likely to feel like the usual small town "types", they develop dimensions as they go.
First season was consistently good, and while I've only seen two other episodes, the one from the current season (4) gave me the impression they haven't run out of ideas.
Veronica Mars Season Three:
rachelmanija thinks it stinks so far, citing in particular the stereotyped feminist extremist group, Keith's plot-lines, and several major characters from past seasons beign underused. jeffheikkinen thinks it's miles better than last year. So far, I'm more with him than her (And I'm fine with Keith's plotlines, assumign he doesn't stay in failure-or-pyrrhic-victory mode too long. I DO think Rachel has a point on the first, but I'm willing to give them time to develop, as we're only four episodes in, and these are totally new people, and only one of them so far (The most extreme) has had enough screen-time that wasn't mid-protest to say anything about her as an individual. The last, someone pointed out, is a function of most of the actors being signed up for 13/22 episodes, so they'll move in and out of the story; which means that the currently-underused characters will probably have their weeks of prominence, and maybe we'll be doen with Dick Casablancas soon. And my brother is right that the scripts are tighter. So far: Wheee!Heroes: Superpowers start to emerge/evolve in members of the current human species. Not always to the good. Not sure. The fact that so far we have many many fragmented and so-far barely interlinked plotlines is hurting it as much as it's helping; I like the ambition and internationalism of the set-up, but some of these plotlines have completely different tones from the others, and they can jar back to back. The writing is sometimes stiff, the dialogue soemtiems feels too generic and not enough about these specific people, the actors are good but not enough to always compensate for this; but the ambitious size of what they're doing, the set pieces that ahve overcome this so far, are both enough to let me give it a chance (Kind of like early Babylon 5, where the acting was cringe-worthy, but some of the ideas were cool; and the acting and the dialogue got a lot better fairly fast). Like Rachel, I could do without MSD Stripper-mom, but I'm liking Hiro the Japanese uber-geek, and Mohinder, who has no powers that we know of but might well be the key to getting everyone together. I didn't like Claire at first (Blond super-powered cheerleader - haven't we done that?) but they've given her some of the coolest set pieces (the Episode 3 cliffhanger... alas, it's slightly rewritten in episode 4's opening, and they shied from the neatest possible ramifications), and unlike Rachel I'm enjoying the angsty Peter who started out by thinking he could fly, but now seems to be something else entirely.
Torchwood So yesterday, having no candy available, we hid upstairs and watched the first two epoisodes as our Hallowe'en celebration. So far, there's cleverness, fun, resourceful and technically savvy characters, and slightly silly (but deliberately, shamelessly and in the *right* way) quasi-SF alien encounters. In other words, it's a Doctor Who spinoff with a similar feel to the original, or at least the current original. The difference is it's more earth-and-now focused (has to be by the premise - I'm hoping that means they'll remember to Make Doctor Who less so.), and more open about sex (Um Captain Jack Harkness, anyone?... although of the surprisingly large number of onscreen kisses so far, he hasn't really been involved.) I do find it funny that they've made Cardiff into a kind of Science-fiction equivalent of the Hellmouth (That temporal rift that showed up twice in Doctor Who Season One has effects besides recharging the TARDIS - and recharging the TARDIS itself had another cute effect, if you listen to what Captain Jack says about the Torchwood "Scenic Route").
No clue yet what the Pterodactyl's about.
My one concern is that they're in grave danger of making it too much like the original series in one way: certain unexpected effects of Rose's action at the end of Doctor Who Season One have changed Captain Jack a nudge, and that change, combined with the fact that he's living in a time not his own where he knows a lot more than the locals do, and gets the occasional lonely hero or "it would be nice to be normal" angst, is making him dangerously like a more sexually active Doctor (with a greater number of more competent Companions). Don't need another of those, thanks. I'll wait and see how that plays out, but it's a narrow line between spin-off and clone.
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no subject
Date: 2006-11-02 05:35 am (UTC)And the resolution of the bus crash one was... odd, to say the least. At least there's no ambiguity about who was responsible, but despite a few hints that something was up with the character concerned, it seemed totally at odds with the previous characterization of that individual. And the (last-minute, as admitted by Rob Thomas) addition of the "truth" about Shelly Pomroy's party took the whole point of one of season one's most powerful episodes and stomped all over it without regard for theme, characterization or dramatic satisfyingness.
I think, being up to episode five of the new season now, that I may need to be more cautious in my optimism, but I'll reserve any major judgments for after the first arc is concluded, just under a month from now.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-02 06:17 pm (UTC)Since we haven't seen episode 5 yet, like with all my opinions, I'm liable to change my mind or confirm it as things play out.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-02 08:33 pm (UTC)Heroes is currently one of my favorite shows. I really like the variety of characters and their motivations. It's somewhat reminiscent of Lost with the multiple/ occasionally intersecting plotlines, which I am fine with. It's very ambitious in scope, and they've managed to end every episode so far with a cliff-hanger... way cool!
Glad you enjoyed the party. I'd wanted to do one for a few years, but this year the planets finally aligned for us :-D
no subject
Date: 2006-11-03 05:51 am (UTC)Haven't seen that Corner Gas episode yet... but I will.
Thanks for having us all over!