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This week's tv roundup
Not getting much of anything done today. It's raining and has been off and on most of the day, which explains the crankiness yesterday - I'm a human weathervane. Have been basically vegging - watching tv, surfing the internet, sporadically eating, sketching, and browbeating myself for not writing or working on revisions, queries, and synopsis. Also taking the mental stink off the work week. It wasn't bad necessarily, but it was stinky in some respects. In a way that writing about it just makes it feel stinkier. Really needed a break from the stinkness of human relations today. So today, I took a mental head rest and the equivalent of a cereberal shower.
On TV front:
1. Vampire Diaries reminds me more of Dark Shadows (the old 1960s Dark Shadows complete with cheesy dialogue and bad acting, not the cheesy remake which had somewhat better dialogue and better acting) than it does Buffy,Forever Knight, Moonlight, Blood Ties or Angel for that matter. Actually the plot is right out of Dark Shadows, except they decided to make Barnabas young and pretty, and give him an evil brother. I did like the bit of dialogue about Twilight, but that's only because I abhor the existence of the Twilight books and cannot speak of them without snarking on the abdomiable writing. (Since I know quite a few people online and off (notably off) that adored them (shrugs), I have learned to try to stay silent about them generally speaking even though it is really really hard.)
2. Project Runway -Not sure about anyone else, but if they had kicked Christopher and Espersen to the curb, I would have stopped watching the show. I'm guessing the judges and producers more or less figured that out for themselves and that is why neither got kicked. That said, it was rather cruel of them to tease Christopher. Although Chris and Esperson did require a bit of shake down. They were getting a bit too cocky and sure of themselves. I felt sorry for them though, while I agreed with the judges more or less, their outfits weren't that bad considering they only had maybe two days to create them and no experience whatsoever working together. The fact that they thought, actually thought those outfits were great, made me wonder what they'd been smoking. The teams that produce the best work are usually the ones in which the lead has a clear vision and the helper keeps their mouth shut. This indicates to me that fashion design is not a collaborative art form any more than painting or pottery tends to be. The winner in this challenge was certainly evidence of that - and I did like her design, and found it amusing that the design she was critiquing was loved as well. I did agree with who got the ax, Louise - ruffles? Ugh. No one likes that degree of ruffles. That was sooo last year, babe. And yes, Nicholas was terribly lucky - he should have asserted himself. If he hadn't had immunity they would have kicked him off. But I think, it is only a matter of time. I'm willing to bet in the next few episodes we shall see both Nicholas and Jordana handed their walking papers. Neither are capable of designing the type of outfits that would appeal to these judges on a consistent basis. Nor do they have the ability to crunch out good designs quickly.
Unfortunately the only interesting designers left seem to be Christopher and Espersen. The others I find a bit boring. This does not bode well.
(Ah the sun has poked its head out. Granted there's only about two hours left of sunlight in the day, but better late than never, I suppose.)
3. Supernatural - continues to be a rather fascinating noir take on the complexities of sibling relationships. Specifically brothers. If you have a sister and not a brother, you may not identify. Adore the metaphors. Also the twisted look at Angels, God, Religion and the Devil. In the SPN universe the Devil is Cain, the beloved first born of God, who got all upset that God favored humans more than him and wanted him to love and care for and favor humans more than God. It's all about worshipping the other, at the exclusion of everything else. I find it fascinating because I do not understand the human need to worship things and believe that our need to worship people, concepts, or God forsaking reason or love or the ability to question is what leads us down the path of evil most of the time. In this episode instead of choosing vengeance or to become a weapon to destroy the devil, Dean chooses to love the devil's vessel, to love his brother. To aid him. To trust him. Because by doing so, he may be able to stop his brother from giving in and letting the devil in. As he tells Sam, together, we help each other be more human, our love for one another is what aides us. It is what makes us powerful. This goes back to the pamphlet shown at the beginning of the episode - "God is Love". It's a powerful and simple message. Love is the strongest weapon we have.But we allow other things to get in the way of it. But our stories keep reminding us of it.
4. Dollhouse - I liked this episode more than I expected to. Really not a fan of the mother/baby cliche. But Dollhouse did an interesting twist on it. Tara Butters and her writing partner, the co-creators of Reaper, have proven themselves to be rather good writers here. It was a creepy and suspensful episode. With an interesting and unexpected twist on an old and rather overdone theme. My favorite part of it was how Butters (and Whedon by osmosis) addressed an issue that has plagued more than one fan of the Buffy and Angel verses - which is who are we? Are we our memories? Our souls? And what happens when you take away the memories and erase the soul? His statement in Dollhouse is much the same as it was in Angel and Buffy, the body retains the scars left by the inhabitants emotions. It retains those memories not as pictures or thoughts, but as feelings. The emotional residue does not go away. Our bodies remember just as our minds do, but differently. We remember past pleasure, and wish to recreate it, just as we remember past pain. Emotional scars resonate, often, longer than actual ones. Just as the body may feel the phantom ache of a missing leg, it will feel the pain of a missing loved one. Even as the mental pictures of that person fade. Echo at the end of the episode states that as much as the emotional scars ache, she would rather have them then be numb, asleep again. I do not want to go back asleep. I am awake now, I wish to remain awake. Echos struggle with the sense memory or physical memory of what she felt reminded me of Illyria in Angel - who does not have Fred's pictorial or word memories so much as her physical ones, how she felt towards others and the world, her sense memories. The shell it turns out is not just a shell, it retains the emotional scars of its inhabitant.
The creep value is of course how we objectify the other. An on-going theme in the series. Demonstrating the we all do it, just may not be aware of it. The man who hires Echo to be the mother to his son. Who has to a degree objectified them both. And Echo who loves the man, but sees him at the end as little more than an obstacle to her son, who she sees as an extension of herself. He is mine. She is not thinking what is best for him, but what he makes her feel.
He is hers. Just as Adelle sees Madeline/November as hers. And Ballard looks at Echo to a degree as his - his to save, his to help. It is not until Jack's father sees Jack as separate from his desires, as someone who needs him, who needs protection, and has lost a mother - that he steps up to the plate. And he realizes what he has done to Echo/Emily and his son is wrong.
5. Glee - favorite new show may well be Glee. Which just keeps getting better. The good news is it has been the first show to be picked up for a full season. It has a loyal following of 6 million viewers and appears to be picking up speed. We can thank Bones and House for making it possible for Glee and Dollhouse to stay on the air. Those two shows are the financial pay-offs for the cult shows. The satirical edge of this show coupled with the musical numbers, often wacky, but always supportive of its theme keep me entertained. It is a deft satire on high school and surburban/small town nightmares. Kristen Chenworth this week, was particularly stellar in her performance of alcoholic high school glee star hasbeen. Will's first crush, the star of the school, who much like Rachel thinks she is all that and more, but gets a crushing blow when she realizes the world doesn't work the way she thinks and there's a bit more to be performing than standing on stage and belting out a tune. Kristen Chenworth's character serves as a dark mirror to Rachel, a warning of what could happen.
6. House...I adore House. Each season in my opinion is better than the last. House this week who figured out that being compulsive about something staves off the pain. It provides us with a distraction. If we think about it, we are all to a degree like House.
I've given up on Grey's Anatomy finally. It's just gotten silly. Even I have my limits.
Still loving Gossip Girl, but feel no need to write about it. Just loving it. Also still watching HIMYM, which continues to entertain, all though not so much this week. Haven't watched SGU yet. I may like the set-up of SGU better than SG1 and SGA. We shall see.
On TV front:
1. Vampire Diaries reminds me more of Dark Shadows (the old 1960s Dark Shadows complete with cheesy dialogue and bad acting, not the cheesy remake which had somewhat better dialogue and better acting) than it does Buffy,Forever Knight, Moonlight, Blood Ties or Angel for that matter. Actually the plot is right out of Dark Shadows, except they decided to make Barnabas young and pretty, and give him an evil brother. I did like the bit of dialogue about Twilight, but that's only because I abhor the existence of the Twilight books and cannot speak of them without snarking on the abdomiable writing. (Since I know quite a few people online and off (notably off) that adored them (shrugs), I have learned to try to stay silent about them generally speaking even though it is really really hard.)
2. Project Runway -Not sure about anyone else, but if they had kicked Christopher and Espersen to the curb, I would have stopped watching the show. I'm guessing the judges and producers more or less figured that out for themselves and that is why neither got kicked. That said, it was rather cruel of them to tease Christopher. Although Chris and Esperson did require a bit of shake down. They were getting a bit too cocky and sure of themselves. I felt sorry for them though, while I agreed with the judges more or less, their outfits weren't that bad considering they only had maybe two days to create them and no experience whatsoever working together. The fact that they thought, actually thought those outfits were great, made me wonder what they'd been smoking. The teams that produce the best work are usually the ones in which the lead has a clear vision and the helper keeps their mouth shut. This indicates to me that fashion design is not a collaborative art form any more than painting or pottery tends to be. The winner in this challenge was certainly evidence of that - and I did like her design, and found it amusing that the design she was critiquing was loved as well. I did agree with who got the ax, Louise - ruffles? Ugh. No one likes that degree of ruffles. That was sooo last year, babe. And yes, Nicholas was terribly lucky - he should have asserted himself. If he hadn't had immunity they would have kicked him off. But I think, it is only a matter of time. I'm willing to bet in the next few episodes we shall see both Nicholas and Jordana handed their walking papers. Neither are capable of designing the type of outfits that would appeal to these judges on a consistent basis. Nor do they have the ability to crunch out good designs quickly.
Unfortunately the only interesting designers left seem to be Christopher and Espersen. The others I find a bit boring. This does not bode well.
(Ah the sun has poked its head out. Granted there's only about two hours left of sunlight in the day, but better late than never, I suppose.)
3. Supernatural - continues to be a rather fascinating noir take on the complexities of sibling relationships. Specifically brothers. If you have a sister and not a brother, you may not identify. Adore the metaphors. Also the twisted look at Angels, God, Religion and the Devil. In the SPN universe the Devil is Cain, the beloved first born of God, who got all upset that God favored humans more than him and wanted him to love and care for and favor humans more than God. It's all about worshipping the other, at the exclusion of everything else. I find it fascinating because I do not understand the human need to worship things and believe that our need to worship people, concepts, or God forsaking reason or love or the ability to question is what leads us down the path of evil most of the time. In this episode instead of choosing vengeance or to become a weapon to destroy the devil, Dean chooses to love the devil's vessel, to love his brother. To aid him. To trust him. Because by doing so, he may be able to stop his brother from giving in and letting the devil in. As he tells Sam, together, we help each other be more human, our love for one another is what aides us. It is what makes us powerful. This goes back to the pamphlet shown at the beginning of the episode - "God is Love". It's a powerful and simple message. Love is the strongest weapon we have.But we allow other things to get in the way of it. But our stories keep reminding us of it.
4. Dollhouse - I liked this episode more than I expected to. Really not a fan of the mother/baby cliche. But Dollhouse did an interesting twist on it. Tara Butters and her writing partner, the co-creators of Reaper, have proven themselves to be rather good writers here. It was a creepy and suspensful episode. With an interesting and unexpected twist on an old and rather overdone theme. My favorite part of it was how Butters (and Whedon by osmosis) addressed an issue that has plagued more than one fan of the Buffy and Angel verses - which is who are we? Are we our memories? Our souls? And what happens when you take away the memories and erase the soul? His statement in Dollhouse is much the same as it was in Angel and Buffy, the body retains the scars left by the inhabitants emotions. It retains those memories not as pictures or thoughts, but as feelings. The emotional residue does not go away. Our bodies remember just as our minds do, but differently. We remember past pleasure, and wish to recreate it, just as we remember past pain. Emotional scars resonate, often, longer than actual ones. Just as the body may feel the phantom ache of a missing leg, it will feel the pain of a missing loved one. Even as the mental pictures of that person fade. Echo at the end of the episode states that as much as the emotional scars ache, she would rather have them then be numb, asleep again. I do not want to go back asleep. I am awake now, I wish to remain awake. Echos struggle with the sense memory or physical memory of what she felt reminded me of Illyria in Angel - who does not have Fred's pictorial or word memories so much as her physical ones, how she felt towards others and the world, her sense memories. The shell it turns out is not just a shell, it retains the emotional scars of its inhabitant.
The creep value is of course how we objectify the other. An on-going theme in the series. Demonstrating the we all do it, just may not be aware of it. The man who hires Echo to be the mother to his son. Who has to a degree objectified them both. And Echo who loves the man, but sees him at the end as little more than an obstacle to her son, who she sees as an extension of herself. He is mine. She is not thinking what is best for him, but what he makes her feel.
He is hers. Just as Adelle sees Madeline/November as hers. And Ballard looks at Echo to a degree as his - his to save, his to help. It is not until Jack's father sees Jack as separate from his desires, as someone who needs him, who needs protection, and has lost a mother - that he steps up to the plate. And he realizes what he has done to Echo/Emily and his son is wrong.
5. Glee - favorite new show may well be Glee. Which just keeps getting better. The good news is it has been the first show to be picked up for a full season. It has a loyal following of 6 million viewers and appears to be picking up speed. We can thank Bones and House for making it possible for Glee and Dollhouse to stay on the air. Those two shows are the financial pay-offs for the cult shows. The satirical edge of this show coupled with the musical numbers, often wacky, but always supportive of its theme keep me entertained. It is a deft satire on high school and surburban/small town nightmares. Kristen Chenworth this week, was particularly stellar in her performance of alcoholic high school glee star hasbeen. Will's first crush, the star of the school, who much like Rachel thinks she is all that and more, but gets a crushing blow when she realizes the world doesn't work the way she thinks and there's a bit more to be performing than standing on stage and belting out a tune. Kristen Chenworth's character serves as a dark mirror to Rachel, a warning of what could happen.
6. House...I adore House. Each season in my opinion is better than the last. House this week who figured out that being compulsive about something staves off the pain. It provides us with a distraction. If we think about it, we are all to a degree like House.
I've given up on Grey's Anatomy finally. It's just gotten silly. Even I have my limits.
Still loving Gossip Girl, but feel no need to write about it. Just loving it. Also still watching HIMYM, which continues to entertain, all though not so much this week. Haven't watched SGU yet. I may like the set-up of SGU better than SG1 and SGA. We shall see.