On the VD and Nikita finales and the last two eps of DW
First off, I saw Thor today and it was amazing, and the preview for Captain America looks pretty awesome too. I can't wait for The Avengers now, especially since the wonderful Joss Whedon is directing it.
Also, I saw a poster for the new Abrams film Super 8 in the cinema lobby and actually stood there stroking it for a few minutes. I got more than a few weird looks. (My love for Abrams knows no bounds, and it borders on outright creepiness).
ANYWAY, on to the show reviews:
Vampire Diaries:First off, I love that Jeremy finally looks like he'll be getting a story plot for this coming season. Y'know, aside from the "everyone I love seems to die near me all the time" plot line. So, now he gets to be like Cole from The Sixth Sense. You know that *someone* (probably Damon) is going to make an "I see dead people" joke at some point.
I loved the scene with Caroline and her mother. Of all the vampires we've seen get turned (including Katerina and Damon and Stefan), Caroline is the one whose personality stayed the same as when she was mortal. And it broke my heart that all the people who loved her before seemed unable to reconcile themselves with what happened to her. I felt like they were punishing *her* for that, and it kind of pissed me off. She didn't ask to get killed by Katherine after all. So, to see her mother hold her like that made me happy.
I was ticked with Elena at the beginning of the episode. I know that she didn't know Damon was dying, but I can't help but feel that even if he hadn't been, she should have forgiven him anyway. But, y'see, I had this one line that Giles said in the Buffy episode "I Only Have Eyes For You" stuck in my head, when they realised that the ghost James wanted forgiveness from Grace. Buffy said that she didn't think James deserved forgiveness. Giles responded, "Forgiveness isn't given because someone *deserves* it, Buffy. It's done because they *need* it."
But in the end she forgave him, and she sat with him while he was dying. Not only that, but she CUDDLED UP NEXT TO HIM. Even when he was sweaty and delirious and gross. And Damon was so adorable when he said, "I wish you had met me in 1864. You would have liked me then." (Oh yes, Damon. I'm sure she would have thought you way more wonderful than Stefan... but well, you already are now even when you're slightly bi-polar and given to violent rage). I LOVE LOVE LOVE that she finally admitted that she liked him just fine the way he is now, violent rage and making-decisions-for-her and all. He may cause her pain, but he has a good heart. And I like that she's beginning to actually note that fact *to him.*
And now we get to sit through Oh-Stefan-my Stefan-where-has-he-gone? angst for what I'm hoping will be a while, but will probably only be one episode. Did anyone else get Angel-goes-bad vibes ala the Buffy episode "Innocence" at the end of this ep? Only...a little less interesting.
...But, as much as I loved the beautiful Delena moment, my real ultimate romance moment goes to...Alaric/Damon. Seriously, there is one scene in this I could watch on repeat. I loved it SO MUCH. You all know the one I mean... Stefan calls up Alaric and Alaric is sitting there at the Grill with his alcohol, feeling the epic!manpain of having lost Jenna. (And I was a lot more saddened to see her go than I thought I would be, but my real pain from the last ep came from losing John. Cos I've loved David Anders -- the actor-- for ten years now.) I mean, they totally showed that when Stefan called Alaric and Alaric thought it was Stefan calling to ask about a regular vampire problem, that Alaric had EVERY INTENTION of telling Stefan to take whatever problem had sprung up and shove it up his ass. But the second he heard Damon was dying, he was just like, "What can I do?" And he didn't let Damon get to him when Damon was obviously trying to just piss Alaric off and make Alaric go away so he wouldn't have to see Damon in pain. As Alaric said, "Neither you nor I are drunk enough for this conversation." DALARIC BROMANCE!!! I need more of it in my life.
Just huge amounts of love for Alaric and his smartassery all around this finale actually. Cos he told off the witches when they said they wouldn't bring Jeremy back, and he totally mocked Jeremy and Bonnie's uber-romantic conversation. He is so totally going to be the surrogate father for Jeremy and Elena now that Jenna is gone. I CAN'T WAIT TO SEE IT.
Nikita: First off, ANOTHER HOUR OF EPIC BROMANCE. And right on the heels of VD too. This time with Birkhoff/Michael. And this was a nice switch because usually those two are barely friends -- they don't watch each other to die, but they've always spent more time pissing each other off than really helping each other.
But Birkhoff helped Michael escape and helped Michael decode the newest Black Box, despite knowing that Percy could kill him if Percy found out. And he seemed so hurt that Michael had been working against Division with Nikita this whole time and hadn't told him. As he said, "I thought you were my friend! You're supposed to trust me!" Just GUH. I loved those two's scenes together this week.
And Michael and Nikita are on the run together, and even though Nikita is brokenhearted that Alex has betrayed them and now the world is against them, she and Michael were still ADORBZ and holding each other's hands as they drove off into the storm together. They have each other, and that's all either of them need. I really hope this show gets a season 2 because I cannot wait to see them kick major ass together. (And they both look good while they do it too).
I'm angry at Alex for the moment. Her character went downhill really quickly. I mean, with all her fears of turning into Alexandra, she seemed pretty eager to embrace said persona. She knows her father was a bad guy, and that the empire he ran is basically a mob front and she *insists* she's never wanted anything to do with that, but she's suddenly anxious to take over the empire. *is confused*
I don't know. I'm just not sure I follow Alex's line of reasoning. She seems to jump back and forth between what she wants too much and then blames Nikita when it blows up in her face. And since Nikita is perfection (so far as I'm concerned) I have little patience for it. But I still love to watch Alex kick ass.
Also, is it just me, or has Alex been knocked out and put in a torture chair like 10 times in the last five episodes?...
Doctor Who -- The Curse of the Black Spot: I'm pretty sure this episode was created as an homage/get-everyone-psyched for Pirates of the Caribbean thing. A lot of people had problems with it, and I won't say that I didn't pause and go "huh?" a few times. I mean, like everyone else I wondered "Why has the TARDIS suddenly lost a med bay? Why is it that the Doctor, despite all this random science from across the universe that he knows, can't do basic CPR? How can this 17th century sea captain manage to fly a spaceship from outer space?"
But, to be honest, after the trauma that was the Fringe season finale the night before, I needed a bit of lightness, and that's what this episode was. It was simply the Doctor, Rory, and Amy on a sea faring adventure with cliche pirate sayings thrown randomly in there. And a very fake looking crown.
I did not like how dumb they made the Doctor (that never sits well with me and is WAY too prevalent in the Eleventh incarnation -- I guess we're supposed to figure that Eleven is just naturally a little more dim than all his predecessors or summat?) but I am willing to grind my teeth over that occasionally. Cos sometimes we need the Doctor to be silly and fun and we need the science to be understandable (if a little squiffy, unlike Moffat's science which is both contradictory and unintelligible for the most part). And this episode was definitely that.
Doctor Who -- The Doctor's Wife: The title of this episode made me a little hesitant. Mainly because I am of the opinion that the Doctor should never be married, though we know he has been before. If it hadn't been for TenII, I wouldn't have wanted Doctor/Rose to be a married thing because I like my Doctor to have women go a bit over his head. His cluelessness is a part of his charm.
BUT OH MY GOD. I think this episode is my all time favourite of Moffat!Era Who. It's even surpassing Richard Curtis written episode "Vincent and the Doctor," which was absolute perfection as far as I was concerned. I just...I loved this episode from start to finish.
For one, they had Neil Gaiman writing for it, which is an automatic plus. I knew it would be weird and twisty just from that alone, and that there would be some very thoughtful dialogue. After all, he wrote one of my all time favourite quotes: "The world is always ending...for someone."
And the Wife was the TARDIS. OF COURSE IT IS. I can't believe that thought never crossed my mind. I mean, it's just so OBVIOUS in retrospect, and I feel so stupid now. And it's totally canon, and even though Doctor/Rose is my OTP, Doctor/TARDIS is about as canon as you can get. I mean, she is his one constant companion throughout all of the series, and from at least Four onwards, he calls her "old girl," "my beautiful ship," etc, etc.
All I could think about was that scene from "School Reunion" where Sarah Jane and Rose were laughing over the fact that the Doctor strokes bits of the TARDIS, and Rose was like, "do you two want to be alone?" In addition to causing a pang at thinking of the loss of Sarah Jane, it made me giggle so hard cos the Doctor practically climbs all over his ship and gets into rather compromising positions with it at times. And now that it comes straight from the TARDIS' mouth that he calls her "Sexy" when they're alone, it's just...asjd;lfjsf;kfpf;j;ae. Oh TARDIS, you are as snarky as the alien you allowed to have steal you. YOU TWO ARE PERFECT FOR EACH OTHER AND CAN I MARRY YOU BOTH?!
THE DOCTOR GOT TO TALK TO HIS SHIP. I've seen it happen in fanfics numerous times, and it's like Gaiman was giving all the fans the wishes of their heart. We get to see what the TARDIS thinks of the Doctor. And she loves him (of course she does). And the Doctor got all choked up that this was THE ONE TIME he'd get to hear his ship respond back to him.
some people have raised the question of why Idris' dead body could hold the Vortex for so long, but only a few minutes for Rose and it almost killed her (and did, in fact, kill the Doctor). For one, there's the whole Vortex vs Matrix thing, and for another, Idris was already dead. There was no living energy for the TARDIS Huon Energy to kill off or corrupt. It could simply inhabit.
And we got to see the RTD era TARDIS control room for a whole two minutes. And it is now officially gone forever, but I fangirled so hard when it showed up. I love the new TARDIS "desk top theme," but it was nice to see what was *my* first TARDIS set up.
AH! I just loved this ep so much and have virtually nothing bad to say about it except that I'm getting tired of watching Rory die all the time. He's turning into Kenny from South Park. But I really want to rewatch this ep again...and again...and again.
special note: I am adding some new tags -- one for Joss Whedon (cos it's unthinkable I don't have one for him yet), one for vampire shows in general, and one for spy shows in general. Cos I watch way too many shows in both genres, lol. And one for bromance, cos it's my favourite thing ever.
Also, I saw a poster for the new Abrams film Super 8 in the cinema lobby and actually stood there stroking it for a few minutes. I got more than a few weird looks. (My love for Abrams knows no bounds, and it borders on outright creepiness).
ANYWAY, on to the show reviews:
Vampire Diaries:First off, I love that Jeremy finally looks like he'll be getting a story plot for this coming season. Y'know, aside from the "everyone I love seems to die near me all the time" plot line. So, now he gets to be like Cole from The Sixth Sense. You know that *someone* (probably Damon) is going to make an "I see dead people" joke at some point.
I loved the scene with Caroline and her mother. Of all the vampires we've seen get turned (including Katerina and Damon and Stefan), Caroline is the one whose personality stayed the same as when she was mortal. And it broke my heart that all the people who loved her before seemed unable to reconcile themselves with what happened to her. I felt like they were punishing *her* for that, and it kind of pissed me off. She didn't ask to get killed by Katherine after all. So, to see her mother hold her like that made me happy.
I was ticked with Elena at the beginning of the episode. I know that she didn't know Damon was dying, but I can't help but feel that even if he hadn't been, she should have forgiven him anyway. But, y'see, I had this one line that Giles said in the Buffy episode "I Only Have Eyes For You" stuck in my head, when they realised that the ghost James wanted forgiveness from Grace. Buffy said that she didn't think James deserved forgiveness. Giles responded, "Forgiveness isn't given because someone *deserves* it, Buffy. It's done because they *need* it."
But in the end she forgave him, and she sat with him while he was dying. Not only that, but she CUDDLED UP NEXT TO HIM. Even when he was sweaty and delirious and gross. And Damon was so adorable when he said, "I wish you had met me in 1864. You would have liked me then." (Oh yes, Damon. I'm sure she would have thought you way more wonderful than Stefan... but well, you already are now even when you're slightly bi-polar and given to violent rage). I LOVE LOVE LOVE that she finally admitted that she liked him just fine the way he is now, violent rage and making-decisions-for-her and all. He may cause her pain, but he has a good heart. And I like that she's beginning to actually note that fact *to him.*
And now we get to sit through Oh-Stefan-my Stefan-where-has-he-gone? angst for what I'm hoping will be a while, but will probably only be one episode. Did anyone else get Angel-goes-bad vibes ala the Buffy episode "Innocence" at the end of this ep? Only...a little less interesting.
...But, as much as I loved the beautiful Delena moment, my real ultimate romance moment goes to...Alaric/Damon. Seriously, there is one scene in this I could watch on repeat. I loved it SO MUCH. You all know the one I mean... Stefan calls up Alaric and Alaric is sitting there at the Grill with his alcohol, feeling the epic!manpain of having lost Jenna. (And I was a lot more saddened to see her go than I thought I would be, but my real pain from the last ep came from losing John. Cos I've loved David Anders -- the actor-- for ten years now.) I mean, they totally showed that when Stefan called Alaric and Alaric thought it was Stefan calling to ask about a regular vampire problem, that Alaric had EVERY INTENTION of telling Stefan to take whatever problem had sprung up and shove it up his ass. But the second he heard Damon was dying, he was just like, "What can I do?" And he didn't let Damon get to him when Damon was obviously trying to just piss Alaric off and make Alaric go away so he wouldn't have to see Damon in pain. As Alaric said, "Neither you nor I are drunk enough for this conversation." DALARIC BROMANCE!!! I need more of it in my life.
Just huge amounts of love for Alaric and his smartassery all around this finale actually. Cos he told off the witches when they said they wouldn't bring Jeremy back, and he totally mocked Jeremy and Bonnie's uber-romantic conversation. He is so totally going to be the surrogate father for Jeremy and Elena now that Jenna is gone. I CAN'T WAIT TO SEE IT.
Nikita: First off, ANOTHER HOUR OF EPIC BROMANCE. And right on the heels of VD too. This time with Birkhoff/Michael. And this was a nice switch because usually those two are barely friends -- they don't watch each other to die, but they've always spent more time pissing each other off than really helping each other.
But Birkhoff helped Michael escape and helped Michael decode the newest Black Box, despite knowing that Percy could kill him if Percy found out. And he seemed so hurt that Michael had been working against Division with Nikita this whole time and hadn't told him. As he said, "I thought you were my friend! You're supposed to trust me!" Just GUH. I loved those two's scenes together this week.
And Michael and Nikita are on the run together, and even though Nikita is brokenhearted that Alex has betrayed them and now the world is against them, she and Michael were still ADORBZ and holding each other's hands as they drove off into the storm together. They have each other, and that's all either of them need. I really hope this show gets a season 2 because I cannot wait to see them kick major ass together. (And they both look good while they do it too).
I'm angry at Alex for the moment. Her character went downhill really quickly. I mean, with all her fears of turning into Alexandra, she seemed pretty eager to embrace said persona. She knows her father was a bad guy, and that the empire he ran is basically a mob front and she *insists* she's never wanted anything to do with that, but she's suddenly anxious to take over the empire. *is confused*
I don't know. I'm just not sure I follow Alex's line of reasoning. She seems to jump back and forth between what she wants too much and then blames Nikita when it blows up in her face. And since Nikita is perfection (so far as I'm concerned) I have little patience for it. But I still love to watch Alex kick ass.
Also, is it just me, or has Alex been knocked out and put in a torture chair like 10 times in the last five episodes?...
Doctor Who -- The Curse of the Black Spot: I'm pretty sure this episode was created as an homage/get-everyone-psyched for Pirates of the Caribbean thing. A lot of people had problems with it, and I won't say that I didn't pause and go "huh?" a few times. I mean, like everyone else I wondered "Why has the TARDIS suddenly lost a med bay? Why is it that the Doctor, despite all this random science from across the universe that he knows, can't do basic CPR? How can this 17th century sea captain manage to fly a spaceship from outer space?"
But, to be honest, after the trauma that was the Fringe season finale the night before, I needed a bit of lightness, and that's what this episode was. It was simply the Doctor, Rory, and Amy on a sea faring adventure with cliche pirate sayings thrown randomly in there. And a very fake looking crown.
I did not like how dumb they made the Doctor (that never sits well with me and is WAY too prevalent in the Eleventh incarnation -- I guess we're supposed to figure that Eleven is just naturally a little more dim than all his predecessors or summat?) but I am willing to grind my teeth over that occasionally. Cos sometimes we need the Doctor to be silly and fun and we need the science to be understandable (if a little squiffy, unlike Moffat's science which is both contradictory and unintelligible for the most part). And this episode was definitely that.
Doctor Who -- The Doctor's Wife: The title of this episode made me a little hesitant. Mainly because I am of the opinion that the Doctor should never be married, though we know he has been before. If it hadn't been for TenII, I wouldn't have wanted Doctor/Rose to be a married thing because I like my Doctor to have women go a bit over his head. His cluelessness is a part of his charm.
BUT OH MY GOD. I think this episode is my all time favourite of Moffat!Era Who. It's even surpassing Richard Curtis written episode "Vincent and the Doctor," which was absolute perfection as far as I was concerned. I just...I loved this episode from start to finish.
For one, they had Neil Gaiman writing for it, which is an automatic plus. I knew it would be weird and twisty just from that alone, and that there would be some very thoughtful dialogue. After all, he wrote one of my all time favourite quotes: "The world is always ending...for someone."
And the Wife was the TARDIS. OF COURSE IT IS. I can't believe that thought never crossed my mind. I mean, it's just so OBVIOUS in retrospect, and I feel so stupid now. And it's totally canon, and even though Doctor/Rose is my OTP, Doctor/TARDIS is about as canon as you can get. I mean, she is his one constant companion throughout all of the series, and from at least Four onwards, he calls her "old girl," "my beautiful ship," etc, etc.
All I could think about was that scene from "School Reunion" where Sarah Jane and Rose were laughing over the fact that the Doctor strokes bits of the TARDIS, and Rose was like, "do you two want to be alone?" In addition to causing a pang at thinking of the loss of Sarah Jane, it made me giggle so hard cos the Doctor practically climbs all over his ship and gets into rather compromising positions with it at times. And now that it comes straight from the TARDIS' mouth that he calls her "Sexy" when they're alone, it's just...asjd;lfjsf;kfpf;j;ae. Oh TARDIS, you are as snarky as the alien you allowed to have steal you. YOU TWO ARE PERFECT FOR EACH OTHER AND CAN I MARRY YOU BOTH?!
THE DOCTOR GOT TO TALK TO HIS SHIP. I've seen it happen in fanfics numerous times, and it's like Gaiman was giving all the fans the wishes of their heart. We get to see what the TARDIS thinks of the Doctor. And she loves him (of course she does). And the Doctor got all choked up that this was THE ONE TIME he'd get to hear his ship respond back to him.
some people have raised the question of why Idris' dead body could hold the Vortex for so long, but only a few minutes for Rose and it almost killed her (and did, in fact, kill the Doctor). For one, there's the whole Vortex vs Matrix thing, and for another, Idris was already dead. There was no living energy for the TARDIS Huon Energy to kill off or corrupt. It could simply inhabit.
And we got to see the RTD era TARDIS control room for a whole two minutes. And it is now officially gone forever, but I fangirled so hard when it showed up. I love the new TARDIS "desk top theme," but it was nice to see what was *my* first TARDIS set up.
AH! I just loved this ep so much and have virtually nothing bad to say about it except that I'm getting tired of watching Rory die all the time. He's turning into Kenny from South Park. But I really want to rewatch this ep again...and again...and again.
special note: I am adding some new tags -- one for Joss Whedon (cos it's unthinkable I don't have one for him yet), one for vampire shows in general, and one for spy shows in general. Cos I watch way too many shows in both genres, lol. And one for bromance, cos it's my favourite thing ever.