shh.
First, I just discovered that my music collection includes Michael Stipe singing "The Lion Sleeps Tonight". This means I now have to inflict it on you all, so: here.
Hee.
Also talking of musical wrongness: how has nobody vidded Supernatural to the Josh Ritter song Lawrence, KS? One, it's called LAWRENCE, KANSAS. And second, oh my god the vid could do so many beautiful beautiful things with "I can't leave this world behind..." - ironic and tragic and hopeful and stubborn and oh, fandom, why do you deny me my hypothetical vid of fabulousness? (Okay, yeah, my own complete lack of ability to vid is mostly the problem here, but still. *g*)
And okay, now on to, er, television. Doctor Who was fucking amazing. It might well go tits-up next week, but as a set-up? That was fantastic. It was creepy and interesting and sci-fi-tastic without being overly stupid - like, I didn't think about the many nocturnal animals until after the credits rolled, which is pretty impressive for Who. The whole psychiatrist-telling-the-kid scene being an awesome and creepy undercutting of the way that scene usually goes made me happy. Also Donna was kind of awesome, again: I liked that even though there was a 'ditzy girl' character who was, naturally, dead in about two minutes, we were also meant to feel sympathy for her. Donna's sympathy and niceness took the already-creepy "ghosting" thing and made it very emotional, nearly as well as the "edited for taste and decency" message was made all the more horrific for it.
(I am starting to worry that she might be gone at the end of the season. A few people seem to think so. Has anyone actually heard anything?)
I love Age of Sail stuff generally and the HH movies are so much fun, despite their faults. (The random showering scene is even more random than I remembered; Mariette is slightly less lame, although the bit where we're supposed to believe Horatio really loves her is even more so. Seriously, people, he met her FIVE MINUTES AGO.)
And oh, oh, Archie. I can't watch without babbling about my love for Archie. I never get to use this icon and that makes me sad, and he's just so much the best thing about those movies. Horatio's good looking and talented, but he's also a jackass a lot of the time - he's stubborn and way too concious of the fact he's usually right, and has no idea how to deal with people in a way that makes those two things less likely to get their backs up. Archie is integral to making Horatio watchable: around Archie, Horatio unbends a bit, becomes more human, and when he doesn't, Archie's more than able to tell him that a poker up the ass is not a good look.
Honest to god, it's bizarre seeing the difference between Horatio-with-Archie and Horatio-with-everyone-else. They might as well be different characters, and it's only late in the series that the edges start blurring a little. Archie's really, really good for Horatio - and, equally importantly, Horatio's good for Archie. Archie needed somebody who didn't first meet him as a victim, somebody to believe in him and keep him from giving up; Horatio needed somebody who wasn't intimidated by his brain and his moral perfectionism, keep him human. They both got that, and while it does have the potential to be kind of unhealthy, the little snippets of them being relaxed and equals and so smiley and devoted and lovely with each other are so cute it's very difficult to see it as anything other than them being adorable and completely head-over-heels in a very first-real-love type way.
Like, seriously... the Forester estate says "kill Archie", and they couldn't have done it in a more "fuck you, Archie is AWESOME and clearly the best thing to ever happen to your stick in the mud brooding Byronic hero!" way. It's tragic and it's all out of love and it cements Archie forever as the important person in Horatio's past. It makes me feel really sad that I'm mostly convinced they never got together before Archie died. Their tragedy seems to me to be one of potential cut short: what could they have been, if Horatio had made his way up the Navy ranks with Archie at his side? (It's almost like Romeo and Juliet, if Romeo had joined the navy and developed a penchant for showering in public.) But we never get to find out, and instead of having this sweet and slightly messed up love blossom and bring them both into their full potential in the way it was beginning to, Horatio's emotional side just never recovers. If he had been shagging Archie a lot before the Tragic Events, I like to think he'd have learned more about his own heart, been able to bring those lessons to new relationships, platonic and otherwise. But he doesn't.
Man, it's so sad. So I'm going to move on to GENE HUNT, oh my god, what the hell? How did I not know Philip Glenister was in Mutiny and Retribution?! And he was awesome - I loved that he started off just an asshole, and then kind of turned out to have some surprising depths. (It sort of made me want fanfic where it turns out he is Gene Hunt, or something. Not that I love that sort of thing too much.) It went well with the actual ambiguity surrounding the Tragic Events - they pushed (hah!) the 'It Was Wellard' idea, but not too much. It could have been, but it could have been just an accident, too, and if you really try, it could even have been someone else. They don't flinch away from the moral complexity of the issue either way, and Hobbs Who Is Sadly Probably Not Gene Hunt was a big part of that. Dr Clive seems just like he doesn't understand the effect the captain is having on the ship: Hobbs clearly does, and decides differently from Horatio anyway.
My affection for William Bush has also been revealed to have hidden depths. When he turns up to the Mutinous Meeting (hey, it's a Lemony Snicket title) and reveals that he's on their side, I kind of cheered. Yay Paul McGann!
Hee.
Also talking of musical wrongness: how has nobody vidded Supernatural to the Josh Ritter song Lawrence, KS? One, it's called LAWRENCE, KANSAS. And second, oh my god the vid could do so many beautiful beautiful things with "I can't leave this world behind..." - ironic and tragic and hopeful and stubborn and oh, fandom, why do you deny me my hypothetical vid of fabulousness? (Okay, yeah, my own complete lack of ability to vid is mostly the problem here, but still. *g*)
And okay, now on to, er, television. Doctor Who was fucking amazing. It might well go tits-up next week, but as a set-up? That was fantastic. It was creepy and interesting and sci-fi-tastic without being overly stupid - like, I didn't think about the many nocturnal animals until after the credits rolled, which is pretty impressive for Who. The whole psychiatrist-telling-the-kid scene being an awesome and creepy undercutting of the way that scene usually goes made me happy. Also Donna was kind of awesome, again: I liked that even though there was a 'ditzy girl' character who was, naturally, dead in about two minutes, we were also meant to feel sympathy for her. Donna's sympathy and niceness took the already-creepy "ghosting" thing and made it very emotional, nearly as well as the "edited for taste and decency" message was made all the more horrific for it.
(I am starting to worry that she might be gone at the end of the season. A few people seem to think so. Has anyone actually heard anything?)
I love Age of Sail stuff generally and the HH movies are so much fun, despite their faults. (The random showering scene is even more random than I remembered; Mariette is slightly less lame, although the bit where we're supposed to believe Horatio really loves her is even more so. Seriously, people, he met her FIVE MINUTES AGO.)
And oh, oh, Archie. I can't watch without babbling about my love for Archie. I never get to use this icon and that makes me sad, and he's just so much the best thing about those movies. Horatio's good looking and talented, but he's also a jackass a lot of the time - he's stubborn and way too concious of the fact he's usually right, and has no idea how to deal with people in a way that makes those two things less likely to get their backs up. Archie is integral to making Horatio watchable: around Archie, Horatio unbends a bit, becomes more human, and when he doesn't, Archie's more than able to tell him that a poker up the ass is not a good look.
Honest to god, it's bizarre seeing the difference between Horatio-with-Archie and Horatio-with-everyone-else. They might as well be different characters, and it's only late in the series that the edges start blurring a little. Archie's really, really good for Horatio - and, equally importantly, Horatio's good for Archie. Archie needed somebody who didn't first meet him as a victim, somebody to believe in him and keep him from giving up; Horatio needed somebody who wasn't intimidated by his brain and his moral perfectionism, keep him human. They both got that, and while it does have the potential to be kind of unhealthy, the little snippets of them being relaxed and equals and so smiley and devoted and lovely with each other are so cute it's very difficult to see it as anything other than them being adorable and completely head-over-heels in a very first-real-love type way.
Like, seriously... the Forester estate says "kill Archie", and they couldn't have done it in a more "fuck you, Archie is AWESOME and clearly the best thing to ever happen to your stick in the mud brooding Byronic hero!" way. It's tragic and it's all out of love and it cements Archie forever as the important person in Horatio's past. It makes me feel really sad that I'm mostly convinced they never got together before Archie died. Their tragedy seems to me to be one of potential cut short: what could they have been, if Horatio had made his way up the Navy ranks with Archie at his side? (It's almost like Romeo and Juliet, if Romeo had joined the navy and developed a penchant for showering in public.) But we never get to find out, and instead of having this sweet and slightly messed up love blossom and bring them both into their full potential in the way it was beginning to, Horatio's emotional side just never recovers. If he had been shagging Archie a lot before the Tragic Events, I like to think he'd have learned more about his own heart, been able to bring those lessons to new relationships, platonic and otherwise. But he doesn't.
Man, it's so sad. So I'm going to move on to GENE HUNT, oh my god, what the hell? How did I not know Philip Glenister was in Mutiny and Retribution?! And he was awesome - I loved that he started off just an asshole, and then kind of turned out to have some surprising depths. (It sort of made me want fanfic where it turns out he is Gene Hunt, or something. Not that I love that sort of thing too much.) It went well with the actual ambiguity surrounding the Tragic Events - they pushed (hah!) the 'It Was Wellard' idea, but not too much. It could have been, but it could have been just an accident, too, and if you really try, it could even have been someone else. They don't flinch away from the moral complexity of the issue either way, and Hobbs Who Is Sadly Probably Not Gene Hunt was a big part of that. Dr Clive seems just like he doesn't understand the effect the captain is having on the ship: Hobbs clearly does, and decides differently from Horatio anyway.
My affection for William Bush has also been revealed to have hidden depths. When he turns up to the Mutinous Meeting (hey, it's a Lemony Snicket title) and reveals that he's on their side, I kind of cheered. Yay Paul McGann!