Mostly Some DS9 Thoughts
Suggestions of a Y: The Last Man television show
THIS. I want! I want!I want! Oh, please! I want Yorick and Agent 355 and Dr Mann and Rose the one-eyed Australian pirate and Beth I and Beth II and Hero and Alter and all the other wonderful characters I love on my television set. It would make for a great television show if done right and the source material treated with respect and there'd be more awesome, complex female characters than you could shake a stick at, plus a monkey.
Now they just need to also make an Ex Machina television show (It'd be The West Wing, in New York mayoralty office, and the Major has superpowers - what's not to love?) and kill the proposed Sandman adaptation (a Sandman adaptation would be win, but not with the showrunner that has been proposed) and I'll be happy.
I'm sick at the moment and making myself feel better by marathonning a few episodes of DS9. Specifically, I've rewatched Favour the Bold/Sacrifice of Angels and Return to Grace.
Favour the Bold/Sacrifice of Angels is one of my favourite two parters of all time. I don't think there's any moment in these episodes that's less than wonderful, but highlights include O'Brien and Bashir reciting lines from The Charge of the Light Brigade and spooking Nog while also nicely setting the tone of the massive space battle (oh, I do love a massive space battle), Dukat being all 'I'm sure what you did deserved having Kira beat the crap out of you' to Damar when he shows up worse for wear in his office, and Quark realising that the fate of the Station, the War, the Federation and really, the whole Alpha Quadrant rests on his shoulders.
One of the major reasons I love is that television so rarely does a big dramatic game changing war story arc like it does with the Dominion occupation arc, and movies, even though they have larger budgets, can't do all the wonderful gritty character stuff well because you can't show the character before it all happened and I don't find I care about character in movies as much (what with there being limited time to get to know them). And I love occupation storylines. I'm fascinated by war stories, but not very much in the tales of the front lines, but rather what's going on behind them; stories of resistance, and hardships caused by resource shortages and compromises with occupying forces and the effect on non-combatants, particularly children.
I know there's going to be a BSG spin-off, Blood and Chrome, which will focus on Adama (bleh!) during the Cylon War, but I think that's a wasted opportunity just focusing on one fighter pilot. Focus on what's going on on the planets, the struggles people have to face as they can no longer trust technology once relied on and anarchy that ensues, spend an episode on a family that's terrified and hiding in a basement while fighting going on upstairs and they don't know how is winning the battle, give a story to the Marine unit that Starbuck's mother was a part off and ask the question of whether or not she was born the monster that would break all the fingers on her daughter's hand, or whether it was partially the result of trauma and a lack of attention given to the psychological damage of war on veterans. I want those stories.
Anyway, I digress. The other episode I watched was Return to Grace because I find Kira and Dukat's relationship one of the most fascinating ever. Dukat while vile and evil is just so utterly charming that it's hard not to fault Kira for finding she does on occasion quite enjoy his company and it's kind of like watching a predator attract prey with something pretty. And the fact that she's in the dark about just how far back his relationship with her family goes adds on a whole other level of creepy. Then there's that perversion of domesticity as they find themselves raising a teenager together and there's also Kira being for Dukat the personification Bajor and disturbing love for the planet he oppressed and abused and his consuming need for its approval and even love. And also the actors have truck loads of chemistry and I could watch him flirt with her and her telling him exactly where he can shove his ideas about them all day long. The show really hit gold with those two. Such a shame that they never really got a good conclusion. Really, she should have got to stab him at least once.
THIS. I want! I want!I want! Oh, please! I want Yorick and Agent 355 and Dr Mann and Rose the one-eyed Australian pirate and Beth I and Beth II and Hero and Alter and all the other wonderful characters I love on my television set. It would make for a great television show if done right and the source material treated with respect and there'd be more awesome, complex female characters than you could shake a stick at, plus a monkey.
Now they just need to also make an Ex Machina television show (It'd be The West Wing, in New York mayoralty office, and the Major has superpowers - what's not to love?) and kill the proposed Sandman adaptation (a Sandman adaptation would be win, but not with the showrunner that has been proposed) and I'll be happy.
I'm sick at the moment and making myself feel better by marathonning a few episodes of DS9. Specifically, I've rewatched Favour the Bold/Sacrifice of Angels and Return to Grace.
Favour the Bold/Sacrifice of Angels is one of my favourite two parters of all time. I don't think there's any moment in these episodes that's less than wonderful, but highlights include O'Brien and Bashir reciting lines from The Charge of the Light Brigade and spooking Nog while also nicely setting the tone of the massive space battle (oh, I do love a massive space battle), Dukat being all 'I'm sure what you did deserved having Kira beat the crap out of you' to Damar when he shows up worse for wear in his office, and Quark realising that the fate of the Station, the War, the Federation and really, the whole Alpha Quadrant rests on his shoulders.
One of the major reasons I love is that television so rarely does a big dramatic game changing war story arc like it does with the Dominion occupation arc, and movies, even though they have larger budgets, can't do all the wonderful gritty character stuff well because you can't show the character before it all happened and I don't find I care about character in movies as much (what with there being limited time to get to know them). And I love occupation storylines. I'm fascinated by war stories, but not very much in the tales of the front lines, but rather what's going on behind them; stories of resistance, and hardships caused by resource shortages and compromises with occupying forces and the effect on non-combatants, particularly children.
I know there's going to be a BSG spin-off, Blood and Chrome, which will focus on Adama (bleh!) during the Cylon War, but I think that's a wasted opportunity just focusing on one fighter pilot. Focus on what's going on on the planets, the struggles people have to face as they can no longer trust technology once relied on and anarchy that ensues, spend an episode on a family that's terrified and hiding in a basement while fighting going on upstairs and they don't know how is winning the battle, give a story to the Marine unit that Starbuck's mother was a part off and ask the question of whether or not she was born the monster that would break all the fingers on her daughter's hand, or whether it was partially the result of trauma and a lack of attention given to the psychological damage of war on veterans. I want those stories.
Anyway, I digress. The other episode I watched was Return to Grace because I find Kira and Dukat's relationship one of the most fascinating ever. Dukat while vile and evil is just so utterly charming that it's hard not to fault Kira for finding she does on occasion quite enjoy his company and it's kind of like watching a predator attract prey with something pretty. And the fact that she's in the dark about just how far back his relationship with her family goes adds on a whole other level of creepy. Then there's that perversion of domesticity as they find themselves raising a teenager together and there's also Kira being for Dukat the personification Bajor and disturbing love for the planet he oppressed and abused and his consuming need for its approval and even love. And also the actors have truck loads of chemistry and I could watch him flirt with her and her telling him exactly where he can shove his ideas about them all day long. The show really hit gold with those two. Such a shame that they never really got a good conclusion. Really, she should have got to stab him at least once.