"I always imagined less manure. I mean, some manure, but less."
Work has been extremely busy, and last weekend kind of sucked, in the way that it does when you discover that your hot water heater is failing when the people downstairs report that water is dripping through their ceiling. Also, there was a DSL modem death.
I am so glad it's Friday, and this weekend, I am crossing my fingers that nothing explodes.
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TV Roundup:
I haven't done much more than clap quietly with delight over Pushing Daisies, but I do want to mention one thing I really loved about this week's episode, which was the way Emerson's fury over Chuck's presence derives from so many sources. On the one hand, he's cranky because Chuck is interfering with the smoothly functional deal he's developed with Ned. On another, Chuck's behavior with the bodies is unprofessional, and Emerson likes to do things the way he likes to do things. But most of all, Emerson could have been the one to die, since he was at the funeral home too, and he's rightly appalled by the price Ned and Chuck both seemed to be willing to pay for her life. And that is, especially, why I'm glad they made that price the issue of this week's episode, because in this, as in most things, Emerson is right.
The Office 4.04 - "Money"
The show is drawing more and more explicit parallels between the two office romances--Pam and Jim's, Dwight and Angela's--especially when Jim went into that stairwell and confessed to Dwight that he knew what Dwight was going through, he'd been there too. They're entirely different people, but in this, they can relate. And remembering that, he has to go kiss Pam right then, to appreciate what he has; the two office romances are on opposite ends of a see-saw, one in the air while the other is in the dirt.
Because Pam and Jim can relate, and because they're innately curious and sure it will lead to wackiness, they spend a night at the B&B--it is not, as Jim confesses, the way he always imagined his first night away with Pam, but at least he got his bedtime story. (And I'm pretty sure that Mose dogging the car as they pulled in, and the shot of Dwight rocking on the porch, were visual references to Deliverance, which was just excellent.) It gives us a chance to see them interact outside the office, where Jim and Dwight have a very different dynamic, Jim more tolerant, Dwight more friendly, or at least more customer service-oriented. Pam is very much on Dwight's side in the whole Dwight/Andy/Angela mess, and Dwight knows it, because he saw her trying to talk Andy out of his seduction plans. He looks to her when he sees that cat in the box, as someone who can understand what that means. Dwight is just so broken--the moaning at night while he clutches the stolen cherub, the keening in the stairwell--and it's heartbreaking. Despite what Jim told Dwight, I think Pam actually understands what Dwight is going through better; she was the one who tried so hard with Jim last year, and had to face the constant rejection. Jim's experience was more dramatic and contained, the one play for the relationship, the one no, and then he left for Stanford, he wasn't coming in every day to face the constant little reminders and humiliations. When Dwight shoved the pile of file folders off Jim's desk, it was a wonderfully iconic moment, Dwight's acknowledgment of their strange moment of sympathy, his desire to restore the old equilibrium of their relationship, his determination to pull himself together and return to normal.
For all that I loved those parts of the episode, the Jan stuff is making me increasingly cranky. I can buy that Michael is old-fashioned enough to want to shield Jan from their financial situation; spineless enough not to be able to say no to her; clueless enough to believe that he can somehow magically fix the situation if he makes enough cold calls for weight loss pills, or takes financial advice from Creed (!!!!!); heartbroken when the house of cards comes tumbling down. But I just can't buy that Jan, with all of her previous business experience and a number of years as a self-sufficient adult, could be in such crazy denial that she couldn't appreciate the concept that if you spend money, you have to have the money to spend. If the writers want to make her that messed up, in that much denial, they have to really sell it, not just make her so inexplicably clueless. I wish she was more, I don't know, intelligently messed up; I don't have a good bead on what's going on in her head, a lot of her behavior has been really situational. It was particularly sad when Oscar, bless his heart, tried to actually give Michael some sound financial advice, and ended up giving Jan more credit for being smart than the show has. Although I did like that the confrontation happened over speakerphone, just like old times, and that it might have tested the limits of when Jan can get away with blaming Michael for her problems.
Other things that I loved:
* We have objective proof that Ryan sucks: he wants everyone to use PowerPoint.
* Stanley, drawing the line at how much of his soul he'll sacrifice to Dunder Mifflin, being utterly PISSED at even hearing Michael's voice in his home at night.
* OMG KELLY AND DARRYL. At first, I wasn't sure how much of their flirtation was sincere and how much of it was both of them wanting to stick it to Ryan (and surely, there are worse reasons to flirt!), but it turns out that not only does Darryl like Kelly, he also says exactly what he's thinking and calls her on her crazy while still liking her. My love for Darryl grew three sizes during this episode, and it was already pretty large.
* Toby, among his other heroic properties, is a grammar superhero!
* Not all of the spending was Jan's, and while Michael should have known better, I have a certain amount of sympathy for someone who can't resist buying the Muppet Show on DVD.
* Andy's seduction is deeply weird, stalkery, and evil, but Angela seems to mistake a certain kind of strange intensity for romance. Of course the cat worked.
I've suspected from the beginning of the season that this CSI casting spoiler was coming, and between the icky torture porn in the season opener and the way the show's tilted away from wackiness-as-a-window-into-human-frailty and towards just wacky, I might be kicking CSI to the curb.
But I am definitely done with Bionic Woman. Ten minutes into this week's episode, I wandered off to do dishes, and I never came back, and that's a sign. Not even Katee Sackhoff and Miguel Ferrer can overcome the deadly combination of Michelle Ryan's non-presence and Isaiah Washington's smarminess. (And, really, I tend to try to separate the actor from the character, but in this case, they're both insufferable.)
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I have been absolutely inundated with catalogs over the past week, and I'm giving the Catalog Choice service a try to see if I can't get off some mailing lists. I order everything online, and I just hate the idea of wasting that much paper.
* * * * *
ETA: and I just learned it's scrubschick's birthday. Happy birthday!
I am so glad it's Friday, and this weekend, I am crossing my fingers that nothing explodes.
* * * * *
TV Roundup:
I haven't done much more than clap quietly with delight over Pushing Daisies, but I do want to mention one thing I really loved about this week's episode, which was the way Emerson's fury over Chuck's presence derives from so many sources. On the one hand, he's cranky because Chuck is interfering with the smoothly functional deal he's developed with Ned. On another, Chuck's behavior with the bodies is unprofessional, and Emerson likes to do things the way he likes to do things. But most of all, Emerson could have been the one to die, since he was at the funeral home too, and he's rightly appalled by the price Ned and Chuck both seemed to be willing to pay for her life. And that is, especially, why I'm glad they made that price the issue of this week's episode, because in this, as in most things, Emerson is right.
The Office 4.04 - "Money"
The show is drawing more and more explicit parallels between the two office romances--Pam and Jim's, Dwight and Angela's--especially when Jim went into that stairwell and confessed to Dwight that he knew what Dwight was going through, he'd been there too. They're entirely different people, but in this, they can relate. And remembering that, he has to go kiss Pam right then, to appreciate what he has; the two office romances are on opposite ends of a see-saw, one in the air while the other is in the dirt.
Because Pam and Jim can relate, and because they're innately curious and sure it will lead to wackiness, they spend a night at the B&B--it is not, as Jim confesses, the way he always imagined his first night away with Pam, but at least he got his bedtime story. (And I'm pretty sure that Mose dogging the car as they pulled in, and the shot of Dwight rocking on the porch, were visual references to Deliverance, which was just excellent.) It gives us a chance to see them interact outside the office, where Jim and Dwight have a very different dynamic, Jim more tolerant, Dwight more friendly, or at least more customer service-oriented. Pam is very much on Dwight's side in the whole Dwight/Andy/Angela mess, and Dwight knows it, because he saw her trying to talk Andy out of his seduction plans. He looks to her when he sees that cat in the box, as someone who can understand what that means. Dwight is just so broken--the moaning at night while he clutches the stolen cherub, the keening in the stairwell--and it's heartbreaking. Despite what Jim told Dwight, I think Pam actually understands what Dwight is going through better; she was the one who tried so hard with Jim last year, and had to face the constant rejection. Jim's experience was more dramatic and contained, the one play for the relationship, the one no, and then he left for Stanford, he wasn't coming in every day to face the constant little reminders and humiliations. When Dwight shoved the pile of file folders off Jim's desk, it was a wonderfully iconic moment, Dwight's acknowledgment of their strange moment of sympathy, his desire to restore the old equilibrium of their relationship, his determination to pull himself together and return to normal.
For all that I loved those parts of the episode, the Jan stuff is making me increasingly cranky. I can buy that Michael is old-fashioned enough to want to shield Jan from their financial situation; spineless enough not to be able to say no to her; clueless enough to believe that he can somehow magically fix the situation if he makes enough cold calls for weight loss pills, or takes financial advice from Creed (!!!!!); heartbroken when the house of cards comes tumbling down. But I just can't buy that Jan, with all of her previous business experience and a number of years as a self-sufficient adult, could be in such crazy denial that she couldn't appreciate the concept that if you spend money, you have to have the money to spend. If the writers want to make her that messed up, in that much denial, they have to really sell it, not just make her so inexplicably clueless. I wish she was more, I don't know, intelligently messed up; I don't have a good bead on what's going on in her head, a lot of her behavior has been really situational. It was particularly sad when Oscar, bless his heart, tried to actually give Michael some sound financial advice, and ended up giving Jan more credit for being smart than the show has. Although I did like that the confrontation happened over speakerphone, just like old times, and that it might have tested the limits of when Jan can get away with blaming Michael for her problems.
Other things that I loved:
* We have objective proof that Ryan sucks: he wants everyone to use PowerPoint.
* Stanley, drawing the line at how much of his soul he'll sacrifice to Dunder Mifflin, being utterly PISSED at even hearing Michael's voice in his home at night.
* OMG KELLY AND DARRYL. At first, I wasn't sure how much of their flirtation was sincere and how much of it was both of them wanting to stick it to Ryan (and surely, there are worse reasons to flirt!), but it turns out that not only does Darryl like Kelly, he also says exactly what he's thinking and calls her on her crazy while still liking her. My love for Darryl grew three sizes during this episode, and it was already pretty large.
* Toby, among his other heroic properties, is a grammar superhero!
* Not all of the spending was Jan's, and while Michael should have known better, I have a certain amount of sympathy for someone who can't resist buying the Muppet Show on DVD.
* Andy's seduction is deeply weird, stalkery, and evil, but Angela seems to mistake a certain kind of strange intensity for romance. Of course the cat worked.
I've suspected from the beginning of the season that this CSI casting spoiler was coming, and between the icky torture porn in the season opener and the way the show's tilted away from wackiness-as-a-window-into-human-frailty and towards just wacky, I might be kicking CSI to the curb.
But I am definitely done with Bionic Woman. Ten minutes into this week's episode, I wandered off to do dishes, and I never came back, and that's a sign. Not even Katee Sackhoff and Miguel Ferrer can overcome the deadly combination of Michelle Ryan's non-presence and Isaiah Washington's smarminess. (And, really, I tend to try to separate the actor from the character, but in this case, they're both insufferable.)
* * * * *
I have been absolutely inundated with catalogs over the past week, and I'm giving the Catalog Choice service a try to see if I can't get off some mailing lists. I order everything online, and I just hate the idea of wasting that much paper.
* * * * *
ETA: and I just learned it's scrubschick's birthday. Happy birthday!