(no subject)
I've forgotten where, but recently I came across a vintage grammar guide that lamented the "modern trend for confusing 'love' with 'like'. I love my mother; I like strawberries. One cannot feel love for strawberries."
I can't help thinking that my entire journal is one long counter-example. :)
I don't exactly have my objective head on right now (I'm not entirely sure that I have an objective head to put on), but I'm going to put it out there and say that there is one episode standing between Ashes to Ashes being a good show and a great one. I mean, seriously, I am on the verge of taking back everything I've ever said about it not being in the same league as Life on Mars. And maybe that's just because it's ending and everything is doubly precious because of that, but it seems to me that this last series really has been firing on all cylinders. There've been times where I've missed the silliness that I loved in previous episodes, but as the layers are torn away there's something more moving at the heart of the show than I could have imagined, in its characters and their stories and how far they've come.
My last post started off as a reaction to fannish entitlement (never let me start on this topic. I could go on for weeks). I'm not quite sure what happened to that. ;)
Giving Gene a female DI was a stroke of genius not because of the potential for lashings and lashings of UST, but because for him to trust somebody's judgement the way he and Sam had learnt to trust each other's, and for that somebody to be a woman, was going to mean a tectonic shift in his world view. It isn't the same relationship of trust (wanting to believe him more makes trusting him harder, I think, for Alex), but it is a fond, firm partnership nevertheless. And for all they differ there is definitely a bit of a brain love-in going on between them; his experience and his instincts perfectly playing off her logic and her perception. What I love so much about their scenes in that last episode is how much Gene relies on Alex's lead. It says a lot about their story, about them.
Come Friday I can't see myself being still able to form words, which is why I am writing this now. I said once upon a time that my big fear was that the story would be told at the expense of the characters. For some reason I can't explain, last Friday's episode restored my faith. I think perhaps because it was told with too much love for me to feel it could be thrown away for the sake of keeping the audience on their toes. In some ways, I feel like the story's already been told. As they say in Through the Keyhole, the clues are there. I would love the coda that lets me look back on this series, and this show, with all the satisfaction that it seems to me it deserves, but I am also just grateful for the chance to spend one more hour with characters I have come to love.
There are non-spoilery previews here and here, although they both give a verdict on the episode, which might be considered spoilery in itself.
I need to stop my head looping eighties love songs. Maybe I should stop listening to eighties love songs. That might help. ;)
This week's Doctor Who played on something that genuinely scares me: stepping out of the frying pan into the fire. It was such a clever little episode, and the identify of the Dream Lord the perfect twist. Rory's fantasy world should have been obvious: even on a doctor's salary I can't believe a couple Amy and Rory's age could afford a house like that. ;) Plus, I couldn't help feeling that the frosted TARDIS was probably a whole lot toastier than sitting outside in the sleet in a cardigan.
If they hadn't had to die in one of the worlds I would have found Amy's choice a bit too Twilight for my liking, but in context it did its job very nicely. Although I can't believe that Amy and Rory can continue travelling with the Doctor indefinitely in a state of domestic bliss.
Also, I cannot tell you how much I loved the Doctor cruising through the village in the camper van, collecting the unpossessed en route.
In Confidentials fashion news, Hallelujah! The Moff has taken my advice and finally changed his shirt. I don't know that I would exactly say this was much of an improvement, but there are definite marks for effort, plus points for note-taking. Arthur Darvill let me down a little on the knitwear front, although, can I say, I think I may be slightly in love with him. That, and the Doctor more than compensated with his one-sleeved jumper in the nursing home. Not to mention my personal sartorial highlight of this week's Confidential: the read-through with both of them in reading glasses.
Hee, I'm not entirely sure that I've quite got the point of the Confidentials, since my fantasy Confidential at this point seems to be: the Moff in anything not unflattering, Karen resplendent in yellow, and the boys in a killer glasses-and-comedy-knitwear combo, preferably making nose/chin jokes.
I've been putting off watching the final (fifth? fourth-and-a-half?) season of Battlestar Galactica, mostly because I didn't want it to end, and also because it seemed to me (as far as I could tell, avoiding spoilers) that fandom didn't exactly seem to erupt in joy at the way it concluded.
Last bank holiday weekend I had an opportunity to borrow the box set from the Library, and just enough to time to watch it.
I seem to remember complaining before that each of BSG's season beginnings seems to mine new depths of misery. I'm starting to wonder if maybe I just forget in between quite how dark it is generally. What I do know is that the first time I smiled was Kara's "Follow me. Please" in episode three, and when fatal shootings are the light relief you are not exactly rolling around in merriment.
It isn't just Galactica that's starting to crumble, these final episodes. There's a sense of worn-down hope, of lost momentum, of a society that can't keep keeping on.
They are owed an out, I think. Is the ending unearnt? When you fight so hard, for so long, just for the will to keep on going, is it too much to ask the universe to tip towards you, just a little bit?
I don't know the answer, but I know that I liked it, that to me it seemed the right resting point, even if resting itself feels not quite right after all that has gone before.
I could pick out a whole heap of highlights, but here are just a handful:
My new emulsion-based OTP: The Admiral and paint. Honestly, it gets around, that paint.
The end of Daybreak Part 1, where suddenly Lee appears in uniform, without warning. With out-of-control hair.
Baltar shooting the wrong Centurion, and Lee's reaction.
The very real tears when Lee and Kara said goodbye to the Admiral.
Now: I am not good at plots, and I watched all of this in a very small space of time. I don't know if I've quite got my head around this. The final five created all the other Cylon models, which is why there's only one of each of them. In which case who created the final five? And are the final five and the thirteenth tribe one and the same?
(On the subject of my slowness where plots are concerned, a confession: I thought that what Tory was afraid of them finding out was that she'd frakked Baltar. Whoops!)
In some ways it was sad seeing Laura's story reduced to a romantic one, but better that than some heroic superwoman role that ignored the compromising reality of her illness. She had, after all, more than played her part. I loved especially the way the Caprica scenes were woven in towards the end; at whatever point we were going to say goodbye to the characters, it was a wonderfully telling way of reminding us how far they'd come.
I loved the resolution to Lee and Kara's story. His face when he says about wanting to climb mountains may have been my favourite thing in the whole series, and his face just afterwards my second favourite, even as it broke my heart. I loved that she had long enough to tell him she knew she was going. Their relationship always balanced that something just out of reach with a very solid, very real heart. I loved seeing all the longing and frustration become something bigger, something more unshakable, more profound. And because I clearly have a target in the centre of my chest marked "clunking metaphors, aim here", the pigeon made me cry.
I clung to a ridiculous hope that in the final moments they might spring a limping Helo on us, just because I couldn't quite bear to let him go. I knew somebody I loved would have to die. I knew that if that somebody I loved happened to have a surviving child it shortened their odds, not to mention the small detail of being shot. I knew that the kind of surprises BSG tends to spring are not generally happy ones.
When my ridiculous hope turned out to be a real one, I sobbed and sobbed.
I'm hoping when Lee said the Admiral wouldn't be back he was meaning in the short term, since I don't want to think of him whiling out the rest of his days on a rock talking to a dead woman. I want him to move somewhere near Helo and Athena, and be a grandfather figure to Hera, with Tigh and Ellen somewhere nearby, and Lee dropping in now and again, between mountain climbing. And I like to think that after a while Tyrol would return from his arctic island to live with HotDog and Nicky. I can see that after years of cabin fever hermitude might seem appealing, but really, spreading out over the whole earth seems a bit excessive.
(Um…one final plot point. Why are there two earths?)
On that note, I have to go, but not before wishing a very happy (if slightly belated) birthday to dear wisteria_! And the best of birthday wishes to treacle_a.
I can't help thinking that my entire journal is one long counter-example. :)
I don't exactly have my objective head on right now (I'm not entirely sure that I have an objective head to put on), but I'm going to put it out there and say that there is one episode standing between Ashes to Ashes being a good show and a great one. I mean, seriously, I am on the verge of taking back everything I've ever said about it not being in the same league as Life on Mars. And maybe that's just because it's ending and everything is doubly precious because of that, but it seems to me that this last series really has been firing on all cylinders. There've been times where I've missed the silliness that I loved in previous episodes, but as the layers are torn away there's something more moving at the heart of the show than I could have imagined, in its characters and their stories and how far they've come.
My last post started off as a reaction to fannish entitlement (never let me start on this topic. I could go on for weeks). I'm not quite sure what happened to that. ;)
Giving Gene a female DI was a stroke of genius not because of the potential for lashings and lashings of UST, but because for him to trust somebody's judgement the way he and Sam had learnt to trust each other's, and for that somebody to be a woman, was going to mean a tectonic shift in his world view. It isn't the same relationship of trust (wanting to believe him more makes trusting him harder, I think, for Alex), but it is a fond, firm partnership nevertheless. And for all they differ there is definitely a bit of a brain love-in going on between them; his experience and his instincts perfectly playing off her logic and her perception. What I love so much about their scenes in that last episode is how much Gene relies on Alex's lead. It says a lot about their story, about them.
Come Friday I can't see myself being still able to form words, which is why I am writing this now. I said once upon a time that my big fear was that the story would be told at the expense of the characters. For some reason I can't explain, last Friday's episode restored my faith. I think perhaps because it was told with too much love for me to feel it could be thrown away for the sake of keeping the audience on their toes. In some ways, I feel like the story's already been told. As they say in Through the Keyhole, the clues are there. I would love the coda that lets me look back on this series, and this show, with all the satisfaction that it seems to me it deserves, but I am also just grateful for the chance to spend one more hour with characters I have come to love.
There are non-spoilery previews here and here, although they both give a verdict on the episode, which might be considered spoilery in itself.
I need to stop my head looping eighties love songs. Maybe I should stop listening to eighties love songs. That might help. ;)
This week's Doctor Who played on something that genuinely scares me: stepping out of the frying pan into the fire. It was such a clever little episode, and the identify of the Dream Lord the perfect twist. Rory's fantasy world should have been obvious: even on a doctor's salary I can't believe a couple Amy and Rory's age could afford a house like that. ;) Plus, I couldn't help feeling that the frosted TARDIS was probably a whole lot toastier than sitting outside in the sleet in a cardigan.
If they hadn't had to die in one of the worlds I would have found Amy's choice a bit too Twilight for my liking, but in context it did its job very nicely. Although I can't believe that Amy and Rory can continue travelling with the Doctor indefinitely in a state of domestic bliss.
Also, I cannot tell you how much I loved the Doctor cruising through the village in the camper van, collecting the unpossessed en route.
In Confidentials fashion news, Hallelujah! The Moff has taken my advice and finally changed his shirt. I don't know that I would exactly say this was much of an improvement, but there are definite marks for effort, plus points for note-taking. Arthur Darvill let me down a little on the knitwear front, although, can I say, I think I may be slightly in love with him. That, and the Doctor more than compensated with his one-sleeved jumper in the nursing home. Not to mention my personal sartorial highlight of this week's Confidential: the read-through with both of them in reading glasses.
Hee, I'm not entirely sure that I've quite got the point of the Confidentials, since my fantasy Confidential at this point seems to be: the Moff in anything not unflattering, Karen resplendent in yellow, and the boys in a killer glasses-and-comedy-knitwear combo, preferably making nose/chin jokes.
I've been putting off watching the final (fifth? fourth-and-a-half?) season of Battlestar Galactica, mostly because I didn't want it to end, and also because it seemed to me (as far as I could tell, avoiding spoilers) that fandom didn't exactly seem to erupt in joy at the way it concluded.
Last bank holiday weekend I had an opportunity to borrow the box set from the Library, and just enough to time to watch it.
I seem to remember complaining before that each of BSG's season beginnings seems to mine new depths of misery. I'm starting to wonder if maybe I just forget in between quite how dark it is generally. What I do know is that the first time I smiled was Kara's "Follow me. Please" in episode three, and when fatal shootings are the light relief you are not exactly rolling around in merriment.
It isn't just Galactica that's starting to crumble, these final episodes. There's a sense of worn-down hope, of lost momentum, of a society that can't keep keeping on.
They are owed an out, I think. Is the ending unearnt? When you fight so hard, for so long, just for the will to keep on going, is it too much to ask the universe to tip towards you, just a little bit?
I don't know the answer, but I know that I liked it, that to me it seemed the right resting point, even if resting itself feels not quite right after all that has gone before.
I could pick out a whole heap of highlights, but here are just a handful:
My new emulsion-based OTP: The Admiral and paint. Honestly, it gets around, that paint.
The end of Daybreak Part 1, where suddenly Lee appears in uniform, without warning. With out-of-control hair.
Baltar shooting the wrong Centurion, and Lee's reaction.
The very real tears when Lee and Kara said goodbye to the Admiral.
Now: I am not good at plots, and I watched all of this in a very small space of time. I don't know if I've quite got my head around this. The final five created all the other Cylon models, which is why there's only one of each of them. In which case who created the final five? And are the final five and the thirteenth tribe one and the same?
(On the subject of my slowness where plots are concerned, a confession: I thought that what Tory was afraid of them finding out was that she'd frakked Baltar. Whoops!)
In some ways it was sad seeing Laura's story reduced to a romantic one, but better that than some heroic superwoman role that ignored the compromising reality of her illness. She had, after all, more than played her part. I loved especially the way the Caprica scenes were woven in towards the end; at whatever point we were going to say goodbye to the characters, it was a wonderfully telling way of reminding us how far they'd come.
I loved the resolution to Lee and Kara's story. His face when he says about wanting to climb mountains may have been my favourite thing in the whole series, and his face just afterwards my second favourite, even as it broke my heart. I loved that she had long enough to tell him she knew she was going. Their relationship always balanced that something just out of reach with a very solid, very real heart. I loved seeing all the longing and frustration become something bigger, something more unshakable, more profound. And because I clearly have a target in the centre of my chest marked "clunking metaphors, aim here", the pigeon made me cry.
I clung to a ridiculous hope that in the final moments they might spring a limping Helo on us, just because I couldn't quite bear to let him go. I knew somebody I loved would have to die. I knew that if that somebody I loved happened to have a surviving child it shortened their odds, not to mention the small detail of being shot. I knew that the kind of surprises BSG tends to spring are not generally happy ones.
When my ridiculous hope turned out to be a real one, I sobbed and sobbed.
I'm hoping when Lee said the Admiral wouldn't be back he was meaning in the short term, since I don't want to think of him whiling out the rest of his days on a rock talking to a dead woman. I want him to move somewhere near Helo and Athena, and be a grandfather figure to Hera, with Tigh and Ellen somewhere nearby, and Lee dropping in now and again, between mountain climbing. And I like to think that after a while Tyrol would return from his arctic island to live with HotDog and Nicky. I can see that after years of cabin fever hermitude might seem appealing, but really, spreading out over the whole earth seems a bit excessive.
(Um…one final plot point. Why are there two earths?)
On that note, I have to go, but not before wishing a very happy (if slightly belated) birthday to dear wisteria_! And the best of birthday wishes to treacle_a.