Rubicon: pilot episode
This show is going to be impossible for me to watch, isn't it? See, here's the thing: it's supposed to be about brilliant, obsessive national security analysts uncovering a conspiracy through the pickiest of nit-picky details. In other words, the show is setting up a structure whereby if the writers hand-wave the details, you have no show. The show is in the details!
So in the first episode, there may (or may not) be something meaningful hidden in a series of crossword puzzles. And the one clue/answer that they bring up several times is "What do lucky lepidoptera larvae eat?" and the answer is supposed to be "four-leaved clovers", but they wanted the scientific name, for which they used Marsilea quadrifolia, which, just, NO. I mean, technically I guess they could sort of get away with that, because "four-leaved clover" is one of the garden names of M. quadrifolia. But it's not actually a clover! It's a water clover! That's a totally unrelated genus! Seriously, it's not even in the same family, or order, or class, or *division*. This is why we have scientific nomenclature, people.
When kids are out in the meadow searching for a lucky four-leaved clover, they're searching through various species of Trifolium, usually T. repens. See, that's why they're lucky -- they're rare! Most of them have three leaves, hence the TRIfolium. And in fact, the ominous four-leaved shamrock sent to some conspiracy member in the episode, which caused him to off himself, was in fact a clover leaf just like the kind that grow in your lawn. In contrast, there's nothing lucky about finding a four-leaved M. quadrifolia leaf! They all have four freaking leaves! That's what QUADrifolia means! Plus, you know, they grow in the water. BECAUSE THEY'RE NOT ACTUALLY CLOVERS.
This is why I suspect I will have a hard time with this show.
This entry was originally posted at http://loligo.dreamwidth.org/402595.html.
comments on that entry. Comments on Dreamwidth preferred.
So in the first episode, there may (or may not) be something meaningful hidden in a series of crossword puzzles. And the one clue/answer that they bring up several times is "What do lucky lepidoptera larvae eat?" and the answer is supposed to be "four-leaved clovers", but they wanted the scientific name, for which they used Marsilea quadrifolia, which, just, NO. I mean, technically I guess they could sort of get away with that, because "four-leaved clover" is one of the garden names of M. quadrifolia. But it's not actually a clover! It's a water clover! That's a totally unrelated genus! Seriously, it's not even in the same family, or order, or class, or *division*. This is why we have scientific nomenclature, people.
When kids are out in the meadow searching for a lucky four-leaved clover, they're searching through various species of Trifolium, usually T. repens. See, that's why they're lucky -- they're rare! Most of them have three leaves, hence the TRIfolium. And in fact, the ominous four-leaved shamrock sent to some conspiracy member in the episode, which caused him to off himself, was in fact a clover leaf just like the kind that grow in your lawn. In contrast, there's nothing lucky about finding a four-leaved M. quadrifolia leaf! They all have four freaking leaves! That's what QUADrifolia means! Plus, you know, they grow in the water. BECAUSE THEY'RE NOT ACTUALLY CLOVERS.
This is why I suspect I will have a hard time with this show.
This entry was originally posted at http://loligo.dreamwidth.org/402595.html.
comments on that entry. Comments on Dreamwidth preferred.