good, sad, gross stuff
Hello. I see LJ got dolled up for their birthday, eh. Whattup. How are we all? I have some gigantic news to report. MY TOENAIL CAME OFF YESTERDAY. Yes, the toenail from toenail-gate. I was sitting like a pretzel on my bed and when I got up I accidentally hit my toe with my hand, lifting the nail a little bit more off my foot. It didn't hurt, and when I pulled off my sock I realized it was hanging on by a thread, so I very gently just pulled it out of my cuticle and wha-la, no more toenail. If you've ever wondered what exactly lies under your nail, it is apparently half remnants of nail and half pink skin that feels weird to poke. it doesn't hurt but is a bit tender. (It looks freaky though. I look like I have a deformed alien toe). I'm going to go to the doctor eventually to get it checked but I think the new nail will probably just grow in a few months. For the record, it took exactly 3 months and 2 days since the incident for the nail to come off, so if for whatever reason tyou too would like an alien toe with no nail...don't do what I did LOL. I'm thankful it's winter, ala closed-toe shoe season, because otherwise I'd have it bandaged.
K, I shall stop grossing people out now. Without A Trace, aka one of my favourite shows ever, got canceled this week with a kind of lame finale,
Okay. So Without A Trace got canceled today.
Here is the thing with me and Without A Trace. I'm not particularly vocal with how much I love it, because it's a small fandom. Really small, actually. The show had its fan heyday once upon a time but even then, it was never as big as other shows and so I shut up about it to avoid boring anyone. But WAT has been in my life for years. I was 14ish when it premiered and I can remember watching that and later on, buying the first season DVD which is now one of the three most played DVD sets in my collection. (The others are seasons two and three). I've always had a fascination with missing people and that drew me in at first - the cases really are the heart of the show and every one is so well crafted and memorable. Really, though, I fell for how much of a character piece it was. All through it's run I've loved Jack and his family issues and how loyal and devoted he was to his work, Sam trying to be tough in the face of every situation and crashing spectacularly, Martin being the poster child of an agent and living up to his father, Viv as Mother Theresa and the fierce veteran cop she is, and of course, Danny Taylor (or as he was before he changed his name, Danny Alvarez!). Danny Danny Danny. Time for a certain statement: Danny Taylor is my favourite fictional character. Period. I love lots of fictional characters, but when it comes to Danny, he stands out. He's the most balanced, the one with the qualities I'd want in someone real, the one who's been through hard stuff and come out of it without being jaded and critical or falling into a stereotype. He's just so well-rounded and dynamic a character. I could go on all day. And so Without A Trace became the show I let sink into me. Every few months I would get my DVDs out and put it on in the background while I did other things, and yet I can still pull the sets out now and watch the eps free of distractions and love them all over again. I watched season one so much I can basically recite a few of the episodes. I really do (did, I guess) love this show. And now it's over, and while I'm not overjoyed with the way it ended, I am happy with it. I'm happy we got seven amazing seasons of this show that if I had to admit ended at about the right time - though a better time would have been the WAT writers getting a warning and writing a good well-rounded finale. As it was too many things were left hanging and left the audience unsatisfied. But I don't mind. I'll always have my season one.
As for how the show actually ended, well, I still haven't seen it in it's entirety because in actual fact I've only seen a handful of eps from the past two seasons (thanks, Channel 9, for constantly pulling this show off the air for no reason!). The thing was I'm so very invested in Danny. When you get really wrapped up in one character in an ensemble, or indeed the ensemble as a whole, you get a bit territorial when someone new comes in. It's that classic crime show team syndrome. You get attached to the team and then when someone new comes along it unsettles you for a while. That was a little of how I felt watching season four. Elena took a bit of getting used to, and I even think Roslyn Sanchez herself had to ease in. She almost seemed a little cold and impersonal on her own but in the end her awesomeness came out and she became the character she is. And when she and Danny did settle down? Oh man. It sounds really lame for me to say I was happy for him, but I really was. Once her daughter Sofia's father drama calmed down they fell into this rhythm wherein Danny was actually consistently happy, which threw me for a six. I think through watching things like Lost you kind of get used to people getting bashed around relentlessly for the sake of drama. It was just weird to see a character so happy for so long. They work so well together, though, and I adore the fact that in the end Danny gets a built-in family. I wanted a happy ending for him and I got it. The proposal was adorable, and now the unseen future of Danny Taylor includes a wife and a stepdaughter and everything settled that someone with such a crappy back story deserves. It's exactly the right way for it to end for him and that makes me happy. It takes the edge off this show ending for good.
All that said, there's another thing that needs to be discussed, and that's the rest of the finale, or rather how it was screwed up. The reviews of this leave a pretty bad taste in my mouth in terms of Jack and Sam breaking up. I don't know what the writers were thinking there. They'd pretty much just reunited and a lot of good things were happening - Sam was bonding with Hannah, Jack was bonding with Sam's son and Sam had given up that Brian jerk and all was good. But I guess the writers were thinking ahead, or maybe back. They broke Sam and Jack up, and you can only read it as the writers having something in mind for a season eight (though fans have known for months that CBS was being forced for financial reasons to choose between renewing Cold Case or WAT), or going back to the show's roots - wherein Sam and Jack had done the relationship thing and it hadn't worked and they'd let it go. Or maybe, since other WAT fans are complaining endlessly about this series finale, they just suck. Either way the show didn't really have the finishing episode it was meant to have, I don't think. The show needed to at least end on the cast together, and as I hear it that didn't happen. You know what, when I do get to see season seven uninterrupted and in it's entirety - no thanks to you, Channel 9! - I'm not expecting it to be wonderful. I'm really not. I know it hasn't been as good as the earlier seasons for quite a bit, maybe a good season and a half. But I'll stick with Danny Taylor through any convolutedness, even considering this show ends with no glimpse of the wedding at all and Danny choosing Jack over Martin as his best man. I'm almost wondering whether this show would end better if we got some sort of wrap-up - a telemovie or something weird like that. Danny and Elena's stories end with a nice bit of finality but everyone else is just up in the air because CBS yanked the carpet out from under them. And that sucks. I wish the writers had been able to see the end coming.
Anyway, you know what? I'm good. I really am. I knew the end was coming. I knew that slowly but surely the WAT candle was burning out. I would have loved a well-formed finale - personally, I always imagined the series finale as either Jack quitting for good this time or Missing Persons disbanding. But what can you do? You cannot do, you can only accept. And I accept that's it's happened for seven wonderful seasons and that now it's gone. (Though I may go into denial eventually. The season four and five DVDs are coming out here on July 1st, and when I get them I maaaay retreat to my room to marathon them while gripping the cases for DEAR LIFE and PRAYING IT NEVER ENDS).
This show, though, had an amazing run. I'm so happy it existed. And I'm excited to see what Enrique Murciano and everyone else gets up to now. Much like my feelings towards this show, I don't seem to want this blathering to end BECAUSE WHEN THE RAMBLING ENDS THE SHOW ENDS. Or something.
Okay, let's just get all half-serious and hilarious and sooky about it.
I loved you, Without A Trace. You were occasionally a cruel mistress, you were occasionally difficult, you were occasionally a tad abusive, but I still loved you. You introduced me to Danny Taylor, who I feel as though I've been in a seven year relationship with that is only now ending and thus I am finding it hard to let go. You introduced me to Jack Malone and Sam Spade and Martin and Viv and the tech guy and all the great guest stars. You were a wonderful incredible little bundle of a great show, and I will miss you and all your characters dearly. I wish we were parting under better circumstances, but we're parting now and that's the way it is. Love you forever, Without A Trace. Goodbye.
*fade to credits EXECUTIVE PRODUCER JERRY BRUCKHEIMER*
(Also, I love the fact that Consumerist, which is a blog in no way in related to TV, actually made a post about WAT's axing and mentions the "gaping hole" that will now be left in my life (lol), though apparently I have "poor taste in entertainment". OR MAYBE MY TASTE IN ENTERTAINMENT IS JUST...MISSING. OH YEAAAAH).
The upside to this though is that Cold Case and Numb3rs both got renewed, which is great because I feel like they're both having strong seasons from what I've seen. Numb3rs is particularly good lately and I'm so glad that ratings have been up on their last season. *claps*
Also, what is this "Glee" show I have been hearing about? Actually, my question should probably be 'what exactly is a glee club?' because we don't have those here. Even if it's a hit it will probably be treated here much like "Friday Night Lights" which was shown for a short period of a time on a digital only channel and then taken off air, but I didn't blame them for that because it's not like we get American football here, you know? And we also don't get glee clubs. (Or cheerleaders, in most places anyway. And we don't have the Greek system at unis, so no "Greek" either). But anyway, is it good? Who's in it? Unknowns?
And while we're talking about TV: House finale confused me...until I realized he was being booked for psychosis. For a second I actually thought they were implying the entire show had just been a hallucination and IRL House is this crazy dude lying on the floor, but no, he is just a crazy doctor lying on the floor. And how goddamn AWKWARD would those Cameron/Chase wedding scenes have been for Jesse and Jennifer? Or every scene in this whole episode? They're such troopers because you couldn't tell that they were together IRL and called their engagement off, but when they first looked at each other when they got to the altar, there was this awkward look in their eyes like "Dude, we're simulating the wedding we called off". And when Cameron burst into tears at the sperm thing and then was all "I never cancelled our wedding plans", you kind of wonder if that was true IRL, that she never wanted to call it off, because she does it so well on screen. Like I said, troopers, the both of them.
Anyhoo, besides the new Twilight poster (oh, I'm sorry, the ~Twilight Saga~ lol) and Olivia Wilde's photoshoot for GQ (pretty!) I have nay to pimp so I'm off. My feed reader has 310 entries. If you're out there, comment!
K, I shall stop grossing people out now. Without A Trace, aka one of my favourite shows ever, got canceled this week with a kind of lame finale,
Okay. So Without A Trace got canceled today.
Here is the thing with me and Without A Trace. I'm not particularly vocal with how much I love it, because it's a small fandom. Really small, actually. The show had its fan heyday once upon a time but even then, it was never as big as other shows and so I shut up about it to avoid boring anyone. But WAT has been in my life for years. I was 14ish when it premiered and I can remember watching that and later on, buying the first season DVD which is now one of the three most played DVD sets in my collection. (The others are seasons two and three). I've always had a fascination with missing people and that drew me in at first - the cases really are the heart of the show and every one is so well crafted and memorable. Really, though, I fell for how much of a character piece it was. All through it's run I've loved Jack and his family issues and how loyal and devoted he was to his work, Sam trying to be tough in the face of every situation and crashing spectacularly, Martin being the poster child of an agent and living up to his father, Viv as Mother Theresa and the fierce veteran cop she is, and of course, Danny Taylor (or as he was before he changed his name, Danny Alvarez!). Danny Danny Danny. Time for a certain statement: Danny Taylor is my favourite fictional character. Period. I love lots of fictional characters, but when it comes to Danny, he stands out. He's the most balanced, the one with the qualities I'd want in someone real, the one who's been through hard stuff and come out of it without being jaded and critical or falling into a stereotype. He's just so well-rounded and dynamic a character. I could go on all day. And so Without A Trace became the show I let sink into me. Every few months I would get my DVDs out and put it on in the background while I did other things, and yet I can still pull the sets out now and watch the eps free of distractions and love them all over again. I watched season one so much I can basically recite a few of the episodes. I really do (did, I guess) love this show. And now it's over, and while I'm not overjoyed with the way it ended, I am happy with it. I'm happy we got seven amazing seasons of this show that if I had to admit ended at about the right time - though a better time would have been the WAT writers getting a warning and writing a good well-rounded finale. As it was too many things were left hanging and left the audience unsatisfied. But I don't mind. I'll always have my season one.
As for how the show actually ended, well, I still haven't seen it in it's entirety because in actual fact I've only seen a handful of eps from the past two seasons (thanks, Channel 9, for constantly pulling this show off the air for no reason!). The thing was I'm so very invested in Danny. When you get really wrapped up in one character in an ensemble, or indeed the ensemble as a whole, you get a bit territorial when someone new comes in. It's that classic crime show team syndrome. You get attached to the team and then when someone new comes along it unsettles you for a while. That was a little of how I felt watching season four. Elena took a bit of getting used to, and I even think Roslyn Sanchez herself had to ease in. She almost seemed a little cold and impersonal on her own but in the end her awesomeness came out and she became the character she is. And when she and Danny did settle down? Oh man. It sounds really lame for me to say I was happy for him, but I really was. Once her daughter Sofia's father drama calmed down they fell into this rhythm wherein Danny was actually consistently happy, which threw me for a six. I think through watching things like Lost you kind of get used to people getting bashed around relentlessly for the sake of drama. It was just weird to see a character so happy for so long. They work so well together, though, and I adore the fact that in the end Danny gets a built-in family. I wanted a happy ending for him and I got it. The proposal was adorable, and now the unseen future of Danny Taylor includes a wife and a stepdaughter and everything settled that someone with such a crappy back story deserves. It's exactly the right way for it to end for him and that makes me happy. It takes the edge off this show ending for good.
All that said, there's another thing that needs to be discussed, and that's the rest of the finale, or rather how it was screwed up. The reviews of this leave a pretty bad taste in my mouth in terms of Jack and Sam breaking up. I don't know what the writers were thinking there. They'd pretty much just reunited and a lot of good things were happening - Sam was bonding with Hannah, Jack was bonding with Sam's son and Sam had given up that Brian jerk and all was good. But I guess the writers were thinking ahead, or maybe back. They broke Sam and Jack up, and you can only read it as the writers having something in mind for a season eight (though fans have known for months that CBS was being forced for financial reasons to choose between renewing Cold Case or WAT), or going back to the show's roots - wherein Sam and Jack had done the relationship thing and it hadn't worked and they'd let it go. Or maybe, since other WAT fans are complaining endlessly about this series finale, they just suck. Either way the show didn't really have the finishing episode it was meant to have, I don't think. The show needed to at least end on the cast together, and as I hear it that didn't happen. You know what, when I do get to see season seven uninterrupted and in it's entirety - no thanks to you, Channel 9! - I'm not expecting it to be wonderful. I'm really not. I know it hasn't been as good as the earlier seasons for quite a bit, maybe a good season and a half. But I'll stick with Danny Taylor through any convolutedness, even considering this show ends with no glimpse of the wedding at all and Danny choosing Jack over Martin as his best man. I'm almost wondering whether this show would end better if we got some sort of wrap-up - a telemovie or something weird like that. Danny and Elena's stories end with a nice bit of finality but everyone else is just up in the air because CBS yanked the carpet out from under them. And that sucks. I wish the writers had been able to see the end coming.
Anyway, you know what? I'm good. I really am. I knew the end was coming. I knew that slowly but surely the WAT candle was burning out. I would have loved a well-formed finale - personally, I always imagined the series finale as either Jack quitting for good this time or Missing Persons disbanding. But what can you do? You cannot do, you can only accept. And I accept that's it's happened for seven wonderful seasons and that now it's gone. (Though I may go into denial eventually. The season four and five DVDs are coming out here on July 1st, and when I get them I maaaay retreat to my room to marathon them while gripping the cases for DEAR LIFE and PRAYING IT NEVER ENDS).
This show, though, had an amazing run. I'm so happy it existed. And I'm excited to see what Enrique Murciano and everyone else gets up to now. Much like my feelings towards this show, I don't seem to want this blathering to end BECAUSE WHEN THE RAMBLING ENDS THE SHOW ENDS. Or something.
Okay, let's just get all half-serious and hilarious and sooky about it.
I loved you, Without A Trace. You were occasionally a cruel mistress, you were occasionally difficult, you were occasionally a tad abusive, but I still loved you. You introduced me to Danny Taylor, who I feel as though I've been in a seven year relationship with that is only now ending and thus I am finding it hard to let go. You introduced me to Jack Malone and Sam Spade and Martin and Viv and the tech guy and all the great guest stars. You were a wonderful incredible little bundle of a great show, and I will miss you and all your characters dearly. I wish we were parting under better circumstances, but we're parting now and that's the way it is. Love you forever, Without A Trace. Goodbye.
*fade to credits EXECUTIVE PRODUCER JERRY BRUCKHEIMER*
(Also, I love the fact that Consumerist, which is a blog in no way in related to TV, actually made a post about WAT's axing and mentions the "gaping hole" that will now be left in my life (lol), though apparently I have "poor taste in entertainment". OR MAYBE MY TASTE IN ENTERTAINMENT IS JUST...MISSING. OH YEAAAAH).
The upside to this though is that Cold Case and Numb3rs both got renewed, which is great because I feel like they're both having strong seasons from what I've seen. Numb3rs is particularly good lately and I'm so glad that ratings have been up on their last season. *claps*
Also, what is this "Glee" show I have been hearing about? Actually, my question should probably be 'what exactly is a glee club?' because we don't have those here. Even if it's a hit it will probably be treated here much like "Friday Night Lights" which was shown for a short period of a time on a digital only channel and then taken off air, but I didn't blame them for that because it's not like we get American football here, you know? And we also don't get glee clubs. (Or cheerleaders, in most places anyway. And we don't have the Greek system at unis, so no "Greek" either). But anyway, is it good? Who's in it? Unknowns?
And while we're talking about TV: House finale confused me...until I realized he was being booked for psychosis. For a second I actually thought they were implying the entire show had just been a hallucination and IRL House is this crazy dude lying on the floor, but no, he is just a crazy doctor lying on the floor. And how goddamn AWKWARD would those Cameron/Chase wedding scenes have been for Jesse and Jennifer? Or every scene in this whole episode? They're such troopers because you couldn't tell that they were together IRL and called their engagement off, but when they first looked at each other when they got to the altar, there was this awkward look in their eyes like "Dude, we're simulating the wedding we called off". And when Cameron burst into tears at the sperm thing and then was all "I never cancelled our wedding plans", you kind of wonder if that was true IRL, that she never wanted to call it off, because she does it so well on screen. Like I said, troopers, the both of them.
Anyhoo, besides the new Twilight poster (oh, I'm sorry, the ~Twilight Saga~ lol) and Olivia Wilde's photoshoot for GQ (pretty!) I have nay to pimp so I'm off. My feed reader has 310 entries. If you're out there, comment!