the television-flavoured version
TELEVISION
HEROES: After the somewhat disappointing season finale here's a return to form for this show. I enjoyed all the different threads, which is quite a feat. Mourning!Nathan with his big emo beard , Mohinder finally taking advantage of the fact that all the evil people in the Heroes universe seem duty-bound to pretend to be his best friend, Molly being such a precocious, well-acted badass, Mr BennettButler fulfilling every retail-worker's fantasy. There are a few things that definitely squee worthy. The first of these things was the fact that MOLLY HAS TWO DADDIES! The second was Hiro's subplot: discovering that Kensei was a gaijin (Sark! from Alias), not only that but a gaijin who is a mercenary rather than a hero, and a gaijin who he just stopped from saving a village that he was supposed to. I have to admit a weakness for these types of 'history isn't necessarily true' plots (so sue me, I like weak, fictional, comedic historiographical analysis)-- and, not to go all critical theory on yo asses but Hiro's probably going to become his own antecedent. He's about to write his own history, become the hero that inspired him to become a hero. Or inspire Kensei to become that hero- predestination paradoxes, yay. Or the swordmaker's daughter might end up pretending to be Kensei and I'll get to talk about the erasure/overwriting of female narratives from history. :D Plus: byebye Nikki/Micah/DL storyline! I hope we never have to see your dull and hangdog face again.
BIONIC WOMAN: A great big hum. Michelle Ryan plays Jaime Sommers, who is the Bionic Woman of the title. She is supposedly the protagonist of this show. However, it is utterly and completely stolen by motherfuckin' STARBUCK who plays the first Bionic Woman who went BATSHIT CRAZY and is all SEXED UP and KILLING PEOPLE. So yes. It's kind of awesome just to watch her, but the show itself is just so very meh and not very clever. There are many plotholes, it's needlessly melodramatic, and the protagonist who is supposed to be badass and compelling is kind of watery. And apparently pretending to be american. Also she has a deaf, emo sister for no reason apart from that it makes her 'seem more human'. Her sister is the tv show equivalent of the cat-stuck-up-a-tree story at the end of the, uh, 'news'. Will watch the next eps, if only to revel in Starbuck until BSG:Razor.
HOUSE: Ok, so the last 5 seconds were filled with brilliance. The rest of it was-- fine. Wilson kidnapping the guitar was a nice, comedic subplot done right. I am intrigued to see how House is going to get his team back, and whether it will all go back to normal. Glad it's back. I cannot tell you how much I want Stephen Fry to guest star on this show, I really cannot.
In other comforting news, Grey's Anatomy spinoff Private Practice sported a pilot that was so mind-bogglingly awful that it would have been poetic had they failed utterly with even the remotest quantity of style. Poor Kate Walsh, some network executives somewhere thought she could do 'funny' and 'quirky'. The clue about how bad this was going to be was the fact that it was a spinoff from Grey's Anatomy which is derivative, trite, unrealistic, melodramatic claptrap whose central character makes Carrie Bradshaw look like a feminist icon. (There is a rant in here about the connecting line between neurotic, soppy Ally McBeal and neurotic, semi-soppy, semi-cynical Carrie and just plain neurotic Meredith Grey as conventional female protagonists).
In other TV-related news, why did no one tell me that the stars of Battlestar Galactica Katee Sackhoff (Starbuck) and Tricia Helfer (Number Six) are best friends in real life? Best friends who touch each other a lot in public, occasionally joined by other friend Lucy Lawless who apparently has a very Australian view on ass-grabbing (ie, that it is good and should happen)? What is the point of having friends if they don't tell you or bring you salacious photos of these things I ask you. There was a news article that told me these things but I have failed to keep the link, so you're just going to have to google this for your useless-friend selves.
*
Your life is almost certainly missing Edward Gorey-style Cat Macros. Trust me on this one.
HEROES: After the somewhat disappointing season finale here's a return to form for this show. I enjoyed all the different threads, which is quite a feat. Mourning!Nathan with his big emo beard , Mohinder finally taking advantage of the fact that all the evil people in the Heroes universe seem duty-bound to pretend to be his best friend, Molly being such a precocious, well-acted badass, Mr BennettButler fulfilling every retail-worker's fantasy. There are a few things that definitely squee worthy. The first of these things was the fact that MOLLY HAS TWO DADDIES! The second was Hiro's subplot: discovering that Kensei was a gaijin (Sark! from Alias), not only that but a gaijin who is a mercenary rather than a hero, and a gaijin who he just stopped from saving a village that he was supposed to. I have to admit a weakness for these types of 'history isn't necessarily true' plots (so sue me, I like weak, fictional, comedic historiographical analysis)-- and, not to go all critical theory on yo asses but Hiro's probably going to become his own antecedent. He's about to write his own history, become the hero that inspired him to become a hero. Or inspire Kensei to become that hero- predestination paradoxes, yay. Or the swordmaker's daughter might end up pretending to be Kensei and I'll get to talk about the erasure/overwriting of female narratives from history. :D Plus: byebye Nikki/Micah/DL storyline! I hope we never have to see your dull and hangdog face again.
BIONIC WOMAN: A great big hum. Michelle Ryan plays Jaime Sommers, who is the Bionic Woman of the title. She is supposedly the protagonist of this show. However, it is utterly and completely stolen by motherfuckin' STARBUCK who plays the first Bionic Woman who went BATSHIT CRAZY and is all SEXED UP and KILLING PEOPLE. So yes. It's kind of awesome just to watch her, but the show itself is just so very meh and not very clever. There are many plotholes, it's needlessly melodramatic, and the protagonist who is supposed to be badass and compelling is kind of watery. And apparently pretending to be american. Also she has a deaf, emo sister for no reason apart from that it makes her 'seem more human'. Her sister is the tv show equivalent of the cat-stuck-up-a-tree story at the end of the, uh, 'news'. Will watch the next eps, if only to revel in Starbuck until BSG:Razor.
HOUSE: Ok, so the last 5 seconds were filled with brilliance. The rest of it was-- fine. Wilson kidnapping the guitar was a nice, comedic subplot done right. I am intrigued to see how House is going to get his team back, and whether it will all go back to normal. Glad it's back. I cannot tell you how much I want Stephen Fry to guest star on this show, I really cannot.
In other comforting news, Grey's Anatomy spinoff Private Practice sported a pilot that was so mind-bogglingly awful that it would have been poetic had they failed utterly with even the remotest quantity of style. Poor Kate Walsh, some network executives somewhere thought she could do 'funny' and 'quirky'. The clue about how bad this was going to be was the fact that it was a spinoff from Grey's Anatomy which is derivative, trite, unrealistic, melodramatic claptrap whose central character makes Carrie Bradshaw look like a feminist icon. (There is a rant in here about the connecting line between neurotic, soppy Ally McBeal and neurotic, semi-soppy, semi-cynical Carrie and just plain neurotic Meredith Grey as conventional female protagonists).
In other TV-related news, why did no one tell me that the stars of Battlestar Galactica Katee Sackhoff (Starbuck) and Tricia Helfer (Number Six) are best friends in real life? Best friends who touch each other a lot in public, occasionally joined by other friend Lucy Lawless who apparently has a very Australian view on ass-grabbing (ie, that it is good and should happen)? What is the point of having friends if they don't tell you or bring you salacious photos of these things I ask you. There was a news article that told me these things but I have failed to keep the link, so you're just going to have to google this for your useless-friend selves.
*
Your life is almost certainly missing Edward Gorey-style Cat Macros. Trust me on this one.