Baseball Games and TV Finales
I don't know if anyone on my F-List watches The Tudors, but I got hooked in 2007. The series ends tonight so just in case, this first bit of ranting is under cut.
First off, this should have been an extended finale. One and a half to two hours please. With the exception of the special advertisement preceding it, there was no real indication that it is the finale. I wouldn't have remembered myself if not for constant checking of the schedule online to try and figure out what time last week's episode (which I missed in the wake of a busted TV and an almost no-hitter) came back on.
So the little teaser summary does me no good. It mentions that Henry comes to grips with his own mortality and sees his wives.
All the grumpy old men and their mortality stuff goes down and Suffolk dies. Which kinda made me happy because he'd become kind of twisted in the final season and a half. Not to mention that at the start of season... three? Suffolk mentions that his wife is displeased with him. Henry suggested that he get a Mistress and Suffolk told him he wanted to try and reconcile.
...Except for the part where he never did try. He pushed her away more and more. Yes, she was disgusted with his actions at regarding the Pilgrimage of Grace, but even afterwards, when he became involved in all kinds of skulduggery, he never tried to reconcile like he swore he would, instead he always sees her standing there in the door way and then looks away from her. Needless to say, his taking of a French mistress who was a prisoner of war irked me. When he died, everyone went to console the Duchess Suffolk and when the girl came up to offer her condolences, Lady Suffolk walked away wordlessly. And I was cheering for her.
I expected (and hoped) that the tease about Henry's wives meant all of them. You could argue that he saw their ghosts, when Katherine and Anne appeared before him, they both appeared with the daughter fathered by Henry. The visions seem like more of an act of conscience than only seeing the dead. Which makes me annoyed that he didn't have confrontations with Anne of Cleeves and Catherine Parr. After all, he did them just as wrong as he did Katherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn. I would have loved to see Cleeves chew him out for all of the bullshit he claimed about her to annul their marriage. Instead of having Katherine Howard appear before Henry to state what case (little though it would be; she was a puppet and a greedy whore in the show) she had, they had Anne Boleyn do it for her. It would have been great to see Anne of Cleeves and Catherine Parr truly speak their minds to Henry, even as apparitions. Jane's prophecy regarding Edward was a nice touch.
I expected more introspection in the final episode than they gave. I expected more about Henry recognising his wrongs more than tying off his affairs and Edward's care. Like I said, a longer episode would have been much more appropriate...
My only other woe was that after Henry left the scene for the final time they just did epilogue captions chronicling his death and the aftermath. I had hoped that they would do a video montage of the monarchs to follow: Edward, Jane, Mary and Elizabeth.
Went to the Braves game Saturday. The Royals were in town and Zack Greinke was pitching. It was a great game. Greinke wasn't as crappy as a 2-8 record would make you think, and he pitched for... seven innings? When he left, the score was 4-all and he got a No Decision.
We actually spent the first few innings trying to do some seat hopping to get a view that didn't have the section railing in our way. The original attempt failed when not fifteen seconds after we hopped into the seats in the first row (we had second row seats), the actual ticket holders came over and told us that we were in their seats. We moved, no problem, but it caused the usher to come over and check our tickets. She was sympathetic and let us be.
Turns out that the couple in the good seats weren't even paying attention to the game. They were people watching yuppies who probably just wanted to be able to say that they'd actually attended at Baseball game. Every time we cheered or made some observation, they looked back at us with these faces of pure disgust. Not to mention that the guy couldn't put his damn Crackberry down. Eventually someone sneaked them into the Golden Moon Casino area (we heard them mention it as they left) and they went to watch the game behind shiny glass with plush chairs, AC and cocktails.
The game went really well. We watched Martin Prado reach his league ass-kicking 100th season hit and Brian McCann hit his 98th career home run. All toll kinda awesome. Troy Glaus' walk-off was OK too.
Seeing the Rays and Royals means that I have seen every team in the Major Leagues but four. Two in the NL and four in the AL are all I have left.
The Mets fell to 2.5 back today and I'm worried. Their last eight game streak ended against a big rival in the same way that the Yankees series ended this eight game streak. That last streak ended and the team spiraled into the 12-17 month of May. On the upside, they get a day off and head home, unlike the last time where the streak got busted, they got touched up for some runs, and then went on a road trip. So here's hoping.
The only really disturbing thing I heard was talk of shopping Mainer after his rehab's done. I say eat Ollie's contract and keep John. He's got more potential, better for the rotation, and less of a head case. KEEP JOHN MAINE IN NEW YORK WILPONS!
First off, this should have been an extended finale. One and a half to two hours please. With the exception of the special advertisement preceding it, there was no real indication that it is the finale. I wouldn't have remembered myself if not for constant checking of the schedule online to try and figure out what time last week's episode (which I missed in the wake of a busted TV and an almost no-hitter) came back on.
So the little teaser summary does me no good. It mentions that Henry comes to grips with his own mortality and sees his wives.
All the grumpy old men and their mortality stuff goes down and Suffolk dies. Which kinda made me happy because he'd become kind of twisted in the final season and a half. Not to mention that at the start of season... three? Suffolk mentions that his wife is displeased with him. Henry suggested that he get a Mistress and Suffolk told him he wanted to try and reconcile.
...Except for the part where he never did try. He pushed her away more and more. Yes, she was disgusted with his actions at regarding the Pilgrimage of Grace, but even afterwards, when he became involved in all kinds of skulduggery, he never tried to reconcile like he swore he would, instead he always sees her standing there in the door way and then looks away from her. Needless to say, his taking of a French mistress who was a prisoner of war irked me. When he died, everyone went to console the Duchess Suffolk and when the girl came up to offer her condolences, Lady Suffolk walked away wordlessly. And I was cheering for her.
I expected (and hoped) that the tease about Henry's wives meant all of them. You could argue that he saw their ghosts, when Katherine and Anne appeared before him, they both appeared with the daughter fathered by Henry. The visions seem like more of an act of conscience than only seeing the dead. Which makes me annoyed that he didn't have confrontations with Anne of Cleeves and Catherine Parr. After all, he did them just as wrong as he did Katherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn. I would have loved to see Cleeves chew him out for all of the bullshit he claimed about her to annul their marriage. Instead of having Katherine Howard appear before Henry to state what case (little though it would be; she was a puppet and a greedy whore in the show) she had, they had Anne Boleyn do it for her. It would have been great to see Anne of Cleeves and Catherine Parr truly speak their minds to Henry, even as apparitions. Jane's prophecy regarding Edward was a nice touch.
I expected more introspection in the final episode than they gave. I expected more about Henry recognising his wrongs more than tying off his affairs and Edward's care. Like I said, a longer episode would have been much more appropriate...
My only other woe was that after Henry left the scene for the final time they just did epilogue captions chronicling his death and the aftermath. I had hoped that they would do a video montage of the monarchs to follow: Edward, Jane, Mary and Elizabeth.
Went to the Braves game Saturday. The Royals were in town and Zack Greinke was pitching. It was a great game. Greinke wasn't as crappy as a 2-8 record would make you think, and he pitched for... seven innings? When he left, the score was 4-all and he got a No Decision.
We actually spent the first few innings trying to do some seat hopping to get a view that didn't have the section railing in our way. The original attempt failed when not fifteen seconds after we hopped into the seats in the first row (we had second row seats), the actual ticket holders came over and told us that we were in their seats. We moved, no problem, but it caused the usher to come over and check our tickets. She was sympathetic and let us be.
Turns out that the couple in the good seats weren't even paying attention to the game. They were people watching yuppies who probably just wanted to be able to say that they'd actually attended at Baseball game. Every time we cheered or made some observation, they looked back at us with these faces of pure disgust. Not to mention that the guy couldn't put his damn Crackberry down. Eventually someone sneaked them into the Golden Moon Casino area (we heard them mention it as they left) and they went to watch the game behind shiny glass with plush chairs, AC and cocktails.
The game went really well. We watched Martin Prado reach his league ass-kicking 100th season hit and Brian McCann hit his 98th career home run. All toll kinda awesome. Troy Glaus' walk-off was OK too.
Seeing the Rays and Royals means that I have seen every team in the Major Leagues but four. Two in the NL and four in the AL are all I have left.
The Mets fell to 2.5 back today and I'm worried. Their last eight game streak ended against a big rival in the same way that the Yankees series ended this eight game streak. That last streak ended and the team spiraled into the 12-17 month of May. On the upside, they get a day off and head home, unlike the last time where the streak got busted, they got touched up for some runs, and then went on a road trip. So here's hoping.
The only really disturbing thing I heard was talk of shopping Mainer after his rehab's done. I say eat Ollie's contract and keep John. He's got more potential, better for the rotation, and less of a head case. KEEP JOHN MAINE IN NEW YORK WILPONS!