Watch this space
HI!
Work is consuming a great deal of my attention and energy right now, not in a crazy way, but in a way that makes me realize I've been very quiet on LJ lately. I'm sitting on two due South episode writeups that I never posted, for example.
2.04 - "Bird in the Hand"
This episode is such an excellent exploration of the gray area between vengeance and justice, because, as Gerard observes, the good guys and the bad guys aren't lined up all neatly on either side of a clear divide. Gerard is the victim here, was the perpetrator, and Ray offers Fraser the chance to kill Gerard in "self-defense," because for Ray, vengeance and justice are linked. Bob wants Fraser to kill Gerard too, and Fraser calls him on the safety of wanting to kill a man once you're dead and your desires have no weight, but Bob lived by the system while betraying it, and was betrayed by it, and it's no surprise to see him agreeing with Ray here. And Fraser, who so recently turned his back on everything that shaped him, has re-built the structures of his life around justice, which means getting to the bottom of the mystery of who's behind the criminal conspiracy Gerard was wrapped up in; he still has those ideals, but there's a harder and more practical edge to them, a knowledge of the cost and a distinct lack of glee; the stars are gone from his eyes. And Gerard, out-doublecrossed by his greedy and ruthless partner, relying for protection on men who hate him, is an object lesson in what happens when you surrender all organizing principles beside self-interest.
Other things I really loved about this epiosode: Bob, stubborn and stoic and repressed, unable to ever ask for help or admit a weakness, and how those characteristics have imprinted on Fraser, as they do between parents and children, but Fraser is growing beyond them. How it seems totally reasonable for Diefenbaker to remind Fraser to introduce him to the ATF and FBI agents, but when temporary assistent interim associate deputy liaison officer Turnbull does basically the same throat-clearing maneuver, it's an annoying intrusion. The sleepover in the abandoned building, Fraser on his bedroll, Ray with his elaborate bedding, because the man likes comfort and style, and Diefenbaker settling on that bedding, because dogs have sense, and Diefenbaker is far less into self-denial than Fraser is. "Please shoot the other leg."
2.05 - "The Promise"
I have a pretty low tolerance for sad stories about orphan moppets which probably colors my view of this episode, but one thing I appreciate about the plot is the way it ties into one of the show's fundamental themes of aloneness and connection, of the huge city and the bustling streets and the small, everyday scale of the problems Ray and Fraser often help people deal with--the local supermarket selling tainted meat, the missing pets, the confused bride, and in this case the kids who are trying to get by living in a van and getting shaken down by the corrupt CPS guy. I like that Fraser's duty, getting Thatcher's brooch back, and helping the kids, are part of the same problem, tied together, and that Fraser is able to spot the core issue with both--the children are stealing because they're in trouble, and Thatcher's brooch means far more to her than she'll let on. I love the way Fraser and Thatcher unsettle each other in different ways, because they're both playing by the same rules in their mountie/supervisor hierarchy, but Fraser is so relentlessly Fraser, and peeling back one dutiful and hyper-honest layer only reveals more Fraserness underneath (like the tension between breaking traffic rules and disobeying a direct order to stop, which he resolves by saying, "Yes sir" and doing exactly what he wants to anyway) and Thatcher is an authority figure who doesn't reward him for coming up with the right answer the way he's used to. And the trip through the sewer, told in dialogue with a pavement's eye view, was fun, because Ray's keeping tack of the number of suits Fraser has ruined just like he's keeping track of the number of times Fraser has put him in danger, and Fraser comes out of these things looking spotless. Fraser's distinct lack of rapport with the city's tattoo artists was also a nice reminder that for all his ability to win cooperation from the unlikeliest sources, there are some nuts he can't crack, and I seriously thought he was going to come out of this with a tattoo.
* * * * *
Also, have finally seen the new Doctor Who. (This is me, lying in a heap at the bottom of a slippery slope I was standing at the top of when Stargate started airing in the UK. I've fallen and I can't get up.) That was fun, in a totally crack-addled way. While the show itself is often centered around Earth, it's always interesting when they bring in plots showing what an inconsequential and tiny speck the planet is on the scale of the show's universe. And, of course, being Doctor Who, they feel free to throw all physics and natural laws and sense out the window in the service of creating something fantastical. So, an entire hospital, uprooted and brought to the moon so that rhinocerous-faced, black-armored bureaucrats can do a basic search and retrieval and be on their merry way without a further thought. I like Martha, who seems very capable. She makes an interesting contrast to Rose, who was also very capable, but in an instinctual, emotional way, whereas Martha has professional training and seems to have a more systematic, problem-solving kind of approach, while both have in common the wide-eyed wonder at the possibility of travel with the Doctor. Rose had a drab working existence to spur her into adventure, Martha is the central mediator in a roiling family crisis; Rose made her peace with her place in everyday London, and when Martha finally steps out of the TARDIS for the last time, I wonder if it won't be because her family has learned to get along without her and she'll be free to live with them in a less demanding way.
I was not super-happy with all of the "chemistry" they were trying to throw around between the Doctor and Martha, but that's probably because my own view of the Doctor was shaped by youth and Tom Baker. But it also felt rather heavy-handed and forced, so perhaps it was more a matter of execution.
* * * * *
In other teevee news, Variety has a cancellation and mid-season replacement replacement roundup. (Warning: annoying Variety jargon.) 7th Heaven is finally dead, unless it rises from the grave again looking for brains to eat. And NBC is pulling The Black Donnellys after April 16th with no news of a new timeslot. I have three unwatched episodes sitting on my TiVO and don't seem to be able to develop the motivation to watch them.
In happier news, The Office is back this week! It airs at 8pm instead of 8:30, followed by 30 Rock, a show that has grown on my enormously in the last couple of months.
* * * * *
Oprah's book club is reading Cormac McCarthy's The Road, which I still need to read myself. (via bookslut) On the one hand, I think it's great that she's pushing less comfortable reading material like this and Elie Wiesel's Night. On the other, ...
* * * * *
I have discovered a perfect combination of things, like chocolate and peanut butter: my insomnia and motivation to exercise. Running after work a couple of times a week makes me feel noticeably less stressed and helps me get a full night's sleep. And it seems that where haranguing myself with, "It's good for you!" wasn't that effective, "You'll sleep through the night; glorious, glorious sleep!" is really getting me off my butt.
Work is consuming a great deal of my attention and energy right now, not in a crazy way, but in a way that makes me realize I've been very quiet on LJ lately. I'm sitting on two due South episode writeups that I never posted, for example.
2.04 - "Bird in the Hand"
This episode is such an excellent exploration of the gray area between vengeance and justice, because, as Gerard observes, the good guys and the bad guys aren't lined up all neatly on either side of a clear divide. Gerard is the victim here, was the perpetrator, and Ray offers Fraser the chance to kill Gerard in "self-defense," because for Ray, vengeance and justice are linked. Bob wants Fraser to kill Gerard too, and Fraser calls him on the safety of wanting to kill a man once you're dead and your desires have no weight, but Bob lived by the system while betraying it, and was betrayed by it, and it's no surprise to see him agreeing with Ray here. And Fraser, who so recently turned his back on everything that shaped him, has re-built the structures of his life around justice, which means getting to the bottom of the mystery of who's behind the criminal conspiracy Gerard was wrapped up in; he still has those ideals, but there's a harder and more practical edge to them, a knowledge of the cost and a distinct lack of glee; the stars are gone from his eyes. And Gerard, out-doublecrossed by his greedy and ruthless partner, relying for protection on men who hate him, is an object lesson in what happens when you surrender all organizing principles beside self-interest.
Other things I really loved about this epiosode: Bob, stubborn and stoic and repressed, unable to ever ask for help or admit a weakness, and how those characteristics have imprinted on Fraser, as they do between parents and children, but Fraser is growing beyond them. How it seems totally reasonable for Diefenbaker to remind Fraser to introduce him to the ATF and FBI agents, but when temporary assistent interim associate deputy liaison officer Turnbull does basically the same throat-clearing maneuver, it's an annoying intrusion. The sleepover in the abandoned building, Fraser on his bedroll, Ray with his elaborate bedding, because the man likes comfort and style, and Diefenbaker settling on that bedding, because dogs have sense, and Diefenbaker is far less into self-denial than Fraser is. "Please shoot the other leg."
2.05 - "The Promise"
I have a pretty low tolerance for sad stories about orphan moppets which probably colors my view of this episode, but one thing I appreciate about the plot is the way it ties into one of the show's fundamental themes of aloneness and connection, of the huge city and the bustling streets and the small, everyday scale of the problems Ray and Fraser often help people deal with--the local supermarket selling tainted meat, the missing pets, the confused bride, and in this case the kids who are trying to get by living in a van and getting shaken down by the corrupt CPS guy. I like that Fraser's duty, getting Thatcher's brooch back, and helping the kids, are part of the same problem, tied together, and that Fraser is able to spot the core issue with both--the children are stealing because they're in trouble, and Thatcher's brooch means far more to her than she'll let on. I love the way Fraser and Thatcher unsettle each other in different ways, because they're both playing by the same rules in their mountie/supervisor hierarchy, but Fraser is so relentlessly Fraser, and peeling back one dutiful and hyper-honest layer only reveals more Fraserness underneath (like the tension between breaking traffic rules and disobeying a direct order to stop, which he resolves by saying, "Yes sir" and doing exactly what he wants to anyway) and Thatcher is an authority figure who doesn't reward him for coming up with the right answer the way he's used to. And the trip through the sewer, told in dialogue with a pavement's eye view, was fun, because Ray's keeping tack of the number of suits Fraser has ruined just like he's keeping track of the number of times Fraser has put him in danger, and Fraser comes out of these things looking spotless. Fraser's distinct lack of rapport with the city's tattoo artists was also a nice reminder that for all his ability to win cooperation from the unlikeliest sources, there are some nuts he can't crack, and I seriously thought he was going to come out of this with a tattoo.
* * * * *
Also, have finally seen the new Doctor Who. (This is me, lying in a heap at the bottom of a slippery slope I was standing at the top of when Stargate started airing in the UK. I've fallen and I can't get up.) That was fun, in a totally crack-addled way. While the show itself is often centered around Earth, it's always interesting when they bring in plots showing what an inconsequential and tiny speck the planet is on the scale of the show's universe. And, of course, being Doctor Who, they feel free to throw all physics and natural laws and sense out the window in the service of creating something fantastical. So, an entire hospital, uprooted and brought to the moon so that rhinocerous-faced, black-armored bureaucrats can do a basic search and retrieval and be on their merry way without a further thought. I like Martha, who seems very capable. She makes an interesting contrast to Rose, who was also very capable, but in an instinctual, emotional way, whereas Martha has professional training and seems to have a more systematic, problem-solving kind of approach, while both have in common the wide-eyed wonder at the possibility of travel with the Doctor. Rose had a drab working existence to spur her into adventure, Martha is the central mediator in a roiling family crisis; Rose made her peace with her place in everyday London, and when Martha finally steps out of the TARDIS for the last time, I wonder if it won't be because her family has learned to get along without her and she'll be free to live with them in a less demanding way.
I was not super-happy with all of the "chemistry" they were trying to throw around between the Doctor and Martha, but that's probably because my own view of the Doctor was shaped by youth and Tom Baker. But it also felt rather heavy-handed and forced, so perhaps it was more a matter of execution.
* * * * *
In other teevee news, Variety has a cancellation and mid-season replacement replacement roundup. (Warning: annoying Variety jargon.) 7th Heaven is finally dead, unless it rises from the grave again looking for brains to eat. And NBC is pulling The Black Donnellys after April 16th with no news of a new timeslot. I have three unwatched episodes sitting on my TiVO and don't seem to be able to develop the motivation to watch them.
In happier news, The Office is back this week! It airs at 8pm instead of 8:30, followed by 30 Rock, a show that has grown on my enormously in the last couple of months.
* * * * *
Oprah's book club is reading Cormac McCarthy's The Road, which I still need to read myself. (via bookslut) On the one hand, I think it's great that she's pushing less comfortable reading material like this and Elie Wiesel's Night. On the other, ...
* * * * *
I have discovered a perfect combination of things, like chocolate and peanut butter: my insomnia and motivation to exercise. Running after work a couple of times a week makes me feel noticeably less stressed and helps me get a full night's sleep. And it seems that where haranguing myself with, "It's good for you!" wasn't that effective, "You'll sleep through the night; glorious, glorious sleep!" is really getting me off my butt.