Tuesday miscellany
The Sarah Connor Chronicles 1.01 - "Pilot" and 1.02 - "Gnothi Seauton"
When the pilot of this show first leaked, I lightly skimmed some reactions, trying to get a sense of whether I'd want to watch the show without picking up any specific details, and someone--I really wish I could remember who, because I think this is an extremely smart observation, and want to give credit where it's due--posted about how the show is not about men, that its central characters are a single mother and an adolescent boy and a (female) robot and there are no commanding adult male presences, and how unusual that is. Now that I've seen the first two episodes, I'm struck by how central that unusual structure is to both the plot and the emotional resonance of the story. Sarah and John Connor, a poor single mother and an adolescent boy, are marginal members of society, people who cannot assume any level of credibility with institutions of power, people without privilege. They have no hope of harnessing official resources, not just because of Sarah's background, but because they won't be listened to and taken seriously. Cameron, it strikes me, would never think of enlisting help--her entire being was crafted by outsiders, and she understands the fight as an outside movement, and on top of that, she's a machine, someone who has a tenuous grasp at best on the subtleties of passing for human, and she looks like a harmless young woman, someone who also won't be taken seriously.
The marginalization of the core characters, then, plays neatly into the show's central source of tension, which is that they're running and hiding not only from killer robots from the future, but from the mainstream authority structure of the present, and that, as Sarah has drilled into John, no one is ever safe. They exist entirely on the outside, and have no one to rely on but themselves. I think the first two episodes did a terrific job of driving that home, in the twin manhunts of the FBI and the terminator, and in the way Cameron gets noticed and hassled by the police for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and something as innocuous as an Internet search is a dangerous thing for John to do, and even the other marginal elements Sarah has relied on in the past, like Enrique (HI BRA'TAC!) and his gang-member nephew, who exist on the fringes themselves, are unreliable, more plugged in than she is. And establishing that permeating sense of paranoia, making it a credible reaction for the characters and a visceral one in the audience, is, I think, crucial to making the show's premise and plotting work.
The other thing that made it work, for me, is that while the (non-robot) characters are all human, they--at least so far--have mostly not made choices I found to be unbelievably foolish. Cameron doesn't always share the right information because she doesn't understand the way people think, and sometimes makes bad assumptions because of that lack. John chafes at the extraordinarily restrictions his mother places on him like any teenage boy would, but at the same time he respects them, and he respects her, and when he sneaks out, he's also terrified of the consequences, and gets away with it this time, and doesn't take it as an invitation to more reckless rebellion. (I do think the search for his name was foolish, but I don't think it was entirely out of character for a teenager who both has been drilled with a sense of destiny and has jumped into the future.) Sarah is visibly tired of running, and just as visibly determined never to stop--I liked the way her decision to leave Nebraska and a potential engagement was both part of the overarching pattern she'd established and a secretly welcome fatal blow to a relationship that could have been dangerously comfortable--and using the same alias twice comes across as more an exhausted slip. Sarah in particular comes across as deeply competent, but not a superwoman--she's crafted herself into what she is out of desperation and love, but she's still making it up as she goes along, and is all too aware of the consequences of a wrong decision. I don't remember the movies that well, but the characterization here struck me as in tune with what I remembered of Linda Hamilton's Sarah Connor. I also think there's the potential for some interesting conflict between what Cameron, the machine, considers necessary and expedient, and what Sarah does, because Sarah has hardened herself, but maybe not as much as she thinks she needs--that scene over Enrique's body, Cameron having shot him because she knew Sarah wouldn't, was an interesting moment. Sarah and Cameron represent two very different kinds of toughness.
The pilot in particular is jerky in parts, and the voiceovers work on my last nerve; there were a few anvils, and I'm not sure some of the details stand up to strong scrutiny. But I really enjoyed the show's atmosphere, and the way it's liberally sprinkled with little character moments, so I'm eager to see whatever else has been filmed.
This is an interesting contrast between TSCC and Bionic Woman. via Jezebel.com
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I had oyako donburi for lunch today, and was delicious, and is also ridiculously easy to make, so I thought I'd post the recipe.
Oyako Donburi - Chicken and Egg Over Rice
The fun thing about this dish--besides how easy it is to make--is that its name ("mother and child rice bowl") is so gruesome. You're eating the whole family! Mmm, delicious.
This recipe is for a single serving, and it works well to cook a single serving in a small saucepan. If you're making more than one serving, tradition dictates that you cook each serving individually to achieve perfect texture and let the eggs set in a round shape that fits neatly into a donburi bowl. To hell with that, I say. I've had good luck making multiple servings in a skillet, which gives you more surface area for cooking the egg to the proper thickness, and dividing it with a spatula.
A note on ingredients: Mitsuba (trefoil) is fairly hard to come by outside of Japanese grocery stores and some farmer's markets; green onion is a pretty common alternative. I've also had good luck substituting spinach, to make it more of a one-pot meal, though that's definitely not traditional. Mirin (a sweet, not-very-alcoholic rice cooking wine) and nori sheets are both pretty commonly available in stores that stock a decent selection of sushi supplies or Asian foods; mirin is a Japanese kitchen staple second only to soy sauce. Because Eden, a well-established natural foods brand, makes organic mirin, you can often find it at natural food stores large and small (many Whole Paychecks carry Eden mirin, for example). You can make an acceptable substitute by mixing two parts sake to one part sugar.
* 4 ounces chicken breast or thigh, cut into thin, bite-sized pieces
* 1/4 onion, sliced thinly
* 1/3 cup water
* 1 1/2 tablespoons soy sauce
* 1 1/2 tablespoons mirin
* 1 teaspoon sugar
* 3-4 stalks mitsuba OR two green onions, green parts only, cut into 1-inch lengths OR a scant handful washed baby spinach leaves
* 1 egg, beaten with chopsticks until blended but not foamy
* 1/4 sheet toasted nori
* Plain, steamed white rice
Combine the chicken, onion slices, water, soy sauce, mirin, and sugar in a pan and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer until the chicken is cooked, the onions are translucent, and the liquid has reduced and thickened slightly, about 10 minutes.
Add the mitsuba or green onion or spinach and let simmer another 30 seconds, until wilted. Stir all of the ingredients so that they're evenly distributed around the pan, then pour the egg in a thin stream over the entire surface. Cover the pan and lower the heat and let gently simmer for a minute or two, until the egg is set but still soft.
Scoop steamed rice into a large bowl. If you have made multiple servings, divide them using the side of a spatula. Gently slide the chicken and egg mixture, with its broth, over the rice. Crumble the nori on top.
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- Aww, poor Sad Kermit.
- When I was sick a couple of weekends ago, I caught 3/4ths of an episode of Torchwood on BBC America, and that was Owen? Seriously?!? Isn't he supposed to be some kind of compelling lady-killer? I didn't hear his name until a ways into the episode, and I kept expecting some magnetic, ambiguous Owen guy to show up. As it is, he's so weasel-faced and un-charming, and he looks like someone you'd report immediately for hanging around an elementary school playground, because you'd normally never even think about calling the police on random strangers, but there's something about this guy that's really not right. In the episode I saw, he was having some kind of unconvincing love affair with a pilot from the past who I guess broke his heart or something--at least he made a funny face when she left, like someone had stepped on his toe. I did like Gwen--she seemed to have personality and empathy--but Jack was a total non-entity, and the episode seemed to be making a statement about changing sexual mores, but not in a good way, more in a 10th-grade-book-report-thesis kind of way. We'll be continuing to give this one a pass.
- Note to self: take the headphones OFF before standing up and charging off to a meeting, or risk getting yanked back to your desk by the cord like something out of a Wile E. Coyote cartoon while co-workers point and laugh.
