this is the alternate quantum plane where I have compassion
Aargh. Builders on scaffolds are using drills and jackhammers to scrape plaster off the walls around my window. Other builders are re-plastering. Still others are scraping off my windows the solidified plaster detritus from yesterday's identical operation six feet higher up. The noise is of the indescribably penetrating and tooth-jarring order which is causing me to actively look forward to going to the dentist this afternoon. At least I'll be able to flee my office.
There being a tragic hiatus in my Veronica Mars watching (Seasons 2 & 3 arrive today, calloo, callay!) wolverine_nun lent me the first couple of seasons of Chuck, which she enjoyed and which I've been vaguely wanting to test-drive for a while. On the surface it seems right up my alley - fluffy, undemanding watching, with a reasonable degree of humour and self-reflexive irony, and the kind of thrillery/actiony format which also grooves my ploons. (I'm a sucker for car chases and explosions and OTT fight choreography and other icons of the mindless action genre). But it's not doing it for me, and I'm trying to work out why.
A lot of it is doing it for me. I like the premise, and the ridiculously tongue-in-cheek concept of the Intersect, with all its cheesy and unlikely images. I love the CIA/NSA rivalry, and Adam Baldwin in this role; I genuinely like Chuck himself, who is dopey and geeky and endearing, and hapless not quite to the point of irritation. I like Sarah, and I love the interactions between Chuck and his sister. I think, on mature reflection, that the series becomes literally unwatchable (as in, I get up and go out of the room for five minutes so it can play an excruciating scene through without me having to watch) around the character of Morgan. Hi, I'm Extemporanea. I Get All Protective Of Geeks.
This is nerd-humour, but I'm finding it nasty. Morgan is almost entirely without redeeming feature: his social ineptitude and rhino-hide insensitivity make him actively painful to watch. It's a one-dimensional, horribly stereotypical, rather sadistic portrayal: apparently his only function in the series is to make life difficult and embarrassing for Chuck. Morgan is The Hero's Cross To Bear: I'm on the sixth episode of the series, and in terms of his own good qualities, points of interest, elements with which the viewer can empathise, there's nothing. Chuck is a geeky stereotype that's actually well-rounded; Morgan's just a foil, and one you're encouraged to laugh at rather cruelly. I can't take it. It's poisoning the whole thing for me. Which is a pity, because I rather want to see how the whole ridiculous premise works out. It looks like fun, but fun I can't have. Bother.
Now I shall go to the dentist, braced for the nasty, expensive little noise which results when a dentist peers into your mouth and does the sharp intake of breath indicating that at some unspecified stage in the last few weeks a very expensive crown came randomly adrift and you accidentally swallowed it without noticing.
There being a tragic hiatus in my Veronica Mars watching (Seasons 2 & 3 arrive today, calloo, callay!) wolverine_nun lent me the first couple of seasons of Chuck, which she enjoyed and which I've been vaguely wanting to test-drive for a while. On the surface it seems right up my alley - fluffy, undemanding watching, with a reasonable degree of humour and self-reflexive irony, and the kind of thrillery/actiony format which also grooves my ploons. (I'm a sucker for car chases and explosions and OTT fight choreography and other icons of the mindless action genre). But it's not doing it for me, and I'm trying to work out why.
A lot of it is doing it for me. I like the premise, and the ridiculously tongue-in-cheek concept of the Intersect, with all its cheesy and unlikely images. I love the CIA/NSA rivalry, and Adam Baldwin in this role; I genuinely like Chuck himself, who is dopey and geeky and endearing, and hapless not quite to the point of irritation. I like Sarah, and I love the interactions between Chuck and his sister. I think, on mature reflection, that the series becomes literally unwatchable (as in, I get up and go out of the room for five minutes so it can play an excruciating scene through without me having to watch) around the character of Morgan. Hi, I'm Extemporanea. I Get All Protective Of Geeks.
This is nerd-humour, but I'm finding it nasty. Morgan is almost entirely without redeeming feature: his social ineptitude and rhino-hide insensitivity make him actively painful to watch. It's a one-dimensional, horribly stereotypical, rather sadistic portrayal: apparently his only function in the series is to make life difficult and embarrassing for Chuck. Morgan is The Hero's Cross To Bear: I'm on the sixth episode of the series, and in terms of his own good qualities, points of interest, elements with which the viewer can empathise, there's nothing. Chuck is a geeky stereotype that's actually well-rounded; Morgan's just a foil, and one you're encouraged to laugh at rather cruelly. I can't take it. It's poisoning the whole thing for me. Which is a pity, because I rather want to see how the whole ridiculous premise works out. It looks like fun, but fun I can't have. Bother.
Now I shall go to the dentist, braced for the nasty, expensive little noise which results when a dentist peers into your mouth and does the sharp intake of breath indicating that at some unspecified stage in the last few weeks a very expensive crown came randomly adrift and you accidentally swallowed it without noticing.