| This is kind of spooky: we just had finished watching Battlestar Galactica (forever!), and turned off the DVD. The TV happened to have been left on the Documentary Channel. Which was showing a program about Atlantis, complete with theories of Earth being visited by aliens, who mated with our ancestors.
( Coincidence much? )
In other shows, we are starting to watch Farscape! We watched the first episode before BSG, and I'm like, wow, look, a father who admits he's proud of his son without being under some kind of extreme emotional duress. I am quite excited by all the aliens; who needs CGI when you have puppets, right?
Also, Claudia Black is a babe and that is all. | comments: Leave a comment   |
| I realised the other night just how many awesome competent ladies there are on Blood Ties. Why? Because in the episode 'Bugged', Henry and Mike get together and work on a case without Vicki (Henry's being all protective, the idiot). What's this, two male characters together without a women around? What's wrong with this picture?
This is Blood Ties, that's what, and Vicki Nelson doesn't care if every other damn show has its boys hang out together all the time, Blood Ties is all about the ladies, and you men are only here because Vicki thinks you're cool enough. And you should just tell her what's going on all ready, because it's not cool to hold out on your partner.
Here's what I realised - there is only one male recurring support character (Mike's cop partner). As for female support characters, we have Kate, whom Mike also works with – she has a bit of a crush on him, is very good at her job, is disdainful of Vicki (asking Mike to trust her and let her in while at the same time dissing Vicki for her weird cases, oh baby).
We have their boss Crowley who is very hard-line, by the rules, whom we could see as a 'bitch' – but hell, someone has to pay mind to the rules, and the show wants us to sympathise with her even as she gets in the way of our heroes.
We have Dr Mohadevan, their go-to pathologist, who is awesome at her job and also willing to accept the supernatural, and who behaves very fondly towards her cadavers. We have Dr Sagara, a professor at the university with an interest in the occult, and a onetime lover of Henry's, who gets to be an attractive older lady!
The experts they turn to in this show are all women. And our two main male characters are there for their relation to Vicki. Who is the badass who gets to beat people up (whilst being contrasted by other women who are not about to beat people up but still get to be entirely awesome). It is like someone took some other show and performed a genderswap!
Which is part of how this show went from somewhat guilty addiction to OMG ♥♥♥. Mystery and excitement, magic and romance, and it lets women be the main players. I wouldn't have thought I could have been so pleased with an adaption of books I love. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| I finished Tanya Huff's latest book, The Enchantment Emporium yesterday. It starts off slow, because even though it's urban fantasy you've got a whole world to introduce. But the time I was halfway through, reading it on my walk up to uni, I had a huge grin on my face which probably scared more than a few people.
It wasn't as funny as the Keeper books, say, which have me laughing out loud, but definitely enjoyable, with moments of id-tastic excitement. Dragon Lords! Hot smoking Dragon Lords! 13 year old teenage boy Dragon Lords! Also a huge focus on family, not just family by blood, but the family we choose and claim for ourselves. And the best use of the maiden/mother/crone trope I have ever seen.
We are watching the TV show of her Vicky Nelson books at the moment, Blood Ties, and I'm a bit addicted. It may not be the most sophisticated vampire show around, but it has excitement and beautiful people and loads of UST, and really, what could be better for relaxing in the evenings? | | comments: Leave a comment |
| ( Spoilers wear dresses )
I embarrassed tonight myself by being able to name Jackson Rathbone (although I hadn't realised he was the funny looking one on Twilight till Mum looked him up on IMDB), and being able to name Matthew Gray Gubler and knowing he used to be a model. After already having said that he looked extra-pretty in this episode.
Then we went and looked at his website and it has got even more awesome since I last visited. Man, I just want him to be my best friend. You should all visit and then go onto 'web page' and scroll down and listen to him read 'Annabel Lee'. Or maybe it is only me who could listen to him forever. I'll be off swooning. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| ( Sarah Connor Chronicles 2.13 - Earthlings Welcome Here )
( Battlestar Galactica 2.1-2.2 )
Also character development and plot movement in both, but at the moment I am only thinking about the robots! I also blame this vid by ![[info - personal]](http://s.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png) charmax, Unnatural Selection, which is filled with thinky thoughts on the robots in BSG and SCC both.
I have changed my mind about what I want to write my next Buddhism essay on; now I would like to write 'Do robots have Buddha-nature?' I have already found a book I can read, The Buddha in the Robot. It would probably be too much fun to right though, I ought to pick something that normal people will think is serious business. Not everyone is as concerned about how to prevent the robot apocolypse as I am. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| Last night, we watched episode 6 of Sarah Connor (really good ep, BTW). A resistance fighter comes back from the future. She's an Australian! (This also happened at the end of season one of SCC - an Aussie, I mean. In that case, it was a clue.)
It's always somewhat disconcerting when Aussies show up in American programs. Your ears are adjusted to the American accents, and suddenly they throw an Aussie in the mix, and it throws you.
The same thing happened tonight. We were watching Battlestar Galactica: Razor, when suddenly: an Australian!
The same Australian!
Sci-fi television is so incestuous. Or maybe it's just I'm watching a lot more television than I ever used to, so I notice when actors reappear. I have looked her up, and her name is Stephanie Jacobsen. Unsurprisingly, she also used to be on Home and Away. At any rate I think she's pretty cool, so I'll look forward to seeing more of her on SCC. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| In my adventures back-reading blogs, I stumbled across this post at Feminism + Fandom = Attitude Problem. The idea that particularly amused me (not the poster's) was that "any woman who likes SF doesn't like it inherently, but because a guy (dad, boyfriend, husband) instilled the interest."
Alas, but there's only one guy I even talk about sci-fi to - unless you count when I buy sci-fi magazines from this one particular guy who will chat with me. The most I can say for my father is that he doesn't usually leave the room anymore when we're watching BSG.
No, if I'm going to blame anyone for my love of sci-fi, it won't be a man. It'll be my mother.
My Mum is a geek. You can't tell to look at her, as proved by the bookseller at Dymocks who told her she didn't look like she read fantasy. Mum told him, "Neither do you." Because how should you look? But just because the middle-aged-mother-geeks aren't visible doesn't mean they're not there, busy raising geeky daughters.
My older sister isn't so much, but Talia and I both read and watch a fair lot of sci-fi. We sit with Mum in the evenings and we watch TV. Here is the sci-fi we have watched over the years: Stargate, BSG, Doctor Who, Sarah Connor, Lost, Heroes, Red Dwarf, Sliders, The Pretender, Firefly, Smallville. (Cheap DVDs and getting more than two channels have helped with this recently. Yes, we do watch a lot of TV in my household.) Speaking of Sarah Connor, it's starting in NZ again tonight! Only a month after in the States! It is excellent.
Mum and I also have quite similar taste in books. I didn't come across Nightfall,say, because it was some famous SF short story, no. I was just reading some of Mum's old sci-fi anthologies. It's actually very useful, having the same taste as your mother. You can share books, go halves on that boxset... Good times.
At any rate, I don't see sci-fi as a particularly male genre, for all it may be stereotyped that way. The author who got me into it was a woman, Anne McCaffrey. (Acorna the Unicorn Girl + 10 year old girl = <3) The people I read theorising about sci-fi are mostly women, the recs I get come off feminist SF blogs... I get to live in this female sci-fi bubble, where even if something is bad on women, it gets called on it. For me, SF is inherently female, because that's my experience of it. I guess I'm lucky. | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| Asides from eating chocolate all weekend, we also finally watched the Battlestar Galactic miniseries, which ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) devilcactus lent me ages back, but was intimidating in its three hour long-ness. I am very glad I watched it, and did not just go to bed.
( Here I ramble. A lot. ) | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| Blasted double episodes! They get you all scared-up and then they're like, ha ha, not till next week! Torment! Our timeshare had better be getting channel 1, or I swear, I will just like, explode.
Although I did miss the first scene. People don't realise that just because you're sitting there, doesn't mean you realise the shows started! I was reading about vampires! So Mum had to briefly sum up the murder, and in doing so also gave the whole thing that made this unsub so weird. Because she's onto it. (The problem too, when they're hiding key things about someone by not showing them, is that it's obvious. But what do you do, if you don't want the audience to be in on it from the start?)
I think it started actually being scary when Garcia finds out the murder videos are being posted on the net. Not that I need be concerned about people spying on me from my computer - I don't have a webcam, and I certainly never call any kind of tech support. I like how Garcia calls non-techy people 'mortals', and so casually! Actually, Hex in the Chris Ryan books does the same thing... I'm clearly not cool enough.
But! Women being eaten by dogs is scary. Cornfields are scary (even if they're actually fields of sunflowers?). People splitting up when they're alone and out of cellphone range - scary. Perhaps just rural areas in general are scary? This is probably the spookiest episode in a while. Yes, even before Reid is in imminent danger. Although that probably helps.
I fear I'm just going to go off into fangirlish squee now. I'm sure seeing the promos all week will put me in a suitable state of fear for watching the show in. And, you know, I'll be on holiday again, so if I post it will be after a period in which I can reflect, ensuring that I will actually be coherent. Because I'm all over the place here.
Show, I love you! I think I am going to have to go make an icon just to express that love. Now. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| This is my belated thoughts on a couple of season 2's earlier episodes (2.13 plays tonight). I wrote these notes at work, on a scrap of paper it took me a while to find again. That's what happens when you leave your notebook by the computer...
( Episode 2.05 - Aftermath )
( Episode 2.06 - The Boogeyman )
We've had new brunette girl for three episodes now; I'm not sure what to make of her. (I also can't remember her name yet.) She's not as badass as Elle, though I don't think I should hold that against her. We just don't know her well enough yet, but I don't doubt there's something there. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| I stayed up late last night to watch Hex, the start of the second season - which was a bit confusing, as I'd never seen it before. But they'd done a write-up in the TV Week, and I was like: Nephilim? Demon lovechild? I am so there!
So, this girl Cassie goes to a flash boarding school, with hardly any people in it, apparently. Last season, she had an affair with Azazyel (evil demon lord) and got pregnant with his child! She tried to have an abortion but the baby is growing extra fast, so I guess it didn't work, and Azazyel is keeping the baby in an old church he's done all up in red velvet. He's much of a looker, Azazyel, but there is a very hot lesbian ghost with asymmetrical hair, and another chick who's thousands of years old and goes around slitting people's throats, also with great hair. She wants Cassie's baby dead, I think because its presence in the world means 200 nephilim are free to roam. They're like Gollum/hollow crosses. Sharp claws! Kill the poor boy with a crush on Cassie, poor boy. Feel guilty, Cassie!
I thought it was an interesting take on the nephilim. When I first came across the word, it was in Madeleine L'Engle's 'Many Waters', which has nephilim and seraphim. The nephilim are from The Book of Enoch, and L'Engle's aren't strictly accurate - she uses it to refer to the Watchers, the angels who go around having sex with human women, when strictly speaking, the nephilim are the giants born of the angels/human unions, who go about wreaking havoc on the world.
And I am a big geek, but you can see why the show piqued my interest. The Watchers also went around doing such despicable things as teaching humans astronomy and jewellery making. You can see why God needed to send a flood. (Okay, Azazyel taught them how to make weapons. But really, why do gods always want humanity ignorant?).
It was an interesting show, even if it had nothing on Stargate: Atlantis, which my family is currently obsessively watching. Oh, John Sheppard. How I do love thee. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| I know, even the New Zealand season 1 is old news. But, to celebrate season 2 starting this week, and on account of not wanting to suffer 'Are You Smarter Than a 10-Year Old', my family decided to watch some Criminal Minds. Because we hadn't been watching it from the beginning, after all.
And omigosh, I love this show so bad. My favourite characters are Reid and Garcia (because like attracts like, and I am a geek.) I love Garcia's little flirty thing with Morgan. I love that Reid can profile you from your go game (even if he can't beat Gideon at chess).
I also like how Gideon has all the ownage. And how in a secret previous life, he was Inigo Montoya. You would never know, only devilcactus told me. (It was funny, we were watching the first episode, and devilcactus texted me in excitement about the second season.)
Episode one, we get the introductions. Hotch with his pregnant wife, picking baby names; Morgan flirting with cute girls. The only other episode I recall having seen their 'other lives' in was the final of season one, the cliffhanger, when they were supposed to be getting a holiday. Gideon is lecturing but chose to called him back for a case and oo, is he ready to go back on the job? Trauma back story, to be revealed in episode three (which is where he most owns). And he is totally staunch and awesome. I think he is good at teaching people though - although probably he's just doing that in the episodes to explain stuff to us audience. There's a bit of that, but mostly you don't mind because it's presented reasonably.
We have a strangler in episode one. They find the guy halfway through - and they're right, but you know it can't be over yet. I could not escape thinking my friend Hayden could have played the 'unsub' really well. It's the being small and scrawny and also totally disturbed thing.
Episode two: University arson! Also: "OCD? More like OMG." My sister and I both burst out laughing at the unsub's message on the FBI hotline. Because it sounded very like, "I do this for Kira." (Actually it was 'Charon', but our interpretation was more entertaining.)
Episode three is a bomber who isn't, in the end, a bomber profile. Gideon has to deal with the killer who left six of his agents dead, in order to save the day. I love Gideon in this episode. There was also lots of Garcia/Morgan flirting, but not much Reid. I was happy.
The guy who plays Reid has a totally awesome website, which totally delighted me. A friend of mine had actually mentioned it ages ago (we've been watching Dead Like Me, also featuring Mandy Patinkin, and I'd gone off on a Criminal Minds love-spiel). Clearly, I was only just inspired to actually look it up.
I doubt we'll be watching all of season one again in preparation for the second (pity), but I am thinking I must object my friends to a marathon some time. Maybe for the summer. | | comments: 4 comments or Leave a comment |
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