"I can't tell you how much leftover guacamole I've ended up eating over the years?"
Now I know what I'm making for Thanksgiving: Pear Gruyere Pie, inspired by Pushing Daisies (DAMN YOU, ABC!!). Minus, obviously, the herbal antidepressants.
I'm still woefully behind on watching TV, much less posting on it; work has been crazy, and lately has included a lot of night-time phone calls. I really do not appreciate the introduction of so many night-time conference calls into my schedule just when I'm trying to have more of a social life, but that's a rant for another day. And then this weekend I ended up helping D. try out bicycles for Mrs. D.'s Christmas present, since we're about the same height, and there was much riding around in the minivan (!) while Barney played in the back seat (!!), and general baby-wrangling by me (!!!). While we were eating dinner, our server hilariously remarked on the children's resemblance to their father (i.e. not me) and I fetched a pacifier off the floor approximately 20,000 times. The five second rule applies to those things, right?!? D. swore up and down that it was one of the least dodgy things that end up in the baby's mouth. Anyway, yes, the excitement never stops around here.
* * * * *
The Office 5.06 - "Customer Survey"
I found it totally believable that Dwight didn't score well on the customer survey because customers find him abrasive, and not that surprising that customers would find Jim smug. They certainly can be. But we've seen talk to customers before ("Traveling Salesman"), and that's the way they are with each other and the other people in the office, not with customers, and that should have been more of a tip-off to me than it was. Because while Dwight is not only abrasive but incredibly paranoid, he was also right: Kelly set them up to avenge their blowing off her party. (Oh Kelly, you are so petty, but surprisingly effective.) I adore the fact that although they're often at each other's throats, Jim and Dwight are actually very alike in some ways; maybe that's part of the reason they don't get along. And neither of them wanted to go to Kelly's dumb party, and neither of them was particularly subtle about it to her.
Even better, though, is the fact that Kelly won't face any consequences, because Michael knows exactly how it feels to get blown off. Dunder Mifflin wouldn't be the same unique work environment without that horribly perverse set of incentives; the more desperate your behavior, the more likely it is that Michael has walked a mile in your moccasins, and is ready to over-identify.
And speaking of perverse, I don't know if I can even speculate on what Angela and Dwight are doing, setting the wedding at Schrute Farms. It's like the proverbial rock; you know there's something crawling under there before you turn it over. The minute she started naming specifics about the barn, I knew where that was going. I guess it feeds Dwight's innate competitiveness to plan the wedding, to make it exactly what he and Angela would want it to be. But Dwight, buddy. You're still not the groom.
I also question the wisdom of staying hooked to your SO via bluetooth all day, but I think Jim and Pam did too, once Jim got to overhear Alex's speech about how if Pam really wanted to pursue art, she'd stay in New York. Because Alex is right, and they both know it, and it's something they've resolutely not been talking about to each other. When they're both there for it, they can't pretend it didn't happen.
The Office 5.07 - Business Trip
I always get a little worried about Michael when he gets too excited about something, because he's like a little kid on a sugar high, blissfully unaware that the crash is coming. So as adorable as his excitement over his INTERNATIONAL business trip to Canada was, I was sort of watching it through my hands from the beginning. He was seeing it all through his Michael-colored glasses--the "pampering" in business class, the exciting opportunity to go to Winnipeg in November, the hookup with exotic Concierge Marie--until she shattered it all by kicking him out afterwards and he had to do the walk of shame, and face up to what he was really doing. Oh Michael. He didn't even care that he'd made a huge sale; that was an afterthought. And I love that the blurring of the lines between business and personal wasn't just happening on Michael's end, that David Wallace has gotten pulled into the dynamic too. He needed someone to go to Winnipeg in November, but he also thought the trip might cheer Michael up, and assuage his own guilt. And Michael, in turn, wouldn't let him get away with that comfortable narrative: his rant on the phone about how the trip had sucked and, more importantly, David had taken Holly away from him, was brutal, as true as it was completely inappropriate.
Everybody's making bad decisions in this episode, bad decisions accompanied by outbursts of honesty. Michael sleeps with Concierge Marie. Kelly breaks up with Darryl, after explaining exactly why she shouldn't break up with Darryl because Ryan's a creep who's using her. Andy and Oscar bond over Long Island iced teas and their puzzlement over what's wrong with Angela, and Andy actually manages to ask her. Too bad he didn't remember it; he and Oscar were adorable together, and Andy seems much more sympathetic and layered when he's being a genuine friend, not the smarmy frat version of "friend" that he learned somewhere (probably Cornell) would get people to like him.
I was crushed that Pam quit art school. And as excited as Jim was to see her, I thought he was a little worried too. Jim's in this relationship for the long term; he always has been, since he started mooning after her while she was with Roy, biding his time, trying to win her over with pranks and teapots. As hard as it was for him to swallow three more months of separation, I think he's been thinking this entire time of what it would mean to be the man Pam gave up her dreams for, to carry that weight around with him through all of their years together. But I don't think Pam came back for him; I think she came back knowing he was there for her, and that she at least knows what she's doing with him, and that her life at Dunder Mifflin is something she understands. I think she hit a roadblock, and lost her courage, and Jim is her crutch in ways neither she nor he really understand. And that breaks my heart in an entirely different way, because I hate to see her limiting herself like that, and I know that Jim is going to want to do whatever she wants, in this as in everything else.
The Office 5.08 - "Frame Toby"
YAY! Toby's back! And I'll bet he's really sorry. I don't know who's worse: Michael, for trying to frame Toby with a $500 caprese salad and then being horrified when real cops with real guns showed up, or Dwight, who helped with the plan but actually understood that real cops with real guns were going to show up, and thought that was perfectly fine.
But then, this episode was even more full of trainwrecky personal decisions, of people getting caught up in the flow and not knowing when to stop, than the last one. Oh Kelly. Breaking up with Darryl via Ryan's text message was bad enough; agreeing to Ryan's demand for cold hard cash and one last romp before he goes off to Thailand with buddies from a high school with a dazed "Okay" is worse; she looked like she didn't have the first clue what had hit her, even through this is her second trip on this particular roller coaster, even though she called it going in. But Jim buying his parents' house for him and Pam without telling her had a weirdly surreal quality; such an impulsive thing to do, such a big decision, and it cements Pam's return to Scranton in ways I'm not sure either of them are truly ready for. I can't say it was entirely out of character; Jim is, as I said, in it for the long haul, always thinking about the future; this is the guy who bought an engagement ring the first week he and Pam started dating. And the fact that his first renovation is to carve out a space for her and her art says something; I think that's why Pam wasn't more freaked out by it in the end, why she chose to embrace Jim's excitement. I'm just not convinced it will last.
As a side note, I deeply love that when we see the places the characters on this show live, they aren't large and clean and furnished with some set designer's conception of middle class by way of Hollywood. Jim's old house, where he lived with his roommate, was an essential 80s ranch house. Michael's condo has all of the pseudo-high-end fixtures and tiny rooms and bland, cheap construction that those developments have. And Jim's parent's house is old and weird, and on his paper salesman's salary, he doesn't have the money to do much besides chip away at the worst of it in the beginning.
* * * * *
Babylon 5 3.12 - "A Late Delivery From Avalon"
Stephen continues his rampage as Worst Doctor Ever. I'm pretty sure that confronting a man who believes he's King Arthur with his true identity as a solder on board the ship that accidentally started the Earth-Minbari war was not sound medical practice. In some ways, berating himself after the fact for pushing Logan "Arthur" too hard makes it worse, because yep, that was totally his fault, and totally predictable. I did like the way David McIntyre transmuted one accidentally provoked conflict into another, though, and like that it makes more sense of the war, not as a piece of Earth aggression against an overwhelmingly superior force, but as a stupid mistake. That's very human.
Garibaldi's conflict with the postal service in the B plot was mildly amusing, but also neat because it outlined the way station functions are continuing, on an ad hoc basis, now that the connection to Earth government has been severed. No one knows if the situation is permananet; no one knows how long it will last; in the meantime, they're trying to earn enough money to run in a self-sufficient way, and adhere to the old structure until the need arises to replace it.
Babylon 5 3.13 - "Ship of Tears"
I get a little thrill when I see Walter Koenig's name in the credits now; it seems like Bester episodes tend to be complex and unpredictable, and Bester himself is a breath of snarky air. This fight is making for some very strange bedfellows, and compelling some profound personal transformations.
For example, I did not expect G'Kar to react with such circumspection to Delenn's confession that the conspirators knew about the Shadows before they attacked his homeworld; he's still angry, and he doesn't forgive, but he can bring himself to move past his emotional reaction and understand the wider picture, to see the small gain that goes with the great loss, in the thin, marginal survival of some fraction of his people. And he did not cut his hand open once to make a point! He's really grown as a person and, less facetiously, has earned his place on the council, among others who have to think before they act, because the consequences of all of their actions are so enormous.
And Bester is on their side now, for both personal and political reasons. The Shadows threaten his plans for PsyCorps domination of Earth; Clark sending telepaths as ritual sacrifices to run Shadow ships is a direct threat to the people he considers his own; that one of the telepaths is his lover and is carrying his child makes the fight personal to a much greater degree. And I think one thing we've seen over the course of the past couple of seasons is that you do not mess with Bester lightly.
The evidence that telepaths might be a weapon against the Shadows is drawn from a lot of places and a lot of events, most of which we've already been dealing with for some time--the lack of Narn telepaths, Bester's machinations, the secret PsyCorps facility on Mars, the legends of the last Shadow invasion in the Book fo G'Quan. Hooray for continuity!
Babylon 5 3.15 - "Interludes and Examinations"
It's both astonishing and sad that Londo still believes he exercises any control over what Morden will do. Astonishing because Londo is a bureaucratic maneuverer of the first rank, and knows power when he sees it; sad because he so openly shows everyone with eyes how important Adira is to him, and gets her killed. He's not the guiding hand, he's the tool; but that's something that's so contrary to his own vision of himself that he can't take it in, can't imagine the possibility of further manipulation, and puts himself in Morden's hands again. Oh Londo. Just when G'Kar is putting aside his anger and need for revenge so that he can join the greater battle, Londo is embracing both of those things with all his might, and moving further into the dark.
Sheridan faces the unenviable and difficult and absolutely crucial task of convincing a bunch of non-aligned worlds that are afraid of becoming the next target that if they don't stand together, the Shadows will be able to pick them off easily. That extends to the Vorlons; the Teeth get very testy with Kosh, because they're convinced that everyone must do everything they can at this moment to stem the tide. It must be a convincing argument--or at least, Kosh might be convinced that Sheridan is ready for the consequences--because the Vorlons act, and Morden kills him (or does he?!?).
In the meantime, Stephen continues his rampage as Worst Doctor Ever some more, and apparently needs a blood test to tell him that he's addicted to stims, because the rage fits and patient endangering behavior weren't enough of a warning sign. Garibaldi, on the other hand, is the Best Friend Ever.
Babylon 5 3.16 - "War Without End Part 1"
I was actually ridiculously excited to see Sinclair again. That lasted for about 5 seconds, until he opened his mouth and I received the first of many painful remainders that man, Michael O'Hare just cannot act AT ALL. And on top of that, he was blinking to excess throughout the episode, like he had problems with his contact lenses or was trying to tell us something in Morse code. Disturbing.
Anyway. Despite the blinking, I was still excited to see Sinclair, because it meant that time is folding in on itself and the events of "Babylon Squared" that were set in motion in the future of that episode are happening now. It was so great that Zathras's weird behavior when he first saw Sinclair was finally explained--Zathras is a terrible liar! Beyond that, I don't have a ton to say about this episode, other than that the glimpses of a future attack on Babylon 5 are intriguing, but even more so is the idea that the Minbari actually stole Babylon 4, and that it was the decisive piece that tipped the balance in the last war against the shadows. All of that was in the past, and is in the future, and they have to make it happen. Hooray for continuity and twisty, loopy time travel plots! It's so exciting to see all of these pieces coming together like this.
How sad is it, though, that Garibaldi and Sinclair totally missed each other?
* * * * *
It's a little ridiculous, since I just got back from a vacation, but I am really looking forward to a couple of days off. As glad as I am to have a job now that layoffs are hitting the valley, things have been making me a little stabby lately.
I'm still woefully behind on watching TV, much less posting on it; work has been crazy, and lately has included a lot of night-time phone calls. I really do not appreciate the introduction of so many night-time conference calls into my schedule just when I'm trying to have more of a social life, but that's a rant for another day. And then this weekend I ended up helping D. try out bicycles for Mrs. D.'s Christmas present, since we're about the same height, and there was much riding around in the minivan (!) while Barney played in the back seat (!!), and general baby-wrangling by me (!!!). While we were eating dinner, our server hilariously remarked on the children's resemblance to their father (i.e. not me) and I fetched a pacifier off the floor approximately 20,000 times. The five second rule applies to those things, right?!? D. swore up and down that it was one of the least dodgy things that end up in the baby's mouth. Anyway, yes, the excitement never stops around here.
* * * * *
The Office 5.06 - "Customer Survey"
I found it totally believable that Dwight didn't score well on the customer survey because customers find him abrasive, and not that surprising that customers would find Jim smug. They certainly can be. But we've seen talk to customers before ("Traveling Salesman"), and that's the way they are with each other and the other people in the office, not with customers, and that should have been more of a tip-off to me than it was. Because while Dwight is not only abrasive but incredibly paranoid, he was also right: Kelly set them up to avenge their blowing off her party. (Oh Kelly, you are so petty, but surprisingly effective.) I adore the fact that although they're often at each other's throats, Jim and Dwight are actually very alike in some ways; maybe that's part of the reason they don't get along. And neither of them wanted to go to Kelly's dumb party, and neither of them was particularly subtle about it to her.
Even better, though, is the fact that Kelly won't face any consequences, because Michael knows exactly how it feels to get blown off. Dunder Mifflin wouldn't be the same unique work environment without that horribly perverse set of incentives; the more desperate your behavior, the more likely it is that Michael has walked a mile in your moccasins, and is ready to over-identify.
And speaking of perverse, I don't know if I can even speculate on what Angela and Dwight are doing, setting the wedding at Schrute Farms. It's like the proverbial rock; you know there's something crawling under there before you turn it over. The minute she started naming specifics about the barn, I knew where that was going. I guess it feeds Dwight's innate competitiveness to plan the wedding, to make it exactly what he and Angela would want it to be. But Dwight, buddy. You're still not the groom.
I also question the wisdom of staying hooked to your SO via bluetooth all day, but I think Jim and Pam did too, once Jim got to overhear Alex's speech about how if Pam really wanted to pursue art, she'd stay in New York. Because Alex is right, and they both know it, and it's something they've resolutely not been talking about to each other. When they're both there for it, they can't pretend it didn't happen.
The Office 5.07 - Business Trip
I always get a little worried about Michael when he gets too excited about something, because he's like a little kid on a sugar high, blissfully unaware that the crash is coming. So as adorable as his excitement over his INTERNATIONAL business trip to Canada was, I was sort of watching it through my hands from the beginning. He was seeing it all through his Michael-colored glasses--the "pampering" in business class, the exciting opportunity to go to Winnipeg in November, the hookup with exotic Concierge Marie--until she shattered it all by kicking him out afterwards and he had to do the walk of shame, and face up to what he was really doing. Oh Michael. He didn't even care that he'd made a huge sale; that was an afterthought. And I love that the blurring of the lines between business and personal wasn't just happening on Michael's end, that David Wallace has gotten pulled into the dynamic too. He needed someone to go to Winnipeg in November, but he also thought the trip might cheer Michael up, and assuage his own guilt. And Michael, in turn, wouldn't let him get away with that comfortable narrative: his rant on the phone about how the trip had sucked and, more importantly, David had taken Holly away from him, was brutal, as true as it was completely inappropriate.
Everybody's making bad decisions in this episode, bad decisions accompanied by outbursts of honesty. Michael sleeps with Concierge Marie. Kelly breaks up with Darryl, after explaining exactly why she shouldn't break up with Darryl because Ryan's a creep who's using her. Andy and Oscar bond over Long Island iced teas and their puzzlement over what's wrong with Angela, and Andy actually manages to ask her. Too bad he didn't remember it; he and Oscar were adorable together, and Andy seems much more sympathetic and layered when he's being a genuine friend, not the smarmy frat version of "friend" that he learned somewhere (probably Cornell) would get people to like him.
I was crushed that Pam quit art school. And as excited as Jim was to see her, I thought he was a little worried too. Jim's in this relationship for the long term; he always has been, since he started mooning after her while she was with Roy, biding his time, trying to win her over with pranks and teapots. As hard as it was for him to swallow three more months of separation, I think he's been thinking this entire time of what it would mean to be the man Pam gave up her dreams for, to carry that weight around with him through all of their years together. But I don't think Pam came back for him; I think she came back knowing he was there for her, and that she at least knows what she's doing with him, and that her life at Dunder Mifflin is something she understands. I think she hit a roadblock, and lost her courage, and Jim is her crutch in ways neither she nor he really understand. And that breaks my heart in an entirely different way, because I hate to see her limiting herself like that, and I know that Jim is going to want to do whatever she wants, in this as in everything else.
The Office 5.08 - "Frame Toby"
YAY! Toby's back! And I'll bet he's really sorry. I don't know who's worse: Michael, for trying to frame Toby with a $500 caprese salad and then being horrified when real cops with real guns showed up, or Dwight, who helped with the plan but actually understood that real cops with real guns were going to show up, and thought that was perfectly fine.
But then, this episode was even more full of trainwrecky personal decisions, of people getting caught up in the flow and not knowing when to stop, than the last one. Oh Kelly. Breaking up with Darryl via Ryan's text message was bad enough; agreeing to Ryan's demand for cold hard cash and one last romp before he goes off to Thailand with buddies from a high school with a dazed "Okay" is worse; she looked like she didn't have the first clue what had hit her, even through this is her second trip on this particular roller coaster, even though she called it going in. But Jim buying his parents' house for him and Pam without telling her had a weirdly surreal quality; such an impulsive thing to do, such a big decision, and it cements Pam's return to Scranton in ways I'm not sure either of them are truly ready for. I can't say it was entirely out of character; Jim is, as I said, in it for the long haul, always thinking about the future; this is the guy who bought an engagement ring the first week he and Pam started dating. And the fact that his first renovation is to carve out a space for her and her art says something; I think that's why Pam wasn't more freaked out by it in the end, why she chose to embrace Jim's excitement. I'm just not convinced it will last.
As a side note, I deeply love that when we see the places the characters on this show live, they aren't large and clean and furnished with some set designer's conception of middle class by way of Hollywood. Jim's old house, where he lived with his roommate, was an essential 80s ranch house. Michael's condo has all of the pseudo-high-end fixtures and tiny rooms and bland, cheap construction that those developments have. And Jim's parent's house is old and weird, and on his paper salesman's salary, he doesn't have the money to do much besides chip away at the worst of it in the beginning.
* * * * *
Babylon 5 3.12 - "A Late Delivery From Avalon"
Stephen continues his rampage as Worst Doctor Ever. I'm pretty sure that confronting a man who believes he's King Arthur with his true identity as a solder on board the ship that accidentally started the Earth-Minbari war was not sound medical practice. In some ways, berating himself after the fact for pushing Logan "Arthur" too hard makes it worse, because yep, that was totally his fault, and totally predictable. I did like the way David McIntyre transmuted one accidentally provoked conflict into another, though, and like that it makes more sense of the war, not as a piece of Earth aggression against an overwhelmingly superior force, but as a stupid mistake. That's very human.
Garibaldi's conflict with the postal service in the B plot was mildly amusing, but also neat because it outlined the way station functions are continuing, on an ad hoc basis, now that the connection to Earth government has been severed. No one knows if the situation is permananet; no one knows how long it will last; in the meantime, they're trying to earn enough money to run in a self-sufficient way, and adhere to the old structure until the need arises to replace it.
Babylon 5 3.13 - "Ship of Tears"
I get a little thrill when I see Walter Koenig's name in the credits now; it seems like Bester episodes tend to be complex and unpredictable, and Bester himself is a breath of snarky air. This fight is making for some very strange bedfellows, and compelling some profound personal transformations.
For example, I did not expect G'Kar to react with such circumspection to Delenn's confession that the conspirators knew about the Shadows before they attacked his homeworld; he's still angry, and he doesn't forgive, but he can bring himself to move past his emotional reaction and understand the wider picture, to see the small gain that goes with the great loss, in the thin, marginal survival of some fraction of his people. And he did not cut his hand open once to make a point! He's really grown as a person and, less facetiously, has earned his place on the council, among others who have to think before they act, because the consequences of all of their actions are so enormous.
And Bester is on their side now, for both personal and political reasons. The Shadows threaten his plans for PsyCorps domination of Earth; Clark sending telepaths as ritual sacrifices to run Shadow ships is a direct threat to the people he considers his own; that one of the telepaths is his lover and is carrying his child makes the fight personal to a much greater degree. And I think one thing we've seen over the course of the past couple of seasons is that you do not mess with Bester lightly.
The evidence that telepaths might be a weapon against the Shadows is drawn from a lot of places and a lot of events, most of which we've already been dealing with for some time--the lack of Narn telepaths, Bester's machinations, the secret PsyCorps facility on Mars, the legends of the last Shadow invasion in the Book fo G'Quan. Hooray for continuity!
Babylon 5 3.15 - "Interludes and Examinations"
It's both astonishing and sad that Londo still believes he exercises any control over what Morden will do. Astonishing because Londo is a bureaucratic maneuverer of the first rank, and knows power when he sees it; sad because he so openly shows everyone with eyes how important Adira is to him, and gets her killed. He's not the guiding hand, he's the tool; but that's something that's so contrary to his own vision of himself that he can't take it in, can't imagine the possibility of further manipulation, and puts himself in Morden's hands again. Oh Londo. Just when G'Kar is putting aside his anger and need for revenge so that he can join the greater battle, Londo is embracing both of those things with all his might, and moving further into the dark.
Sheridan faces the unenviable and difficult and absolutely crucial task of convincing a bunch of non-aligned worlds that are afraid of becoming the next target that if they don't stand together, the Shadows will be able to pick them off easily. That extends to the Vorlons; the Teeth get very testy with Kosh, because they're convinced that everyone must do everything they can at this moment to stem the tide. It must be a convincing argument--or at least, Kosh might be convinced that Sheridan is ready for the consequences--because the Vorlons act, and Morden kills him (or does he?!?).
In the meantime, Stephen continues his rampage as Worst Doctor Ever some more, and apparently needs a blood test to tell him that he's addicted to stims, because the rage fits and patient endangering behavior weren't enough of a warning sign. Garibaldi, on the other hand, is the Best Friend Ever.
Babylon 5 3.16 - "War Without End Part 1"
I was actually ridiculously excited to see Sinclair again. That lasted for about 5 seconds, until he opened his mouth and I received the first of many painful remainders that man, Michael O'Hare just cannot act AT ALL. And on top of that, he was blinking to excess throughout the episode, like he had problems with his contact lenses or was trying to tell us something in Morse code. Disturbing.
Anyway. Despite the blinking, I was still excited to see Sinclair, because it meant that time is folding in on itself and the events of "Babylon Squared" that were set in motion in the future of that episode are happening now. It was so great that Zathras's weird behavior when he first saw Sinclair was finally explained--Zathras is a terrible liar! Beyond that, I don't have a ton to say about this episode, other than that the glimpses of a future attack on Babylon 5 are intriguing, but even more so is the idea that the Minbari actually stole Babylon 4, and that it was the decisive piece that tipped the balance in the last war against the shadows. All of that was in the past, and is in the future, and they have to make it happen. Hooray for continuity and twisty, loopy time travel plots! It's so exciting to see all of these pieces coming together like this.
How sad is it, though, that Garibaldi and Sinclair totally missed each other?
* * * * *
It's a little ridiculous, since I just got back from a vacation, but I am really looking forward to a couple of days off. As glad as I am to have a job now that layoffs are hitting the valley, things have been making me a little stabby lately.