NaNoJouMo: What I've been watching recently

[hymnia]

Well, technically November 4th is over, since it's after midnight. But I'm still counting this as my 500+ words for 11/4. I needed to spend what would have been my writing time this evening cleaning up my desk a bit. Now I feel much better knowing that, while I still have a lot of little odds and ends to work on, at least it's organized.

I don't feel like writing about real life today (it wasn't that eventful, anyway), so I'm going to instead turn to the various media I've been reading/watching. Late post is late, so bullet points again:

• Glee - I enjoyed seeing more of Mike Chang on the “Asian F” episode, and I'm also a fan of Tamlyn Tomita, so I was glad to see her as Mike's mom. The new episode this week was kind of “meh”. The new character could be interesting, but I wasn't especially impressed with him so far.
  
  
• Revenge - I mainly just tuned into this because it has Emily VanCamp, whom I liked when she was on Everwood a few years ago. It's not the sort of thing I normally go far, but I admit I'm kind of hooked on it nonetheless. I vacillate between finding it has interesting commentary on human nature and suspecting it's just an overblown soap opera. I may or may not stick with it for the long haul. It bothers me that the brainy Mark Zuckerberg/Bill Gates-type character seems like the most sympathetic and likeable character on the show to me, and yet all the other characters treat him like he's Obnoxiousness Personified-including the beautiful-but-troubled protagonist and the earthy-but-charming guy from the wrong side of the tracks who has a crush on her. It's almost as if the writers assume that everyone in their audience will automatically consider him annoying because he's a geek, regardless of how he actually behaves on the show. They're breaking the rule of “show; don't tell” (even though that's less easy to do in TV/film than in books). Anyway, it's a minor annoyance so far, but it suggests to me that I, a person who tends to find geeks endearing rather than annoying, am probably not the right audience for this show. And if that's true, it's kind of a shame, because the show has a pretty decent hook, and much of the setup is similar to the brilliant and very geek-friendly Veronica Mars. Alas, I fear the show will not manage to reach that level of brilliance.
  
  
• Guilty Crown - This show appears poised to be the next “IT” anime, with its post-apocalyptic action plot, a sexy and ethereal schoolgirl with mysterious powers, and creators who have well-known credits like Death Note (which I loved) and Code Geass (which I just couldn't get into). I like it well enough, but so far it just feels like a re-hash of other anime; I haven't yet found anything to LOVE about it. We'll see.
  
  
• I'm also still watching Doctor Who, although as all you Who fans know, it's on hiatus for the time being. I've decided to go back and watch some Classic Who in the meantime, based on the suggestions in a recent post at doctorwho. I'm currently halfway through “City of Death”, a tale of the Fourth Doctor and Romana in Paris that was written by a writing team that included Douglas Adams. I will be the first to admit that some of Classic Who is a bit boring, but this one is an absolute GEM-wonderful antics from Tom Baker, great chemistry between him and the actress who plays Romana, and a clever script all around. I highly recommend it to any NuWho fan who wants to check out some of the Classic series.

I'll stop there for now, as I need to get some sleep. I meant to talk about books I'm reading, too, but I will have to save it for another post.

Joie