30 posts tagged “tv”
Hurry up Thursday evening, go quicker! Want to download a new episode of Supernatural!
*chivvies*
I fully expect Dean to be thwarting infernal wiles with a flaming sword now that he's part of the Ineffable Plan and all.
My initial reactions went something like this:
(Minor spoilers and copious exclamation marks follow)
Yay Mickey! Yay Jackieeeee!
Yay Jack!
Yay Sarah Jane!
Yay Martha!
Yay Rose!
Yay Doctors!
YAY! DONNA!!! DOCTOR DONNA!!!
Yay "I can't tell you what I'm thinking right now!"
Yay Donna!
Yay Martha and Mickey joining Torchwood!
Yay Donna!
Yay Rose getting a (sort of) happy ending!
Yay Donna!
Nooooooooooo!!! DONNAAAAAAAAAA!!!
*fires up BBC iPlayer to watch again*
...that the volume on the BBC iPlayer goes up to 11?
So, thanks to a typo in his contract, Dean Winchester's gone to Hull, right?
Right?
Come on, there could be dramatic potential in Sam having to rescue Dean from East Yorkshire.
*ponders concept of Hullbound: Hullraiser II*
Sigh. At some point while rewatching the second half of season 1 and the first half of season 2 I became a little obsessed with Supernatural.
Alright, a lot obsessed.
Alright, I started reading Wincest when I ran out of episodes. *facepalm*
And I've been mainlining so much imagery and commentary and fic since season 3 finished that Dean and Sam are now making regular appearances in my dreams. I don't believe things have been this bad since the heady days of my Buffy the Vampire Slayer fanaticism. Which is ironic because I ignored Supernatural for ages for the sole reason that I'd read discussions of its problematic treatment of women, framed to suggest a conscious backlash against BtVS (Now BtVS, at its most basic level, was of course about subverting the horror movie cliché of the blonde girl victim, and sure enough Supernatural - in its very first episode - has not one but two blonde women meeting horrible ends in order to further the plot and motivate our two (male) protagonists). And - given that - it's doubly ironic my fannishness has reached critical mass now, when SPN fandom is currently exploding over the subject of misogyny in the series.
The seemingly constant use of gendered insults against women this season has certainly bothered me (to the point where, despite generally liking Dean and disliking Ruby, it made me ridiculously happy when the latter called the former a dick), and the lack of any real female allies means we've had less good stuff to balance out the nastiness. I think it's important that in previous seasons, not only did we have recurring female allies in the form of Ellen and Jo, we also got a number of women whose situations explicitly paralleled that of either Sam or Dean in some way, and with whom our protagonists clearly identified as a result. I can't really think of any examples of this happening in season 3 off the top of my head.
Still, for the most part, my enjoyment has outweighed my frustrations (which is more than I can say for Torchwood this year, but that's another post) and I'll be watching season 4. I don't seem to be able to look away at the moment.
Isn't that just like me? A whole series of Doctor Who has come and gone since I last blogged properly. A series which started strongly, wobbled a bit in the middle, peaked again with "Blink" before finally collapsing in on itself like a dying star right at the end.
I can pinpoint the exact moment the cables suspending my disbelief snapped: the bit where it turns out the fruit of Martha's labour is the Doctor turning into Obi-Wan Fairy Jesus.
RTD, you know I love you, but sometimes... Wow.
Also, for the love of all that is holy please stop letting Chris Chibnall write stuff.
- A continuity announcer once fluffing her introduction to an episode of the X-Files by speaking of "Muldy and Sculler";
- A sketch in Little Britain in which Andy, in his apathy, chooses two copies of the same book to get out from the library;
- An advert for oven-ready potato wedges involving two boys trying to go through a doorway at the same time and getting, well, wedged - a visual gag so worn-out I never expected to find it funny, but this one was so perfectly executed it actually made me convulse with laughter, which is rare for me;
- Sean Lock, in an episode of QI, suggesting that Stephen Fry has his underpants "made on a loom by exquisite boys";
- The incongruous violence of a Dairylea Dunkers advert wherein a stop-motion dinosaur chases a cavewoman, dips her in a tub of soft cheese and bites her head off, only then discovering the little breadsticks also included in the packet and slapping his forehead in "d'oh!" style. I only ever saw this ad the once. I suspect it got complaints.
Looking through Russell Brand photos on Flickr yesterday and I realise that Trevor Lock, who is sometimes on the radio with him, is the very same Trevor who used to help wheel the Golden Grahams trolley in on This Morning With Richard Not Judy and, among various other things, be regularly mocked by Stuart Lee for having a face the wrong size for his head ("There's this band you might like... they're called the Small Faces").
This makes me happy.
Anything I can associate with This Morning With Richard Not Judy makes me happy, really. Because TMWRNJ was a fabulous program. Shambolic, barmy, occasionally brilliant, sometimes a bit crap, but always very funny. I was about 17 when it was on and to me it all seemed delightfully subversive. I mean, the Fist of Fun blokes? Doing a live Sunday morning show? What sublime insanity was this? I was constantly amazed at the stuff they got away with and part of the fun was that they seemed pretty amazed by it too. It was a very gleeful program. Sometimes, I kind of miss it.
Dear Lost producers,
I have spent the last two and a half years willingly suspending my disbelief for polar bears in the pacific, sharks with logos stamped on their tails, smoke monsters, cursed numbers, potentially mad French scientists surviving by themselves in the jungle for 16 years, absolutely atrocious Australian accents, imaginary friends, giant electromagnets capable of pulling down aircraft, miracle cures, sinister pet dogs, shared visions, disembodied whispers, weird and elaborate social experiments, time travel, old wooden sailing ships miles inland and many, many other things. But now you have gone too far! You have entered the realm of the impossible and I cannot accept it.
You used the American spelling of "honour" on what is supposed to be a British poster:
Pathetic! First post of 2007 and January's practically over. This is what happens when, tired of living for the idea of some unspecified future time when everything will be sorted and nice, you suddenly decide that you just can't stand the unfinished nature of your hallway any longer and you set about redecorating the damn thing like you should have done ages ago. A long, lonely but ultimately rewarding process involving the nigh-endless scraping of woodchip (surely the devil's wallpaper), the liberal application of poly-filla, the slapping on of much cheerfully yellow matt emulsion and the accidental inhalation of vast quantities of old paint dust. Also constant vacuuming.
I still have the skirting boards to do, but that's just the icing, even now it's a pleasant, warmly-lit, neutral corridor instead of the depressingly dingy passage it used to be. If I do nothing else in 2007 at least I can say I accomplished that.
Despite such exertions I also seem to have managed, naturally, to pack in plenty of TV-watching over the last few weeks:
Torchwood
Last three episodes of this weren't too bad, the stand-out being Catherine Tregenna's "Captain Jack Harkness", and not just because Jack (finally!) gets some action. The last episode was good in parts - I thought Eve Myles did a cracking job in the scene where she finds Rhys's body for instance - but was let down by some slightly unclear plotting and a bit too much melodrama. I do hope we see Bilis Manger again - there seems to be much more to him than we've seen so far. Other than that, my one wish for series 2 is that we get more episodes from Catherine Tregenna and fewer from Chris Chibnall, who writes nice ensemble scenes but horrible plots.
Supernatural
I avoided this for ages but the steady livejournal buzz convinced me to give it a go. I've caught up on the first season and am now working my way through the second. It's good. Angst, pop culture references and demon hunting all held together by a nicely-played sibling relationship. Plus, I find Jensen Ackles pretty to the point of distraction in this, which is weird because he did nothing for me in Dark Angel, but, I mean, look at him, for god's sake:
The Office US
I think I love this program. It's really, really delightful. A comparison with the original British version is again a subject for a more in depth post, but for now I'll just say that Jim/Pam pings my One True Pairing meter just as much as Tim/Dawn ever did. And they pinged it hard.
Heroes
Starts on the Sci-Fi channel here soon, which is good 'cause then I can watch it legitimately. I'm enjoying it a lot. Bit like X-Men but with a fate/destiny interconnectedness thing going on. Ensemble shows can get a bit tiring at times but they've kept the pace up well in this so far. I've had a huge soft spot for Greg Grunberg since Alias so I'd probably watch him in this even if it was rubbish, but it's not, plus it's nice to see Clea DuVall in something again.
Ugly Betty
I'd heard really good things about this so I was a bit disappointed when I finally got round to watching it. It does have some positive things going for it but I have a very low tolerance for big, over-the-top sitcom-ish characters and situations (the main reason I gave up watching Desperate Housewives) and I thought the first couple of episodes were a morass of very tired cliches. Not sure about whether I'll continue watching yet.
And since this post has taken me most of the evening to write I'm going to sign off here and watch the most recent episode of Heroes. With any luck it won't be another month before I post again!
Oh, Torchwood writers, this is more like it!
Nice pacing, character development, a satisfying conclusion. A good balance of tone, from the humour of the supermarket scene to the tenderness of Owen/Diane to the tragedy of John Ellis's futureless life. Meanwhile, Rhys finally resurfaces and has some lovely scenes with Gwen.
Moments that actually brought me to the brink of tears! Ellis talking to his now elderly son, trying desperately to ignite some spark of recognition in his eroded mind. Jack finding, briefly, some sort of a kindred spirit and holding his hand as he killed himself.
Nitpicks are few. Namely, once again Toshiko is all but absent - at least Ianto got to take the time travellers shopping and be deadpan about it. And, if Diane was going to name check a pioneering female aviator who died in mysterious circumstances it should really have been Amy Johnson rather than Amelia Earhart. But these are small things indeed.
This was the best episode in the series so far, and I am chuffed that Catherine Tregenna has also penned the penultimate episode "Captain Jack Harkness" when we'll finally get some backstory for Jack. Consider my faith restored.
