Things and stuff related, as ever, to media I have consumed
The movie-watching plans I made last week have, save for a trip to see Priest tonight, mostly fallen apart. I went to visit U Penn's vet school--lovely campus!--and used that as an excuse to drop in on feiran and ecmyers for the weekend. Alas, it was not the best weekend for poor feiran but I had a good time. I ate some truly excellent Korean BBQ for the first time, and that's a pleasure I hope to have repeated often. So tasty! Alas, the incredibly poor performance of Dylan Dog, coupled with no new releases of note being released that weekend meant we missed out going to the movies.
We did, however, finish Smallville. I have surprisingly little to say about it. As episodes of Smallville go, it was average? I mean, I started swearing heavily after fully half the finale had gone by and CLARK STILL HADN'T FLOWN, but I don't know that ten years of delayed gratification making me insane counts against the episode so much as it does against the show. Funnily enough, it was like every season finale/premiere ever on this show. There was an entire season of build up to make the point that this baddie bent on destroying Clark/humanity/the planet/the universe was the worst ever and how there was no hope, etc. etc., as befits a season finale. But, since this is a series finale, you have to resolve this tension (since there will be no season 11, which still boggles me, just a little), so there was also the incredibly quick and lame resolution, which has been a factor in every Smallville season premiere ever.
Smallville is over. That completely throws me. It's like scaffolding disappearing from a building--you thought the deconstruction/construction of was always going to be there. (Huh, that's actually a really apt metaphor for Smallville.) It just won't be there when you walk by/check in again. It's so weird. This show has been on for a third of my life. A THIRD. At this point, I'm convinced that it will be, for better or worse, my reference for Superman. Like, no matter how many comics I read or new movies they make, I'll still default back to thinking about Tom Welling being an idiot and Michael Rosenbaum nevertheless making sex eyes at him. I will still fly into uncontrollable rages over the mere mention of Lana Lang. I will miss Allison Mack something fierce (holy God, was she ever adorable and sexy as Chloe). I need to rewatch the animated series, the movies, read some comics or something and just have time to forget a show that, no matter how much I complained, must have been just compelling enough to earn a decade of (nearly perfect) attendance.
I also caught up on Supernatural on my way down to and back from Philly. The direction this season has gone is interesting. I didn't really think there was any point to continuing a show past the literal apocalypse, but they found a credible enough way to examine the aftermath. It's actually really funny because what do you do when the apocalypse doesn't happen? The power vacuum that attends the failure of the world to end has been a little uneven throughout, but the last few episodes have started to go somewhere interesting. I'm not sure I buy that this was evident from the beginning--the twist that was just revealed before the finale seems a little more sudden than reveals in seasons past--but I actually don't mind the direction it has gone.
One thing that intrigued me: nerd rage over the season finale teaser. I must be in the minority, but it has always felt to me that Supernatural has some increasingly hostile reactions to its fans. The introduction of the meta-narrative within the show (someone in the show writes books about the adventures the characters have and those characters and others can read them within the show) also introduced a fandom for/of the meta-narrative, which led to a few really ugly jokes at fandom's expense. I guess the fandom was so happy that the creators were so aware of them that it overrode any sense of outrage that they were being portrayed in less than flattering lights?
Anyway, this trailer comes out and one of the characters disparages nerds, and the entire thread breaks out with Supernatural apologists who insist that the character being rude about nerds (specifically, how their pursuit of their stupid geek things means they don't have sex ever) is just an oaf who believes it, but that doesn't mean that the show believes it. To which I say: bullshit. For one, the person in question? IS A NERD. He may deny it, but when he gets excited over classic Star Trek, he's a goddamned nerd. For two, the show has a pretty long track record (see above, comments on fandom) of flipping the bird to the nerds that keep their show on the air. It doesn't bother me that this character said something like that especially, but the defensiveness of the fans--oh no! they couldn't really mean that!--is so fucking sad. By refusing to accept that you've been, repeatedly, held in contempt by this show you love, you become the sad-sack fans they make you out to be! Stop that!
Tonight, Priest! I'm so excited you guys. I have only been this enthused so far this summer about Thor, though I haven't got half the expectations for Priest as I did Thor (and, if you recall, my expectations for Thor were decidedly sublevel). I just want to glory in the badness and then go read, finally, glvalentine 's review that will make all the badness even funnier. I may also be in it for Vampire Cowboy Karl Urban. Not gonna lie, that's a draw for me.
We did, however, finish Smallville. I have surprisingly little to say about it. As episodes of Smallville go, it was average? I mean, I started swearing heavily after fully half the finale had gone by and CLARK STILL HADN'T FLOWN, but I don't know that ten years of delayed gratification making me insane counts against the episode so much as it does against the show. Funnily enough, it was like every season finale/premiere ever on this show. There was an entire season of build up to make the point that this baddie bent on destroying Clark/humanity/the planet/the universe was the worst ever and how there was no hope, etc. etc., as befits a season finale. But, since this is a series finale, you have to resolve this tension (since there will be no season 11, which still boggles me, just a little), so there was also the incredibly quick and lame resolution, which has been a factor in every Smallville season premiere ever.
Smallville is over. That completely throws me. It's like scaffolding disappearing from a building--you thought the deconstruction/construction of was always going to be there. (Huh, that's actually a really apt metaphor for Smallville.) It just won't be there when you walk by/check in again. It's so weird. This show has been on for a third of my life. A THIRD. At this point, I'm convinced that it will be, for better or worse, my reference for Superman. Like, no matter how many comics I read or new movies they make, I'll still default back to thinking about Tom Welling being an idiot and Michael Rosenbaum nevertheless making sex eyes at him. I will still fly into uncontrollable rages over the mere mention of Lana Lang. I will miss Allison Mack something fierce (holy God, was she ever adorable and sexy as Chloe). I need to rewatch the animated series, the movies, read some comics or something and just have time to forget a show that, no matter how much I complained, must have been just compelling enough to earn a decade of (nearly perfect) attendance.
I also caught up on Supernatural on my way down to and back from Philly. The direction this season has gone is interesting. I didn't really think there was any point to continuing a show past the literal apocalypse, but they found a credible enough way to examine the aftermath. It's actually really funny because what do you do when the apocalypse doesn't happen? The power vacuum that attends the failure of the world to end has been a little uneven throughout, but the last few episodes have started to go somewhere interesting. I'm not sure I buy that this was evident from the beginning--the twist that was just revealed before the finale seems a little more sudden than reveals in seasons past--but I actually don't mind the direction it has gone.
One thing that intrigued me: nerd rage over the season finale teaser. I must be in the minority, but it has always felt to me that Supernatural has some increasingly hostile reactions to its fans. The introduction of the meta-narrative within the show (someone in the show writes books about the adventures the characters have and those characters and others can read them within the show) also introduced a fandom for/of the meta-narrative, which led to a few really ugly jokes at fandom's expense. I guess the fandom was so happy that the creators were so aware of them that it overrode any sense of outrage that they were being portrayed in less than flattering lights?
Anyway, this trailer comes out and one of the characters disparages nerds, and the entire thread breaks out with Supernatural apologists who insist that the character being rude about nerds (specifically, how their pursuit of their stupid geek things means they don't have sex ever) is just an oaf who believes it, but that doesn't mean that the show believes it. To which I say: bullshit. For one, the person in question? IS A NERD. He may deny it, but when he gets excited over classic Star Trek, he's a goddamned nerd. For two, the show has a pretty long track record (see above, comments on fandom) of flipping the bird to the nerds that keep their show on the air. It doesn't bother me that this character said something like that especially, but the defensiveness of the fans--oh no! they couldn't really mean that!--is so fucking sad. By refusing to accept that you've been, repeatedly, held in contempt by this show you love, you become the sad-sack fans they make you out to be! Stop that!
Tonight, Priest! I'm so excited you guys. I have only been this enthused so far this summer about Thor, though I haven't got half the expectations for Priest as I did Thor (and, if you recall, my expectations for Thor were decidedly sublevel). I just want to glory in the badness and then go read, finally, glvalentine 's review that will make all the badness even funnier. I may also be in it for Vampire Cowboy Karl Urban. Not gonna lie, that's a draw for me.