Oh look, a post!
It's time for me to admit to myself that posting is a habit, and like all habits, it needs active reinforcement. Thinking "oh, hey, I should post about X" and then not doing it is not active reinforcement. And a busy work schedule is not an excuse, since I always have a busy work schedule.
So... let's talk about TV! Work has been super busy, but I had some time over the holidays to watch some old shows and some really old shows.
* * * * *
The X-Files 2.01 - "Little Green Men"
* Uh, if the Arecibo project was shut down, who's paying the power bill that allows the receiver to pick up a new signal? I know, I know, I shouldn't bother...
* Aw! Mulder's routine wiretap assignment and Scully's autopsy student teasing her for her spooky musings are so sad! So is the fact that Scully had to arrange a sneaky meeting in the Watergate parking garage to find out how Mulder's doing, knowing he'd take the bait only because it was so clandestine. And so is Mulder needing solid evidence, because he learned that from Scully! And so is the massive infodump Scully is then forced to deliver, but that's a different kind of sad.
* Wow, the actor they found to play young Fox Mulder really does look like an adolescent David Duchovney. I wonder how much it contributes to Mulder's fucked-upness when it comes to Samantha's disappearance that they were bickering right before she was taken.
* Innnnteresting. Mulder has something of a patron in the Senate, although his influence is limited. And the Senator seems quite paranoid about people listening.
* Cigarette Smoking Man is a Marlboro Reds man. He must have the grossest lungs ever.
* I love how crafty and cool Scully is about slipping the transmission printout out of Mulder's apartment and losing her tail at the airport. Also, it is almost plausible that she does feed Mulder's fish when he's gone. It's less plausible that Mulder rises to even the fish level of pet ownership responsibility, though. I mean, he doesn't have what you'd call a regular schedule.
* For some reason, Mulder admitting that he doesn't know what he'd do with aliens if he actually found them reminds me a lot of Murphy chasing squirrels.
* Even more interesting! Skinner and Cigarette Smoking Man have a difference of opinion, and Skinner's supporting Mulder! Oh wait, I'm supposed to be ignoring the mytharc. Sometimes it's hard to remember that. Never mind. It's not interesting at all! No sirree.
* Of course the tape is blank. But aw, Mulder has his work, and Scully, and himself. I love the way she briefly clutches his hand in sympathy as he goes back to listening to his wretched, boring surveillance tapes again.
The X-Files 2.02 - "The Host"
* The first sign of danger is massive toilet problems on the Russian ship. This is a sure sign of grossness to come. (See also "Tooms.")
* We then move on to a body in a sewer in Newark. Mulder's elation at being pulled off the godawful boring surveillance by Skinner is short-lived. Slight mitigating factor: Skinner contains multitudes, and it's a special homicide. Mitigating factor to the mitigating factor: did you really have to bust into Skinner's meeting to find that out, Mulder? You're already on thin-enough ice.
* OMG, Mulder and Scully are totally flirting!
* AAAAAH! Worm in the dead Russian sailor's liver! This episode is rapidly going from gross to grosser.
* AAAAAAAAAAAH! A sewer worker attacked! While repairing a suspiciously man-sized hole in the sewer grating! Hey, it's a very young Aaron Doral.
* Aw, it is almost like old times, Mulder trying to figure out if there's a giant flatworm attacking people in the sewers and Scully scoffing. Although Mulder loses points for passive-aggressively asking Scully if she told anybody else about their conversation at the Watergate.
* AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! The sewer worker just spit up a bloody fluke! Why is he continuing to take a shower instead of calling 911????
* Maybe it takes a lot to startle the employees of the Newark sewer system? The manager seems surprisingly unphased by the idea that there might be a bunch of giant flukes--or whatever else could have bred down there in the last 100 years--in his system.
* AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! It's a giant MAN/FLUKE.
* AND IT'S HIDING OUT IN A PORTA-POTTY.
* And now porta-potty servicing is a major plot point, and the dialogue includes the words "deposit their loads."
* I would be more relieved that the man/fluke got cut in half if I didn't know that some flukes can regenerate missing parts after bisection. Also, this episode is basically about a TOILET MONSTER.
* In conclusion, Chernobyl did it. Wait, what?
The X-Files 2.03 - "Blood"
* William Sanderson! Aw, he's getting fired from his shitty mail-sorting job. I appreciate the mail-sorting machine's correct use of the apostrophe when it tells him to kill 'em all.
* Okay, now it's the elevator, and the guy actually does it. I like that we don't see the mayhem, just the aftermath--the elevator with the bloody, smeared handprint.
* Hm! This small town is having quite the spike in murders.
* William Sanderson seems to be showing a lot of restraint compared to the other people going apeshit at the behest of their electronics in this episode. Destroyed electronic devices were found at all of the murder scenes, Mulder notes on his clunky, primitive laptop.
* Also, the woman who attacks Mulder had a high level of adrenaline that might have combined with a "plant-based" chemical found on her finger to produce a substance like LSD.
* Speaking of LSD, the Lone Gunmen! Frohicky is really obsessed with Scully, and seems to think he might have a chance. Also, they know about an experimental pesticide. Of course.
* "He's probably one of those people that thinks Elvis is dead." Oh Mulder.
* That thing I said about William Sanderson showing restraint? Never mind!
* As a side note, it seems like one of the show's strengths so far is the way many episodes center around one-off characters with complicated motives, played by great actors who can really sell those characters. Sanderson's performance here is great; I also really like the way they shoot the clock tower, emphasizing its verticality and the Esheresque geometry of its stairwell.
* So in the end, Mulder thinks that it was a combination of the pesticide and subliminal messages. I don't think the question is ever really answered definitively, though. I'm also not clear that Mulder stopping William Sanderson's incipient shooting spree actually fixed the problem. In short, I am still confused at the end of the episode.
The X-Files 2.04 - "Sleepless"
* Hm! Dr. Grissom saw and felt the fire, but there wasn't actually a fire. Which is probably just as well, since apparently he keeps his fire extinguisher on the top shelf of a closet, buried under a bunch of crap, and it takes him agonizingly long time to dig it out.
* Tony Todd!
* Great. Now instead of actually working on the X-Files, Mulder and Scully are receiving assignments via tabloids slipped under their doors.
* So that's Krycheck! He looks like he's about 12 years old. Which explains why he fell for Mulder's "why don't you fill us out a car requisition" routine.
* Aw, Mulder saves the autopsy for Scully. He only wants HER autopsies.
* Dr. Grissom worked for a sleep clinic that's working on a therapy that involves manipulating dreams. Dun dun DUN.
* Aw. Mulder and Scully just drink each other in in the autopsy room, over the corpse. (I am vastly entertained by how much of Scully we see over a partly taken-apart dead body--it's such a nice, gruesome, practical statement about her.) Krychek's just the third wheel. He says things like like "But there was no fire!" and Mulder and Scully just ignore him as they review the evidence that the man had all of the secondary but none of the primary signs of death by fire, whether or not it makes sense.
* Aieeee. Grissom was doing experiments to make a sleepless soldier, and Cole hasn't slept for 24 years. That is utterly horrifying. I say that as an insomniac; I can imagine few things worse. And Mulder's new "friend" in the FBI is not much less horrifying.
* AAAAH! The blue computer screen reflecting on Scully's round glasses made her look like Kevin from Sin City for a second there.
* The conspiracy has tapped Scully's office phone, right? Because that would be a goldmine. She and Mulder don't seem to feel any compunctions about discussing sensitive topics over that line.
* Mulder's theory: something something stimulating frontal cortexes, something something tapping into the collective unconscious to manipulate other people. Moving on.
* Because the wonderfully layered, ambiguous ending is much more interesting! Krychek tells Mulder he wants to believe; that he isn't as skeptical as Scully. Mulder seems to know that that's exactly what he'd want to hear, and maybe Krychek knows that too. Does Krychek shoot Cole because he thought Cole was going to shoot Mulder? Or because he didn't want to leave any loose X-File ends around? And does Mulder reassure Krychek that he did the right thing sincerely, or to throw him off the scent?
* Of course Mulder and Scully's files were stolen. Of course.
* I'm surprised we find out this early on that Krychek's a mole. That seems like something they could have strung out for a while. And wow, he does not like Scully.
* * * * *
I have just started the 5th season of Homicide. It's an interesting study in the early days of arc-based television. I thought Seasons 2 and 3 were some of the finest television I've ever seen, because the characters were so unvarnished in both their triumphs and their failures. I spend a lot of time wanting to punch Beau, and yet watching him fall apart after he screwed up his marriage was wrenching all the same. I adored the glimpse we got into Howard's background, and how it made her what she is, and how what she is is so much larger at the same time. Really, I love all of them, but most of all Pembleton and his prickly, rigid adherence to what he thinks is right, and how it lives alongside his awareness that he is all too fallible. Season 4 was pretty good, but I think I detected the wheels starting to fall off, or at least the awareness of the network that they had a hit on their hands, and the subsequent stunt casting and the beginning of the sidelining of the actors who aren't television-level pretty. Crosetti's departure was at least explained; his suicide had long-felt reverberations. I am less pleased with Bolander's disappearance. Season 5 seems slicker still, and the scale is bigger: instead of the small-time shootings that dominated the first few seasons, and that dominated the book, there is a school hostage situation, and a prison riot. The continuity nerd in me does appreciate the reappearance of suspects of old in the prison riot, though. And most of all, Andre Braugher's portrayal of Frank Pembleton post-stroke is nothing short of brilliant. I hope he won all of the awards.
There have been a couple of episodes in the past two seasons that focused on the intersection of Baltimore's drug corners and the homicide squad--one was written by Simon himself--that provide hints of the underlying economy of the corner, and of the survival tactics of the people who live around it. If they are signs of what The Wire will become, I'm looking forward to it more than ever.
* * * * *
asta77 and I have been rewatching Angel with 50mm, who has not seen it before, and holy crap! The middle of Season 3 is really a slog the second time through. I remember it being a little slow and disjointed the first time I watched these episodes, and even then I remembered that some of the developments came out of nowhere (Angel/Cordelia primarily, but also Gunn/Fred, and Angel's plot-adjacent sudden fiscal concern in "Provider," and even Cordelia taking on demon aspects to save herself from the headaches seems to come out of nowhere, which is quite a feat considering they'd been setting up the problem with the headaches since the beginning of the season at least). It was honestly pretty hard to get through "Waiting in the Wings" without a lot of snark and some hands over the eyes. But I think at least 50% of the problem is that while these elements are problematic on their own, and the plotting of this streak of episodes is particularly weak, they are all also harbingers and foundations for most of what goes completely off the rails about the show in the near future. In particular, we're nearing the end of Cordelia as a likable, recognizable character, and I am starting to miss her already.
* * * * *
I caught the pilot for Fairly Legal this weekend, too. I don't know if I have any more space in my life for another wacky caper/procedural show (although TiVO is apparently forgetting to record all of my other USA season passes, so maybe I do?). But I must say that I enjoyed--to a ridiculous degree--the fact that the show is not only set in San Francisco, but also actually filmed here! And they made really good use of the city's gorgeous architecture and scenery, and in particular the interior of City Hall. I will pass over the ridiculous coffee-drinking in Union Square (who actually hangs out in that park besides the statue-people and the tourists?) because I know there are limits on where crews can film exteriors. I think the last show that used the city setting so extensively was Nash Bridges, so this is really a step up. On the other hand, Sarah Shahi's character's shoes are ridiculous for a city where at least some walking is required to get around, and I assume they cut the part of the episode where she spent time in the emergency room after walking over a sidewalk grating. And I say that as someone who basically wears 3" heels everywhere.
* * * * *
And finally, the random bits:
And now, an afternoon full of meetings. Bleargh.
This entry was originally posted at http://danceswithwords.dreamwidth.org/151452.html (
comments). Comment at either site.
So... let's talk about TV! Work has been super busy, but I had some time over the holidays to watch some old shows and some really old shows.
* * * * *
The X-Files 2.01 - "Little Green Men"
* Uh, if the Arecibo project was shut down, who's paying the power bill that allows the receiver to pick up a new signal? I know, I know, I shouldn't bother...
* Aw! Mulder's routine wiretap assignment and Scully's autopsy student teasing her for her spooky musings are so sad! So is the fact that Scully had to arrange a sneaky meeting in the Watergate parking garage to find out how Mulder's doing, knowing he'd take the bait only because it was so clandestine. And so is Mulder needing solid evidence, because he learned that from Scully! And so is the massive infodump Scully is then forced to deliver, but that's a different kind of sad.
* Wow, the actor they found to play young Fox Mulder really does look like an adolescent David Duchovney. I wonder how much it contributes to Mulder's fucked-upness when it comes to Samantha's disappearance that they were bickering right before she was taken.
* Innnnteresting. Mulder has something of a patron in the Senate, although his influence is limited. And the Senator seems quite paranoid about people listening.
* Cigarette Smoking Man is a Marlboro Reds man. He must have the grossest lungs ever.
* I love how crafty and cool Scully is about slipping the transmission printout out of Mulder's apartment and losing her tail at the airport. Also, it is almost plausible that she does feed Mulder's fish when he's gone. It's less plausible that Mulder rises to even the fish level of pet ownership responsibility, though. I mean, he doesn't have what you'd call a regular schedule.
* For some reason, Mulder admitting that he doesn't know what he'd do with aliens if he actually found them reminds me a lot of Murphy chasing squirrels.
* Even more interesting! Skinner and Cigarette Smoking Man have a difference of opinion, and Skinner's supporting Mulder! Oh wait, I'm supposed to be ignoring the mytharc. Sometimes it's hard to remember that. Never mind. It's not interesting at all! No sirree.
* Of course the tape is blank. But aw, Mulder has his work, and Scully, and himself. I love the way she briefly clutches his hand in sympathy as he goes back to listening to his wretched, boring surveillance tapes again.
The X-Files 2.02 - "The Host"
* The first sign of danger is massive toilet problems on the Russian ship. This is a sure sign of grossness to come. (See also "Tooms.")
* We then move on to a body in a sewer in Newark. Mulder's elation at being pulled off the godawful boring surveillance by Skinner is short-lived. Slight mitigating factor: Skinner contains multitudes, and it's a special homicide. Mitigating factor to the mitigating factor: did you really have to bust into Skinner's meeting to find that out, Mulder? You're already on thin-enough ice.
* OMG, Mulder and Scully are totally flirting!
* AAAAAH! Worm in the dead Russian sailor's liver! This episode is rapidly going from gross to grosser.
* AAAAAAAAAAAH! A sewer worker attacked! While repairing a suspiciously man-sized hole in the sewer grating! Hey, it's a very young Aaron Doral.
* Aw, it is almost like old times, Mulder trying to figure out if there's a giant flatworm attacking people in the sewers and Scully scoffing. Although Mulder loses points for passive-aggressively asking Scully if she told anybody else about their conversation at the Watergate.
* AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! The sewer worker just spit up a bloody fluke! Why is he continuing to take a shower instead of calling 911????
* Maybe it takes a lot to startle the employees of the Newark sewer system? The manager seems surprisingly unphased by the idea that there might be a bunch of giant flukes--or whatever else could have bred down there in the last 100 years--in his system.
* AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! It's a giant MAN/FLUKE.
* AND IT'S HIDING OUT IN A PORTA-POTTY.
* And now porta-potty servicing is a major plot point, and the dialogue includes the words "deposit their loads."
* I would be more relieved that the man/fluke got cut in half if I didn't know that some flukes can regenerate missing parts after bisection. Also, this episode is basically about a TOILET MONSTER.
* In conclusion, Chernobyl did it. Wait, what?
The X-Files 2.03 - "Blood"
* William Sanderson! Aw, he's getting fired from his shitty mail-sorting job. I appreciate the mail-sorting machine's correct use of the apostrophe when it tells him to kill 'em all.
* Okay, now it's the elevator, and the guy actually does it. I like that we don't see the mayhem, just the aftermath--the elevator with the bloody, smeared handprint.
* Hm! This small town is having quite the spike in murders.
* William Sanderson seems to be showing a lot of restraint compared to the other people going apeshit at the behest of their electronics in this episode. Destroyed electronic devices were found at all of the murder scenes, Mulder notes on his clunky, primitive laptop.
* Also, the woman who attacks Mulder had a high level of adrenaline that might have combined with a "plant-based" chemical found on her finger to produce a substance like LSD.
* Speaking of LSD, the Lone Gunmen! Frohicky is really obsessed with Scully, and seems to think he might have a chance. Also, they know about an experimental pesticide. Of course.
* "He's probably one of those people that thinks Elvis is dead." Oh Mulder.
* That thing I said about William Sanderson showing restraint? Never mind!
* As a side note, it seems like one of the show's strengths so far is the way many episodes center around one-off characters with complicated motives, played by great actors who can really sell those characters. Sanderson's performance here is great; I also really like the way they shoot the clock tower, emphasizing its verticality and the Esheresque geometry of its stairwell.
* So in the end, Mulder thinks that it was a combination of the pesticide and subliminal messages. I don't think the question is ever really answered definitively, though. I'm also not clear that Mulder stopping William Sanderson's incipient shooting spree actually fixed the problem. In short, I am still confused at the end of the episode.
The X-Files 2.04 - "Sleepless"
* Hm! Dr. Grissom saw and felt the fire, but there wasn't actually a fire. Which is probably just as well, since apparently he keeps his fire extinguisher on the top shelf of a closet, buried under a bunch of crap, and it takes him agonizingly long time to dig it out.
* Tony Todd!
* Great. Now instead of actually working on the X-Files, Mulder and Scully are receiving assignments via tabloids slipped under their doors.
* So that's Krycheck! He looks like he's about 12 years old. Which explains why he fell for Mulder's "why don't you fill us out a car requisition" routine.
* Aw, Mulder saves the autopsy for Scully. He only wants HER autopsies.
* Dr. Grissom worked for a sleep clinic that's working on a therapy that involves manipulating dreams. Dun dun DUN.
* Aw. Mulder and Scully just drink each other in in the autopsy room, over the corpse. (I am vastly entertained by how much of Scully we see over a partly taken-apart dead body--it's such a nice, gruesome, practical statement about her.) Krychek's just the third wheel. He says things like like "But there was no fire!" and Mulder and Scully just ignore him as they review the evidence that the man had all of the secondary but none of the primary signs of death by fire, whether or not it makes sense.
* Aieeee. Grissom was doing experiments to make a sleepless soldier, and Cole hasn't slept for 24 years. That is utterly horrifying. I say that as an insomniac; I can imagine few things worse. And Mulder's new "friend" in the FBI is not much less horrifying.
* AAAAH! The blue computer screen reflecting on Scully's round glasses made her look like Kevin from Sin City for a second there.
* The conspiracy has tapped Scully's office phone, right? Because that would be a goldmine. She and Mulder don't seem to feel any compunctions about discussing sensitive topics over that line.
* Mulder's theory: something something stimulating frontal cortexes, something something tapping into the collective unconscious to manipulate other people. Moving on.
* Because the wonderfully layered, ambiguous ending is much more interesting! Krychek tells Mulder he wants to believe; that he isn't as skeptical as Scully. Mulder seems to know that that's exactly what he'd want to hear, and maybe Krychek knows that too. Does Krychek shoot Cole because he thought Cole was going to shoot Mulder? Or because he didn't want to leave any loose X-File ends around? And does Mulder reassure Krychek that he did the right thing sincerely, or to throw him off the scent?
* Of course Mulder and Scully's files were stolen. Of course.
* I'm surprised we find out this early on that Krychek's a mole. That seems like something they could have strung out for a while. And wow, he does not like Scully.
* * * * *
I have just started the 5th season of Homicide. It's an interesting study in the early days of arc-based television. I thought Seasons 2 and 3 were some of the finest television I've ever seen, because the characters were so unvarnished in both their triumphs and their failures. I spend a lot of time wanting to punch Beau, and yet watching him fall apart after he screwed up his marriage was wrenching all the same. I adored the glimpse we got into Howard's background, and how it made her what she is, and how what she is is so much larger at the same time. Really, I love all of them, but most of all Pembleton and his prickly, rigid adherence to what he thinks is right, and how it lives alongside his awareness that he is all too fallible. Season 4 was pretty good, but I think I detected the wheels starting to fall off, or at least the awareness of the network that they had a hit on their hands, and the subsequent stunt casting and the beginning of the sidelining of the actors who aren't television-level pretty. Crosetti's departure was at least explained; his suicide had long-felt reverberations. I am less pleased with Bolander's disappearance. Season 5 seems slicker still, and the scale is bigger: instead of the small-time shootings that dominated the first few seasons, and that dominated the book, there is a school hostage situation, and a prison riot. The continuity nerd in me does appreciate the reappearance of suspects of old in the prison riot, though. And most of all, Andre Braugher's portrayal of Frank Pembleton post-stroke is nothing short of brilliant. I hope he won all of the awards.
There have been a couple of episodes in the past two seasons that focused on the intersection of Baltimore's drug corners and the homicide squad--one was written by Simon himself--that provide hints of the underlying economy of the corner, and of the survival tactics of the people who live around it. If they are signs of what The Wire will become, I'm looking forward to it more than ever.
* * * * *
asta77 and I have been rewatching Angel with 50mm, who has not seen it before, and holy crap! The middle of Season 3 is really a slog the second time through. I remember it being a little slow and disjointed the first time I watched these episodes, and even then I remembered that some of the developments came out of nowhere (Angel/Cordelia primarily, but also Gunn/Fred, and Angel's plot-adjacent sudden fiscal concern in "Provider," and even Cordelia taking on demon aspects to save herself from the headaches seems to come out of nowhere, which is quite a feat considering they'd been setting up the problem with the headaches since the beginning of the season at least). It was honestly pretty hard to get through "Waiting in the Wings" without a lot of snark and some hands over the eyes. But I think at least 50% of the problem is that while these elements are problematic on their own, and the plotting of this streak of episodes is particularly weak, they are all also harbingers and foundations for most of what goes completely off the rails about the show in the near future. In particular, we're nearing the end of Cordelia as a likable, recognizable character, and I am starting to miss her already.
* * * * *
I caught the pilot for Fairly Legal this weekend, too. I don't know if I have any more space in my life for another wacky caper/procedural show (although TiVO is apparently forgetting to record all of my other USA season passes, so maybe I do?). But I must say that I enjoyed--to a ridiculous degree--the fact that the show is not only set in San Francisco, but also actually filmed here! And they made really good use of the city's gorgeous architecture and scenery, and in particular the interior of City Hall. I will pass over the ridiculous coffee-drinking in Union Square (who actually hangs out in that park besides the statue-people and the tourists?) because I know there are limits on where crews can film exteriors. I think the last show that used the city setting so extensively was Nash Bridges, so this is really a step up. On the other hand, Sarah Shahi's character's shoes are ridiculous for a city where at least some walking is required to get around, and I assume they cut the part of the episode where she spent time in the emergency room after walking over a sidewalk grating. And I say that as someone who basically wears 3" heels everywhere.
* * * * *
And finally, the random bits:
- Why 3D doesn't work and never will, by a guy who knows what he's talking about. (It's a little more sophisticated than my kneejerk response, which is: I can't really put another pair of glasses over the pair of glasses I need to see.)
- The most emailed New York Times article ever. Only funny if you've ever read a New York Times trend piece before.
- Speaking of the New York Times, its Disunion blog is blogging the American Civil War as it unfolded 150 years ago.
- I checked Dorothy Dunnett's The Game of Kings out from the library recently, but turned it back in after about 300 pages. I know her Lymond Chronicles is much-loved, and I can even see why--the story is complicated, expects the readers to keep up, and introduces characters with complex and often only partially-glimpsed motivations. I think what tripped me up is her style, which is so distinct, and must be a selling point to many people, but which I did not enjoy at all. Instead, I am reading Hillary Mantel's Wolf Hall, which has all of the crunchy bits--brilliant people maneuvering against sweeping historical backdrops, shadowy motivations, the inevitability of known history looming over it all--and absolutely loving it. It's very pastiche-y, a collection of little moments that accumulate, and Mantel has a wonderful eye for little period details that make the setting snap.
- Razzie nominations are out.
And now, an afternoon full of meetings. Bleargh.
This entry was originally posted at http://danceswithwords.dreamwidth.org/151452.html (
comments). Comment at either site.