In which TV is fun.
Merlin 3.06
No battles, brawling, or dragons, so the boys were bored out of their minds.
The five-year-old gradually assembled the pieces of his Ninja Halloween costume, and took up some kind of imaginary battle of his own under the table. The nine-year-old manfully tried to stay focused, but, except for the epic combat of Merlin vs. Tinkerbell, it was hard going.
We all agreed, however, that Merlin’s new handy-dandy magic staff was awesome. And would be useful against mosquitoes, which, here in North Carolina can be pretty much be as big as that fairy.
The nine-year-old was sure that what they seemed to be calling “she-magic” was some kind of special girl-cooties. So I explained to him that it was actually spelled sidhe. Then for the rest of the episode we called all the fairies “Sid.”
I, however, enjoyed the episode much more than I usually enjoy the supposedly humorous ones with “goofy” creatures. I kind of loved the idea of a princess who eats frogs instead of kissing them, and the actress who played her was all kinds of adorable.
I can’t tell whether Bradley James has gotten to be a more interesting actor, or whether it’s just that the scripts tend to give Arthur more of a chance to change/mature/develop-but he’s been really fun to watch this season. Merlin, poor thing, seems caught like a hamster on a wheel (“mess stuff up with magic”; “try to fix stuff with magic”; “good, everyone’s unconscious/asleep/bewitched so they won’t notice my magic”; “wank on to Arthur about destiny”-actually, this episode was refreshing for not having everything be Merlin’s fault).
Speaking of development and lack thereof, tho’-what is up with the Gwen/Arthur romance? Have they been going on this way for a year? It’s all so polite it’s practically glacial (in terms of both temperature and timing).
SPN 6.05
Okay, this was fun too! And even more than I enjoyed Sheriff Mills telling Bobby and the FBI man to “put the rulers away and zip up” I loved how snappy the whole thing was, how it just rolled along-banging out action scenes and snarky little scenes so fast you didn’t really have time to worry about anything. (and so, yeah, I was kind of squicked by Bobby torching the demon, but was on to the next thing before I got really upset).
I expect much of this had to do with the writing, which was tight, and stitched together a lot of small scenes into a pretty coherent set of stories, but I, of course, would like to think that part of it was director!Jensen’s doing-certainly the actorly timing in almost every scene was fast-paced without being sloppy, and he probably had something to do with that.
And anyway, it amuses me to think of JA drumming his fingers through five seasons of SPN thinking, “Seriously? Do we really need three whole minutes of Dean and Sam wandering through the building shining their flashlights at shit? Seriously?”-and then when he got the chance to direct starting off with “okay, people, let’s ramp up the pace here.”
Also-I loved Rufus! Can he come back, please?
H50 1.05
I was having a terrible night last night, and probably all the waves and sunshine and homoerotic banter in the world probably couldn’t have brought me back to an even keel, so I actually enjoyed this ep less than the first four…
Still, I kinda loved that they’ve solved the problem of Steve’s romantic life by giving him a pre-existing, gorgeous fuck-buddy, who has a job of her own (far out to sea? Or is the Pearl Harbor Naval Intelligence whatsit on land somewhere?), and who mostly, and completely understandably, seems interested in keeping Steve naked, for her own enjoyment as well as the viewing public’s.
You noticed how it was Steve who was more concerned that they manage to have dinner sometime, right? Kath seemed to be more, “Yeah, I dunno, then we’d have to talk and stuff. C’mon, do that thing with your tattoos again instead.”
And, as every week, the Danny/Steve (they’ve earned that slash!) banter was golden. “Triple banana bitch” was an instant classic. The scene in the bar was like something out of fanfic cliché bingo.
On the other hand, I wasn’t thrilled to see another Kono-in-hot-pants plotline, even though she awesomely seized the guy’s gun and was in no need of being rescued. But, seriously, I can’t be the only one who was hoping that it was Danny in a dress in the back of the van.
Still, I did love that she got the information from the madam/procurer (tho’ why that lady had to be inscrutably Chinese, I don’t know-was she part of the Philippine plot line?). See, guys, tiny dog intimidation can be just as effective an interrogation technique as roofy-ing and airhorning a suspect.
And the whole attempt to link the kidnapping to American foreign policy was, well, heavy-lifting for me, much as I love Kyle Secor. Tho’ Steve’s kung-fu battle with the terrorist was both campy and awesome-I hope someone’s gif’d it.
So, in conclusion, I will totally be back next week!
I hear that Fringe is keeping the angst flag flying for us all, and I enjoyed 3.02. I meant to watch 3.03 on Friday, but got sidetracked by a dl of Benedict Cumberbatch, in all his gingery, posh, non-Sherlockian glory, hosting “Have I Got News for You.” Y’all know how I feel about the Cumber-voice, so you can imagine how much fun I had hearing him drawl-growl his way through words like “retaliatory” (which I now know has about a thousand more syllables in England than it does here-a fact about which I have no complaints). Except now I’m even more behind with Fringe.
But, I dunno, Benny, the competition is back in town-y’all saw the
RDJ/JL set pics y/y? I may have to do a dueling Sherlock post soon.