![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkat1. Did you know that a man was hit by a plane while jogging on the beach with his i-pod? It happened in Hilton Head. Private Plane built by the pilot, apparently not that well, and had engine trouble - so the pilot opted to land on the beach of all places. Which normally would not be an issue...except, well you know the visiting business man jogging on the beach plugged into his i-pod. There were other people walking about, but they skeddaled when they heard the planes approach. The man unfortunately could not hear it, because of his ear-phones. Good news? He never knew, died on impact, no pain. Plus no other injuries. Bad news? Left behind a family with three kids. (Hmmm. So if he was single with no family it wouldn't be a huge loss? Good to know. Being single and all. How expendable I truly am.) Anyhow...apparently the odds of getting killed while running on the beach listening to your i-pod are higher than winning the lottery - who knew? Moral? Running on the beach is healthy. But you might want to leave the i-pod at home, along with the cell-phone. These gadgets are truly hazardous to one's health.
2. I've been compulsively scanning the internets for spoilers on the Buffy Comics. And there aren't any, well not any that I don't already know. Highly frustrating. The TV show had spoilers. Stupid comics don't. Interestingly enough, I don't always do this. I don't hunt nor want spoilers for Lost, Caprica, and 99% of the tv shows on. It's only Buffy, BattleStar Galatica (to a degree) and whatever soap opera I'm addicted to at the moment.
3. Saw Caprica this morning. This show works for me whenever Daniel Graystone and Zoe are on-screen. I'm bored whenever Amanda and Clarice Willow are onscreen. And the meandering of Josef Adama in Virtual Reality Land or New Cap City is equally boring to me, although his scene with his brother Sam, who is rapidly becoming one my favorite characters, is quite wonderful. Tamara wandering about New Cap City on the other hand was intriguing and gripping. I also find Lacey's story gripping and whenever she's on screen it is cool. So this show is unevenly written.
The match of wills between Daniel and Zoe in last night's episode was remarkable. She knew that the gun he gave her to shoot the dog was filled with blanks - the robot that she's inside could sense it. But she admits to Lacey that if it had been filled with actual bullets - she would have turned it on her father and shot him. I can't say I'd blame her. What Daniel does to her is horrific. He basically tortures her in the hopes that she'll slip up and reveal that she is alive and well inside the robot. He is willing to break any rule to retrieve "his" daughter as if she belongs to him. It's a rather interesting character thematic - the idea of ownership.
Josef and Daniel share that in common - that both see these girls as their property, theirs.
And this is true of many parents - they have tendency to see their children as belonging to them as part of them, as a projection of themselves. You are smart because I'm smart. Your accomplishments are a reflection on me, etc. When in truth this is not so. Children are individuals, unique. While parents do have an affect on who they become, they are not the sole or only factor and they do not own their children.
Stolz plays Daniel in a way that is sympathetic. He is vulnerable. You do care about him and you can see him going a bit crazy with grief. It is in some respects an amazing performance.
He raises the bar quite high.
Zoe also is quite well played - her battle of wills, her desire to tell but fear to do so, her inability to trust him.
That dynamic is well-played and an ironic take on a similar one between Gaius Baltar and the manipulative Six.
The other scene that I found interesting was a relatively small one between Josef Adama and his brother Sam, where he asks Sam - what goes through his head when he kills someone. The conversation and the ensuing holo game that Josef plays to find his daughter are commentaries to our own society's rather desensitizing take on violence. The woman that Josef meets in the game tells him that what happens in the game feels real and is real within its confines. Josef keeps stating it's not though. When he leaves the game after being unable to kill someone - at least initially - he asks Sam that question. Sam states - I don't think about it. It's not real. The person I kill is not real to me. To me they are just a target. Not human. Just something in the way. Something that I have to remove. That's it. I don't think of them as a living thing. The speech he gives Josef Adama reminds me a great deal of the speech that Spike gives Angel in Damage, where he tells Angel that he never saw his victims, they weren't real to him. Just a target. Just food. Just the rush of violence. He says the same to Buffy in numerous episodes - happy meals with legs, or to Wood, just a slayer. He in his head, rationalized killing people by making them targets. Not people. They aren't real. He didn't care about them because they weren't real or people to him. It's a different type of evil than say...the serial killer who targets people because they are real and he gets off on taking them apart, corrupting them, turning them into himself. It's also if you think about it - a commentary on us. Violent video games where we just kill things. Violent tv shows and blockbuster movies - where people are killed but we feel nothing. Even the news and media. And what, Caprica asks, is it doing to our children - who are watching and playing increasingly violent video games, where there are no consquences for killing someone, no remorse - it is not real. It's just a game. What happens, ask Caprica's writers, when the line between reality and makebelieve becomes blurred? Josef Adama wonders this very thing as he pursues his dead daughter's avatar in the makebelieve world, killing all who get in his way.
I'm guessing Marsters arc continues into next season, since the season final is next week and we've only seen Marsters for one episode. He's supposed to have a four episode arc.
4. While I was rather unimpressed by Lost this week...I did find a few bits worth noting.
Kate and Jin and Sawyer are clearly not completely on board with Team Smokey. Sawyer appears to playing Smokey and was not surprised when Not!Lock revealed himself to be Smokey. I'm guessing Sawyer knows quite a bit about who and what Smokey is - considering he was head of security at the Dharma Initiative for three years with Juliet, and they both knew the pylons kept Smokey out. Regarding Smokey - it was Smokey who manipulated Ben into killing everyone at the Dharma Initiative and into joining the Others. He appeared as Ben's mother and talked to him. It was not Richard Alpert who got him to do it - unless I remembered it wrong. Sawyer also did not lie to either Widmore or to Smokey - which is why he is the best liar Smokey had met. It may also explain why it is difficult for people to lie to Sawyer, he usually sees right through them.
He knew before anyone else did that Sayid Jarrah was a torturer who got off on it. And he
knew how to play him. He also knew right off the bat that Smokey wasn't Lock. Liars tend to know when others are lying. What makes Sawyer good is he doesn't really lie. He tells half-truths. And what people want to hear. He told Widmore that he'd bring Smokey to his doorstep. And he told Smokey that he told Widmore this and what Widmore was doing on the Hydra Island with the cages. He told both that he had no problem with them fighting one another, he just wanted off the island, along with everyone with him.
Another interesting tid-bit about Sawyer? He makes friends with other people. His friends with Jin, Hurley, Lock, and Miles. Jack doesn't. Not really. We see this in the islandverse and the sideways verse.
That's the only thing I thought was interesting in the Sideways verse - that Sawyer, after his confrontations with Charlotte and Miles, attempts to make amends with both. Charlott's reaction perplexed me - because she was clearly hunting that file on Sawyer and clearly knew that James Ford had it. She was thrilled when she found it. So why the uppity bit? Is she trying to convince him she was just fiddling about? What is she hiding and why do I get the feeling that they won't tell us? The fact that he tells Miles and informs him that he wants to kill Cooper for what he did - also intrigued me. That's the big difference between James Ford in islandverse and JAmes Ford in Sideways verse. In Sideways verse - he does trust people, he lets them in. Prior to Juliet - James Ford did not let anyone in. Not really. So they are being consistent in their depiction of the characters' lives being better in Sideways verse without manipulative Jacob and the island. Also, what the characters do in the sideways verse is organic to who they are in islandverse.
Ben is a teacher, who cares deeply for Alex - and struggles with a desire for control. He is manipulative in both worlds, but also in both - he cares deeply about those put in his care.
In Sideways - he helps them, he aides them, he chooses them over power. In Islandverse - he chooses power, and fails them miserably.
Locke - desperately wants to be someone, wants to believe in something, to find meaning, to find a purpose - if it is only being a teacher and being loved. In Sideways - he finds it.
In Islandverse - he can't.
Jack - desperately wanted his father's approval, to feel important, to feel sucessful outside of his father - he realizes in the Sideways verse that he always had it, and that it is not important, that it is not vital and it does not make him successful. He has a son and through his son - he realizes that his father's words which felt like darts meant to wound, were not deliberately so...he comes to an epithany of sorts. While in Islandverse - he's floundering, desperate, and suicidal, letting everyone down in the process - it's still about Daddy, with Jacob merely another representation, as is Smokey.
Kate - it's about bringing the mother and child together. She had a crazy mother who defended an abusive father. Kate wanted a relationship with her mother, and pursues it, with no luck.
So shifts to one with Claire's son, and when that falls through, shifts to finding Claire and reuniting Claire with Aaron. In Sideways verse - she succeeds. In Islandverse = she fails.
Sayid - wants to prove he is a good man and not the product of his actions, years spent as torturer in Iraq. That he is worthy of Nadia. In Islandverse he fails over and over again.
Each time when he is put to the test, he kills and tortures. In Sideways verse - he is equally forced to kill, but not quite for the same reasons. And he does not end up with Nadia, he stays away protecting her.
Sawyer - wants to find the man who destroyed his family. In Islandverse - he does, he kills him and has to live with it, is devasted by the act - and manipulated into it by Locke and by association Ben. In Sideways verse - he can't find Cooper, and is looking, while it eats away at him but has not turned him into Sawyer/Cooper. His love of others, need to help and protect others wins out in the end, as it does in Islandverse, but more so here.
All of this makes me wonder what I'm supposed to be thinking of Jacob, who feels more and more like a manipulative bastard. I'm hoping this is true. I'm hoping that the story isn't a simple one a la The Stand, with the good guys fighting the bad guys. But I'm skeptical.
Next week's episode gives me some hope...since we get to see Alpert's back story and perhaps some insight on Jacob. Alpert clearly doesn't like Jacob much. The only two things of interest in Jack's game of chicken with Alpert and the dynamite two weeks ago - was that a)Alpert had given up and sees Jacob as a manipulative bastard, just as Jack does. And b) no one touched by Jacob can die on the island. Note John Locke died off the island, so this was not a problem.
People can die off island if touched by Jacob, but not on. Which is what the boy meant when he told SMokey - you can't kill him - he can't kill Sawyer. It also may explain why Sayid came back from the dead. And Juliet was killed (not touched by Jacob.) Personally, I'd rather have Juliet...Sayid's story got stale a year ago. I love Sayid, but they just keep repeating the same thing over and over again. Plus we got too many male characters - I vote we ax a few of them to even up the tally. Also, as a side note - where are Rose and Bernard? Not dead, I hope.
I liked those characters.
Okay bedtime.
2. I've been compulsively scanning the internets for spoilers on the Buffy Comics. And there aren't any, well not any that I don't already know. Highly frustrating. The TV show had spoilers. Stupid comics don't. Interestingly enough, I don't always do this. I don't hunt nor want spoilers for Lost, Caprica, and 99% of the tv shows on. It's only Buffy, BattleStar Galatica (to a degree) and whatever soap opera I'm addicted to at the moment.
3. Saw Caprica this morning. This show works for me whenever Daniel Graystone and Zoe are on-screen. I'm bored whenever Amanda and Clarice Willow are onscreen. And the meandering of Josef Adama in Virtual Reality Land or New Cap City is equally boring to me, although his scene with his brother Sam, who is rapidly becoming one my favorite characters, is quite wonderful. Tamara wandering about New Cap City on the other hand was intriguing and gripping. I also find Lacey's story gripping and whenever she's on screen it is cool. So this show is unevenly written.
The match of wills between Daniel and Zoe in last night's episode was remarkable. She knew that the gun he gave her to shoot the dog was filled with blanks - the robot that she's inside could sense it. But she admits to Lacey that if it had been filled with actual bullets - she would have turned it on her father and shot him. I can't say I'd blame her. What Daniel does to her is horrific. He basically tortures her in the hopes that she'll slip up and reveal that she is alive and well inside the robot. He is willing to break any rule to retrieve "his" daughter as if she belongs to him. It's a rather interesting character thematic - the idea of ownership.
Josef and Daniel share that in common - that both see these girls as their property, theirs.
And this is true of many parents - they have tendency to see their children as belonging to them as part of them, as a projection of themselves. You are smart because I'm smart. Your accomplishments are a reflection on me, etc. When in truth this is not so. Children are individuals, unique. While parents do have an affect on who they become, they are not the sole or only factor and they do not own their children.
Stolz plays Daniel in a way that is sympathetic. He is vulnerable. You do care about him and you can see him going a bit crazy with grief. It is in some respects an amazing performance.
He raises the bar quite high.
Zoe also is quite well played - her battle of wills, her desire to tell but fear to do so, her inability to trust him.
That dynamic is well-played and an ironic take on a similar one between Gaius Baltar and the manipulative Six.
The other scene that I found interesting was a relatively small one between Josef Adama and his brother Sam, where he asks Sam - what goes through his head when he kills someone. The conversation and the ensuing holo game that Josef plays to find his daughter are commentaries to our own society's rather desensitizing take on violence. The woman that Josef meets in the game tells him that what happens in the game feels real and is real within its confines. Josef keeps stating it's not though. When he leaves the game after being unable to kill someone - at least initially - he asks Sam that question. Sam states - I don't think about it. It's not real. The person I kill is not real to me. To me they are just a target. Not human. Just something in the way. Something that I have to remove. That's it. I don't think of them as a living thing. The speech he gives Josef Adama reminds me a great deal of the speech that Spike gives Angel in Damage, where he tells Angel that he never saw his victims, they weren't real to him. Just a target. Just food. Just the rush of violence. He says the same to Buffy in numerous episodes - happy meals with legs, or to Wood, just a slayer. He in his head, rationalized killing people by making them targets. Not people. They aren't real. He didn't care about them because they weren't real or people to him. It's a different type of evil than say...the serial killer who targets people because they are real and he gets off on taking them apart, corrupting them, turning them into himself. It's also if you think about it - a commentary on us. Violent video games where we just kill things. Violent tv shows and blockbuster movies - where people are killed but we feel nothing. Even the news and media. And what, Caprica asks, is it doing to our children - who are watching and playing increasingly violent video games, where there are no consquences for killing someone, no remorse - it is not real. It's just a game. What happens, ask Caprica's writers, when the line between reality and makebelieve becomes blurred? Josef Adama wonders this very thing as he pursues his dead daughter's avatar in the makebelieve world, killing all who get in his way.
I'm guessing Marsters arc continues into next season, since the season final is next week and we've only seen Marsters for one episode. He's supposed to have a four episode arc.
4. While I was rather unimpressed by Lost this week...I did find a few bits worth noting.
Kate and Jin and Sawyer are clearly not completely on board with Team Smokey. Sawyer appears to playing Smokey and was not surprised when Not!Lock revealed himself to be Smokey. I'm guessing Sawyer knows quite a bit about who and what Smokey is - considering he was head of security at the Dharma Initiative for three years with Juliet, and they both knew the pylons kept Smokey out. Regarding Smokey - it was Smokey who manipulated Ben into killing everyone at the Dharma Initiative and into joining the Others. He appeared as Ben's mother and talked to him. It was not Richard Alpert who got him to do it - unless I remembered it wrong. Sawyer also did not lie to either Widmore or to Smokey - which is why he is the best liar Smokey had met. It may also explain why it is difficult for people to lie to Sawyer, he usually sees right through them.
He knew before anyone else did that Sayid Jarrah was a torturer who got off on it. And he
knew how to play him. He also knew right off the bat that Smokey wasn't Lock. Liars tend to know when others are lying. What makes Sawyer good is he doesn't really lie. He tells half-truths. And what people want to hear. He told Widmore that he'd bring Smokey to his doorstep. And he told Smokey that he told Widmore this and what Widmore was doing on the Hydra Island with the cages. He told both that he had no problem with them fighting one another, he just wanted off the island, along with everyone with him.
Another interesting tid-bit about Sawyer? He makes friends with other people. His friends with Jin, Hurley, Lock, and Miles. Jack doesn't. Not really. We see this in the islandverse and the sideways verse.
That's the only thing I thought was interesting in the Sideways verse - that Sawyer, after his confrontations with Charlotte and Miles, attempts to make amends with both. Charlott's reaction perplexed me - because she was clearly hunting that file on Sawyer and clearly knew that James Ford had it. She was thrilled when she found it. So why the uppity bit? Is she trying to convince him she was just fiddling about? What is she hiding and why do I get the feeling that they won't tell us? The fact that he tells Miles and informs him that he wants to kill Cooper for what he did - also intrigued me. That's the big difference between James Ford in islandverse and JAmes Ford in Sideways verse. In Sideways verse - he does trust people, he lets them in. Prior to Juliet - James Ford did not let anyone in. Not really. So they are being consistent in their depiction of the characters' lives being better in Sideways verse without manipulative Jacob and the island. Also, what the characters do in the sideways verse is organic to who they are in islandverse.
Ben is a teacher, who cares deeply for Alex - and struggles with a desire for control. He is manipulative in both worlds, but also in both - he cares deeply about those put in his care.
In Sideways - he helps them, he aides them, he chooses them over power. In Islandverse - he chooses power, and fails them miserably.
Locke - desperately wants to be someone, wants to believe in something, to find meaning, to find a purpose - if it is only being a teacher and being loved. In Sideways - he finds it.
In Islandverse - he can't.
Jack - desperately wanted his father's approval, to feel important, to feel sucessful outside of his father - he realizes in the Sideways verse that he always had it, and that it is not important, that it is not vital and it does not make him successful. He has a son and through his son - he realizes that his father's words which felt like darts meant to wound, were not deliberately so...he comes to an epithany of sorts. While in Islandverse - he's floundering, desperate, and suicidal, letting everyone down in the process - it's still about Daddy, with Jacob merely another representation, as is Smokey.
Kate - it's about bringing the mother and child together. She had a crazy mother who defended an abusive father. Kate wanted a relationship with her mother, and pursues it, with no luck.
So shifts to one with Claire's son, and when that falls through, shifts to finding Claire and reuniting Claire with Aaron. In Sideways verse - she succeeds. In Islandverse = she fails.
Sayid - wants to prove he is a good man and not the product of his actions, years spent as torturer in Iraq. That he is worthy of Nadia. In Islandverse he fails over and over again.
Each time when he is put to the test, he kills and tortures. In Sideways verse - he is equally forced to kill, but not quite for the same reasons. And he does not end up with Nadia, he stays away protecting her.
Sawyer - wants to find the man who destroyed his family. In Islandverse - he does, he kills him and has to live with it, is devasted by the act - and manipulated into it by Locke and by association Ben. In Sideways verse - he can't find Cooper, and is looking, while it eats away at him but has not turned him into Sawyer/Cooper. His love of others, need to help and protect others wins out in the end, as it does in Islandverse, but more so here.
All of this makes me wonder what I'm supposed to be thinking of Jacob, who feels more and more like a manipulative bastard. I'm hoping this is true. I'm hoping that the story isn't a simple one a la The Stand, with the good guys fighting the bad guys. But I'm skeptical.
Next week's episode gives me some hope...since we get to see Alpert's back story and perhaps some insight on Jacob. Alpert clearly doesn't like Jacob much. The only two things of interest in Jack's game of chicken with Alpert and the dynamite two weeks ago - was that a)Alpert had given up and sees Jacob as a manipulative bastard, just as Jack does. And b) no one touched by Jacob can die on the island. Note John Locke died off the island, so this was not a problem.
People can die off island if touched by Jacob, but not on. Which is what the boy meant when he told SMokey - you can't kill him - he can't kill Sawyer. It also may explain why Sayid came back from the dead. And Juliet was killed (not touched by Jacob.) Personally, I'd rather have Juliet...Sayid's story got stale a year ago. I love Sayid, but they just keep repeating the same thing over and over again. Plus we got too many male characters - I vote we ax a few of them to even up the tally. Also, as a side note - where are Rose and Bernard? Not dead, I hope.
I liked those characters.
Okay bedtime.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-03-21 09:08 pm (UTC)Yeah. It seems both DH and IDW have decided that since the stories are now told in comic book format, they somehow have to change them to become comic book stories - stuff like this (Spike regrowing limbs, Dawn turning into a centaur, Buffy flying) wouldn't have happened in the TV series, but it's happened in other comic books, therefore they must now happen in the Buffyverse or people might think it's (gasp, horror) not a proper superhero comic but something, I dunno, unique. Just like Allie seems to think Buffy fans are Twilight fans: the genre is the genre and they must stick to it at all costs.
no subject
Date: 2010-03-21 09:40 pm (UTC)I remember reading an interview with Brian Lynch - when he was writing Angel After the Fall. He said that he initially wanted to only do things that could have happened in the television series and not to do anything that could not have happened on it. But Whedon told him that he should make full use of the comic medium, and convinced him and by extension IDW to ignore the TV series.
To which, I thought to myself, uhm, Whedon, that statement in of itself is sort of contraditory to what you say you are attempting with the Buffy comics. If you want me to believe these are meant to be canonical to the television series - you have to at least try to make them fit with that verse. A little effort here, would be appreciated.
(When skinless Warren showed up, I knew that the comics had taken a left turn and they just kept on going...so was not all that surprised by Dawn turning into a Centaur or Angel becoming Twilight.)
IDW - I'd had hopes for until Kelly Armstrong took over from Brian Lynch, and I just gave up on them. Not that Lynch was fantastic or anything...but at least he stayed with the general gist of the series. Wish I could say the same of the ones who came after him.
Why anyone would think the majority of Buffy fans are Twilight fans is beyond me. I mean, hello, most Buffy fans hate the Twilight books (they are the complete opposite of Buffy) and most Twilight fans (including James Marsters niece apparently) don't like Buffy - it's too violent and scarey and how can you make vampires evil??? But then Allie doesn't strike me as all that bright. That elevator definitely does not quite go to the top. ;-)