Birthday Funtimes (But we won't mention the getting older part)

[yumytaffy]

Belated thank you to all the lovelies who wished me happy birthday last week. You all know how to make a girl feel loved. Extra thank you to campjinx25 for being her. She knows why she's awesome. ♥

For my birthday, my lovely, wonderful, amazing friends surprised me by taking me to see Cirque Berzerk. It's essentially a bunch of goth-y, vaguely-but-not-quite Cirque du Soleil circus acrobatic acts vaguely strung together with a bored-girl-joins-a-traveling-circus-in-hell plot. The individual acts were certainly impressive but not quite groundbreaking. It had lots of potential, though.

Still, I had a great time with my loves. There's nothing like walking in the heart of Downtown LA at night while discussing our friend's well-meaning plan to emulate Accomplice: The Show by kidnapping one of us for our birthdays but not telling us it's staged. It makes for a very paranoid walk back to the distant parking lot.

In other news, I have frivolous TV ramblings that I'll post here so they won't just rot away in a forgotten Word document on my hard drive:

• Life Unexpected: I started watching this because it had an old school WB feel to it. It wasn't about teenagers sleeping around and drinking and whatever "controversial" things they do on 90210. Life Unexpected was about a screwed up family dealing with their issues and the occasional inappropriate teacher-student relationship. Plus, it had Jack from Dawson's Creek and Liz from Roswell, so it was like a WB reunion.
  
  The series finale consisted of every character crying, yelling, and crying while yelling. Then there was a two year time jump and one of the most emotionally manipulative scenes ever. High school graduation? Check. Main character as improbable Valedictorian? Check. Said Valedictorian giving teary speech in which she indirectly thanks her loved ones who helped her on her journey? Check. Estranged daughter calling her parents Mom and Dad for the first time in the series? Check. Every couple destined to be together magically being together at the end? Check. Last shot of the series being the cast taking a happy black and white photo together? Check, check, and check. It was cheesy and too neat and not necessarily earned, but you you know what? Screw it. If you know your show is dead, go for broke and give everyone a happy ending, even if exactly zero of your current storylines are leading in that direction. It's refreshing to skip all of the drama and get right to the happy. I. Effing. Loved. It. Because old school WB was nothing if not cheesy and emotionally manipulative.
• Being Human (US Version): I went into the first ep with a cautiously open mind. The optimism was no small feat given my annoyance with that dumbed down ad campaign plastered everywhere. But lo and behold, I may have actually liked the Pilot. It's the same show but adapted for the US--and adapted well. From what I can tell, the storyline is generally the same but with a few minor changes to keep the UK fans on their feet. The pacing is a little faster; the jokes are updated; even the names sound more American. Of course, I still don't have a hold on the US names and still call them Annie, George, and Mitchell. Sally, Josh, and Aiden just don't trip off the tongue as easily.
• Primeval: Oh, my cracky dinosaur show. I'm sure 80% of my fondness for it stems from Connor/Andrew-Lee Potts's general existence and Becker/Ben Mansfield's hotness. The other 20% is impressed by how engaging the storylines actually are. It's no small feat to make a plot about a man-eating, prehistoric sewer-grown dinosaur interesting.
• Torchwood: Let's take a second and talk about how Russell T Davies needs to take over all of television. After the brilliant and emotionally draining Children of Earth saga, I thought the man would be out of ideas of how to cause (fictional) worldwide emotional trauma. Then he came up with S4's plot. Simply put, it's kind of brilliant. And when did Torchwood become this big Hollywood thing? This is the show whose Big Baddie of the Week was once a chick who killed guys by draining their energy while having sex with them. I'm aware that this is almost entirely a matter of counting your eggs before they hatch, and I'm trying really hard not get my hopes up, but damn if this new season already sounds fantastic.
• Community and Modern Family: Please stay on my TV forever and never leave again. Also, apparently Richard Ayoade from The IT Crowd is directing and upcoming episode of Community. This pleases me.
• Supernatural: After years of playing catch up, I'm finally out of episodes to watch. Problem is, now that I've caught up, I sort of don't care about the characters anymore. They've driven my patience with their whining to the point of ambivalence. I'd rather just watch Castiel go about earth, awkwardly trying to figure out those silly things called humans. Sam can sit it out. Dean can tag along to yell at Castiel and drive the car.

Also, this picture exists:

(Via the RadioTimes 2011 Cover Party, click for bigger version)

It's mind-bending in a "No, Ten! That's not your companion!" kind of way. It also proves that there needs to be some sort of giant Companionpalooza where Eleven, Amy, and Rory run into Ten and all eight(?) of his extended family. The internet would explode in .gifs and screen caps.