Friday's Stargate Tuesday
Happy birthday addicted2goo!
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I had a nasty throat infection this weekend and yesterday, and spent a lot of the time sleeping, feeling like crap, and being antisocial, so now I'm back at work, trying to catch up on email, trying to catch up on LJ, and my tonsils are no longer the size of grapefruit, so yay.
And in the meantime, I was very pleased with 50% of the Stargate franchise on Friday.
Stargate 10.03 - "The Pegasus Project"
* How long does the trip to the Pegasus Galaxy take? Because that's a long time for an underoccupied Vala to be stuck in a confined space. There's fic gold in them thar hills. Gah, I wish I could write fiction. Anyway, I like how chummy she is with both Cameron and Daniel now, though, and just the air of friendliness between the whole team. They're sliding her into the team quite nicely without making her quite one of them yet.
* Also nice-that Daniel's first sight of Atlantis gets the weight it deserves, and that the rest of them appreciate what this means for him.
* This episode has all kinds of nice continuity too! (Wow, I am ridiculously easy to please with this show.) The episode with the black hole was a very good one, too.
* I already said this to asta77, but I'll say it again here-I think this crossover is indicative of a serious problem with the Atlantean half of the franchise, because the collective IQ on Atlantis went up about 200 points during this crossover. The Atlanteans made risky but pragmatic decisions after weighing the options. They were all tremendously competent and likeable. I finally-finally!-saw the McShep. On the wrong show. And a Wraith ship menaced, and people problem-solved and dealt with it--without getting a bunch of random people killed. Why haven't they been able to do any of these things recently on their own show? I am seriously confounded by this.
* Rodney continues to pour on the charm. I can't believe he actually told Sam about his little fantasy session with her. No, wait, I totally can. Amanda Tapping absolutely nailed the facial expressions in this scene, the sliding combinations of disbelief and ew and more disbelief and ew.
* I feel like I missed some exposition-where did they get the gate they were using over the black hole?
* They've done some really pretty FX work this year.
* Teal'c really did not have much to do in this episode, which is too bad. I can't believe they can make Christopher Judge's voice go deeper than it already does. That is scary.
* I love how skeptical Daniel is of the Ancients at this point. He has so much reason to be.
* Heh. Cam threatening Rodney with citrus was cheap humor but amusing. What's especially amusing is that Sheppard tipped him off to the trick but, judging by Rodney's reaction, never used it himself. Once again-seeing the McShep on the wrong show.
* What Morgan Le Fay is doing seems an awful lot like interfering. I like the way Vala tries to piece together the rules under which the Ancients say they operate, and the ways they deviate from them. She has a direct interest in trying to understand it-it all comes back to trying to understand what happened to her, and Adria. And I especially like Daniel's growing conviction that the rules are arbitrary and unfair and not worth consideration.
* Slingshot maneuver, eh?
* There's something very symmetrical about Daniel discovering his ultimate disenchantment with the ascended Ancients in their city--they won't help them, the humans are alone, he's come full circle from admiration to complete loss of faith.
SGA 3.03 - "Irresistible"
* I am once again confused about the timing between the two series. I'm assuming this takes place some time after SG-1 returns to Earth.
* If a character has a cold in the first act, it will be a plot point by the third act. Because otherwise, television characters are magically healthy. DUH.
* Between the two shows, they're sure getting a lot of mileage out of that village set.
* This episode starts out with a mission that goes so smoothly that something is shriekingly, obviously wrong.
* Wait--they're just scooping up gates from random places based on an educated guess that they're not being used? That seems kind of-dodgy and colonial or something. I mean, they're making an assumption, based on what they know, that nobody is depending on those gates being there, but it's just that: an assumption.
* Okay, I am now at the point with this show that it needs to actively convince me that the characters don't deserve every bit of trouble they encounter due to their own bad judgment. This episode is not really reassuring on that front.
* That is one phallic goard-candle combination.
* Well, at least they have a couple of qualms about grabbing gates. Sort of.
* Yeah, John's not affected because he can't smell, because he has a cold. *yawn*
* I just really wonder about the writers on this show. This is obviously meant as a lighthearted romp, so I shouldn't be deeply ooked by the way they're treating what amounts to prolonged removal of sexual consent from a number of women, and the clearly hinted at potential for same with Elizabeth and Teyla, as a joke. And yet, I am.
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Book report, mostly for my own benefit.
Europe Central by William T. Vollmann
Like most of his novels, this is an ambitious book, an examination of two totalitarian powers from the runup to World War II to its aftermath. I agree with the cover blurb that this is probably Vollmann's most accessible work to date. He's not always an easy writer, fond of running with tics in diction and vocabulary and typography, and of repeating those tics with a rhythm reminiscent of Homeric similes, using them as shorthand for a wealth of underlying meaning. Here, though, his stream of conscious is sharply directed through a few carefully chosen viewpoints. For the larger battles, there is composer Shostakovich-who survived both Stalingrad and the treacherous shoals of Stalin's reign-and a handful of military men, including Field Marshal Paulus and General Zhukov, who fought against each other but shared more than they knew, disillusionment with their own leadership, an end in life as mouthpieces for former enemies. For the Holocaust, there is Kurt Gerstein, German everyman, who both played the perfect soldier and attempted, unsuccessfully, to warn the world of what was happening in the concentration camps, who rationalized his cooperation with small and ultimately insignificant acts of sabotage while continuing to be a moving part of that terrible machinery. For the aftermath, there is Hilde Benjamin, the Red Guillotine, and her efforts to build up the East German police state, and Paulus's ironic role as one of her minor functionaries, both of them shaped and motivated by their life under Hitler.
One of the more interesting aspects of the novel is its use of art to describe greater political and emotional developments in the larger world, first with the paintings of Kathe Kollwitz and the despair of Weimar Germany and the rise of Hitler, then the compositions of Shostakovich and his struggle to create music within the strictures of Stalinist Soviet music institutions and his struggles of conscious, his personal weaknesses, his loyalty to his country and fear of his government and of love.
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
The most immediately striking thing about this novel is the narrative structure-it is a treatise on a film, written by the mysterious Zampano, and footnoted by Johnny Truant, the man who finds Zampano's manuscript and puts together the pieces, and gradually becomes taken over by the house at the story's center as surely as Will Navidson, the central character of the film, does. Some of Truant's footnotes make plain that in some cases, Zampano was referring to books and people that don't exist; then again, Truant's own sanity comes increasingly into question, and one of the appendices, the letters from his mother, from the facility where she was confined for her psychosis, throws the entire construct into doubt.
The story of the house at the center of the novel is the scariest, most hair-raising thing I've ever read-the way the empty space manifests, the way Will Navidson and the people he enlists for help explore it, the filtering of all this narrative through the device of the manuscript describing the filming of this exploration, with its dark hints of worse things about to appear around the corner, the immensity and timelessness and dark and cold, the house's ability to reconfigure with seeming malevolence, the powerlessness of rationality and scientific tools to explain any of it. It is an emptiness that has been there since the beginning of time. In the end, the story of Will Navidson and the house is about the stripping down of one man to nothing, surrendered to his obsession, abandoning his family to return to the house that killed his twin brother, to what he must know is near-certain death, re-entering that space and traveling until he can't travel any longer, until there is no more light, no more outside input, not even the feel of ground beneath his feet-and that's when the house finally lets him go. Truant's journey parallels Navidson's as he separates himself first from friends and job, then from all worldly responsibilities, then from all of humanity; he faces a more mundane emptiness of isolation and poverty and loss of control over the figments of his mind, a threat that's increasingly apparent is internal rather than the internal/external menace of the house. I feel like I've only skimmed the surface of this book, like I missed many things that would be obvious in retrospect; I suspect it's one of those books that takes on entirely new meaning the second time through.
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Thanks to a very kind invitation offer, I have set up a Vox account to stake my claim on my username. I don't know why I'm so concerned about preserving username continuity across these internets considering I don't even like my username. I don't have any intention of moving at this point, but I expect I'll play with it a bit, if only to marvel at the way they managed to break every single sound principle of user interface design I can think of. Figuring out that hyperlinks are actually buttons sometimes, except when they're hyperlinks, was a major breakthrough. GOD. Does it even let you reply to comments? Hell if I can figure it out!
* * * * *
I had a nasty throat infection this weekend and yesterday, and spent a lot of the time sleeping, feeling like crap, and being antisocial, so now I'm back at work, trying to catch up on email, trying to catch up on LJ, and my tonsils are no longer the size of grapefruit, so yay.
And in the meantime, I was very pleased with 50% of the Stargate franchise on Friday.
Stargate 10.03 - "The Pegasus Project"
* How long does the trip to the Pegasus Galaxy take? Because that's a long time for an underoccupied Vala to be stuck in a confined space. There's fic gold in them thar hills. Gah, I wish I could write fiction. Anyway, I like how chummy she is with both Cameron and Daniel now, though, and just the air of friendliness between the whole team. They're sliding her into the team quite nicely without making her quite one of them yet.
* Also nice-that Daniel's first sight of Atlantis gets the weight it deserves, and that the rest of them appreciate what this means for him.
* This episode has all kinds of nice continuity too! (Wow, I am ridiculously easy to please with this show.) The episode with the black hole was a very good one, too.
* I already said this to asta77, but I'll say it again here-I think this crossover is indicative of a serious problem with the Atlantean half of the franchise, because the collective IQ on Atlantis went up about 200 points during this crossover. The Atlanteans made risky but pragmatic decisions after weighing the options. They were all tremendously competent and likeable. I finally-finally!-saw the McShep. On the wrong show. And a Wraith ship menaced, and people problem-solved and dealt with it--without getting a bunch of random people killed. Why haven't they been able to do any of these things recently on their own show? I am seriously confounded by this.
* Rodney continues to pour on the charm. I can't believe he actually told Sam about his little fantasy session with her. No, wait, I totally can. Amanda Tapping absolutely nailed the facial expressions in this scene, the sliding combinations of disbelief and ew and more disbelief and ew.
* I feel like I missed some exposition-where did they get the gate they were using over the black hole?
* They've done some really pretty FX work this year.
* Teal'c really did not have much to do in this episode, which is too bad. I can't believe they can make Christopher Judge's voice go deeper than it already does. That is scary.
* I love how skeptical Daniel is of the Ancients at this point. He has so much reason to be.
* Heh. Cam threatening Rodney with citrus was cheap humor but amusing. What's especially amusing is that Sheppard tipped him off to the trick but, judging by Rodney's reaction, never used it himself. Once again-seeing the McShep on the wrong show.
* What Morgan Le Fay is doing seems an awful lot like interfering. I like the way Vala tries to piece together the rules under which the Ancients say they operate, and the ways they deviate from them. She has a direct interest in trying to understand it-it all comes back to trying to understand what happened to her, and Adria. And I especially like Daniel's growing conviction that the rules are arbitrary and unfair and not worth consideration.
* Slingshot maneuver, eh?
* There's something very symmetrical about Daniel discovering his ultimate disenchantment with the ascended Ancients in their city--they won't help them, the humans are alone, he's come full circle from admiration to complete loss of faith.
SGA 3.03 - "Irresistible"
* I am once again confused about the timing between the two series. I'm assuming this takes place some time after SG-1 returns to Earth.
* If a character has a cold in the first act, it will be a plot point by the third act. Because otherwise, television characters are magically healthy. DUH.
* Between the two shows, they're sure getting a lot of mileage out of that village set.
* This episode starts out with a mission that goes so smoothly that something is shriekingly, obviously wrong.
* Wait--they're just scooping up gates from random places based on an educated guess that they're not being used? That seems kind of-dodgy and colonial or something. I mean, they're making an assumption, based on what they know, that nobody is depending on those gates being there, but it's just that: an assumption.
* Okay, I am now at the point with this show that it needs to actively convince me that the characters don't deserve every bit of trouble they encounter due to their own bad judgment. This episode is not really reassuring on that front.
* That is one phallic goard-candle combination.
* Well, at least they have a couple of qualms about grabbing gates. Sort of.
* Yeah, John's not affected because he can't smell, because he has a cold. *yawn*
* I just really wonder about the writers on this show. This is obviously meant as a lighthearted romp, so I shouldn't be deeply ooked by the way they're treating what amounts to prolonged removal of sexual consent from a number of women, and the clearly hinted at potential for same with Elizabeth and Teyla, as a joke. And yet, I am.
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Book report, mostly for my own benefit.
Europe Central by William T. Vollmann
Like most of his novels, this is an ambitious book, an examination of two totalitarian powers from the runup to World War II to its aftermath. I agree with the cover blurb that this is probably Vollmann's most accessible work to date. He's not always an easy writer, fond of running with tics in diction and vocabulary and typography, and of repeating those tics with a rhythm reminiscent of Homeric similes, using them as shorthand for a wealth of underlying meaning. Here, though, his stream of conscious is sharply directed through a few carefully chosen viewpoints. For the larger battles, there is composer Shostakovich-who survived both Stalingrad and the treacherous shoals of Stalin's reign-and a handful of military men, including Field Marshal Paulus and General Zhukov, who fought against each other but shared more than they knew, disillusionment with their own leadership, an end in life as mouthpieces for former enemies. For the Holocaust, there is Kurt Gerstein, German everyman, who both played the perfect soldier and attempted, unsuccessfully, to warn the world of what was happening in the concentration camps, who rationalized his cooperation with small and ultimately insignificant acts of sabotage while continuing to be a moving part of that terrible machinery. For the aftermath, there is Hilde Benjamin, the Red Guillotine, and her efforts to build up the East German police state, and Paulus's ironic role as one of her minor functionaries, both of them shaped and motivated by their life under Hitler.
One of the more interesting aspects of the novel is its use of art to describe greater political and emotional developments in the larger world, first with the paintings of Kathe Kollwitz and the despair of Weimar Germany and the rise of Hitler, then the compositions of Shostakovich and his struggle to create music within the strictures of Stalinist Soviet music institutions and his struggles of conscious, his personal weaknesses, his loyalty to his country and fear of his government and of love.
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
The most immediately striking thing about this novel is the narrative structure-it is a treatise on a film, written by the mysterious Zampano, and footnoted by Johnny Truant, the man who finds Zampano's manuscript and puts together the pieces, and gradually becomes taken over by the house at the story's center as surely as Will Navidson, the central character of the film, does. Some of Truant's footnotes make plain that in some cases, Zampano was referring to books and people that don't exist; then again, Truant's own sanity comes increasingly into question, and one of the appendices, the letters from his mother, from the facility where she was confined for her psychosis, throws the entire construct into doubt.
The story of the house at the center of the novel is the scariest, most hair-raising thing I've ever read-the way the empty space manifests, the way Will Navidson and the people he enlists for help explore it, the filtering of all this narrative through the device of the manuscript describing the filming of this exploration, with its dark hints of worse things about to appear around the corner, the immensity and timelessness and dark and cold, the house's ability to reconfigure with seeming malevolence, the powerlessness of rationality and scientific tools to explain any of it. It is an emptiness that has been there since the beginning of time. In the end, the story of Will Navidson and the house is about the stripping down of one man to nothing, surrendered to his obsession, abandoning his family to return to the house that killed his twin brother, to what he must know is near-certain death, re-entering that space and traveling until he can't travel any longer, until there is no more light, no more outside input, not even the feel of ground beneath his feet-and that's when the house finally lets him go. Truant's journey parallels Navidson's as he separates himself first from friends and job, then from all worldly responsibilities, then from all of humanity; he faces a more mundane emptiness of isolation and poverty and loss of control over the figments of his mind, a threat that's increasingly apparent is internal rather than the internal/external menace of the house. I feel like I've only skimmed the surface of this book, like I missed many things that would be obvious in retrospect; I suspect it's one of those books that takes on entirely new meaning the second time through.
* * * * *
Thanks to a very kind invitation offer, I have set up a Vox account to stake my claim on my username. I don't know why I'm so concerned about preserving username continuity across these internets considering I don't even like my username. I don't have any intention of moving at this point, but I expect I'll play with it a bit, if only to marvel at the way they managed to break every single sound principle of user interface design I can think of. Figuring out that hyperlinks are actually buttons sometimes, except when they're hyperlinks, was a major breakthrough. GOD. Does it even let you reply to comments? Hell if I can figure it out!