"Ever feel like you saw something great that almost happened, but it didn't?"
ffffffff Bones. Also Doctor Who, with 87% less fffffffff.
There were continuity errors. Yes. Bones had red hair in the first season. It should be no surprise to anybody that Cleo Eller wasn't their first case because I thought they made no secret of it. The case didn't go down like Booth said it did in the pilot: the x-rays were important, but they didn't solve the case by themselves. Sweets seems blithely oblivious of the mistletoe kiss in s3. Caroline and Bones didn't know each other before New Orleans (and wasn't Caroline actually stationed in New Orleans at that time?).
But... I'm willing to let it go. Because honestly, at this point, that doesn't seem important anymore. I just don't care. Being the most annoying continuity nazi on the planet was practically a religion for me for years, but now I have this little icon of a rat with a teddy bear and my fangirl heart's a little broken from watching DB and ED sob and make out and sob some more. I guess that stuff adds up to me being content to let the continuity slide a little.
First, I have a girlcrush on Angela Montenegro. It got a lot bigger this episode. I loved her dumb little flip-book with all my heart. Yeah, yeah, facial reconstruction artists are I'm sure heavily trained in that specific field, but considering Angela bills herself as an "artist" who should just "be in Paris" and then does all this nitty-gritty technical stuff like build a supercomputer and a program for mathematically reenacting events... I don't know what she's trained in and I don't care. She's just that fabulous.
Hodgins' wig scared me. It was nice to see a reemergence of the rubber band and his anger management "program." Also Zach came back. That was nice. We got to see Hodgins and Zach's first experiment.
Mostly the last scene. I liked it. Haters gonna hate, but I knew going in that B&B were not ever going to get together. He pushed, and she panicked and freaked out and then they both burst into tears. Maybe after five years, she'd be willing to entertain the idea that not every relationship ends in heart-wrecking disaster, but I honestly don't think she started seeing Booth in that light - at least, uninfluenced by tequila - until season 3. So it's been two and a half years. I dunno. Girl's got some issues.
But she obviously doesn't want to lose him, because her first concern - throughout the scene, really - was that she still wanted to work with him. And she didn't want to be with him because she doesn't believe she has a generous heart, though in truth I'm sure she's terrified he'll fall out of love with her before she falls out of love with him. LOL abandonment issues. So it's not that she doesn't love him, she just is protective and... has raging mental problems. Which we knew. And he says he needs to move on, but we'll see if that actually happens. I liked that even though she'd pretty much broken his heart ten seconds ago, she was panicking and needed a hug, and he's the person whose arms she fell into and when he was miserable and heartbroken, he went after her. They walked off arm-in-arm, leaning on each other.
It was a hopeful ending, in a way. And, interestingly, she didn't actually say "no," she implied that he needed protecting from her because she'd hurt him eventually. Which he took as "no," but it's not the same thing.
As for the main body of the episode, I found it sort of meh, but it was obviously meant to be background noise to Booth and Bones' relationship. The important part was the last scene, and the two of them and the ways they connect and fall apart. And considering the lovely performances by DB and especially ED, the last scene really turned out beautiful. I was actually taken out of the scene at two points, when Bones said, "Please don't look so sad," and when she said "I know," in response to Booth saying he needed to move on. Because the way ED delivered those lines was so brilliant, I had to mentally pause for a second and go "holy crap she is blowing my miiiiind." That's what acting training does to you. You can't watch TV brainlessly anymore :c
Prediction: my dad will hate it because he'll think it's stupid that she can't just get over it. Which I understand, to a certain extent, because they're obviously dragging this shit out endlessly. And I hope the series ends before it gets to the point where it honestly makes no sense to get them together anymore.
Though a thought has occurred to me: what if they don't live happily ever after? The idea that two people have one moment doesn't come from s2 of Bones, it comes from (maybe not originally) Angel, and my favorite doomed pair: Angel and Cordy, who missed their moment. Maybe this isn't "love overcomes everything in the end and they live happily ever after." Maybe this is "a messed-up girl lets her issues and insecurities get in the way of her life and everybody dies miserable and alone." Replace "girl" with "boy" and you have Angel/Cordy. That's a perfectly valid story, and maybe that's the route they're going. I hope not, because Bones doesn't have quite the depth and complexity of Angel and such a nihilistic love story would seem a little out of place on a procedural that slides between goofy and Moral Speechifying Time, but... I guess you never know.
"Nothing happens, unless first a dream." And all that.
Fun fact: that definition of insanity that they repeat over and over in this episode? That's probably a real definition of insanity, but it's also something that was made a big deal of over on Angel. Faith says it quite pointedly to Angelus during their little dream party. ...My inner Angel fangirl was having a field day with this ep.
Amy
It didn't really occur to me that people would take issue with her job because it's... objectification or exploitation or she's a hooker or... something.
This is how I see it.
Being a kissogram is not being a prostitute. I think that's a very, very important distinction, and I don't think Moffat like, wanted to make her a prostitute and couldn't because it's a kids show so he went with a watered-down version of that. There's a very important distinction between kissogram and stripper/hooker: it's old-fashioned. It's almost quaint, really. It's hardly done anymore. It's almost innocent because she's not taking her clothes off or having sex with people, she's kissing them, and kissing is... well, it can be hot and heavy, but it's just... kissing. People do it in public all the time. Children do it innocently and nobody thinks it's anything more than innocent. French people do it on the street, to make a Bones reference. Friends do it. But it's still just a little bit grown-up, mainly because of the fact that it can be sexual. And for a girl who's a little bit fairytale, I think it's the perfect occupation: quaint, old-fashioned, innocent and adult at the same time. Describes her profession and it describes a fairytale. And everybody knows how important kissing is in all the best fairytales (Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, The Frog Prince, etc. to infinity).
Eleven seemed shocked by her profession, but I saw it as more fatherly "you were seven years old five minutes ago and now you're snogging people," which is probably the same reaction my father quietly had the first time he found out I had a boyfriend.
And beyond that, someone somewhere at a Doctor Who comm pointed out that she wore all these different costumes and nobody really knew who she was and she had even changed her name (a little), so she has no real identity of her own. She's not the person she's supposed to be, because of the Doctor. Having her find herself and establish her own identity outside of the Doctor would be a very interesting character arc for her.
As for her wedding, I think she's trying to get out of it :/ I'm not too keen on the idea of "Amy's Choice," because it sort of implies she's a continued casualty of the Doctor's timing fail rather than someone who tags along with his timing fail, but as I said in my last post, I'll wait to see the episode before I decide it's the worst concept ever and I hate it.
Eleven.
I consider Ten to be "my" Doctor, though he's not always my favorite. And Eleven is the first Doctor that I'm watching from Day One, and there's no carryover from past series (except, you know, that woman I hate) to kind of ease me through. So it's a little weird. I'd gotten so very used to Ten, and maybe it's the slightly retro/old school feel to this new series, but on rewatches it feels a little off-kilter to me. And I think I've put my finger on why: Eleven didn't actually do anything. When Ten said, "When you go back to the stars and tell others of his planet... when you tell them of its riches, its people, its potential... when you talk of the Earth, then make sure that you tell them this: it is defended." Well, he had a real sense of gravitas. Or something. You knew he meant it. Eleven did some clever things with a computer, but in his big badass moment of triumph, he really just rode on his predecessors' reputations.
That said, I adore him, I think Matt Smith was fantastic, and I'm really looking forward to his run. I think that before all is said and done, he definitely will have proven himself.
The outfit is also growing on me. I have a thing for blokes in shirt sleeves and long ties, so the bow tie and tweed isn't really my thing, but I think I finally got that he's a slightly crazy young professor. Hopefully the outfit will continue to grow on me.
Timey-Wimey
The "official" timeline of TEH is that the first sequence took place in 1996, the main part of the ep took place in 2008 (pre-Dalek takeover/whooshing Earth across the galaxy, I'm guessing?), and Amy as a companion is from 2010. Which... makes sense. I guess. But the analogue clocks were weirdly out of place, the technology was weirdly up-to-date and they made a big deal of it, and Rory's nurse ID was issued in 1990. It could all just be "atmosphere" and "prop goofs," but..... we'll see. I think something that they focused on like that, which would've been easy to do right, isn't a prop goof. The clocks could be atmospheric, since the TARDIS has a lot of steampunk going on, and Moffat really wants to give the new series a classic Who feel, and analogue is kinda old-fashioned and atmospheric.
I guess we'll find out.
And as for River Song? Cradle-robbing is not okay, River. Don't do it. Think of the children :c
There were continuity errors. Yes. Bones had red hair in the first season. It should be no surprise to anybody that Cleo Eller wasn't their first case because I thought they made no secret of it. The case didn't go down like Booth said it did in the pilot: the x-rays were important, but they didn't solve the case by themselves. Sweets seems blithely oblivious of the mistletoe kiss in s3. Caroline and Bones didn't know each other before New Orleans (and wasn't Caroline actually stationed in New Orleans at that time?).
But... I'm willing to let it go. Because honestly, at this point, that doesn't seem important anymore. I just don't care. Being the most annoying continuity nazi on the planet was practically a religion for me for years, but now I have this little icon of a rat with a teddy bear and my fangirl heart's a little broken from watching DB and ED sob and make out and sob some more. I guess that stuff adds up to me being content to let the continuity slide a little.
First, I have a girlcrush on Angela Montenegro. It got a lot bigger this episode. I loved her dumb little flip-book with all my heart. Yeah, yeah, facial reconstruction artists are I'm sure heavily trained in that specific field, but considering Angela bills herself as an "artist" who should just "be in Paris" and then does all this nitty-gritty technical stuff like build a supercomputer and a program for mathematically reenacting events... I don't know what she's trained in and I don't care. She's just that fabulous.
Hodgins' wig scared me. It was nice to see a reemergence of the rubber band and his anger management "program." Also Zach came back. That was nice. We got to see Hodgins and Zach's first experiment.
Mostly the last scene. I liked it. Haters gonna hate, but I knew going in that B&B were not ever going to get together. He pushed, and she panicked and freaked out and then they both burst into tears. Maybe after five years, she'd be willing to entertain the idea that not every relationship ends in heart-wrecking disaster, but I honestly don't think she started seeing Booth in that light - at least, uninfluenced by tequila - until season 3. So it's been two and a half years. I dunno. Girl's got some issues.
But she obviously doesn't want to lose him, because her first concern - throughout the scene, really - was that she still wanted to work with him. And she didn't want to be with him because she doesn't believe she has a generous heart, though in truth I'm sure she's terrified he'll fall out of love with her before she falls out of love with him. LOL abandonment issues. So it's not that she doesn't love him, she just is protective and... has raging mental problems. Which we knew. And he says he needs to move on, but we'll see if that actually happens. I liked that even though she'd pretty much broken his heart ten seconds ago, she was panicking and needed a hug, and he's the person whose arms she fell into and when he was miserable and heartbroken, he went after her. They walked off arm-in-arm, leaning on each other.
It was a hopeful ending, in a way. And, interestingly, she didn't actually say "no," she implied that he needed protecting from her because she'd hurt him eventually. Which he took as "no," but it's not the same thing.
As for the main body of the episode, I found it sort of meh, but it was obviously meant to be background noise to Booth and Bones' relationship. The important part was the last scene, and the two of them and the ways they connect and fall apart. And considering the lovely performances by DB and especially ED, the last scene really turned out beautiful. I was actually taken out of the scene at two points, when Bones said, "Please don't look so sad," and when she said "I know," in response to Booth saying he needed to move on. Because the way ED delivered those lines was so brilliant, I had to mentally pause for a second and go "holy crap she is blowing my miiiiind." That's what acting training does to you. You can't watch TV brainlessly anymore :c
Prediction: my dad will hate it because he'll think it's stupid that she can't just get over it. Which I understand, to a certain extent, because they're obviously dragging this shit out endlessly. And I hope the series ends before it gets to the point where it honestly makes no sense to get them together anymore.
Though a thought has occurred to me: what if they don't live happily ever after? The idea that two people have one moment doesn't come from s2 of Bones, it comes from (maybe not originally) Angel, and my favorite doomed pair: Angel and Cordy, who missed their moment. Maybe this isn't "love overcomes everything in the end and they live happily ever after." Maybe this is "a messed-up girl lets her issues and insecurities get in the way of her life and everybody dies miserable and alone." Replace "girl" with "boy" and you have Angel/Cordy. That's a perfectly valid story, and maybe that's the route they're going. I hope not, because Bones doesn't have quite the depth and complexity of Angel and such a nihilistic love story would seem a little out of place on a procedural that slides between goofy and Moral Speechifying Time, but... I guess you never know.
"Nothing happens, unless first a dream." And all that.
Fun fact: that definition of insanity that they repeat over and over in this episode? That's probably a real definition of insanity, but it's also something that was made a big deal of over on Angel. Faith says it quite pointedly to Angelus during their little dream party. ...My inner Angel fangirl was having a field day with this ep.
Amy
It didn't really occur to me that people would take issue with her job because it's... objectification or exploitation or she's a hooker or... something.
This is how I see it.
Being a kissogram is not being a prostitute. I think that's a very, very important distinction, and I don't think Moffat like, wanted to make her a prostitute and couldn't because it's a kids show so he went with a watered-down version of that. There's a very important distinction between kissogram and stripper/hooker: it's old-fashioned. It's almost quaint, really. It's hardly done anymore. It's almost innocent because she's not taking her clothes off or having sex with people, she's kissing them, and kissing is... well, it can be hot and heavy, but it's just... kissing. People do it in public all the time. Children do it innocently and nobody thinks it's anything more than innocent. French people do it on the street, to make a Bones reference. Friends do it. But it's still just a little bit grown-up, mainly because of the fact that it can be sexual. And for a girl who's a little bit fairytale, I think it's the perfect occupation: quaint, old-fashioned, innocent and adult at the same time. Describes her profession and it describes a fairytale. And everybody knows how important kissing is in all the best fairytales (Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, The Frog Prince, etc. to infinity).
Eleven seemed shocked by her profession, but I saw it as more fatherly "you were seven years old five minutes ago and now you're snogging people," which is probably the same reaction my father quietly had the first time he found out I had a boyfriend.
And beyond that, someone somewhere at a Doctor Who comm pointed out that she wore all these different costumes and nobody really knew who she was and she had even changed her name (a little), so she has no real identity of her own. She's not the person she's supposed to be, because of the Doctor. Having her find herself and establish her own identity outside of the Doctor would be a very interesting character arc for her.
As for her wedding, I think she's trying to get out of it :/ I'm not too keen on the idea of "Amy's Choice," because it sort of implies she's a continued casualty of the Doctor's timing fail rather than someone who tags along with his timing fail, but as I said in my last post, I'll wait to see the episode before I decide it's the worst concept ever and I hate it.
Eleven.
I consider Ten to be "my" Doctor, though he's not always my favorite. And Eleven is the first Doctor that I'm watching from Day One, and there's no carryover from past series (except, you know, that woman I hate) to kind of ease me through. So it's a little weird. I'd gotten so very used to Ten, and maybe it's the slightly retro/old school feel to this new series, but on rewatches it feels a little off-kilter to me. And I think I've put my finger on why: Eleven didn't actually do anything. When Ten said, "When you go back to the stars and tell others of his planet... when you tell them of its riches, its people, its potential... when you talk of the Earth, then make sure that you tell them this: it is defended." Well, he had a real sense of gravitas. Or something. You knew he meant it. Eleven did some clever things with a computer, but in his big badass moment of triumph, he really just rode on his predecessors' reputations.
That said, I adore him, I think Matt Smith was fantastic, and I'm really looking forward to his run. I think that before all is said and done, he definitely will have proven himself.
The outfit is also growing on me. I have a thing for blokes in shirt sleeves and long ties, so the bow tie and tweed isn't really my thing, but I think I finally got that he's a slightly crazy young professor. Hopefully the outfit will continue to grow on me.
Timey-Wimey
The "official" timeline of TEH is that the first sequence took place in 1996, the main part of the ep took place in 2008 (pre-Dalek takeover/whooshing Earth across the galaxy, I'm guessing?), and Amy as a companion is from 2010. Which... makes sense. I guess. But the analogue clocks were weirdly out of place, the technology was weirdly up-to-date and they made a big deal of it, and Rory's nurse ID was issued in 1990. It could all just be "atmosphere" and "prop goofs," but..... we'll see. I think something that they focused on like that, which would've been easy to do right, isn't a prop goof. The clocks could be atmospheric, since the TARDIS has a lot of steampunk going on, and Moffat really wants to give the new series a classic Who feel, and analogue is kinda old-fashioned and atmospheric.
I guess we'll find out.
And as for River Song? Cradle-robbing is not okay, River. Don't do it. Think of the children :c