The Good Wife, Haven
1. I thought Tom Hiddleston had the worst fans but Benedict Cumberbatch's fans are currently the actual worst. He's talented and you want to have his babies. WE GET IT. I'm not even tracking his tag on Tumblr and I feel overloaded with Cumbernews and Cumbergifs and Cumberinspiredtea. I would put him on Tumblr Saviour but he's starring in the adaptation of Parade's End later this year and I fucking love those novels.
2. The Good Wife. Damn, but this show is good. I love it when they focus on the office politics and they've been building to this story for quite some time. Julius and David Lee's rivalry has been there from at least season two and they've thrown Eli into the mix with great effect. Diane is totally capable of leading a firm on her own, but with all these tensions brewing can she carry this firm through Will's six month suspension without any huge losses? David Lee has threatened to go out on his own before.
The stuff with Alicia and Caitlin is really fascinating. I don't quite know what to make of it. There are so many conflicting degrees to this relationship and I wonder if the writers have transferred the aborted antagonistic mentorship arc that was the original plan for Diane and Alicia onto Alicia and Caitlin. Alicia was basically Lockhart Gardner's golden girl - is Alicia's anxiety about being supplanted in the role she won for herself (and possibly in Will's affection)? Or is something more going on?
The return of Nancy Crozier (yay!) put it all into an interesting light. Alicia can't compete with Nancy by using Nancy's techniques - normally she defeats her by being smarter and using her own maturity as a source of strength. This time she fought Nancy with a Nancy of her own, Caitlin. I don't think Caitlin is as calculated as Nancy, but no wonder Alicia can't quite warm to her.
I think this show does adult sibling interaction better than any other I've seen. Alicia and now Will just loosen in a wonderfully natural way whenever they are around their siblings. I liked both of Will's sisters and I hope they stick around so that we can see them interact with Alicia.
Also: Will is a multi-instrumentalist? There was the guitar and a baby grand piano in the apartment.
Nice to see Josh Hamilton show up as the judge. A talented guy from one of my favourite movies who doesn't work enough these days.
Did anyone else get the sense that things are being set up for Cary to return to Lockhart Gardner? The disillusionment with Peter is beginning.
Finally, I don't know what was going on with Alicia declaring to David Lee that she's not going to divorce Peter and that little smile when she found out about the keynote address. You need to divorce that man Alicia! You need to do it now!
3. In a stunning display of maturity and excellent life choices I watched all two seasons of Syfy's Haven in about five days. The thing is: this show is not very good. I'd like to think that it improves in the second season and really deepens the mythology and it does to an extent, but it's still not very good. What it has going for it are three things, really.
Firstly, the lead dude, Nathan, can't feel anything except for the lead female, Audrey. Quite a few shows are built around the trope that if the official couple touches then one of them will die or lose their soul. I really hate that trope. It's stupid. But this kinda reverse is magical. Seriously, in all future kink memes I will be prompting: The only thing I feel is you.
His face when they come into even the most minor contact is pretty great (never has a high-five been so emotionally tense). Also pretty great? His face and the body that is attached to it (second reason to watch).
That is an excellent face.
And that is properly tall.
The third good reason is Audrey, the main character, who took me a couple of episodes to get used to because I was expecting either a) cold emotionally reserved badass, or b) snarky emotionally reserved badass.
One of the weird tropes I often see with badass female characters is that because they're physically capable, highly intelligent, and able to be ruthless, they need to be taught - generally by a male character - how to feel, how to empathise, and to learn the value of friendship. Off the top of my head I'm thinking Sarah from Chuck and Aeryn from Farscape fall into this pattern, but I'm sure there are others and there is a wider trend in romantic comedies of career women being need to be taught how to feel by men.
But Audrey is really in touch with her emotions and her capacity to care and empathise is what makes her a good at her job. And while she is kind of a friendless outcast in the beginning, she is that way for plot/mythology reasons that are super justified. And Nathan is just as lacking in relationships as she is, if not more so, thus she tends to be the one to prod him to make an effort with people.
Of course I ship them. Their partnership is built on friendship and trust instead of bickering and different methods, and that's actually kind of refreshing. It's nice when people genuinely like each other and don't obfuscate their feelings by pretending they don't need each other. "Adults acting like actual adults instead of teenagers in adult bodies" is one of my interests. Plus, you add in the touching thing and you've got some quality shipping crack.
2. The Good Wife. Damn, but this show is good. I love it when they focus on the office politics and they've been building to this story for quite some time. Julius and David Lee's rivalry has been there from at least season two and they've thrown Eli into the mix with great effect. Diane is totally capable of leading a firm on her own, but with all these tensions brewing can she carry this firm through Will's six month suspension without any huge losses? David Lee has threatened to go out on his own before.
The stuff with Alicia and Caitlin is really fascinating. I don't quite know what to make of it. There are so many conflicting degrees to this relationship and I wonder if the writers have transferred the aborted antagonistic mentorship arc that was the original plan for Diane and Alicia onto Alicia and Caitlin. Alicia was basically Lockhart Gardner's golden girl - is Alicia's anxiety about being supplanted in the role she won for herself (and possibly in Will's affection)? Or is something more going on?
The return of Nancy Crozier (yay!) put it all into an interesting light. Alicia can't compete with Nancy by using Nancy's techniques - normally she defeats her by being smarter and using her own maturity as a source of strength. This time she fought Nancy with a Nancy of her own, Caitlin. I don't think Caitlin is as calculated as Nancy, but no wonder Alicia can't quite warm to her.
I think this show does adult sibling interaction better than any other I've seen. Alicia and now Will just loosen in a wonderfully natural way whenever they are around their siblings. I liked both of Will's sisters and I hope they stick around so that we can see them interact with Alicia.
Also: Will is a multi-instrumentalist? There was the guitar and a baby grand piano in the apartment.
Nice to see Josh Hamilton show up as the judge. A talented guy from one of my favourite movies who doesn't work enough these days.
Did anyone else get the sense that things are being set up for Cary to return to Lockhart Gardner? The disillusionment with Peter is beginning.
Finally, I don't know what was going on with Alicia declaring to David Lee that she's not going to divorce Peter and that little smile when she found out about the keynote address. You need to divorce that man Alicia! You need to do it now!
3. In a stunning display of maturity and excellent life choices I watched all two seasons of Syfy's Haven in about five days. The thing is: this show is not very good. I'd like to think that it improves in the second season and really deepens the mythology and it does to an extent, but it's still not very good. What it has going for it are three things, really.
Firstly, the lead dude, Nathan, can't feel anything except for the lead female, Audrey. Quite a few shows are built around the trope that if the official couple touches then one of them will die or lose their soul. I really hate that trope. It's stupid. But this kinda reverse is magical. Seriously, in all future kink memes I will be prompting: The only thing I feel is you.
His face when they come into even the most minor contact is pretty great (never has a high-five been so emotionally tense). Also pretty great? His face and the body that is attached to it (second reason to watch).
That is an excellent face.
And that is properly tall.
The third good reason is Audrey, the main character, who took me a couple of episodes to get used to because I was expecting either a) cold emotionally reserved badass, or b) snarky emotionally reserved badass.
One of the weird tropes I often see with badass female characters is that because they're physically capable, highly intelligent, and able to be ruthless, they need to be taught - generally by a male character - how to feel, how to empathise, and to learn the value of friendship. Off the top of my head I'm thinking Sarah from Chuck and Aeryn from Farscape fall into this pattern, but I'm sure there are others and there is a wider trend in romantic comedies of career women being need to be taught how to feel by men.
But Audrey is really in touch with her emotions and her capacity to care and empathise is what makes her a good at her job. And while she is kind of a friendless outcast in the beginning, she is that way for plot/mythology reasons that are super justified. And Nathan is just as lacking in relationships as she is, if not more so, thus she tends to be the one to prod him to make an effort with people.
Of course I ship them. Their partnership is built on friendship and trust instead of bickering and different methods, and that's actually kind of refreshing. It's nice when people genuinely like each other and don't obfuscate their feelings by pretending they don't need each other. "Adults acting like actual adults instead of teenagers in adult bodies" is one of my interests. Plus, you add in the touching thing and you've got some quality shipping crack.