this is fact, not fiction, for the first time in years
I'm feeling hodgepodge-y today.
First:
What do you think the chances are I'll hear Passenger Seat or A Lack of Color tonight? Probably not very good. Which is sad for me.
Second: I keep saying that I don't think Jenna Fischer could get much more adorable, and then she keeps proving me wrong. I love that she keeps a blog that's pretty much just like most of ours. Mild spoilers in this one for this week's episode, but mostly it has Jenna wondering if she should all-out fangirl Jack Bauer when she meets him on Letterman this week. :p Seriously, how adorable is she?
Third: I didn't do much of note this weekend, I worked Friday and Sunday, as per usual. Saturday, I watched a lot of Supernatural and then made carrot and ginger soup for dinner. Rachel came over and we gossiped and ate lemon bars right out of the pan and it was wonderful. I've got a lot of hours coming up at B&N with the holiday season starting and all (boooohissss), so I guess it's good to get in my goofing off where I can. Do I sound resigned? I feel very resigned.
Fourth: I do have some television-related things I could say, though.
Dexter
I am loving this show so hard right now, so the renewal was welcome news. I haven't seen episode 6 yet, but last week's may have been my favorite so far. I can't get over how much I like Dexter and how much his act has even me fooled. I always expect empathy or remorse out of him, and obviously I'm not going to get it. And the dark humor on this show is really good at making me laugh and then making me feel creepy for laughing. This death scene was the first one that didn't give me the creepy-crawlies while it was happening, I was too busy being amused by Dexter's interrogation of the bad guy and his wife, and then I felt ohsoverywrong about being amused. Plus, I was way more creeped out by the floating eye watching Dexter from the trunk of that car. Was someone stuck in the truck to die? Was someone hiding there? Were they specifically waiting for and watching Dexter? I am intrigued.
Also, I'm not sure what they were doing to Deb in this last episode, but she was so very pretty in every single scene. I think I need someone to follow me around and make sure I'm always lit perfectly.
Torchwood
This show is entirely too heavy-handed for its own good, I think, and that seems to be its major downfall. Scattered thoughts?
--I'm slightly ashamed to admit that I would be 'shipping Owen and Gwen so very hard right now if it weren't for two obvious things: 1) The aforementioned heavy-handedness and 2) Owen is a douchebag. I want to be 'shipping them, but, well, see above re: douchebagginess.
--This story should have come much later in the season. I think we needed a few more episodes of Ianto being cute and buttmonkeyish, doing his job very well and not complaining about it at all, before we found out what he was really doing there. The audience, not just Jack, needed to feel betrayed. Kind of like on Six Feet Under, when you spend most of the first season thinking Rico is funny and adorable, and then by the end you learn he's a loudmouth homophobe who thinks he's better than everyone else and it's kind of a punch in the gut. Or, you know, it was for me. :p I already really liked Ianto, but it was too early for me to really care about what he was doing to himself and the Torchwood crew. Also, I think if Ianto hadn't been sobbing like a man-child through the whole last act, I would have cared more about Lisa dying and how hard the whole thing was for him. Subtlety is key, people.
--I did like that this episode was so self-contained, and thus focused more on the group dynamic than on Gwen's fish-out-of-waterness. It would have been a perfect arena for character development on all fronts, which we unfortunately didn't really get. Except maybe for Owen. If you squint.
--I'm not a fan of how inconsistently the women are written on this show. Are Tosh and Gwen going to just swing back and forth between useful & awesome and deer-in-headlights-scared whenever the plot calls for it? Because that kind of thing will make me stop watching real fast, John Barrowman or not.
--I think we can now accept as canon that Jack's favorite movie is Clueless. :)
--Also, did anyone else pick up on the massive Firefly vibes in this episode? Not just the basketball at the beginning, but the shakycam and zooms and all were very Firefly. Or, Firefly on crack. I think they overdid the zooms just a teeeeeensy bit. :p
And since I'm here, what about VM, huh?
I haven't really been commenting on this season much, in part because by the time I get around to watching the episode every week, it's already Thursday and everyone's said everything already, and partly because I don't have the heart to comment on anything remotely meta when the show itself can't even keep its own canon straight. (There's also the fact that I'm half-heartedly spoiled for a lot of things to come, so speculating is something I can't really do, either.) And besides all that, I only ever come away from an episode with OTP-related squee and irritation at the way the "secondary" characters are being treated.
I've talked a lot in other posts about my feelings on what they're doing with Weevil. They've ruined, or are trying very hard to ruin, a character that was layered and essential to the VMverse. Mostly, I just wish they'd pick what they want him to be and stick with it. Character development is always nice, but not when you develop a character in four different directions.
I can't even talk about the stuff with Wallace. The thing is, I want to get all up in arms about OOC-ness and how much I don't buy it, but the truth is, this show doesn't really seem to care about any of that anymore, and it seems so futile to complain about it. The only character I even recognize any more is Logan, and I honestly think that's more JDoh's doing than the writers'.
That said, I do still find it entertaining. It still makes me laugh (hey good lookin'!), and I still occasionally get a little choked up in the right places, but I don't really fall into fangirl mode anymore. Although, I watched AEFC the other day, and I still love that episode to bits and pieces, so at least my current lukewarm feelings for VM don't make me like the good stuff any less.
Fifth: The Foo Fighters' acoustic tour DVD will be released at the end of the month. The Amazon page doesn't have much info on it yet, but I know they were recording at the show I saw. I hope some of our stuff makes it. Yay!
First:
What do you think the chances are I'll hear Passenger Seat or A Lack of Color tonight? Probably not very good. Which is sad for me.
Second: I keep saying that I don't think Jenna Fischer could get much more adorable, and then she keeps proving me wrong. I love that she keeps a blog that's pretty much just like most of ours. Mild spoilers in this one for this week's episode, but mostly it has Jenna wondering if she should all-out fangirl Jack Bauer when she meets him on Letterman this week. :p Seriously, how adorable is she?
Third: I didn't do much of note this weekend, I worked Friday and Sunday, as per usual. Saturday, I watched a lot of Supernatural and then made carrot and ginger soup for dinner. Rachel came over and we gossiped and ate lemon bars right out of the pan and it was wonderful. I've got a lot of hours coming up at B&N with the holiday season starting and all (boooohissss), so I guess it's good to get in my goofing off where I can. Do I sound resigned? I feel very resigned.
Fourth: I do have some television-related things I could say, though.
Dexter
I am loving this show so hard right now, so the renewal was welcome news. I haven't seen episode 6 yet, but last week's may have been my favorite so far. I can't get over how much I like Dexter and how much his act has even me fooled. I always expect empathy or remorse out of him, and obviously I'm not going to get it. And the dark humor on this show is really good at making me laugh and then making me feel creepy for laughing. This death scene was the first one that didn't give me the creepy-crawlies while it was happening, I was too busy being amused by Dexter's interrogation of the bad guy and his wife, and then I felt ohsoverywrong about being amused. Plus, I was way more creeped out by the floating eye watching Dexter from the trunk of that car. Was someone stuck in the truck to die? Was someone hiding there? Were they specifically waiting for and watching Dexter? I am intrigued.
Also, I'm not sure what they were doing to Deb in this last episode, but she was so very pretty in every single scene. I think I need someone to follow me around and make sure I'm always lit perfectly.
Torchwood
This show is entirely too heavy-handed for its own good, I think, and that seems to be its major downfall. Scattered thoughts?
--I'm slightly ashamed to admit that I would be 'shipping Owen and Gwen so very hard right now if it weren't for two obvious things: 1) The aforementioned heavy-handedness and 2) Owen is a douchebag. I want to be 'shipping them, but, well, see above re: douchebagginess.
--This story should have come much later in the season. I think we needed a few more episodes of Ianto being cute and buttmonkeyish, doing his job very well and not complaining about it at all, before we found out what he was really doing there. The audience, not just Jack, needed to feel betrayed. Kind of like on Six Feet Under, when you spend most of the first season thinking Rico is funny and adorable, and then by the end you learn he's a loudmouth homophobe who thinks he's better than everyone else and it's kind of a punch in the gut. Or, you know, it was for me. :p I already really liked Ianto, but it was too early for me to really care about what he was doing to himself and the Torchwood crew. Also, I think if Ianto hadn't been sobbing like a man-child through the whole last act, I would have cared more about Lisa dying and how hard the whole thing was for him. Subtlety is key, people.
--I did like that this episode was so self-contained, and thus focused more on the group dynamic than on Gwen's fish-out-of-waterness. It would have been a perfect arena for character development on all fronts, which we unfortunately didn't really get. Except maybe for Owen. If you squint.
--I'm not a fan of how inconsistently the women are written on this show. Are Tosh and Gwen going to just swing back and forth between useful & awesome and deer-in-headlights-scared whenever the plot calls for it? Because that kind of thing will make me stop watching real fast, John Barrowman or not.
--I think we can now accept as canon that Jack's favorite movie is Clueless. :)
--Also, did anyone else pick up on the massive Firefly vibes in this episode? Not just the basketball at the beginning, but the shakycam and zooms and all were very Firefly. Or, Firefly on crack. I think they overdid the zooms just a teeeeeensy bit. :p
And since I'm here, what about VM, huh?
I haven't really been commenting on this season much, in part because by the time I get around to watching the episode every week, it's already Thursday and everyone's said everything already, and partly because I don't have the heart to comment on anything remotely meta when the show itself can't even keep its own canon straight. (There's also the fact that I'm half-heartedly spoiled for a lot of things to come, so speculating is something I can't really do, either.) And besides all that, I only ever come away from an episode with OTP-related squee and irritation at the way the "secondary" characters are being treated.
I've talked a lot in other posts about my feelings on what they're doing with Weevil. They've ruined, or are trying very hard to ruin, a character that was layered and essential to the VMverse. Mostly, I just wish they'd pick what they want him to be and stick with it. Character development is always nice, but not when you develop a character in four different directions.
I can't even talk about the stuff with Wallace. The thing is, I want to get all up in arms about OOC-ness and how much I don't buy it, but the truth is, this show doesn't really seem to care about any of that anymore, and it seems so futile to complain about it. The only character I even recognize any more is Logan, and I honestly think that's more JDoh's doing than the writers'.
That said, I do still find it entertaining. It still makes me laugh (hey good lookin'!), and I still occasionally get a little choked up in the right places, but I don't really fall into fangirl mode anymore. Although, I watched AEFC the other day, and I still love that episode to bits and pieces, so at least my current lukewarm feelings for VM don't make me like the good stuff any less.
Fifth: The Foo Fighters' acoustic tour DVD will be released at the end of the month. The Amazon page doesn't have much info on it yet, but I know they were recording at the show I saw. I hope some of our stuff makes it. Yay!