Mega TV post
I had planned to post about Ghosts and The West Wing yesterday, and then get on with watching The West Wing last night, but then I realised the Strictly launch show was on, and I had no self-imposed deadline for tidying up my ramblings about The West Wing. As Strictly is going to take over my Saturday nights for the foreseeable, I’m also goin to have to rethink when I choose to be my new The West Wing slot.
Ghosts 3.6
Grr. Argh. I accidentally lost my post about this finale. I think it was something like: I found the callback t the improv at the end heart-warming, although choosing improv as one of the ghosts’ activities to keep themselves entertained felt very much like something that would occur to actors who are also writers.
I thought they judged the Button House as family home just right. The Lucy plot boiled over and got most of the attention, but Mike’s description of the place as a family home, Julian, for once, helping him and then using his abilitie to contribute to the ghosts investigating Lucy for Alison worked, but also the Captain (who’d played Kitty’s father in her false memories) being quite fatherly to Kittty as she wrestled with her jealousy. And of course, the imagery of the big family dinner, even if most of them could only pretend to eat.
Humphrey volunteering that Thoms kicked his head to attract Alison’s attention was so obviously the way to go that I disappointedly bought the fake out, and was sad for Alison (well, it was an awful betrayal) losing their hard-saved dosh. (Interesting that Mike plans to put up another film about Button House after it was seeing Alison on telly that made Lucy get the idea for her scheme.) Excellent moment when we saw the real grifter!Lucy appear.
Mary must have come across Gulliver’s Travels at some point, amirite? Oh, and I felt really sorry for the knight in the road after Alison pretended she couldn’t see him after staring right at him. Obviously, she can’t look after every ghosts she meets, but …aww.
Has it been confirmed to come back?
BSG 4.16 Deadlock
Big scenes, undermined by a sense that it didn’t all track, especially because this episode kept reminding us of other things that haven’t been a focus on the show and remain unresolved and unexplained. Most obvious was the return of Gaius, a bit after Roslin was rescued, to find someone else, more cynical, had taken his spot as leader of his cult on Galactica. But we then got the return of Six (i.e. his Six), and God’s plan involved arming Gaius? Interestingly, he wasn’t wrong in his analysis of the state of the civilian humans on the fleet, how they had no representation yet and that Adama was terrible at taking them into consideration.
It was weird to see Six back when there’s not been a sniff of Caprica’s Gaius (yeah, that.) I got confused with all the Sixes we saw, and didn’t realise that Caprica was the one who’d been attacked over the food until Cottle examined her. But the baby was FINE, except Dr Saul Tigh had a bad feeling about it (so was this meant to seed doubt in the whole ‘it really matters who Saul loves and worrying about that caused Caprica to lose the baby’ gubbins?) Apparently the baby was going to be called Liam. I was too busy making ‘and then Darla will turn him’ jokes, because Jane Espenson wrote this episode, to immediately realise it was after Bill. Ellen had a point about Saul’s true loves being Adama, the Galactica and the uniform.
Saul and everyone were overwhelmed by Ellen’s return from the dead (as it was put to Kara, who must have felt stung because what happened to her is still unclear.) Also Boomer was back on the ship, (IIRC, the last time she was there, she shot Adama.) This freaked Tyrol out (so much so that he was willing to leave Mikey to his brand new birth father, Galactica and the job he’d taken back up on it…OKAY. By which I man NOT.)
Even Roslin turned up to be disconcerted by an Ellen who was still a lush, but had more memories and was several thousands of years old. And then Saul handed the reunion badly and missed his opportunity to tell her about the baby, which was never going to stay secret. I know, overwhelmed, (only the one reference to him poisoning Ellen that time.)
The ‘we all go’ insistence felt so ridiculous, because I kept thinking of who ‘we all’ wasn’t going to include, like Hera, whom they’d discussed, or Sam, although I’d have loved to see Kara’s face if they’d taken him. But the argument focused on Caprica and Saul.
Dear Cylons, may I suggest that over a patient’s bed is not the best place for an argument?
It’s just…same old problems. And my tolerance for scenes of Bill and Saul getting drunk together aren’t high, although I was reminded Adama had lost a son once when he grieved with Saul. (I’d have more pity for Caprica except I still find the appeal of Sau Tigh to women MYSTIFING.) Are Bill and Laura talking at the moment? Oh, and then they reminded us of the still unresolved vision, although after Athena shooting Natalie debacle, it might be best if we forgot all about that.
Are we all the disheartened fleet now? I suppose I should close by tipping a hat to the whole ‘children are our future’ theme, and the little Gaius who had another father named Gaius bringing out some of Gaius Baltar’s finer feelings.
Several days later, I watched 4.17 Someone To Watch Over Me
This was always an artier episode than usual with Starbuck’s hopeless day feeling like every other hopeless day, flashbacks for her and Tyrol and Tyrol learning about projection (I surprised myself by wishing Tyrol could go talk to Gaius about that. But he couldn’t, and maybe I was guilty of forgetting, like Roslin did, that he was one of the thirteenth tribe Cylons. Which is to say I shouldn’t have been surprised that The Pianist turned out to be in Kara’s mind, leading to the theory that he was her father and maybe he was that Daniel they mentioned two episodes ago, making Kara a proto Hera, except that doesn’t really explain everything. Which may make it plausible on BSG as it is now.
Props for bringing the two plotlines together - fathers or wannabe fathers failing to protect their daughters, real or imaginary. I mean, I spent a lot of Tyrol’s plot wondering how much I cared about Tyrol/Boomer, because I’d certainly moved on. Sure, they had to examine Tyrol’s response to her return especially now that he was no longer married and a father, but had discovered he was really a Cylon, but I’ve been so unimpressed by those developments and I rather think they’ve dropped the ball on Boomer’s development over the series.
Although I’m against the death penalty myself, I did feel the Rebel Cylons had the right to hold her accountable for her actions against them, and I totally got why Roslin (in increasingly presidential mode) ought to give her allies what they wanted. I thought she was judging Boomer a bit too much on the basis of what she’d done way back when, although it turned out that Tyrol definitely got played, and it seems like Boomer is still Dean Stockwell’s Head Honcho’s pawn. Sigh. So much less interesting than a Boomer with agency.
Who I hated when she made Helo cheat on Athena AND STOLE HERA. Athena thumping Helo was totally understandable (if not condonable), and if she found out his part in it she could thump Tyrol too (if thumping wasn’t bad and wrong.) The whole ‘we could have had a kid together’ feelings would have landed better if he hadn’t washed his hands of Mikey.
For continuity’s sake, I was glad they nodded to Tigh’s grief (but on the other hand, there was no time for Caprica’s, and they seemed to be alluding to the shared dream with Laura’s response to learning Hera had been taken, so maybe they should have had her involved in the plot somehow, although if my above theory about Starbuck is right, maybe she should have been in the shared dream after all. Ah, the perils of retconning.)
Kara continued to be a bitch, mostly throwing Helo’s kind gesture back at him, although it worked well for plot reasons, as we learned that the song her daddy taught her and which Hera was tuned into was the one that had triggered Four out of the Five. And she had reasons to be a bitch, as we were reminded of how much things currently sucked for her. The Pianist became a therapist, became a father figure, then went. I did get a bit snide about Kara the artist now also turning out to have been musical as well as being the best pilot in the fleet.
Strange that Hera didn’t recognise that Boomer wasn’t Athena. (Helo ought to have recognised it wasn’t his wife too, but there we go.) I wonder if they’ll ever go anywhere with Memory!Athena, even though I seem to have moved back on to Team Mama Bear Athena now that she isn’t irrationally killing random Sixes.
Strictly launch show 2021
Still quite close to last year’s COVID regime, most clearly in the distance between Tess and Claudia, the couples having their own tables near the dancefloor and meeting outside, in the main, beforehand. Only there was an audience in, which I was especially glad of for Bill and Oti, returning to do their couples choice triumph.
I won’t go second by second, but there was some playing with the holographic toys going on in the opening routine. I didn’t get exactly what the specific reference was (why the horse/unicorn?) and with my eyesight, I failed to catch who all the pros were, so the reveals of the couples was as much about them as the celebs for me. The slo-mo was less impressive when I realised it was TV magic, but Claudia and the glitter canon was A1.
And honestly, the pros’ moody Argentine tango/paso new dancers introduction was perfectly effective.
Overall, I’m more excited about the male celebs so far (not poor Dan Walker.) Not only is Nancy going to be dancing but she got a ringer! Rhys seems to be in the Karim mould, but less annoying so far. On the sportsmen front, at first I thought rugby player tops swimmer, but Adam was such an expressive gesticulater and quite outgoing, so we’ll see (his footwork may well let him down.) Tom seems quite mobile and Greg like he can do details and thesp it out. They gave Katie and Rose the most to do in the group dance, I remain to be convinced that AJ can control her limbs and energy. We’ll get a better idea when we see routines.
The first celebs to be introduced were very ‘this is real! Live TV!!’ nervous, then they seemed to calm down, but John was clearly nervousest. Thankfully we only saw two paso and Charleston faces, I was terrified that would be a thing all show. Some early storylines have been set up: Tom and Amy have two, with her being a McFly superfan and how Harry ‘Strictly Champion’ Judd will deal with Tom doing Stricrly; Greg Wise is Mr Emma Thompson (and Sense and Sensibility is a Strictly pro’s lifetime ago), while Tilly Ramsay is the daughter of Gordon Ramsay, who seems willing to play the strict papa with Nikita. (I must be old, because I was so busy mocking his hair.)
Although on the basis of this show, most of the couple seemed to have been well matched, the couple I am most interested in is Rose and Gio. First Deaf/deaf (don’t know which she prefers) contestant, which will mean Gio thinking creatively about training and communicating. Love how they took the opportunity to be frank about how she senses music, and Gio and Claudia at least attempting signing and I hope it goes beyond tokenism.
In other pro news: no Janette, although if she couldn’t win with HRV (although it was to the cut-through of Bill Bailey and Queen Oti) when was she? She’s more of a loss than Luba (sorry Luba, but ture.) Ajiaz seems to have got the role of mums’ favourite now that Anton has been made a judge while Bruno chases the dollar. They made quite a to-do of Anton (there was very litte Motsi, some typical pantoish Craig, but Shirley made me grin with her talk of postue), as if they were emphasising that he’s now moved on to another phase of his career with Strictly. I thin he was trying to intimate he won’t be as soft this year - we’ll see, I was definitely preparing for score inflation when I heard he’d got the gig.
This entry was originally posted at https://shallowness.dreamwidth.org/470529.html.
Ghosts 3.6
Grr. Argh. I accidentally lost my post about this finale. I think it was something like: I found the callback t the improv at the end heart-warming, although choosing improv as one of the ghosts’ activities to keep themselves entertained felt very much like something that would occur to actors who are also writers.
I thought they judged the Button House as family home just right. The Lucy plot boiled over and got most of the attention, but Mike’s description of the place as a family home, Julian, for once, helping him and then using his abilitie to contribute to the ghosts investigating Lucy for Alison worked, but also the Captain (who’d played Kitty’s father in her false memories) being quite fatherly to Kittty as she wrestled with her jealousy. And of course, the imagery of the big family dinner, even if most of them could only pretend to eat.
Humphrey volunteering that Thoms kicked his head to attract Alison’s attention was so obviously the way to go that I disappointedly bought the fake out, and was sad for Alison (well, it was an awful betrayal) losing their hard-saved dosh. (Interesting that Mike plans to put up another film about Button House after it was seeing Alison on telly that made Lucy get the idea for her scheme.) Excellent moment when we saw the real grifter!Lucy appear.
Mary must have come across Gulliver’s Travels at some point, amirite? Oh, and I felt really sorry for the knight in the road after Alison pretended she couldn’t see him after staring right at him. Obviously, she can’t look after every ghosts she meets, but …aww.
Has it been confirmed to come back?
BSG 4.16 Deadlock
Big scenes, undermined by a sense that it didn’t all track, especially because this episode kept reminding us of other things that haven’t been a focus on the show and remain unresolved and unexplained. Most obvious was the return of Gaius, a bit after Roslin was rescued, to find someone else, more cynical, had taken his spot as leader of his cult on Galactica. But we then got the return of Six (i.e. his Six), and God’s plan involved arming Gaius? Interestingly, he wasn’t wrong in his analysis of the state of the civilian humans on the fleet, how they had no representation yet and that Adama was terrible at taking them into consideration.
It was weird to see Six back when there’s not been a sniff of Caprica’s Gaius (yeah, that.) I got confused with all the Sixes we saw, and didn’t realise that Caprica was the one who’d been attacked over the food until Cottle examined her. But the baby was FINE, except Dr Saul Tigh had a bad feeling about it (so was this meant to seed doubt in the whole ‘it really matters who Saul loves and worrying about that caused Caprica to lose the baby’ gubbins?) Apparently the baby was going to be called Liam. I was too busy making ‘and then Darla will turn him’ jokes, because Jane Espenson wrote this episode, to immediately realise it was after Bill. Ellen had a point about Saul’s true loves being Adama, the Galactica and the uniform.
Saul and everyone were overwhelmed by Ellen’s return from the dead (as it was put to Kara, who must have felt stung because what happened to her is still unclear.) Also Boomer was back on the ship, (IIRC, the last time she was there, she shot Adama.) This freaked Tyrol out (so much so that he was willing to leave Mikey to his brand new birth father, Galactica and the job he’d taken back up on it…OKAY. By which I man NOT.)
Even Roslin turned up to be disconcerted by an Ellen who was still a lush, but had more memories and was several thousands of years old. And then Saul handed the reunion badly and missed his opportunity to tell her about the baby, which was never going to stay secret. I know, overwhelmed, (only the one reference to him poisoning Ellen that time.)
The ‘we all go’ insistence felt so ridiculous, because I kept thinking of who ‘we all’ wasn’t going to include, like Hera, whom they’d discussed, or Sam, although I’d have loved to see Kara’s face if they’d taken him. But the argument focused on Caprica and Saul.
Dear Cylons, may I suggest that over a patient’s bed is not the best place for an argument?
It’s just…same old problems. And my tolerance for scenes of Bill and Saul getting drunk together aren’t high, although I was reminded Adama had lost a son once when he grieved with Saul. (I’d have more pity for Caprica except I still find the appeal of Sau Tigh to women MYSTIFING.) Are Bill and Laura talking at the moment? Oh, and then they reminded us of the still unresolved vision, although after Athena shooting Natalie debacle, it might be best if we forgot all about that.
Are we all the disheartened fleet now? I suppose I should close by tipping a hat to the whole ‘children are our future’ theme, and the little Gaius who had another father named Gaius bringing out some of Gaius Baltar’s finer feelings.
Several days later, I watched 4.17 Someone To Watch Over Me
This was always an artier episode than usual with Starbuck’s hopeless day feeling like every other hopeless day, flashbacks for her and Tyrol and Tyrol learning about projection (I surprised myself by wishing Tyrol could go talk to Gaius about that. But he couldn’t, and maybe I was guilty of forgetting, like Roslin did, that he was one of the thirteenth tribe Cylons. Which is to say I shouldn’t have been surprised that The Pianist turned out to be in Kara’s mind, leading to the theory that he was her father and maybe he was that Daniel they mentioned two episodes ago, making Kara a proto Hera, except that doesn’t really explain everything. Which may make it plausible on BSG as it is now.
Props for bringing the two plotlines together - fathers or wannabe fathers failing to protect their daughters, real or imaginary. I mean, I spent a lot of Tyrol’s plot wondering how much I cared about Tyrol/Boomer, because I’d certainly moved on. Sure, they had to examine Tyrol’s response to her return especially now that he was no longer married and a father, but had discovered he was really a Cylon, but I’ve been so unimpressed by those developments and I rather think they’ve dropped the ball on Boomer’s development over the series.
Although I’m against the death penalty myself, I did feel the Rebel Cylons had the right to hold her accountable for her actions against them, and I totally got why Roslin (in increasingly presidential mode) ought to give her allies what they wanted. I thought she was judging Boomer a bit too much on the basis of what she’d done way back when, although it turned out that Tyrol definitely got played, and it seems like Boomer is still Dean Stockwell’s Head Honcho’s pawn. Sigh. So much less interesting than a Boomer with agency.
Who I hated when she made Helo cheat on Athena AND STOLE HERA. Athena thumping Helo was totally understandable (if not condonable), and if she found out his part in it she could thump Tyrol too (if thumping wasn’t bad and wrong.) The whole ‘we could have had a kid together’ feelings would have landed better if he hadn’t washed his hands of Mikey.
For continuity’s sake, I was glad they nodded to Tigh’s grief (but on the other hand, there was no time for Caprica’s, and they seemed to be alluding to the shared dream with Laura’s response to learning Hera had been taken, so maybe they should have had her involved in the plot somehow, although if my above theory about Starbuck is right, maybe she should have been in the shared dream after all. Ah, the perils of retconning.)
Kara continued to be a bitch, mostly throwing Helo’s kind gesture back at him, although it worked well for plot reasons, as we learned that the song her daddy taught her and which Hera was tuned into was the one that had triggered Four out of the Five. And she had reasons to be a bitch, as we were reminded of how much things currently sucked for her. The Pianist became a therapist, became a father figure, then went. I did get a bit snide about Kara the artist now also turning out to have been musical as well as being the best pilot in the fleet.
Strange that Hera didn’t recognise that Boomer wasn’t Athena. (Helo ought to have recognised it wasn’t his wife too, but there we go.) I wonder if they’ll ever go anywhere with Memory!Athena, even though I seem to have moved back on to Team Mama Bear Athena now that she isn’t irrationally killing random Sixes.
Strictly launch show 2021
Still quite close to last year’s COVID regime, most clearly in the distance between Tess and Claudia, the couples having their own tables near the dancefloor and meeting outside, in the main, beforehand. Only there was an audience in, which I was especially glad of for Bill and Oti, returning to do their couples choice triumph.
I won’t go second by second, but there was some playing with the holographic toys going on in the opening routine. I didn’t get exactly what the specific reference was (why the horse/unicorn?) and with my eyesight, I failed to catch who all the pros were, so the reveals of the couples was as much about them as the celebs for me. The slo-mo was less impressive when I realised it was TV magic, but Claudia and the glitter canon was A1.
And honestly, the pros’ moody Argentine tango/paso new dancers introduction was perfectly effective.
Overall, I’m more excited about the male celebs so far (not poor Dan Walker.) Not only is Nancy going to be dancing but she got a ringer! Rhys seems to be in the Karim mould, but less annoying so far. On the sportsmen front, at first I thought rugby player tops swimmer, but Adam was such an expressive gesticulater and quite outgoing, so we’ll see (his footwork may well let him down.) Tom seems quite mobile and Greg like he can do details and thesp it out. They gave Katie and Rose the most to do in the group dance, I remain to be convinced that AJ can control her limbs and energy. We’ll get a better idea when we see routines.
The first celebs to be introduced were very ‘this is real! Live TV!!’ nervous, then they seemed to calm down, but John was clearly nervousest. Thankfully we only saw two paso and Charleston faces, I was terrified that would be a thing all show. Some early storylines have been set up: Tom and Amy have two, with her being a McFly superfan and how Harry ‘Strictly Champion’ Judd will deal with Tom doing Stricrly; Greg Wise is Mr Emma Thompson (and Sense and Sensibility is a Strictly pro’s lifetime ago), while Tilly Ramsay is the daughter of Gordon Ramsay, who seems willing to play the strict papa with Nikita. (I must be old, because I was so busy mocking his hair.)
Although on the basis of this show, most of the couple seemed to have been well matched, the couple I am most interested in is Rose and Gio. First Deaf/deaf (don’t know which she prefers) contestant, which will mean Gio thinking creatively about training and communicating. Love how they took the opportunity to be frank about how she senses music, and Gio and Claudia at least attempting signing and I hope it goes beyond tokenism.
In other pro news: no Janette, although if she couldn’t win with HRV (although it was to the cut-through of Bill Bailey and Queen Oti) when was she? She’s more of a loss than Luba (sorry Luba, but ture.) Ajiaz seems to have got the role of mums’ favourite now that Anton has been made a judge while Bruno chases the dollar. They made quite a to-do of Anton (there was very litte Motsi, some typical pantoish Craig, but Shirley made me grin with her talk of postue), as if they were emphasising that he’s now moved on to another phase of his career with Strictly. I thin he was trying to intimate he won’t be as soft this year - we’ll see, I was definitely preparing for score inflation when I heard he’d got the gig.
This entry was originally posted at https://shallowness.dreamwidth.org/470529.html.