"We're not some deep space franchise!"
I've had to deal with some major upheaval at work recently, and so of course now is the perfect time to embark on a few time-consuming and potentially expensive home improvement projects! I don't have a lot of control over the timing, since my tenants are moving out at the end of the month, and the place must be made ready for new tenants, and some of the work is just much easier to do when it's empty down there. Still, I always feel like I'm entering an alternate universe when I deal with contractors, a place where flakiness, just showing up when you feel like it, and oversharing of intensely personal divorce stories as a part of an estimate negotiation (TRUE STORY) are not considered unprofessional behavior but rather are just a part of doing business.
Other bullet points of me:
* * * * *
Babylon 2.14 - "There All the Honor Lies"
This episode was much less about the main actors, much more about Lennier and Vir and their motivation to serve--which turns out to be family, in different ways. (I am starting to think that the Centauri built a vast empire because they were all trying to get away from their families. From what we've seen of Centauri families, the desire does not seem unreasonable.) Lennier does what he does best, working quietly in the background to finesse the outcome of the situation; and the plot to set Sheridan up for murder reveals not only some of the arcane customs and loyalties of Minbari clans but also the ways in which individual Minbari continue to resist the peace with Earth, to think that the surrender was a bad idea and Sheridan is a monster, and the way revenge operates as a powerful engine in this show, churning past events into present violence and preparing the ground for future conflict. The resolution of this conflict was a little too pat, because Lennier was easily able to find a way to satisfy his clan honor while maintaining his loyalty to Delenn and her mission, and by extension, to the survival of the status quo on Babylon 5; I will be interested to see what kinds of choices he makes when he can't have it all, though I have my suspicions.
Earth Dome does not seem to need much prompting to throw Sheridan under the bus, especially since Sheridan's own reputation--the one that got him the job--worked against him here; even worse, they inflicted Julie Caitlin Brown on him as an abrasive and unpleasant lawyer who stalks around issuing orders and making smug pronouncements, and I spent most of her scenes trying to differentiate her performance from some things I've seen in autograph lines at Dragon*Con.
Vir's B-plot was much less urgent, but he's also trying to balance duty to family with what he sees as his own duty to the greater situation, because he knows his service to Londo is staining his soul, but Londo needs him; he is the tiny angel sitting on one of Londo's shoulders. And leaving is a failure, an acknowledgment that his family is right, that his position is too important now for him to fill. Londo, to his credit, continues to be drawn to truthtellers in his personal relationships: to the wife who won't suck up, to Garibaldi's skeptical friendship, to Vir's grudging and complaining obedience.
The gift shop C plot was fairly silly, and made me think of the scene in the BSG miniseries where Tyrol's crew has to kick over the velvet ropes and plastic Cylon statues in the gift shop on the Galactica flight pod, but it was all worth it for Londo's reaction to his action figure, and for a brief sighting of Keffer (HI KEFFER!), whose presence in the credits continues to mystify and intrigue me.
Babylon 5 2.15 - "And Now for a Word"
I was really rooting for Cynthia Torqueman to meet with a gruesome death. Alas, it was not to be. SO ANNOYING. Intentionally, deliberately annoying, representative of a certain brand of self-satisfied jingoism, but still. Annoying.
Still, it's always fun to get the outsider's view of the situation: Ivanova closed-off and self-conscious; Garibaldi unfailingly, unconsciously professional; Sheridan putting a hopeful gloss on everything for the cameras, and deploying the Teeth like never before; Stephen being... Stephen. And Cynthia was also an effective window into conventional wisdom on Earth: the mention of former Senator Hideyoshi, Clark's popularity and his establishment of some distinctly fascist-sounding new agencies to manage public opinion, the Psi Corps recruiting aggressively, Earth turning inward and questioning the utility of Babylon 5's mission, and the frightening overconfidence on display in her smug reminder that Earth had won the Earth-Minbari war, as if the surrender had anything to do with Earth, as if it was a signal of Earth's might that can be applied to any other situation going forward.
It is incredibly difficult to watch Londo lie and bluster, use Babylon 5's neutrality as a cover and turn around and use those same diplomatic conventions to try to keep others from searching the Centauri ships, dare everyone else to make an incident. It's even more unbearable to see him blithely rewriting the history of the Centauri conquest of the Narn homeworld as a benevolent project, after we've just heard G'Kar describe his father's death, the personal history that fuels his anger and determination. This show does a very interesting balancing act, because all of the main non-human actors are parts of cultures that are diverse, that have fractured viewpoints and internal arguments, and yet Londo and G'Kar so utterly encapsulate the heart of the conflict between the Narn and the Centauri, the self-centered imperial ambition on one side and the bitter and often justified hatred on the other. Of course Sheridan and Garibaldi think Babylon's mission is worth it; the station exerts only the barest influence on any of the actors (it couldn't stop the Centauri from blockading; it couldn't stop the Narn cruiser from destroying the Centauri ship), but there's no other place where they're even talking to each other. And of course Londo thinks it's worth it, because he's working the rules. And of course G'Kar doesn't know, because at this level of interplanetary relations, might and right are, if not the same thing, then closely linked, and the Narn are losing.
* * * * *
Is it Friday yet?!? Someone at my company decided to do us the huge favor of revamping one of the tools we use so that it has all of these Awesome! New! Features! We don't actually use any of the awesome new features, and we didn't actually want any of the awesome new features, but it now takes five times longer to do a routine task that I have to do regularly, so I'm feeling fairly homicidal.
Other bullet points of me:
- I caught Flashpoint's first episode this week, and thought the show chose an interesting structure for its introduction, because the hostage crisis was over quickly, and the tension revolved around the fact that the unit had failed. The bad guy was dead and the hostage was alive but that's still not a win, not the outcome they all really want, because the bad guy wasn't really bad, just someone who had gone off the deep end, someone who was still mourned. Also, as an echo to what pellucid said, I liked the strong sense of place, the fact that the show is unabashedly set in Toronto. I get the sense that urban geography is going to be important, because the squad has to use the location of the crisis as a tool in its strategy, and I'm glad they aren't trying to remake Toronto into some generic American location, that the place gets to be a part of the story.
- I also ended up zipping through the first half of the second season of Slings and Arrows, and FROGHAMMER. Oh Richard, so eager to do the right thing, so uncertain of what that thing is, so desperate for others to give him the answers. His storyline this season and last is a slow-moving trainwreck; one gets the dizzying sensation of events spinning out of control so slowly and gradually, of decisions that make sense at the time, in isolation, gathering together and rolling downhill, picking up momentum and volume, while the quiet Swiss village New Burbage festival goes about its business in the valley below, never suspecting what's about to hit it. Also, Geoffrey and Ellen break my heart; it seems to me that they're too much alike in some ways and that scares them, that intensity they see in each other, and Oliver's ghost comes between them in part not because Geoffrey is talking to him, but because he won't share it with her. Also, "It's a very difficult play to stage effectively" seems to be this season's "I am not mentally equipped for the task at this time." Hee.
- The season opener for Burn Notice was fun and fluffy, but somehow less intense than last year; it felt in some ways like an episode of playing catch-up for new viewers. But I think we can safely add Jeffrey Donovan to the Gallery of Bad Accents. That was supposed to be Australian, right?
- I've been out every evening this week, so I'm hoping Dr. Horrible's Singalong Blog will still be up this weekend. Otherwise, I might have to do something crazy like get up extra early tomorrow morning.
- I'm still trying to decide whether to go to the Farscape convention in Burbank in November. I suspect the various breakfast and cocktail and autograph tickets have sold out, which isn't really an issue for me, because I don't actually want to interact with any of the actors. But would the actual convention sell out? I think I'm going to need to see how much the house stuff is going to cost before I make any solid plans.
- I am currently unable to delete any messages in my LJ message box. Interesting! Is it me or as the site been unusually wonky in the past few days, even setting aside the mysterious downtime a couple of nights ago?
- molly_may's hilarious X-Files Season 4 picspam makes me glad the show is moving up in my Netflix queue, if for no other reason than that I'd like to know what the heck is going on over there.
- In conclusion, SHARK WEEK!
* * * * *
Babylon 2.14 - "There All the Honor Lies"
This episode was much less about the main actors, much more about Lennier and Vir and their motivation to serve--which turns out to be family, in different ways. (I am starting to think that the Centauri built a vast empire because they were all trying to get away from their families. From what we've seen of Centauri families, the desire does not seem unreasonable.) Lennier does what he does best, working quietly in the background to finesse the outcome of the situation; and the plot to set Sheridan up for murder reveals not only some of the arcane customs and loyalties of Minbari clans but also the ways in which individual Minbari continue to resist the peace with Earth, to think that the surrender was a bad idea and Sheridan is a monster, and the way revenge operates as a powerful engine in this show, churning past events into present violence and preparing the ground for future conflict. The resolution of this conflict was a little too pat, because Lennier was easily able to find a way to satisfy his clan honor while maintaining his loyalty to Delenn and her mission, and by extension, to the survival of the status quo on Babylon 5; I will be interested to see what kinds of choices he makes when he can't have it all, though I have my suspicions.
Earth Dome does not seem to need much prompting to throw Sheridan under the bus, especially since Sheridan's own reputation--the one that got him the job--worked against him here; even worse, they inflicted Julie Caitlin Brown on him as an abrasive and unpleasant lawyer who stalks around issuing orders and making smug pronouncements, and I spent most of her scenes trying to differentiate her performance from some things I've seen in autograph lines at Dragon*Con.
Vir's B-plot was much less urgent, but he's also trying to balance duty to family with what he sees as his own duty to the greater situation, because he knows his service to Londo is staining his soul, but Londo needs him; he is the tiny angel sitting on one of Londo's shoulders. And leaving is a failure, an acknowledgment that his family is right, that his position is too important now for him to fill. Londo, to his credit, continues to be drawn to truthtellers in his personal relationships: to the wife who won't suck up, to Garibaldi's skeptical friendship, to Vir's grudging and complaining obedience.
The gift shop C plot was fairly silly, and made me think of the scene in the BSG miniseries where Tyrol's crew has to kick over the velvet ropes and plastic Cylon statues in the gift shop on the Galactica flight pod, but it was all worth it for Londo's reaction to his action figure, and for a brief sighting of Keffer (HI KEFFER!), whose presence in the credits continues to mystify and intrigue me.
Babylon 5 2.15 - "And Now for a Word"
I was really rooting for Cynthia Torqueman to meet with a gruesome death. Alas, it was not to be. SO ANNOYING. Intentionally, deliberately annoying, representative of a certain brand of self-satisfied jingoism, but still. Annoying.
Still, it's always fun to get the outsider's view of the situation: Ivanova closed-off and self-conscious; Garibaldi unfailingly, unconsciously professional; Sheridan putting a hopeful gloss on everything for the cameras, and deploying the Teeth like never before; Stephen being... Stephen. And Cynthia was also an effective window into conventional wisdom on Earth: the mention of former Senator Hideyoshi, Clark's popularity and his establishment of some distinctly fascist-sounding new agencies to manage public opinion, the Psi Corps recruiting aggressively, Earth turning inward and questioning the utility of Babylon 5's mission, and the frightening overconfidence on display in her smug reminder that Earth had won the Earth-Minbari war, as if the surrender had anything to do with Earth, as if it was a signal of Earth's might that can be applied to any other situation going forward.
It is incredibly difficult to watch Londo lie and bluster, use Babylon 5's neutrality as a cover and turn around and use those same diplomatic conventions to try to keep others from searching the Centauri ships, dare everyone else to make an incident. It's even more unbearable to see him blithely rewriting the history of the Centauri conquest of the Narn homeworld as a benevolent project, after we've just heard G'Kar describe his father's death, the personal history that fuels his anger and determination. This show does a very interesting balancing act, because all of the main non-human actors are parts of cultures that are diverse, that have fractured viewpoints and internal arguments, and yet Londo and G'Kar so utterly encapsulate the heart of the conflict between the Narn and the Centauri, the self-centered imperial ambition on one side and the bitter and often justified hatred on the other. Of course Sheridan and Garibaldi think Babylon's mission is worth it; the station exerts only the barest influence on any of the actors (it couldn't stop the Centauri from blockading; it couldn't stop the Narn cruiser from destroying the Centauri ship), but there's no other place where they're even talking to each other. And of course Londo thinks it's worth it, because he's working the rules. And of course G'Kar doesn't know, because at this level of interplanetary relations, might and right are, if not the same thing, then closely linked, and the Narn are losing.
* * * * *
Is it Friday yet?!? Someone at my company decided to do us the huge favor of revamping one of the tools we use so that it has all of these Awesome! New! Features! We don't actually use any of the awesome new features, and we didn't actually want any of the awesome new features, but it now takes five times longer to do a routine task that I have to do regularly, so I'm feeling fairly homicidal.