TV watching and Bones
I'm currently caught up on Bones, Chuck, and SCC. I am happy with them all. I love the TV I'm currently watching! (I'm not feeling particularly inspired to ADD to the three-shows-a-week count, though.)
Wait...Emergency Caesarean?????
I think I'm going to grab my comments on Bones from someone else's post and put them here. Yay, Bones!
I also want to express my unrelenting Huge Cam Fangirling and my adoration for the Amazing Tamara Taylor and her facial expressions and performance...I LOVE LOVE LOVE Cam. I love that she figured out why Mr. Nigel-Murray spouts trivia and figured out how to use it. ::love:: She also has THE BEST, "Yet more proof that I'm the only sane one here...oooo-kay," expression in the history of ever--and gets to use it often.
Disclaimers
I am watching this show for Brennan. I know this. I don't hide this.
I identify with Brennan. I know this. I wonder to what extent I over-identify with her, but the similarities between her brand of cluelessness and mine have been noted by my husband, mother, and many friends, so I don't think I'm over-doing it too much, and a lot of that filter is through seeing someone who's socially awkward in ways that I recognize as someone with very high-functioning Asperger's Syndrome.
That said, I do know that there are times when the writing has Brennan inconsistent in her emotional intelligence in various situations and from week to week. I also know that I have good days and bad days, situations and types of people I "get" better than others either through luck, experience, having done/seen something similar before, etc. So...I usually am fine with this inconsistency, especially since even a similar situation may be one where I do great one day and terribly on another day either because I'm overwhelmed/tired or at the top of my game.
The biggest complaints I saw were regarding Brennan trying to do Booth's people thing, trying to do the interrogation, etc. I didn't have a problem with it (and enjoyed it) becuase I thought it made sense.
One of the concerns I saw expressed was that, as an anthropologist, it seemed to some that she should be better at people stuff in general. I think, however, that her thing is people in group behavior or in stylized ways, which is different from individualized emotional evaluations. Brennan knows, for example, that "teenagers seek out their own spaces to distance themselves from their parents and often express this through loud and socially inappropriate language" and the like. She can recite textbook stuff, she can explain how things work in cultures driven by certain goals...
But when it comes to reading a specific individual's face, a certain individual's vocal tone, that's a totally different skill. She's not a behavioral anthropologist, her study of humans is physiological and societal (in terms of structure, not individual behavior). So she sees movement, and the physical causes behind changes in movement (the woman in "Superhero in the Alley" moving gingerly based on broken ribs, for example), but not the emotions behind the movement (no sense that it would be sensitive to bring it up, just knowing that the movement said that broken ribs were a fact). She sees how tall or broad or graceful a person is/was based on their bodies, their bones, but she often has no idea about other aspects.
I think she's DEFINITELY terrified of connecting--feeling is scary for her and just plain hurts to much on behalf of both the other person and herself--but I don't think that's the whole thing. I do think you're right that, if she'd let herself *feel* she'd be more able to read things because she'd be in less denial about emotion in general. I do think, though, that her inability (partially created deliberately as a self-defence mechanism) to feel her own feelings severely hampers her ability to recognize others' feelings or contemplate how those feelings motivate them.
Another complaint I saw was that it seemed to some that Brennan wanted to prove she was better than Booth at something she's already acknowledge he's better at than her. I think that Brennan is TREMENDOUSLY and consistently competitive. She really does want to be the best at everything, and, on some level, believes she CAN learn to be the best if she wants to. Someone else pointed out that she has now seen HUNDREDS of these and I do think that would tend to be something she would think would give her an edge in figuring it out due to her now-extenstive experience/research. Even so, I didn't get the impresion that she wanted to be instantly better than Booth at the people stuff or that she wanted to abandon hard science for Sweets' psychologically based manipulations, but rather that listening to Sweets do the commentary track explaining each of Booth's choices and statements and approaches gave Brennan more information about the specifics of what she was observing.
I saw it rather as her usually seeing the interrogations as a whole, and Sweets can break it down into specific moments, specific decisions, specific choices...and WHY each of those is made and to what end. What that kind of breakdown of "first this, for this reason, then this, then this..." kind of formula, I can see her thinking, "Maybe I COULD do that!" I admit that, as much as I often want to shake Sweets, I actually was fascinated by his commentary because I certainly don't understand how the things he was describing work or how anyone could know to do them or what effect they'll have. I also think that listening to Sweets give a running commentary on how each comment, each move, each choice in the interview Booth was doing had a particular effect was something that inspired Brennan with, "There's a procedure! I can learn a procedure!" The problem, of course, is that there's not a set procedure: there is a list of possible responses and you have to be able to read the person to know which one to choose next.
That's the thing I know *I* can't do. :-(
So I didn't see her desire to try an interrogation as an attempt to usurp, but an attempt to see if she could finally be better at this than she has been...and a reminder to her that, no, Booth is BETTER than she is at this and always will be. And I think it's good for her to be reminded that there are things she can't learn to be an expert at, and to be reminded that there are things Booth will ALWAYS be better at than her, and that it behooves her to acknolwedge that aloud now and then because that's a courtesy and is an appreciated expression. And I think she NEEDS reminders that telling Booth the ways she values him is something important to do.
I had much love, too, for the fact that *I* actually got that the car discussion of "gentle" vs. "passionate and uninhibited" was actually flirting and even a kind of come-on, a checking out of responses...just as I think her quietly sitting there as if everything was normal during the lap dance was her messing with Booth because she does know HIM and knows that will work, and enjoyed researching his responses while playing innocent. I DO think she's good enough at these things--with this person she knows this well and her own sexual experience--to pull that off in those two situations. *grin*
I love my shows.
Wait...Emergency Caesarean?????
I think I'm going to grab my comments on Bones from someone else's post and put them here. Yay, Bones!
I also want to express my unrelenting Huge Cam Fangirling and my adoration for the Amazing Tamara Taylor and her facial expressions and performance...I LOVE LOVE LOVE Cam. I love that she figured out why Mr. Nigel-Murray spouts trivia and figured out how to use it. ::love:: She also has THE BEST, "Yet more proof that I'm the only sane one here...oooo-kay," expression in the history of ever--and gets to use it often.
Disclaimers
I am watching this show for Brennan. I know this. I don't hide this.
I identify with Brennan. I know this. I wonder to what extent I over-identify with her, but the similarities between her brand of cluelessness and mine have been noted by my husband, mother, and many friends, so I don't think I'm over-doing it too much, and a lot of that filter is through seeing someone who's socially awkward in ways that I recognize as someone with very high-functioning Asperger's Syndrome.
That said, I do know that there are times when the writing has Brennan inconsistent in her emotional intelligence in various situations and from week to week. I also know that I have good days and bad days, situations and types of people I "get" better than others either through luck, experience, having done/seen something similar before, etc. So...I usually am fine with this inconsistency, especially since even a similar situation may be one where I do great one day and terribly on another day either because I'm overwhelmed/tired or at the top of my game.
The biggest complaints I saw were regarding Brennan trying to do Booth's people thing, trying to do the interrogation, etc. I didn't have a problem with it (and enjoyed it) becuase I thought it made sense.
One of the concerns I saw expressed was that, as an anthropologist, it seemed to some that she should be better at people stuff in general. I think, however, that her thing is people in group behavior or in stylized ways, which is different from individualized emotional evaluations. Brennan knows, for example, that "teenagers seek out their own spaces to distance themselves from their parents and often express this through loud and socially inappropriate language" and the like. She can recite textbook stuff, she can explain how things work in cultures driven by certain goals...
But when it comes to reading a specific individual's face, a certain individual's vocal tone, that's a totally different skill. She's not a behavioral anthropologist, her study of humans is physiological and societal (in terms of structure, not individual behavior). So she sees movement, and the physical causes behind changes in movement (the woman in "Superhero in the Alley" moving gingerly based on broken ribs, for example), but not the emotions behind the movement (no sense that it would be sensitive to bring it up, just knowing that the movement said that broken ribs were a fact). She sees how tall or broad or graceful a person is/was based on their bodies, their bones, but she often has no idea about other aspects.
I think she's DEFINITELY terrified of connecting--feeling is scary for her and just plain hurts to much on behalf of both the other person and herself--but I don't think that's the whole thing. I do think you're right that, if she'd let herself *feel* she'd be more able to read things because she'd be in less denial about emotion in general. I do think, though, that her inability (partially created deliberately as a self-defence mechanism) to feel her own feelings severely hampers her ability to recognize others' feelings or contemplate how those feelings motivate them.
Another complaint I saw was that it seemed to some that Brennan wanted to prove she was better than Booth at something she's already acknowledge he's better at than her. I think that Brennan is TREMENDOUSLY and consistently competitive. She really does want to be the best at everything, and, on some level, believes she CAN learn to be the best if she wants to. Someone else pointed out that she has now seen HUNDREDS of these and I do think that would tend to be something she would think would give her an edge in figuring it out due to her now-extenstive experience/research. Even so, I didn't get the impresion that she wanted to be instantly better than Booth at the people stuff or that she wanted to abandon hard science for Sweets' psychologically based manipulations, but rather that listening to Sweets do the commentary track explaining each of Booth's choices and statements and approaches gave Brennan more information about the specifics of what she was observing.
I saw it rather as her usually seeing the interrogations as a whole, and Sweets can break it down into specific moments, specific decisions, specific choices...and WHY each of those is made and to what end. What that kind of breakdown of "first this, for this reason, then this, then this..." kind of formula, I can see her thinking, "Maybe I COULD do that!" I admit that, as much as I often want to shake Sweets, I actually was fascinated by his commentary because I certainly don't understand how the things he was describing work or how anyone could know to do them or what effect they'll have. I also think that listening to Sweets give a running commentary on how each comment, each move, each choice in the interview Booth was doing had a particular effect was something that inspired Brennan with, "There's a procedure! I can learn a procedure!" The problem, of course, is that there's not a set procedure: there is a list of possible responses and you have to be able to read the person to know which one to choose next.
That's the thing I know *I* can't do. :-(
So I didn't see her desire to try an interrogation as an attempt to usurp, but an attempt to see if she could finally be better at this than she has been...and a reminder to her that, no, Booth is BETTER than she is at this and always will be. And I think it's good for her to be reminded that there are things she can't learn to be an expert at, and to be reminded that there are things Booth will ALWAYS be better at than her, and that it behooves her to acknolwedge that aloud now and then because that's a courtesy and is an appreciated expression. And I think she NEEDS reminders that telling Booth the ways she values him is something important to do.
I had much love, too, for the fact that *I* actually got that the car discussion of "gentle" vs. "passionate and uninhibited" was actually flirting and even a kind of come-on, a checking out of responses...just as I think her quietly sitting there as if everything was normal during the lap dance was her messing with Booth because she does know HIM and knows that will work, and enjoyed researching his responses while playing innocent. I DO think she's good enough at these things--with this person she knows this well and her own sexual experience--to pull that off in those two situations. *grin*
I love my shows.