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verushka70Was shockingly (for me) busy this last week and over the weekend, what with my nephew's holiday recital (he's in the acapella group "Sounds of Sweetness", *gag*, but it's a play on Walter Payton's old nickname, Sweetness, so I guess it's okay) this past Friday, stuff I had to do Thursday night in order to have Friday evening free to see his holiday recital, lots of shopping, a little baking, and, oh yeah! I went to see Ronnie Spector's xmas concert at the Arcada Theater in St. Charles, IL (which is a haul from where I live, on the edge of Al Capone's old stomping grounds, i.e. Cicero).
Ronnie Spector's concert a week from this past Sunday was totally worth it. My friend M--- bought the tix a few days before (there were still good balcony seats, which is also the excellent location from which we watched DEVO live last August when they had their reunion tour stop at the Arcada -- and that concert totally kicked ass). M---'s friend S---- was in town from Virginia, and though S---- is not my favorite person, he was fairly subdued. I was coming off a horrible migraine that I had from the preceding Friday night to Saturday night, so I didn't drink. I appreciated that her Sunday concert started at 5pm, though, since I had to work the next day.
But Ronnie! Man, she's like, what, 71? And still rocking. And still big pipes! She was totally on-key, all the time, not one false note, and had to hold the mic away from her mouth sometimes because her voice, it is just that big! (Stevie Nicks should have done whatever Ronnie has done to maintain her voice, totally, because she can not hit the high notes at all, anymore, sadly). Ronnie also had very big hair, real or not, I don't know... and one of her costume changes was into a red velvet Santa-ish top with white marabou/white ostrich cuffs and trim all over.
I was all, Bah, humbug! about xmas before the concert. My boss and a couple of coworkers have been forcing us to listen to the all Christmas station since after Halloween, which is way too soon imho. But after all Ronnie's Christmas tunes -- and the old Ronettes hits -- I finally surrendered. The next night, I went out and bought a little 3 foot tall Charlie Brown-ish xmas tree at Family Dollar, and some gold LED globe lights (a 12 light chain) to put on it, with a St. Nick topper. Of course, the cats immediately set about knocking it down the next three nights in a row. But zaps with the spray water bottle seem to have stopped that. For now.
So then every night after that last week I caught up on stuff I needed to do at home, and did some holiday shopping. My hospital assigns 2-3 units a couple of needy families every xmas, so I had to go out and get some stuff on the list. Also saw chiropractor and therapist two diff nights. I even cleaned up my entire house on Sunday before M--- and S---- came by, so it's still all clean except a touch up vacuum is requird due to Rex's long hair and tendency to roll on his back and show his fat kitty tummy when he's all luxuriously spread out. (Sox hangs out on the vinyl gun case that has been on the radiator since my ex dropped it off last spring or summer because (1) all the heirloom shotguns and rifles are at my sister's condo now and have been since the ex went off the rails on PCP about a year ago, and (2) I just don't know what to do with the gun case but haven't felt like calling that kind of attention to myself, with my fellow tenants and neighbors, by taking it out to the garbage. It's kind of large and won't fit tidily into the garbage bin. Not to mention I had told my ex to just throw it away, but, as with many, many other instructions, he did not listen. o_o.
My nephew's concert this past Friday was great, even the regular chorus kids. Sounds of Sweetness' acapella rendition of "Counting Stars" was A-MAZE-ING. There's one kid, not a regular member, I think he's on the (autism) spectrum, who often joins them just to do percussion sounds -- he's like a human beat box. Man, he was great; it would not have been what it was, without him. He really brings it. Then they did "The Christmas Can-Can." I really hope someone uploaded this show to Youtube. Haven't checked yet. Took surreptitious photos of my nephew (he is 17, and his aunties and his parents kind of embarrass him now) and then emailed them after the show to my soon to be ex-bro-in-law as well as his mom and my other sister who attended. Apparently, my older sister actually shot some video, but she hasn't sent it yet...
There was visible, palpable tension when my sister's soon-to-be-ex-husband showed up. They're trying to be all mature and professional but it's clear they hate each other's guts. She thinks they're having a horrible, nasty, vicious divorce. And I won't lie, it has been horrible, and he has been vicious and nasty. But compared to our parents' divorce? I mean, my mom had to get a restraining order, my dad had to surrender guns to one of his attorneys, it was just ugly and the ugliness went on for years due to my father's utter immaturity and bilious hate. I know my sister's having a rough time, but, Christ, her divorce is nothing like the ongoing insanity of our parents' divorce. I mean, this was the second outing in 2 weeks that they attended together (well, they met there at the location) -- the previous one was my younger nephew's birthday dinner at (his choice) Fogo de Chao. But I digress as usual. I guess it's all relative and I know she is counting the days until this is over.
With all the family and most of the work and personal stuff done, I settled in for a weekend of hopefully no migraines (wish came true=yayyay!!) and catching up on stuff I hadn't watched. grey had mentioned Gracepoint a while back and while I've never seen Broadchurch, I am fond enough of David Tennant to want to check it out (plus I love the Pacific Northwest and I knew it was filmed in Victoria, BC, so I wanted to see that as much or more than Tennant).
I had managed to miss both Gracepoint eps of the last two weeks, so I caught up on those this weekend. Really was not expecting the twist of who really did it. As they were leading up to it, I started moaning, "No, no, NO!", finally yelling at the TV, I was so shocked. I won't give it away, and I haven't seen Broadchurch, so no idea if this is how it went on Broadchurch. But I would say this was one of the more successful rug-pulled-out-from-under-you plot twists I've seen the last few years.
I watched the premiere of S6 of Vampire Diaries when it occurred -- and was horribly disappointed. VD was never that great, but S2-S3 had its charms; S4 it began to wobble; and it went seriously off the rails last season and super pissed me off. I watched 6x1 and then skipped it for weeks.
So, this weekend, I thought I'd try to catch up. omg, I couldn't. I watched like the first ten minutes of 3 different eps in a row and was like, No, honey, we're done. It was like when you're looking at someone you used to have a huge crush on, but who killed your crush by repeatedly acting like a psycho nut job asshole, with simultaneously crazy, imcomprehensible actions and behaviors that were yet ultimately boringly repetitive, too. Your crush is killed, any vestige of hope or feeling of affection you once had is gone. You just feel nothing. Well, the good thing is I haven't missed anything by skipping this insane sixth season, and I assume I put all those hours spent not watching VD this fall to good use. (I can't actually remember.)
On to Archer Vice. I started watching Archer in S2, and it was the most hilarious, inapprops, non-stop cracked out show I'd ever seen, yet with all this insane wit, great dialogue and snappy comebacks, a great ensemble cast, and so many bizarre homages and nods to old and new war movies, scifi, and spy stories and 1970s pop culture that I knew I didn't understand half of them and had to go look them up -- and I would. That show has ALWAYS made me laugh my ass off, and I really needed to laugh my ass off.
That being said... S5 of Archer, from last January to March, when it became Archer Vice... I was on the fence about it. Sure, the show is cracked out to begin with, but I kind of felt it, too, went off the rails last season. It took me until 5x5 to really get into all the new insanity of the 5th season. I mostly kept watching because of Lana's pregnancy (if I had a girl crush, it would be Lana Kane; I don't care if they say she's as tall as a giraffe with hands like a stevedore) and also because it was like watching a speeding train that had no breaks: where was this going to end? I mean, the whole FBI-blows-up-ISIS thing was a real downer (and I get that writer Adam Reed had agreed with authorities to kill the fictional ISIS on Archer as the real terrorist group ISIS gained ground, but did you have to blow up EVERYTHING and turn Malory's spy agency into an inept cartel?) and the whole Pam-on-cocaine becomes suddenly super hot because all the cocaine makes her loss all that weight and now you can see her figure, and she's become a Barbie doll? That kind of bugged me.
But then, Archer has always been a combination of low-brow and high-brow. And knowing a Archer S6 is coming in January, I decided to rewatch last season. So when I binge-re-watched S5/Archer Vice this past weekend, I was less on the fence and much more omg, take that US intelligence and foreign policy! because the continuing season-long backstory arc is totally seditious -- and if government and military authorities expected Adam Reed to just nicely kill off the fictional ISIS just to politely accommodate them, well, I bet they sure regret that now.
The season long arc leads up to a basic indictment of US "intelligence," not to mention portraying the huge mistakes of American foreign policy wrt all the South American banana republics and dictators we constantly set up so they would be under our control. And, as cracked out as Archer Vice was -- and I do still have problems with Pam's cocaine-related slimdown -- it's actually not as cracked out as American foreign policy. So. There's that.
But, I almost forgot: Elementary.
For all us non-football fans who are fans of Elementary, the Elementary ep of 2 Thursdays ago was tragically unavailable because the Chicago Bears were playing on Thursday night and the local CBS affiliate, Ch. 2, showed the Bears instead. Argh. Because of that, and missing this past Thursdays' ep, I decided to watch both of those eps back to back.
Comments on this season so far: I am disappointed that the whole Mycroft thing has seemingly disappeared without a trace. (Rather like Irene/Moriarty, right? Ugh.). I mean, what? You made him like 1/3 of the major cast in the last half or last third of last season, and now we never see him again? Really? I mean, isn't he MI6? And isn't Sherlock, by extension? And what's with starting this season with a whole bunch of hand-wavy "a bunch of stuff happened between last season finale and the premiere of this season, but we'll just set up the exposition of that stuff by having people talk about it -- instead of SHOWING IT! -- and then we'll introduce YET ANOTHER new character, Kitty, who is Sherlock's new sidekick.
I was quite put out. I mean, way to get it wrong. And, so far, while there have been individual eps that have been clever, I have just not recovered from the whole handwavy "Sherlock moved back to London when Watson moved out and abandoned the consultancy with NYPD/Captain Gregson, leaving that to Watson alone; now all of a sudden he's back in NY, but with a new female sidekick, er, protege, who herself is... a victim of a horrific crime and the anti-Moriarty! ta-da, here's Kitty!"
I have nothing personal against Kitty and she seems like a character with great potential. (But I really have a problem with her backstory of being a rape/torture/abduction victim, and how that's going to 'serve' the Holmes/Watson stories... I mean, why? Why must she be damaged from jump?)
And given the way the preceding two stand-ins for this type of character were treated (Irene/Moriarty in S1; Mycroft in S2, and, to a lesser extent, Marcus), I do not have high hopes for Kitty's development as a character and not just a season-long-story-arc-plot-device. And I do have a problem with the introduction of yet another person to get between Sherlock and Watson. Why? Wherefore? The Holmes/Watson partnership was working so nicely in S1 and the early part of S2... why, why, WHY must writers fix what isn't broken?
All of that being said... I do appreciate the fact that Watson now has a place of her own and a new beau... and, canonically speaking (relating to the original Conan Doyle stories), it is correct that Watson moves out from Holmes' place. In the original Conan Doyle stories, of course, he got married, but mixed it up with Sherlock regularly after (presumably) married life got boring.
But, just as I had a problem with Marcus' Sherlock-caused injury being used as a plot device last season, I have a problem with Kitty being introduced. because I don't recall a new sidekick from the Conan Doyle stories (he did have a roster of "Irregulars") and because I'm afraid she is simply another walking plot device, existing only to set up some nefarious half-season-long arc that will start up after the Christmas hiatus.
I also have a problem with how damned predictable Elementary has become. Most of the time I guess whodunit like 20-30 minutes (or more) before the end of the episode. Maybe I've just watched too many crime and mystery shows in my lifetime, or maybe, just maybe, the writers are dumbing stuff down so much so that Elementary can become (or stay, or whatever) a "hit show."
Oh, I forgot to mention this in the title of my post: How To Get Away With Murder. I really, really hate the Grey's Anatomy-ish setup with all the twentynothings who are supposed to be the eye candy pulling in younger viewers, and I really, really love Viola Davis and don't understand why she can't have a The Good Wife-ish role without a bunch of dumb young eye candy taking the story away from her character. And the silly season-long arc on the murder is just... dumb. So, I don't watch HTGAWM regularly. I just can't, as it is too silly and pretends that it isn't, and I wish it would make up its mind. (But then, I never liked Grey's Anatomy and that whole prime time soap-opera-ish vibe, anyway.) But I do sometimes like to catch up on 3-4 HTGAWM eps at a time, when I can mini-binge-watch.
I have tried to watch Sleepy Hollow and Agents of Shield this season, and to catch up on their last seasons. I have failed. They are both too silly and yet take themselves rather too seriously. I think I'll have to stick to the movie-verses, because (a) Tim Burton and (b) Ironman, Hulk, Captain America, and -- most importantly -- Loki, heh.
All of this makes me yearn for the third season of Hannibal. Hannibal walks a very fine line between totally cracked out (let's face it: all those insanely fucked up murders Will gets called in to profile have never actually occurred -- at least, not before those episodes were broadcast) and yet Taking Itself Very Seriously.
Hannibal is thoroughly creepy, absorbing, and hypnotic. This is largely because of all the leads, all of whom are amazing actors in their own rights, but especially on this show. The set design is gorgeous, the costuming and makeup exquisite, and the hyperreal, stylized visuals only serve to further accentuate the psychological horrors swimming beneath the surfaces of these impeccably dressed and coiffed individuals playing so many, many cat and mouse games.
The slash -- and everything else -- is so there in Hannibal (and polymorphous, too). And yet it is so well written -- and so horrifyingly dark and seductive and twisted and almost odious in where it's going -- that I can't quite make myself read or search for much Hannibal fic or slashfic.
I can't decide if it is a good thing or a bad thing when you fear that a show is so well written that it's highly unlikely the vast majority of the fanfic will meet that same standard, as the bar has almost been set too high.
I was thinking about this the other day, as I am still (grrr, still) struggling through a DS fic in which I've been blocked since about mid-September, and I am despairing over it but trying to punch my way through (at least, recently; but there was a good month-and-a-week I hadn't even touched it, it was dogging me so badly in my mind, as in, where is this going? how will I end it? how can I get these characters out of the situation that my muse led them to, which I currently hate and don't know how to resolve? argh.).
Anyway, while thinking about DS, and rewatching some eps to try to get back into the groove so I can finish this fic, I realized that, while I loved DS and thought it was a well-written if family-oriented show -- and yet very slashy -- with a well-developed sense of whimsy, it was by no means perfect.
So, sometimes, in many different but equally enthralling permutations, it seems like DS fanfic (especially, but not exclusively, the slashfic) is the better 'verse -- better than the canonical suffers. Sometimes much better. And isn't that strange? and wonderful? I used to watch and rewatch DS eps, but in the last several years, mostly I read and reread the fic, because that ficworld has expanded the canonical world so greatly beyond the boundaries of even the most that one could expect from a prime-time family-oriented network show... largely because those constrictions were simply too constricting.
I don't want to say the fanfic is the "HBO version" of DS, because that almost kind of cheapens it; that implies that all that's added is a lot of nudity and sex. But, then again, I guess when you consider some of the great shows that have been (and gone) on HBO, the best analogy of the awesomeness of the fanfic 'verse of DS really might be "it is the HBO version of the show.".
Whether that's accurate or not, the bottom line is the fanfic 'verse for DS has taken on a life of its own, one which is far more in-depth and more complex, as are the characters, than the original show and characters were... and I really love that that happened.
Can that only happen with a show where there are certain restrictions and parameters?
Which reminds me... it'll be, like, six more months before we get the next Penny Dreadful! Sigh.
But then, there is the new season of Lost Girl... I haven't seen the first 2 eps yet. But I can't go into that, I have to go to bed, and suffice to say -- another super cracked out show that has so many writing issues, yet I just can't dump it because of its winning charms (at least so far). And it does get all HBO -- at least, if you watch the Canadian eps off bittorrent. Plus if you're into femslash (I'm personally not, but know many are), it's already built-in.
Crap. I really must go to bed. Gotta be at work by 8:30! At least it's not 6:30 like it used to be.
Ronnie Spector's concert a week from this past Sunday was totally worth it. My friend M--- bought the tix a few days before (there were still good balcony seats, which is also the excellent location from which we watched DEVO live last August when they had their reunion tour stop at the Arcada -- and that concert totally kicked ass). M---'s friend S---- was in town from Virginia, and though S---- is not my favorite person, he was fairly subdued. I was coming off a horrible migraine that I had from the preceding Friday night to Saturday night, so I didn't drink. I appreciated that her Sunday concert started at 5pm, though, since I had to work the next day.
But Ronnie! Man, she's like, what, 71? And still rocking. And still big pipes! She was totally on-key, all the time, not one false note, and had to hold the mic away from her mouth sometimes because her voice, it is just that big! (Stevie Nicks should have done whatever Ronnie has done to maintain her voice, totally, because she can not hit the high notes at all, anymore, sadly). Ronnie also had very big hair, real or not, I don't know... and one of her costume changes was into a red velvet Santa-ish top with white marabou/white ostrich cuffs and trim all over.
I was all, Bah, humbug! about xmas before the concert. My boss and a couple of coworkers have been forcing us to listen to the all Christmas station since after Halloween, which is way too soon imho. But after all Ronnie's Christmas tunes -- and the old Ronettes hits -- I finally surrendered. The next night, I went out and bought a little 3 foot tall Charlie Brown-ish xmas tree at Family Dollar, and some gold LED globe lights (a 12 light chain) to put on it, with a St. Nick topper. Of course, the cats immediately set about knocking it down the next three nights in a row. But zaps with the spray water bottle seem to have stopped that. For now.
So then every night after that last week I caught up on stuff I needed to do at home, and did some holiday shopping. My hospital assigns 2-3 units a couple of needy families every xmas, so I had to go out and get some stuff on the list. Also saw chiropractor and therapist two diff nights. I even cleaned up my entire house on Sunday before M--- and S---- came by, so it's still all clean except a touch up vacuum is requird due to Rex's long hair and tendency to roll on his back and show his fat kitty tummy when he's all luxuriously spread out. (Sox hangs out on the vinyl gun case that has been on the radiator since my ex dropped it off last spring or summer because (1) all the heirloom shotguns and rifles are at my sister's condo now and have been since the ex went off the rails on PCP about a year ago, and (2) I just don't know what to do with the gun case but haven't felt like calling that kind of attention to myself, with my fellow tenants and neighbors, by taking it out to the garbage. It's kind of large and won't fit tidily into the garbage bin. Not to mention I had told my ex to just throw it away, but, as with many, many other instructions, he did not listen. o_o.
My nephew's concert this past Friday was great, even the regular chorus kids. Sounds of Sweetness' acapella rendition of "Counting Stars" was A-MAZE-ING. There's one kid, not a regular member, I think he's on the (autism) spectrum, who often joins them just to do percussion sounds -- he's like a human beat box. Man, he was great; it would not have been what it was, without him. He really brings it. Then they did "The Christmas Can-Can." I really hope someone uploaded this show to Youtube. Haven't checked yet. Took surreptitious photos of my nephew (he is 17, and his aunties and his parents kind of embarrass him now) and then emailed them after the show to my soon to be ex-bro-in-law as well as his mom and my other sister who attended. Apparently, my older sister actually shot some video, but she hasn't sent it yet...
There was visible, palpable tension when my sister's soon-to-be-ex-husband showed up. They're trying to be all mature and professional but it's clear they hate each other's guts. She thinks they're having a horrible, nasty, vicious divorce. And I won't lie, it has been horrible, and he has been vicious and nasty. But compared to our parents' divorce? I mean, my mom had to get a restraining order, my dad had to surrender guns to one of his attorneys, it was just ugly and the ugliness went on for years due to my father's utter immaturity and bilious hate. I know my sister's having a rough time, but, Christ, her divorce is nothing like the ongoing insanity of our parents' divorce. I mean, this was the second outing in 2 weeks that they attended together (well, they met there at the location) -- the previous one was my younger nephew's birthday dinner at (his choice) Fogo de Chao. But I digress as usual. I guess it's all relative and I know she is counting the days until this is over.
With all the family and most of the work and personal stuff done, I settled in for a weekend of hopefully no migraines (wish came true=yayyay!!) and catching up on stuff I hadn't watched. grey had mentioned Gracepoint a while back and while I've never seen Broadchurch, I am fond enough of David Tennant to want to check it out (plus I love the Pacific Northwest and I knew it was filmed in Victoria, BC, so I wanted to see that as much or more than Tennant).
I had managed to miss both Gracepoint eps of the last two weeks, so I caught up on those this weekend. Really was not expecting the twist of who really did it. As they were leading up to it, I started moaning, "No, no, NO!", finally yelling at the TV, I was so shocked. I won't give it away, and I haven't seen Broadchurch, so no idea if this is how it went on Broadchurch. But I would say this was one of the more successful rug-pulled-out-from-under-you plot twists I've seen the last few years.
I watched the premiere of S6 of Vampire Diaries when it occurred -- and was horribly disappointed. VD was never that great, but S2-S3 had its charms; S4 it began to wobble; and it went seriously off the rails last season and super pissed me off. I watched 6x1 and then skipped it for weeks.
So, this weekend, I thought I'd try to catch up. omg, I couldn't. I watched like the first ten minutes of 3 different eps in a row and was like, No, honey, we're done. It was like when you're looking at someone you used to have a huge crush on, but who killed your crush by repeatedly acting like a psycho nut job asshole, with simultaneously crazy, imcomprehensible actions and behaviors that were yet ultimately boringly repetitive, too. Your crush is killed, any vestige of hope or feeling of affection you once had is gone. You just feel nothing. Well, the good thing is I haven't missed anything by skipping this insane sixth season, and I assume I put all those hours spent not watching VD this fall to good use. (I can't actually remember.)
On to Archer Vice. I started watching Archer in S2, and it was the most hilarious, inapprops, non-stop cracked out show I'd ever seen, yet with all this insane wit, great dialogue and snappy comebacks, a great ensemble cast, and so many bizarre homages and nods to old and new war movies, scifi, and spy stories and 1970s pop culture that I knew I didn't understand half of them and had to go look them up -- and I would. That show has ALWAYS made me laugh my ass off, and I really needed to laugh my ass off.
That being said... S5 of Archer, from last January to March, when it became Archer Vice... I was on the fence about it. Sure, the show is cracked out to begin with, but I kind of felt it, too, went off the rails last season. It took me until 5x5 to really get into all the new insanity of the 5th season. I mostly kept watching because of Lana's pregnancy (if I had a girl crush, it would be Lana Kane; I don't care if they say she's as tall as a giraffe with hands like a stevedore) and also because it was like watching a speeding train that had no breaks: where was this going to end? I mean, the whole FBI-blows-up-ISIS thing was a real downer (and I get that writer Adam Reed had agreed with authorities to kill the fictional ISIS on Archer as the real terrorist group ISIS gained ground, but did you have to blow up EVERYTHING and turn Malory's spy agency into an inept cartel?) and the whole Pam-on-cocaine becomes suddenly super hot because all the cocaine makes her loss all that weight and now you can see her figure, and she's become a Barbie doll? That kind of bugged me.
But then, Archer has always been a combination of low-brow and high-brow. And knowing a Archer S6 is coming in January, I decided to rewatch last season. So when I binge-re-watched S5/Archer Vice this past weekend, I was less on the fence and much more omg, take that US intelligence and foreign policy! because the continuing season-long backstory arc is totally seditious -- and if government and military authorities expected Adam Reed to just nicely kill off the fictional ISIS just to politely accommodate them, well, I bet they sure regret that now.
The season long arc leads up to a basic indictment of US "intelligence," not to mention portraying the huge mistakes of American foreign policy wrt all the South American banana republics and dictators we constantly set up so they would be under our control. And, as cracked out as Archer Vice was -- and I do still have problems with Pam's cocaine-related slimdown -- it's actually not as cracked out as American foreign policy. So. There's that.
But, I almost forgot: Elementary.
For all us non-football fans who are fans of Elementary, the Elementary ep of 2 Thursdays ago was tragically unavailable because the Chicago Bears were playing on Thursday night and the local CBS affiliate, Ch. 2, showed the Bears instead. Argh. Because of that, and missing this past Thursdays' ep, I decided to watch both of those eps back to back.
Comments on this season so far: I am disappointed that the whole Mycroft thing has seemingly disappeared without a trace. (Rather like Irene/Moriarty, right? Ugh.). I mean, what? You made him like 1/3 of the major cast in the last half or last third of last season, and now we never see him again? Really? I mean, isn't he MI6? And isn't Sherlock, by extension? And what's with starting this season with a whole bunch of hand-wavy "a bunch of stuff happened between last season finale and the premiere of this season, but we'll just set up the exposition of that stuff by having people talk about it -- instead of SHOWING IT! -- and then we'll introduce YET ANOTHER new character, Kitty, who is Sherlock's new sidekick.
I was quite put out. I mean, way to get it wrong. And, so far, while there have been individual eps that have been clever, I have just not recovered from the whole handwavy "Sherlock moved back to London when Watson moved out and abandoned the consultancy with NYPD/Captain Gregson, leaving that to Watson alone; now all of a sudden he's back in NY, but with a new female sidekick, er, protege, who herself is... a victim of a horrific crime and the anti-Moriarty! ta-da, here's Kitty!"
I have nothing personal against Kitty and she seems like a character with great potential. (But I really have a problem with her backstory of being a rape/torture/abduction victim, and how that's going to 'serve' the Holmes/Watson stories... I mean, why? Why must she be damaged from jump?)
And given the way the preceding two stand-ins for this type of character were treated (Irene/Moriarty in S1; Mycroft in S2, and, to a lesser extent, Marcus), I do not have high hopes for Kitty's development as a character and not just a season-long-story-arc-plot-device. And I do have a problem with the introduction of yet another person to get between Sherlock and Watson. Why? Wherefore? The Holmes/Watson partnership was working so nicely in S1 and the early part of S2... why, why, WHY must writers fix what isn't broken?
All of that being said... I do appreciate the fact that Watson now has a place of her own and a new beau... and, canonically speaking (relating to the original Conan Doyle stories), it is correct that Watson moves out from Holmes' place. In the original Conan Doyle stories, of course, he got married, but mixed it up with Sherlock regularly after (presumably) married life got boring.
But, just as I had a problem with Marcus' Sherlock-caused injury being used as a plot device last season, I have a problem with Kitty being introduced. because I don't recall a new sidekick from the Conan Doyle stories (he did have a roster of "Irregulars") and because I'm afraid she is simply another walking plot device, existing only to set up some nefarious half-season-long arc that will start up after the Christmas hiatus.
I also have a problem with how damned predictable Elementary has become. Most of the time I guess whodunit like 20-30 minutes (or more) before the end of the episode. Maybe I've just watched too many crime and mystery shows in my lifetime, or maybe, just maybe, the writers are dumbing stuff down so much so that Elementary can become (or stay, or whatever) a "hit show."
Oh, I forgot to mention this in the title of my post: How To Get Away With Murder. I really, really hate the Grey's Anatomy-ish setup with all the twentynothings who are supposed to be the eye candy pulling in younger viewers, and I really, really love Viola Davis and don't understand why she can't have a The Good Wife-ish role without a bunch of dumb young eye candy taking the story away from her character. And the silly season-long arc on the murder is just... dumb. So, I don't watch HTGAWM regularly. I just can't, as it is too silly and pretends that it isn't, and I wish it would make up its mind. (But then, I never liked Grey's Anatomy and that whole prime time soap-opera-ish vibe, anyway.) But I do sometimes like to catch up on 3-4 HTGAWM eps at a time, when I can mini-binge-watch.
I have tried to watch Sleepy Hollow and Agents of Shield this season, and to catch up on their last seasons. I have failed. They are both too silly and yet take themselves rather too seriously. I think I'll have to stick to the movie-verses, because (a) Tim Burton and (b) Ironman, Hulk, Captain America, and -- most importantly -- Loki, heh.
All of this makes me yearn for the third season of Hannibal. Hannibal walks a very fine line between totally cracked out (let's face it: all those insanely fucked up murders Will gets called in to profile have never actually occurred -- at least, not before those episodes were broadcast) and yet Taking Itself Very Seriously.
Hannibal is thoroughly creepy, absorbing, and hypnotic. This is largely because of all the leads, all of whom are amazing actors in their own rights, but especially on this show. The set design is gorgeous, the costuming and makeup exquisite, and the hyperreal, stylized visuals only serve to further accentuate the psychological horrors swimming beneath the surfaces of these impeccably dressed and coiffed individuals playing so many, many cat and mouse games.
The slash -- and everything else -- is so there in Hannibal (and polymorphous, too). And yet it is so well written -- and so horrifyingly dark and seductive and twisted and almost odious in where it's going -- that I can't quite make myself read or search for much Hannibal fic or slashfic.
I can't decide if it is a good thing or a bad thing when you fear that a show is so well written that it's highly unlikely the vast majority of the fanfic will meet that same standard, as the bar has almost been set too high.
I was thinking about this the other day, as I am still (grrr, still) struggling through a DS fic in which I've been blocked since about mid-September, and I am despairing over it but trying to punch my way through (at least, recently; but there was a good month-and-a-week I hadn't even touched it, it was dogging me so badly in my mind, as in, where is this going? how will I end it? how can I get these characters out of the situation that my muse led them to, which I currently hate and don't know how to resolve? argh.).
Anyway, while thinking about DS, and rewatching some eps to try to get back into the groove so I can finish this fic, I realized that, while I loved DS and thought it was a well-written if family-oriented show -- and yet very slashy -- with a well-developed sense of whimsy, it was by no means perfect.
So, sometimes, in many different but equally enthralling permutations, it seems like DS fanfic (especially, but not exclusively, the slashfic) is the better 'verse -- better than the canonical suffers. Sometimes much better. And isn't that strange? and wonderful? I used to watch and rewatch DS eps, but in the last several years, mostly I read and reread the fic, because that ficworld has expanded the canonical world so greatly beyond the boundaries of even the most that one could expect from a prime-time family-oriented network show... largely because those constrictions were simply too constricting.
I don't want to say the fanfic is the "HBO version" of DS, because that almost kind of cheapens it; that implies that all that's added is a lot of nudity and sex. But, then again, I guess when you consider some of the great shows that have been (and gone) on HBO, the best analogy of the awesomeness of the fanfic 'verse of DS really might be "it is the HBO version of the show.".
Whether that's accurate or not, the bottom line is the fanfic 'verse for DS has taken on a life of its own, one which is far more in-depth and more complex, as are the characters, than the original show and characters were... and I really love that that happened.
Can that only happen with a show where there are certain restrictions and parameters?
Which reminds me... it'll be, like, six more months before we get the next Penny Dreadful! Sigh.
But then, there is the new season of Lost Girl... I haven't seen the first 2 eps yet. But I can't go into that, I have to go to bed, and suffice to say -- another super cracked out show that has so many writing issues, yet I just can't dump it because of its winning charms (at least so far). And it does get all HBO -- at least, if you watch the Canadian eps off bittorrent. Plus if you're into femslash (I'm personally not, but know many are), it's already built-in.
Crap. I really must go to bed. Gotta be at work by 8:30! At least it's not 6:30 like it used to be.
Re: it's ok, I always talk to much, lol
Date: 2014-12-29 04:15 am (UTC)Haven't listened to Janelle Monae's stuff, yet. I've had so many migraines in the last week I haven't really listend to anything, and I've been offline/away from screens almost as much as possible. Plus incredibly busy with family/holiday... and then I got the stomach flu from my youngest nephew! little germ farms, those kids.
It's true, Sherlock has intimated, in the past, a determination to be brutally honest (with himself as well as others), and I'll buy that that's like 80-90% of his failure (or refusal) to follow social cues and niceties. Yes, Joan did call him out on it more, earlier; he's clearly capable of being more and less discreet at will. But I still feel like at least part of him is so ridiculously intelligent and savant like, it must be somewhere on the spectrum.
Or maybe it's some kind of synesthesia? In the recent AI episode, the wheelchair bound villain suggested that Sherlock's sensory sensitivities might have required some kind of blunting (which, along with Sherlock being off the radar for six months rather like a long, expensive rehab stint, was why he suspected Sherlock wouldn't be able to turn in his addict brother in order to blackmail him to admit to what he did). But I guess synesthesia wouldn't explain his blunt honesty/rudeness...
I dunno, Sherlock's emotional makeup and compartmentalization is "a puzzle wrapped in an enigma inside a conundrum" for me: sometimes I think I'd like to be like him: everything pretty cut and dried, physical needs met but no emotional entanglements. Other times I think that would be *terrible*.
Yes, that's true... they have made Kitty rather sympathetic at this point. I think they obviously intended that with her victim backstory, but I dig her more for her investigative chops, occasionally ninja-like perceptiveness, and rather snarky attitude, than the reasons she was *supposed* to become sympathetic. And I am also worried she'll be a one-season character like Irene/Moriarty or Mycroft with some kind of less-than-happy outcome -- or an outright bad one. I will be especially pissed if she betrays either Joan or Sherlock, but even a bad outcome for Kitty herself is something I kind of fear and dread for her. Fingers crossed it doesn't turn out that way...
There *was* a lot of Sherlock hype, but I was offline so much back when it debuted I missed a lot of it. But I'm willing to watch almost any version of Holmes/Watson, so I thought I'd give it a go. I liked the inventiveness and 21st century update; didn't like Sherlock much at first, though. He was kind of a jerk but without the sympathetic qualities of Elementary's Sherlock -- although BBC Sherlock does describe himself as a high functioning sociopath, iirc. And you're right, initially the ensemble characters were more interesting and likeable than the two main characters themselves. (Side note: the original Conan Doyle John Watson was also a veteran of the *original* British Afghan war. Ironic, huh?)
Can't say I had any head!canon, other than the original Conan Doyle canon, but that's been f-ed with enough over the last century that it's kind of more like a framework than a slavish devotion (though I am delighted whenever there is congruence of present-day versions with original canon, however slim... and yet the mashup side of me likes the way they've messed with the canon on both the BBC and CBS versions, like adding all the texting and social media to BBC, and moving them to NYC and making Watson female on CBS).
I agree -- I found neither of them initially attractive. However, I'm slash slutty that way... if there is discernible slash, I start to see the slash leads with slash colored glasses that somehow make them more attractive, lol. But wrt Martin Freeman as Watson, I was just coming off the Lord Of The Rings movies... so I kept seeing a Hobbit instead of Watson in the first season.
Yeah, the kind of rabid fandom response and hype I read about later was sort of a shock to me. By the time I was looking for Sherlock slashfic, the majority of it was OOC dreck and I was like, well, ok, I'm done. I never read it now, unless it's written or recced by someone I know whose slash tastes run generally in the same direction as mine.
Yeah, the whole lesbian dominatrix thing of Irene Adler was so "look at us get all edgy!" Kind of lame.
wrt Hemlock Grove, yes, ridiculous gore, eye candy young dudes (I can be very shallow too, *g*), plus knockout evil Famke -- what's not to love?
I mostly dug The Knick mainly for two reasons: (1) Clive (though I haven't seen everything he's done; I'm not a completist, lol) and (2) I love the history of medicine, because early medicine and surgery was. so. BARBARIC. (Some would argue it still is...)
Haven't read the True Detective fic yet but have started it. But then I had to avoid lights, screens, etc. for so many days off and on, due to migraines... I'll hopefully finish it in the coming week. I really liked what I read so far; you were right, the author seems to have nailed Rust and Marty's voices really well!
Re: upcoming True Detective -- I'm cautiously hopeful? I know nothing about Taylor Kitsch; my 17 yr old nephew recced FNL to me, so it's in my Netflix queue but I haven't watched it yet; I kind of can't relate to small town rural jock stuff. My nephew says it transcends its genre; I'm hoping he wasn't just full of silly youthful enthusiasm. IIRC, it got pretty good reviews from TV critics.
Vince Vaughn I can tolerate in most things; wouldn't say I love him, though I've found him good in some stuff. He's quite hysterical in some stuff, which might work against him in a crime drama like True Detective. But he was both funny and menacingly creepy in a movie I saw years ago in the late 90s: Clay Pigeons. It was dark and twisted and quirky and funny, plus Janeane Garafalo was in it; I really liked it. So I'm trying to keep an open mind; Vaughn *might* work for True Detective.
Colin Farrell is weird. Sometimes he does these really great performances in certain select roles (I really liked him in In Bruges) -- other times he does this complete utter one-dimensional blockbuster crap. He kind of strikes me as like a cross between an Irish Jake Gyllenhaal and an Irish Tom Cruise (but with more acting chops than Cruise): capable of Jake's range, but settled into typecasting for the money, like Tom. He's attractive (at least I've always found him so) (plus as he's aging, he's less boyish and more mannish, which I find more attractive as I age, lol).
To be perfectly honest, the bar was set so damn high by the McConaughey/Harrelson first season that I fear any second season of True Detective will have to work twice as hard to be half as good. The writing and directing team will be the same as season one, so I'm hopeful, though I'm not convinced the combo of Farrell and Vaughn can pull it off.
But then prior to Dallas Buyers Club and Killer Joe, I wouldn't have thought McConaughey could have done a role like Rustin, either. And I saw both of those *after* I saw TD, not when they were in theaters.
The plain truth about why I watched True Detective at all is this: in the fall of 2013 before my ex and I split up, I was getting Boardwalk Empire off bittorrent for us (because we'd gotten rid of satellite TV the year before). After the "Next week on Boardwalk Empire" preview at the end of each ep, we saw trailers/previews for True Detective.
The previews looked really dark: like a gritty, noir cop drama about corruption and conspiracies and the personal demons of the detectives involved. From the very first preview we saw, my ex and I were like, "We TOTALLY must watch this!" Then after the second and third previews, we were like, "Wait, is that Woody Harrelson... and *Matthew McConaughey*??" Well, I admit, I too am that shallow: MM sealed the deal for me. *g* But I had planned to watch it anyway because the previews we saw pushed all my dark, broody, noir buttons (and my tortured anti-hero buttons, too).
Ironically, my ex tried watching it after we split up (we were no longer together when it started), and he couldn't get into it. Whereas I fell in love with it and even ficced (though instead of slash, what came out was angsty, porny Rust/Maggie).
So, here's hoping for season two. Even if it isn't as good as season one, I'm *fairly* confident that with the same director and writer, it should be pretty good.
Re: it's ok, I always talk to much, lol
Date: 2014-12-30 03:44 am (UTC)Colin Farell is most deffo the weird casting choice. Also the riskier one. All he did for this year was the godsawful A Winter Tale. I do think that Hollywood pushed him to pick blockbuster-y roles (back when he was younger and "wild". At one point, he was considered to be the male version of Angelina Jolie--back in, like, the late 1990s). He was good in In Bruges. I also liked him in Phone Booth...and that's all I remember him being in, really. He also has the acting chops though one wishes he'd be more selective in the roles he chooses.
The true wild card is Taylor Kitsch. Like I said before, I haven't seen him in anything (though, like you, I've been recced FNL many, many times. I just haven't felt the urge to check it out).
To be perfectly honest, the bar was set so damn high by the McConaughey/Harrelson first season that I fear any second season of True Detective will have to work twice as hard to be half as good. The writing and directing team will be the same as season one, so I'm hopeful, though I'm not convinced the combo of Farrell and Vaughn can pull it off.
I'm on the overtly cautious side still. AFAIK, just like S1, all 8 Nic Pizzolatto wrote all 8 episodes for S2. The "twist" is that there will be different directors tapped to film the episodes. And hotass director!Cary Fukunaga will be an executive producer this time around. All in all, I do think that TPTB are well aware of how high the expectation for S2 is right now. So, I'm mentally crossing my fingers in hopes that it will be as good as S1
It's been at least a decade since I had HBO and about the same amount of time since I've had a TV (there was a point in the earlier part of the 2000s where I moved around a lot. When I moved out of my ex-girlfriend's apartment, I chose to leave the TV behind (even though I paid for it). Somehow, I never got around getting a new set. *throws hands in the air*
So I was way out of the loop as far as the promos for True Detective.
As it happened, N. (one of my favourite co-workers) mentioned True Detective to me about a week before it started airing. She pointed out that it looked like something I'd like. I think she told me about it because, for the first time, there was a TV show she could pimp me about rather than the other way around (I got her into Game of Thrones and other fannish media).
Anyhoo, I'd have forgotten about if it hadn't been for a text she sent me the Sunday the show premiered. I dl'd it from the internets and was immediately wowed.
Woody Harrelson, I knew he could act. Now, Matthew McConaughey did spend a long, long period of time doing tons of insipid rom-coms (that I avoided like the plague). He did do a serial killer movie called Frailty that I remember liking and a noir film called The Lincoln Lawyer some years later. So, I wasn't too surprised about the fact that both leads could deliver the show.
Re: it's ok, I always talk to much, lol
Date: 2014-12-30 05:24 am (UTC)Haven't seen Vaughn in many dramatic things, mostly comedic, and nothing in probably the last five years. I think you're right, he's probably better suited to drama. And I think Colin's just gotten lazy and maybe in it for the money. I have a Colin flick in my Netflix Queue I'm planning to watch -- Ondine, where he plays a fisherman single dad with a daughter who pulls up a woman in his nets who may be a mermaid (or the Irish version... a selkie, I think?). Neil Jordan directed, so I'm hoping it's good.
Yeah, I don't know anything about Taylor Kitsch. Nothing. I didn't know Fukunaga was exec producing instead of directing, but I haven't been keeping up on the entertainment news. I still think that six minute long single take shot during the robbery of the stash house in 1x04 was among the most amazing moments of American TV I've ever seen. And, yes, he is kinda hot, lol.
So weird you left behind the TV *you* bought when you moved out. I did the same with my ex, left behind a year-old 47" smart TV w/wifi, Netflix, all that. (Sometimes I wish I'd taken it, but only because it's bigger and has better color and resolution than my old TV that I took.)
So cool your non-TV-pimping co-worker pimped True Detective to you. (I'm still trying to catch up on GoT but I'm hopelessly behind because other shows that have showed up on Netflix or Hulu are distracting me.)
Yeah, I knew Harrelson was good, but McConaughey surprised me -- although you're right, he was good in Frailty. Have never seen The Lincoln Lawyer; did not know it was noir.
tbh, I prefer DLing my favorite shows because then I can get them in HD, which looks so awesome even on my old 37" TV (and DLing is free, except for the cost of Internet service). But I got caught last summer, twice, and was notified by my cable company for DLing a couple eps of True Blood.
So I've cut it out mostly since then, not because I'm afraid of HBO (they already had an unofficial policy of not pursuing DLers because they realized that their most-DLed shows were also their best selling DVD series), but because I still haven't figured out how they caught me -- or why they *didn't* catch all the *other* stuff I'd DLed, lol (or did they, and I just didn't get those notices?).
I'm kind of fanatical about using things like Tor and Vidalia to anonymize my traffic (even though Tor's support specifically says you shouldn't fileshare via Tor -- which, mostly I don't, because the stuff I would have been DLing I can just watch on my free/included HBO; but when I do use qbittorrent, I like to use Tor and Vidalia with it). I delete DLed files from the computer they were DLed to, after I've copied them to a non-networked external 1.5T hard drive which I bought expressly for that purpose, lol. So I'm still stumped as to how they caught me. I have qbittorrent program configured to automatically randomize ports every time you open it, so they can't be checking specific ports.
The best I can figure is that they track your outgoing traffic and see if you go to certain known file sharing web sites. And with the anonymizing of my traffic, one would think that they wouldn't be able to trace it back to me, but maybe they have written programs smart enought to know not to check the ports but to sniff the traffic. Not sure.
But since my Internet service includes HBO free (mainly so you'll spend $$ on "On Demand" programming through the cable box), I can watch HBO series whenever via HBO On Demand, which is how I'm trying to (slowly) catch up on GoT.
What's so ironic (and dumb on my part, I guess) is I didn't even need to DL True Blood because I have HBO. I DLed it only because I wanted to watch it in HD, instead of in standard definition via the cable box. Duh. But I've DLed lots of other things and not been caught. I really don't see what the big deal is. Half the time I wind up later buying the DVDs of the stuff I DL.
Oh, just looked at Netflix for The Lincoln Lawyer (not available), and Broadchurch was finally added. Adding to the queue, lol...
digging the Janelle Monae
Date: 2015-01-06 07:06 pm (UTC)So, then I listened to The Audition and Metropolis: Suite I The Chase Special Edition and ArchAndroid. She's got retro-girl-group-ish sounds, way early synth-pop-ish sounds, almost disco-y sounds, symphonic sounds, just general genre-spanning sounds including film soundtracks (especially like scifi-movie sound tracks) and musicals -- throw-back-y but really fresh the way things are sampled and remixed; it's just delightful. Must listen repeatedly (and with earbuds) for full effect. And, wow, what an incredible voice -- and NO AUTOTUNE! -- which is an interesting choice considering the whole android/cyborg thing she has going on. Definitely someone to keep an eye (and ear) on. Thanks for turning me on to her.
Re: digging the Janelle Monae
Date: 2015-01-07 04:12 am (UTC)I don't recall how I heard about Janelle, but I do remember that, eventually, I saw the video for Tightrope and was all O_O about it. So I did listen to her music chronologically (I bought ArchAndroid when it was dropped). She does have a fantastic voice and her music just kinda makes your soul shake up, right?
After seeing her performances YT, I was a bit mopey that I'd missed out on seeing her live. As it happened, she dropped The Electric Lady and did some extensive touring. So I did get the chance to see her singing live and, let me tell you, you shouldn't miss out on her live show if you can. A lot about her reminds me of the old school performers because she's there to do a show, you know?
I also dig her aesthetic and personality.
It makes me happy to hear that you liked her music. :D!
Re: digging the Janelle Monae
Date: 2015-05-31 07:42 pm (UTC)Since you dig Janelle Monae, thought you might like it. The mix/production is throwback-y funk-ish w/some fat sax sounds, some vocal throwdown (tho' how much is production, and how much is actual vocal ability, I'm not sure).
Song with lyrics (some of which seem quite wrong):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSRhKfdMw8c
Official music video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eDQdYIqhbE
Have not heard much other Kimbra yet, except what else gets played by Youtube automatically after "Come Into My Head." The movie sound track is good, great old songs from Parliament, Isley Brothers, newer stuff female rappers I've never heard of (*is not cool*). I can listen free with Amazon Prime.
The movie is hilarious, imho much funnier than Bridesmaids (cuz Melissa McCarthy has a co-star bad cop role and Sandra Bullock plays straight man, against type), plus no romance/breakup angle, just goes for pure female buddy comedy/action.
'Course, if you already knew about this song and the movie, never mind... *g* (I'm always behind on pop culture)
Re: digging the Janelle Monae
Date: 2015-05-31 10:26 pm (UTC)Oh, the Heat. I LOVED THAT MOVIE SOOOO MUCH! It's pretty funny, but I avoided it for a very long time once it premiered. For one thing, I'm not really a fan of comedies. Also, the promos for The Heat were sorta wonky? (I'm not a fan of Bridesmaids).
Anyhoo, one day, I was in the actual mood for a comedy featuring women and rented a digital copy of the movie. LOVED IT SO MUCH! It was great how it was about female friendship and that, in the end, neither Sandra nor Melissa had to change their appearance/behaviour to show that they had improved on who they used to be.
In any case, thanks for the rec for Kendra (and even for the rec on The Heat. You had no idea whether or not I'd seen it, so the rec is totes welcomed). ;P
Re: digging the Janelle Monae
Date: 2015-06-01 12:27 am (UTC)