It has all happened before

I remember that when Game of Thrones was about to premiere on HBO, I resolved to finally read the book asap, so that the series wouldn't spoil it for me. Unfortunately, with my reading speed, that plan quickly fell through. But as the series got more interesting, I started trying to catch up, and after the last episode I got so hungry for more that I actually did. And now I find myself teetering on the brink, reluctant to read on for fear of the book spoiling the series. Funny symmetry. And a surprisingly faithful and well-executed adaptation. They hardly left anything out.

In the meantime, I did another historical piece for pajiba, and one of the commenters wrote that they should film it and run it as a double feature with the next series of Game of Thrones, which got me thinking that, well... yeah, it would be a good fit, since Song of Ice and Fire is pretty much history at its best. And then I got lost for like two hours, matching big European showdowns and succession crises with the current Game of Thrones chessboard, until I came up with this:

The 30 Years War (of Westeros)

featuring:

The Habsburgs as House Lannister
Bohemia as House Tully
Denmark as House Stark
The Palatinate (Evangelical Union) as House Baratheon
Transylvania as House Arryn
Poland as the Highland Tribes
England as House Greyjoy
The United Provinces as House Martell
France as House Tyrell
The Ottoman Empire as the Dothraki Horde
Sweden as The Others

Obviously, at this point I've yet no idea how the Greyjoys, Martells and Tyrells will actually play into the scheme of things, but I'm still delighted by how it all ALMOST matches up. You could even split up Habsburgs to account for the Austrian ones (Joffrey and Cersei), and Spain (Tywin and Jaime), with the latter bearing the brunt of the warfare, and providing the funding. If The Tyrells end up financing Renly, that will be very much like France aiding the Protestants, England makes sense as Greyjoys (what with the navy and stuff), and should Dorne get actively involved, it has Netherlands written all over it, grudge and all. The Ottomans in the east, not a direct threat yet, but a dangerous enigma, and of course no one expects Gustavus Adolphus sweeping down from beyond the Wall. The only thing I'm not quite happy with is the Poland/Transylvania dynamic - it would make more sense for Transylvania to be the highlanders, since it was Gabor who got sicked after Poland, not the other way around, but that would flip their loyalties, as Poland aided the Emperor. I mean Lannisters.

Come to think of it, maybe that's my next pajiba piece.

Delayed grievances

I totally forgot to do the last 10 episodes of BSG, and now I don't really remember them that well, but i still have some highly cryptic notes so let's see what I can cook up:

1) "religious Baltar - wtf?" (that's what I jotted down, and I can't really elaborate on that, so I'll just transcribe it verbatim)

2) Roslin's escapist "I'm not getting pulled back into this" was pretty ridiculous. THEN RESIGN, LADY.

3) And then Gaeta's outrage "To let machines network our ship?!" Dude... you networked this ship yourself once, remember?

4) However, the Zarek/Gaeta dynamic was played out spectacularly. I was glued to the screen, watching as it evolves. Some really good writing there. Also: "You've done a very courageous thing." "We can fine-tune our rationalizations later." Awesome.

5) Except... how does Fat Baby have "people reporting to him"? What people? You're a civilian. What CLOUT can you possibly have. Oh Fat Baby, you so stupid.

6) "Roslin's speech - politics at its best" (no idea what this one's about either - see: religious Baltar)

7) Absolutely HILARIOUS (not sure, if it was intentional) scene when Roslin escapes Galactica aboard a raptor and gets shot at, but the missile hits the basestar instead. She charges onto the bridge, and the Cylons ask her "Why are we being attacked?" and she answers "You're not, they were shooting at me." And the first response we hear (quickly covered up by others) is Tory's exasperated "What did you do?!" as if she were saying "Bitch, please, what now?!" I watched it over and over again.

8) Roslin suddenly addressing the fleet despite the com jamming and saying "It worked! They couldn't jam it!" as the camera reveals Leoben holding some blinky box that we see for the first time EVER and going "I thought that would do the trick." Of course! I forgot about the Cylon blinky box technology! How silly of me.

9) behold this logic: Cylon FTL drives are awesome and we should install them everywhere. But cylon structural support is EVIL.

10) John Hodgman had no place being in that series, during the epic conclusion. It felt very awkward.

11) When the final 5 are voting whether to stay or leave, Fat Baby votes to leave. Why? No reason. Because the screenwriters needed a stalemate. Tory wanted to leave from the get-go, but Fat Baby? And everyone accepts it as if it's perfectly normal. No one even tries to talk him out of it. Or ask him WHY THE HELL HE WANTS TO LEAVE THE FLEET. God I hate everything about this character.

12) And on that subject: Fat Baby's arguments against putting Boomer on trial? He had four: "You can't!", "You can't!", "You can't!", and "YOU CAN'T!"

13) And then he let her escape. And steal Helo's baby. And kind of rape him. *sigh*

14) "Hera wrote the notes to a song..." Oh just kill me now

15) Apparently Fat Baby releasing Boomer and Adama's house painting meltdown took place in the same episode. Which means it was a very, very bad episode.

16) Also, the eternal cycle of violence between humans and Cylons will not be broken because of...? You've guessed it - FAT BABY.

17) "Last two eps - so bad, so boring, so pointless"

18) "chief is in the cylon cell. why? how? dunno, but let's have more adama-at-a-strip-joint"

19) "then chief is OUT of the cell and everything is fine and dandy - wha?"

20) The scene with various people laying out the final plan, as they were doing other stuff was... not that great. I get what they were aiming for, but they fell short

21) I kind of loved that they totally ran out of characters and so Hoshi became Admiral and Lampkin - President. Really? REALLY?

22) Oh great. They asked Sam where to jump - and there we go. Why not another deus ex machina.

23) "Now we'll learn everything about each other..." like that Chief released Boomer, who sorta raped helo and stole hera WHICH IS WHY WE ARE IN THIS FUCKING COLONY IN THE FIRST PLACE - but hey, tory killed the suicidal girl who wanted to kill her baby too, so...

24) "Spreading people out all over the planet with no technology... why... ah, never mind"

25) "'We can give the people the best we have to offer." Newsflash: it's not technology that is EVIL, Fat Baby doesn't need a nuclear device to be a raging asshole - in fact, he'll fuck you up with his bare hands or a wrench

26) "filled with bad speeches and truly bad writing"

27) The creator's cameo at the end of the final episode was kind of like saying "Here's the asshole you should blame for the deluge of shit you're about to be hit with"

28) the NYC scene was written so poorly not even Tricia Helfer was able to sell it to me

29) Oh, and by the way, technology-challenged remnants, the Cylons are still out there. You only destroyed the colony, the basestars are still floating around.

And that was that. Time to watch the last Game of Thrones ep.

Battlestar Craptastica

I just watched the finale last night, and OH GOD it was so bad. So bad. I had to actively remind myself that I had talked to people while I was watching the final season, and I was really into it, before the finale, because after the credits rolled, I was completely convinced that the entire season - if not series as a whole - was bad. That's how truly horrible the finale is.

Luckily, I had notes, so I can say that the first 16-17 episodes of the final season are actually good, at least where they don't concern Starbuck or Fat Baby. Let's go:

1) The Cylon Civil War: awesome. Boomer voting against Eights: awesomer. Removing the Centurions' inhibitor: awesomest.

2) Then Apollo left the service and donned a v-neck... blouse for his farewell. Bad image.

3) When they let Jane Espenson do something with Baltar, she mines him for comedy, and the actor actually has pretty decent timing, but the character is so aimless and deplorable at this point that it just doesn't click for me.

4) When Adama sends Starbuck on her random quest, he gives her a crew that includes Gaeta, who is his best FTL specialist, and Helo, who is his executive officer, except suddenly demoted. I get it that they ran out of people we care about, but it was just hilariously unreasonable.

5) Tory killing Cally - obviously a high point. One of the more satisfying deaths on the show in terms of execution (pun intended).

6) The next ep after Cally's death, Escape Velocity, was penned by Jane Espenson, and stuffed with unintentional hilarity where Chief/Cally were concerned, and otherwise all-around awesomeness:
a) I don't know if Mary McDonnell had a twitch, an off day, or what, but during Cally's funeral she looks bemused/politely interested. I'm pretty sure it wasn't intentional.
b) Fat Baby reminiscing about Cally in the requisite memory montage: remember when I SMASHED YOUR FACE IN AAARGH! - they actually used that footage. I died laughing.
c) This conversation, between Baltar and Roslin: "Are you threatening me?" "No, i'm saying have a quiet life, and I'll die a quiet little death, and everyone will be happy. It's just that I'm not in the mood any longer to indulge you."
d) Caprica Six smashing Tigh's face in with an angelic smile. I actually made a clip of that.

7) The scene where they are aboard the baseship, and one Six loses it and kills a human pilot, and then is put down by another Six for the sake of the alliance - jesus fuck. Compare and contrast with Fat Baby in the finale.

8) The Eights' appeal to Athena to lead them in mutiny against the Sixes - fantastic. That's probably where I finally kind of grasped the nature of the generic Eights (as opposed to Boomer or Athena). Good stuff.

9) On the other hand, Athena killing the rebel Cylon leader was a major WTF moment. I mean, sort of good storytelling, but crappy, crappy logic. That was some Fat Baby shit right there.

10) Sine Qua Non was I thought the worst episode of the season, untilI watched the final ones that is. Either way, it's very bad. Basically 45 minutes of bad speeches and delaying the "obvious" "conclusion", a completely random gunpoint moment, shitting all over the Lampkin character... The man who wrote it is called Michael Taylor, and he also wrote the boxing episode from Season Three. He is, in other words, responsible for a lot of what is wrong with BSG.

11) But in the next episode we return to Jane Espenson who has Roslin saying to Helo with barely masked exasperation: "Captain, you are not married to the entire production line."

12) ...and D'Anna telling Roslin she's one of the Final Five only to burst into giggles a moment after with an: "Oh, the look on your face... ridiculous!" Yes, made a clip of this one too. Rock on, Espenson.

13) However, the resolution of the standoff? Ridiculous. A basestar has nukes trained on the civilian fleet, which needs sseveral minutes to spool up their FTL drives, and the Admiral himself states that the moment they start doing that, the basestar will fire. And then the humans' gesture of good will is "sharing the way to Earth, even though they could have jumped away with it." No, dumbas, you just said you couldn't have. This is possibly the first time where the show didn't make any sense in regard to a major plot point. A whole plot arc was resolved because the writers said it was resolved, as opposed to presenting an actual solution within the narrative.

14) But the last few minutes of the 10th ep, when they land on Earth - awesome.

Final 10 eps in the next post.

BSG: the ionian nebula

Let's wrap up season 3, shall we?

1) It's official - all Starbuck-centered episodes in the entire series are lame. All of them.

2) Romo Lampkin seems more cartoonish the second time around. He's still a good character at this point, but he does veer dangerously into being gimmicky.

3) Even more gimmicky: hybrid talk. I have absolutely no interest in trying to decipher poorly written obfuspeak. I'm sure you're all very happy with how it all actually makes sense when you're the one writing it, but no. Most of the time it doesn't flow at all, instead it screams "hey look, see how we made it sound seemingly random?"

4) Baltar's trial itself was pretty entertaining. What I think I like most about it is the fact that Baltar himself is more or less a pawn in the proceedings - we never really see the action from his point of view. And that makes perfect sense, because the trial itself is not about him either, it's just the arena in which more universal issues are being resolved. If the writers intended this parallel to play out that way - kudos to them.

5) Apollo's testimony from the witness stand was really well written. I was completely over that character by then (not that he was ever a favorite of mine) and yet I did not cringe, and was even momentarly convinced.

6) Colonel Tigh has added a new weapon to his acting arsenal - in addition to the bug-eye he now also goes slack-jawed. To express anything. Good for him.

7) Finally - the use of Bob Dylan in the finale. Much as I like the BSG version of All Along the Watchtower, I find it grating that they featured a real-life song as a plot device in a sci fi show, and had fictional characters actually recite the lyrics. I understand that they wouldn't have been able to write anything better, but I still think they should have tried.

And that was the 3rd season. By far the worst of them all. Basically the only episode of note, from what I recall, was the escape from New Caprica, and parts of the finale. Not much.

BSG: the downhill years

This one covers more territory, from post-Pegasus to post-New Caprica. Most of it not that great, unfortunately.

1) Twice in a row, the Apollo-centered episodes resorted to the teaser + "X hours earlier" trick. As if they were trying to say "Look! We know it's Apollo, but something interesting WILL happen at the end. Just bear with us!" Unfortunately, neither episode was that great. And Black Market - aka "Lee suddenly has a hooker!" - was up there with the worst of them.

2) Starbuck-centered episodes still suck. The exception: Starbuck and Leoben on New Caprica.

3) What is it with the fucking flashbacks. Whenever they use one, they repeat it over and over again, like 10 times within one episode. Starbuck was strobeflashed with "Oh Anders my Anders", and Lee with "That random lady on Caprica whose name we never even learned". Ok, ok, we get it.

4) Baltar's political coup (suddenly running for President) was pretty nifty, but unfortunately delivered the first unconvincing Head Six moment of the series - her slow clap for looked ridiculously staged and not even amplifying the sound for dramatic effect helped. I've no idea what didn't work, but it looked rather silly.

5) From some point on, the actor playing Baltar has decided that the only sure way of conveying emotion was trying to eject his eyeballs from their sockets. He just goes bug-eyed, and that covers surprise, fear, shock, anger, pain, sadness... Great. Also, it becomes painfully obvious just how subpar he is, craft-wise, when he has to play Caprica Six's Head Baltar. It's just embarassing. And when compared to Tricia Helfer's Head Six - downright cringeworthy.

6) When Chief went Neanderthal again, this time on Cally, I got this huge neon sign in my head saying FAT BABY ANGRY. And now I can't shake it off. When he suddenly went off to find himself a temple (wtf?!) I got FAT BABY EXPLORE. When he then couldn't blow up the temple and almost went fetal, cuddling the detonator: FAT BABY CONSTIPATED. It's my personal lolcat. He also continues to be the most annoying character around, and that's no easy feat with Baltar, Starbuck and Apollo around.

7) New Caprica meant that Helo got a terrible haircut, and Adama grew a moustache which made him look like Paco the friendly plumber.

8) Starbuck is a terrible asshole and there's really nothing redeeming about her anymore. My favorite part was when she was all traumatized post-New Caprica, and acting like a major jerk, and then had some sort of epiphany, and cut her hair, which was very very meaningful... and proceeded to be the same gigantic asshole as before. Another crowning achievement: literally driving Cat to suicide by heroism for no apparent reason, and then visiting her on her deathbed and giving her sleeping pills, so she can finish herself off. And then we get 3 minutes of Starbuck not-quite-crying (cuz she's tough, y'all) while putting up Cat's picture in the memorial hall. Say... Wh... You gotta... Huh?

9) Dualla is nearing Stockholm Syndrome in her relationship with Lee. Anders I kind of get, he outright said that he knows she's fucking around, and he's accepted that, and he won't leave her anyway. I can respect that: you relinquish any semblance of self-respect, don't ask the tough questions, and just take whatever you get. Dualla though... She's aiming for moral highground, she's disgusted with the whole situation, she knows the best solution is to extract herself completely from this mess... and yet she allows herself to get sucked in again. I refuse to see the parallels and instead choose to treat her with utter disdain. I said shut up!

10) Helo has become something of a safety valve for the viewers' frustration with various characters. Whenever one of them gets too annoying, he punches them in the face. So far, he's done Apollo and Tigh. I'm hoping he'll do Starbuck next, but from what I recall that never happens :(

11) The Threes' suicide obsession - amazing. Love that idea. Sad to see Lucy go.

12) Gina's last appearance was heartbreaking and kind of awesome, I have to admit. And the escape from New Caprica was cool. But aside from those two eps - no real highlights so far. It's really sad to see how much better plotted the first 2 seasons were.

13) Unfortunately, I also got to the point where the series started contradicting itself or being just downright ridiculous:
* Caprica Six killing D'Anna as "the first act of Cylon on Cylon violence". Because Athena killing those Cylons on Caprica was just vocational training.
* When that pilot comes back in a stolen Raider after 3 years, they determine he's not a Cylon because "his blood matches the sample from his military records". Huh? And Boomer's doesn't? How does that prove anything?
* Wrapping up the Cylon-killing virus storyline as a one-off (so that people won't expect it to ever pop up anymore) by Gaeta saying that it matches a virus reported 3000 years ago, when the 13 tribes were departing Kobol. Let me reiterate: they have precise records of a virus from Biblical times. They have to get all the other information about that period from their religious texts, but they're fully stocked on biological samples from that era. Maybe their Corinthians is a medical database or something.

Stop flaring your nostrils

I didn't give a crap about James Marsden and Chelsea Handler isn't funny more often than she is, but I literally can't stop watching this interview (I've tried embedding it, no dice). I've seen it close to 15 times already, and it still amuses me. The barbecue bit is priceless. I also think this is probably what it would look like if I were asked to do an interview with someone I knew well and really liked.

I might actually like James Marsden now. He gets really cute when he's being obliterated.

Yet more BSG!

Quite possibly my favorite image out of the series so far (maybe with the exception of the vista of Pegasus and Galactica tearing into two basestars, but that's all CGI):

Six gone casual

The scene was hilarious. Conversely, here's the perfect image to demonstrate why I hate the Chief:

Me smash you argh!

It really doesn't get more Neanderthal than that. Additional points for going apeman on a guy who did not want to fight and refused the urge to kick his ass twice in a row. Go, grease monkey, go! I realize that not all characters need to be smart and have their shit together, and that you need this type of people for narrative purposes as well, but it doesn't mean that I have to like them.

Back to bulletpoints now (are they still bulletpoints when they're numbered? What do you call that?):

1) As a general rule, all planetside scenes in this series are boring. New Caprica may be the exception - but I'll only be able to verify that once I get to those episodes. The resistance bits on Caprica and most stuff on Kobol are fast-forward material for me (except fast-forwarding is wrong and I never do it).

2) Helo post-impregnation is actually a pretty nifty character, and an integral part of the whole equation. He's not a gamechanger, but he has his own agenda and makes a good pawn (or even knight) to Sharon's rook. His presence alone alters the power dynamics - and in my book, the more factors the better, so I'm on board. That being said, his "rehabilitation" in the eyes of the crew was completely unconvincing. One second he's a Cylon-lover and they won't even shake his hand, but the moment he goes "hey, let's use a different kind of colored paper for this arts and crafts project!" he's one of the crew? Huh?

3) Apollo is already being moved towards the "whiny asshole" end of the character spectrum, so I guess the middle of the 2nd season is where the change begins to occur. Too bad. He wasn't the most captivating of people, but he had his moments and you could actually empathise with him.

4) There's a very nice scene after half of the fleet jumps away with Roslin, in which Adama is assembling his ship in a bottle, or doing something along those lines, and absent-mindedly airs his various grievances to an unseen interlocutor. After a while it is revealed that he is actually talking to Dualla - quite possibly the last character you'd expect to see in this scene (or any scene for that matter). And she calls him on his bullshit saying: "I think you called me in here to talk to me, because you don't think I have anything to say. But I do." Not only was it a good - and perceptive - line in and of itself, but it also worked nicely on the meta level. I actually found myself thinking: "Oh right, Dualla, what's her deal anyway?"

5) I was convinced that the Pegasus arc lasted around 10 episodes, that it constituted the latter half of the 2nd series. Turns out, it's just 3 eps. The actual PEGASUS part I mean, before it' was reduced to being "that ship we can sacrifice". Also, a funny thing happened: I'm devouring BSG at a very rapid pace atm, but when I got to the Pegasus part, I almost started watching something else instead - not because I was bored (it's my favorite part after all), but because I remembered how intense and upsetting it was, and didn't feel like coping with that stress. Which I think means it's the first moment in the series where I was (and am - it was the same way this time) actually invested in the plot to the point of being unable to switch off kneejerk reactions.

6) There's a scene between Baltar and the captured Six in which he recalls a memory that Head Six had told him about, and claims it is his own, quoting it to to her word for word, as Head Six watches, mortified. I remember I was really impressed with it (I can't really say I "liked" it because it was very unpleasant to watch), but I don't think I understood it the first time around. I figured it was either a cynical attempt to establish some sort of rapport with the captured Six, or his revenge on Head Six for her various mind games. This time it struck me that he might actually be in love with this woman, and is making a choice: picking the tangible, if broken, version over the ghost in his head. Which, too, seems a bit cynical on some level, but also very... human? I don't know. Less deplorable, Head Six's pain notwithstanding.

7) Michelle Forbes is just so very, very good. And I appreciate the fact that they didn't make her go full-on monster, and that some of the characters actually got Admiral Cain's rationale (see Starbuck's eulogy).

8) Finally, those 3 episodes apparently also contain my favorite musical cue from the entire soundtrack:

BSG continued

More randomness:

1) Baltar's conversation with Boomer as she is trying to kill herself - wow. Really, wow. It's hard to imagine an exchange more densely packed with layers of meaning. And when you inject Six's reaction to it... again, wow. Basically, when they play the Baltar/Six dynamic right, it's just stellar narrative work, and here they literally flipped it on its head. Watching the usually dominant Six listen to him and watching her condescension turn into confusion, alarm, and then this sort of suspicious not-quite-respect was such a pleasure. And Tricia Helfer delivered once again

2) Leoben is another great character. More Cylons plox.

3) The Cylon refinery ep - another solid one

4) The series one finale/series two premiere - overall decent, but the Kobol planetside scenes were just horribly dull. They killed off 2 characters we hardly knew anything about, and then spent a ridiculous amount of time on "mourning" them. I might be biased, because most of the mourning was done by the Chief, and I still loathe him, but I'm almost certain it was objectively dull. At least there's some Crashdown in the mix. Too bad they paint him as an incompetent asshole.

5) A little bit of cryptic and spooky awesomeness, courtesy of Six. When the Kobol party bury those two anonymous dudes, she states that "nothing awaits them here - no afterlife, no damnation. Only oblivion." And when Baltar, still trying to find his footing religion-wise asks "Because they haven't seen the face of God?" she replies with surprising and creepy clarity: "Because they died here. On Kobol." This is later echoed in an even more menacing manner, when Baltar deflects her warning by asserting that he can't die yet, because he's an instrument of God, and she replies: "God turned his back on Kobol. What happens on Kobol is not his will." I don't get why yet, but I love me some fine print.

6) Saul Tigh flashbacks. I don't care. I really don't.

7) The crib, the opera house, and the baby have all made their first appearance. I'm already fatigued.

8) I had a short discussion with Janek about the differences between Six's zealotry and Leoben's, but it's too chaotic to copy and paste, and I'm too tired to parse it. Either way, conclusions were reached. Take my word for it.

9) I can't help but see the events in the series through the lens of the boardgame mechanics. Autojump executed, but heavy raiders were activated first, ergo: Centurions on board. Boomer gets an executive order and nukes a basestar with her first action, and then reveals she's a Cylon with the second one (effect: send a character to Sickbay). And the Admiral just sent the President to the Brig (failed to strip her of her title though)

BSG revisited

Lately I've been playing the Battlestar Galactica boardgame a lot - it's ridiculously good and very, very addictive. So much so in fact, that I've decided to re-watch the series which, from what I recall, I was never that wild about. It was more of a love/hate thing.

Anyway, I'm after the first 8 episodes or so, and wanted to jot down some general impressions:

1) the first episode (33 - the one where the Cylons catch up with the fleet every 33 minutes, and they have to keep jumping) is just fantastic. It should get an Emmy, or something. A perfectly paced, oppressive mini-movie.

2) the next one, Water, is really good too, actually, and establishes the "enemy within" problem almost as well as the previous one laid out the constant pursuit factor.

3) come to think of it, almost all the episodes I've seen so far have been good, with with the exception of two, both of which were Starbuck-centered. Number 4 (Act of Contrition) kept hammering home the whole Starbuck "killed" the Admiral's son motif over and over again, and number five (You Can't Go Home Again) is the one where she finds a dead Raider and miraculously learns to pilot it in several hours, or something. After ripping out its brain. It made about as much sense as if she had found a dead cow, ripped out its brain, crawled into it, and galloped home. Except that cow was now once again magically airtight and spaceworthy. Oh, and produced oxygen, even though it was dead.

4) the guy playing Baltar is a horrible actor. And I find I can't suspend my disbelief enough to see how anyone would treat him with even a sliver of respect, seeing as he spends half the time talking to air in public, fidgeting, and at one point even fucking an empty table. I'm not completely on board with the character psychologically either, and so I couldn't understand why he would hide the fact that Boomer was a Cylon from the rest of the fleet, but in the last episode it was hinted that he kind of did the same for Ellen, so now it seems he has simply disassociated himself from the human race. If they keep pushing the assumption that he's basically only interested in his own survival and believes in this "God's plan" Six has been brainwashing him with - I'll bite. That actually seems plausible.

5) Adama is a pretty shitty Admiral. I hope they didn't try to sell him as some sort of military genius anywhere down the road, since he already risked the entire fleet for Starbuck, and said outright that if it had been his son who crash-landed, they'd keep looking until the Cylons killed them all. Horrible military leader. Also, Adama/Apollo bonding scenes are excruciating. I think they have their own musical cue too - it involves bagpipes and induces vomit.

6) Apollo is very pretty though. He has those insane cheekbones that actually result in concave cheeks. Pretty, not handsome, but pretty works for me.

7) On that subject, there was a sex scene with Helo on New Caprica and they didn't show even a bit of skin. That's what I call wasting your actor's major (only?) asset. Made absolutely no sense.

8) Final bit of eye-candy roundup: Crashdown. I didn't remember this character at all, but he's there, kind of hulking and sickly pale, like a sexy sexy cadaver.

9) Tricia Helfer is spectacular as Six. Sensuous and menacing and fragile and pious and zealous. She does it all.

10) Cylons in general are fascinating and - at least so far - very well-written. I was surprised to find that certain characteristics I had learned to associate with various models were hinted at from the very beginning of the series, which means that they actually knew where they were going with it all, or at least were mindful not to contradict themselves as they made things up on the go.

That's it for now.

Quickie

I already wrote about Pajiba vs. io9, but I forgot to mention that while io9's True Blood recaps are absolutely hilarious, Pajiba's are... just terrible. Bloated, boring, and utterly devoid of wit. (Yet their Entourage coverage is inspired. Go figure.)

Anyway, I loved the last episode so much that I even checked out the Pajiba recap, and sure enough - the things I liked about it most were the exact same things that got panned in the first paragraph. And the entire episode was written off as a disaster.

Meanwhile, I thought it was absolutely hilarious. Anna Paquin's delivery killed, I watched her crying scene at least 3 times... (actually, you can watch it here, in the io9 recap, and read the whole damn thing while you're at it. "Miley Cyrus, is that you?") I now firmly believe that all the flak she gets for playing Sookie is completely undeserved, it's not her fault her character's unlikable, and whenever they let her fly, she soars. I'm so happy that her Bill Compton's "Sookeh!" impression was just a first taste, and I hope they keep giving her comic material.

The new werewolf guy is a very nice addition, and I'll be completely on board once 1) I get over how cartoonish his body is and 2) he stops reminding me of Felicity's Scott Foley gone the way of the steroid.

The deranged new vampire guy is pure win, and he was Alvaro de la Quadra, the Spanish ambassador in Elizabeth, so obviously he was meant to rock (the laughable post-orgasmic void line from the previous ep notwithstanding). His car conversation with Tara was golden.

"It's skinny!" Even background characters got good material!

And they played that beautiful Massive Attack song in the strip club scene.

Ok, to play us out: a short interview with Sookie and the new werewolf guy.

I'm getting over the body as we speak, but at some angles, Noel Crane still rears his wholesome head.

I've ruined World War I for myself

Let us take a moment to appreciate this:

I actually like to pretend that it's a screencap from some Joss Whedon show starring Jonathan Groff as a series regular, but you know, different strokes for different folks... And now let's move on to Showtime, because honestly, I'm kind of amazed. Here's why:

At first I found the second season of Nurse Jackie to be a bit lackluster. It wasn't as sharp and funny as before, and things got kind of heavy the more they got into the whole daughter's anxiety plotline, but I stuck with it and it turns out all that seems to have been a conscious choice on the writers' part, and the conclusion was spectacular. I think it might actually be a textbook example of how to build on a solid premise and weave all elements of the series into a dramatic and fully cohesive whole (as opposed to just making shit up as you go along and coming up with new problems for the characters to face). The one thing I'm worried about is that after the 2nd season closer - the last minute of which was a fucking masterpiece - it now feels almost too cohesive and self-contained, as if the full tale has been told. You can now kind of summarise it in the vein of Neil Gaiman's Sandman synopsis: Nurse Jackie is the tale of a woman who is faced with the consequences of her recklessness and must choose whether to stay true to herself. So where do you go from here?

As for United States of Tara, I wasn't entirely sold after the first season, but I started watching the second one because... well... I had nothing else to watch, really, and it really drew me in. They fleshed out the characters, especially the daughter, and somehow, somewhere halfway through, the whole multiple personality angle stopped seeming like a gimmick and became a natural element of the, up to a point where I actually started thinking I get why a transition occured at any given moment and, while not exactly able to predict which alter would make an appearance, I could still sort of understand and appreciate it in retrospect.

Plus, in the last episode there's this one line that's probably the closest approximation of my particular experience I've ever encountered in... well... culture. Which would be a tad more comforting, were  it not uttered by a 14-year-old.

Strands

It's been a headachey day. I've been trying to shake off a cold for a few days, and finally decided that what I need is some good old chicken soup. This being my world of nevercook, the part of chicken soup ended up being played by Vietnamese Pho from the takeout place. I hope it works.

I ended up in a professional cul de sac. I can either work on a Romanian documentary featuring quaint, rhymed folk ditties, a Polish newsreel featuring quaint, rhymed folk ditties, or a fairy tale featuring quaint, rhymed invocations. I've no idea how I got here, but I blame Twilight.

Which I finally watched, last night. I don't think it's possible to write anything new about the movie, and to just sum it up as "bad" seems completely beside the point. It was such a weird, disjointed creation. Definitely had that Harry Potter adaptation feel of trying to cram and stich together all these elements on a strict deadline, except without any... you know... action. The end credits took me completely by surprise (and were a total what the fuck of their own - who the hell chose that song?)

I genuinely tried to find the appeal, but I suppose I just didn't have the adolescent ovaries. I did like the cinematography. Well, ok: I liked the forest. The landscape shots. Seemed like a place I might want to live, or at least spend some time in.

Then again, I'm guessing they shot it in British Columbia, so that's not exactly news. I also liked some of the music, but my taste does have several glaring, gothic-skewing loopholes...

I could not, however, wrap my head around how remote the whole experience seemed to me. I felt like I was watching a film that was simultaneously its own, ready-made parody. The dialogue was so clunky and hollow at the same time. The girl's acting so... catatonic. She conveyed brain death with very limited means of expression (I swear, there was not a single line she did not either begin or end with a snort or an "um"), but maximum zeal. And then there was the creepy subtext of a mindless, infatuated drone clinging desperately to a guy who keeps saying - sometimes even jokingly - that he might physically hurt her. It all came together perfectly during the shitballs retarded Watch Me Glitter sequence, and the subsequent exchange:

E: I'm designed to kill.
B: I don't care.
E: I've killed before.
B: It doesn't matter.
E: I wanted to kill you. I've never wanted a human's blood so much in my life.
B: I trust you.
E: I try to play marbles with my ex-girlfriends' clitorises, but they're too squishy
B: I totally get that.

Ok, that last part might not have made it into the movie, but it really wouldn't look that out of place. Weird, weird thing.

What else... Ah. I'm madly in love with Jesse St. James. Not the pornstar. The fictional person who says stuff like "I picked the Stephen Sondheim biography section for our clandestine meeting place because only he would be able to express my melancholia." Now with video!

Over and out.

Blindside

It seems I finally got hooked on a new TV series. It hasn't happened in ages, and I must have really been jonesing for an addiction, because I latched onto a huge, sprawling family drama, of all things. No homo.

Well, kinda. Anyway, it's called Parenthood (ugh), and it's kind of like Brothers and Sisters, except well-cast, -acted and -balanced, and without the ridiculous politicizing or hamfisted pathos. It has Peter Krause doing his best everyman-but-way-cooler and Lauren Graham as a disorganized, wild-ish single mom (shocker!), as well as a whole bunch of other actors I don't really know and that old guy who went ranted on Fox about how when he went on welfare the state didn't help him out (I'm not kidding, he really did.) Oh, and a guy who looks exactly like Zach Braff, so I hate him (the Scrubs trauma runs deep), but according to yssy is actually Kristen Bell's husband. Horrible, horrible mug. All of them have genuine chemistry with each other (even the repugnant Zach Braff clone), and at least some of the dialogue seems improvised - they keep talking over each other, cutting each other off, etc., so the whole thing has a very natural feel to it.

The writing is surprisingly good. I've watched 7 episodes so far, and there were only two unintentionally cringeworthy moments - or one, if you happen to have the stomach for watching slow-mo scenes of the "daddy & son on a bike" variety. And even the seemingly stock characters - like the requisite blond career woman with a big burly stay at home husband - have some depth. Blond career woman is actually my favorite character so far, by the way. She's kind of brusque, offputting and doesn't suffer incompetence lightly, so I totally identify with her and wait for the universe to realign itself and provide me with a big burly appendix of my own.

Hrm. Since I already cut the clip out anyway, I might as well post it (but via yousendit, I'm still wary of the youtube copyright hounds). Here's the aforementioned lawyer + husband teaching us all a valuable lesson about the subtleties of comedic timing and delivery.

Incidentally, the series made me realize that I missed out on absolutely all of the hallmark family experiences (well, American, serialized family experiences anyway). I never underwent a teenage rebellion, never had an embarassing conversation about the birds and the bees with my parents, never brought my significant other home for the first time, never spectacularly failed at group sports... then again, I've never had a son with a behavioral disorder either. And what really sold me on Parenthood, I think, was that I still found myself responding to what was going on onscreen. And pretty strongly, too.

Also, Peter Krause gives great overwhelmed father. Seriously, dude can act.

I hope they don't fuck it up too soon with some melodrama. I really do.

Too steep to scale

My slow burn has finally sputtered out completely. It was an easy, gentle way to go. Like what they tell me freezing to death feels like, complete with that sensation of comfort and relief right before the end.

And when I woke up today it was snowing. Externalization complete.

I'm feeling quite good, almost giddy. I think the cold cleared the air or something, and my brain seems to work better as of late - though I still tend to get drowsy at the oddest hours.

I made it to season 4 of Angel. Good God, I don't like any of the characters anymore. And the whole Connor debacle was just beyond painful. The guy that plays him has the most annoying manchild face... he's playing Pete Campbell on Mad Men. Yeah. THAT one. Gunn was boring from the get-go, and they never really figured out anything specific for him to do, so he's just left to lumber around awkwardly, butchering every humorous line they feed him. Fred's twitchy and really blah. I heard Amy Acker was really good on this show, but I'm still waiting to see that. For a moment I thought at least the green demon guy was gone for good, but no. He had to make a return appearance.

And can we please take a moment to talk about Alexis Denisof being all dark and edgy and oozing manliness? The guy's name is Alexis, for crying outloud. He's the posterboy for pansy. That's why they hired him in the first place! He was comic relief on Buffy. Pitful, effete comic relief! Now they got him brandishing axes, playing S/M mindgames and having phone sex with evil lawyers. Worst of all - they had him grow a stubble. A stubble!

Cordelia was fun, but she went poof, so I'm left struggling with a truly terrifying concept - namely that my favorite character on Angel seems to be... Angel. Brrr. Oh how the mighty have fallen.

In better news, the Christmas episode of The Office is true genius, and it's written by Mindy Kaling (aka Kelly Kapoor), which sort of means that all is well with the world.

The skinny

Actually, now that I think of it, I don't really have all that much to write about either In Bruges or Bored to Death. Or even a reason to lump them into a single post, aside from the fact that both ultimately proved to be disapointing.

In Bruges actually has a lot going for it. It's an unusual take on a popular cinematic motif - hitmen. It shows them in-between assignments, as they try to make the best of their downtime in a seemingly random location, awaiting further instructions from their employer. The performances are good, and the mood is spot-on (the movie actually plays like one of those quaint British small-town comedies, providing a cool contrast to its protagonists' profession), which makes the final, ridiculous misstep all the more aggravating. I won't reveal any plot points, suffice to say that in the climactic scene one of the main characters makes a certain distinction - whether for comedic or dramatic effect, I'm not even sure - which is not only tasteless in and of itself, but also makes a significant portion of the movie in retrospect seem like the buildup to a cheap gimmick. And you're handed this turd blossom literally moments before the end credits roll, so it essentially remains your last impression.

As for Bored to Death, it doesn't stumble so badly, but that's probably because to do so would constitute some sort of statement, and the show is too intent on charting the bland side of quirkiness for that sort of thing. The characters are about as removed from reality as the Bluth family, but they're mired in aimless Seinfeldian tedium, punctuated by Jason Schwartzman* repeating what some other character just said in the earnest monotone of a stoner's revelation. The premise... Schwartzman decides to advertise himself as a private detective on craigslist. No idea why, as no reason is given. It's not for money - that he gets for writing... something for his millionnaire... friend, I guess. Or boss who's really into micro-managing freelance writers. Oh, and his girlfriend left him, cause he smokes too much pot and drinks too much white wine. I'm at episode three, and it's about Jim Jarmusch giving him his new script to look over (he's a fan, y'know). It's about Frank O'Hara. But Schwartzman loses it, so Jarmusch decides to go with Charlie Kaufmann instead. Yeah. And it's a good thing namedropping and cameos are such strong plot devices, because absolutely nothing more of note happens throughout the entire episode. I suppose, given the title, that might have actually been the idea, but I've seen good (Mad Men), or even decent (Hung) slow-paced shows about nothing much at all, and Bored to Death isn't one of them.

* full disclosure: every time I saw him on the screen I wanted to punch him in the face. I'm not proud of it, but cmon.

Life, the universe, and everything

Hung is off to a very slow start, but it did manage to sum up my entire existence in a single, brilliant telephone monologue:

"I wanted to call you, but I've been been drowning in paper all night, the whole law firm is freaking out... I'm not really certain, some bank is going belly up... I don't know, I just make sure all the words are spelled correctly when it does."

Embrace your redundancy.

The pegasus lands again

I'm beginning to think there is nothing that can't be made better by the addition of Michelle Forbes, series-wise.

Grooves

If some alien lifeform were studying my daily routines, they'd probably notice a particular pattern I have followed since my 2nd day here: Take a lemon out of the fridge, slice off a small chunk and squeeze its juice into tea, place the remaining part of the lemon under a small glass dome, doubtlessly designed just for that purpose, proceed to ignore it until it's rife with mold, toss it out, wash the dome, take a lemon out of the fridge...

I went to two recordings today, and was reminded just how much I hate them. For me they're always a game of "spot all your failures". I loathe listening to the lame jokes, and my even lamer attempts at translating them. It turns out some good has come out of the absurd anal retentiveness of the new contract guy - I might have spent an entire week on something I'd usually do in a day's work, but my text was so polished, had been thoroughly checked by so many people, that the recording session was virtually painless. Plus, it was a documentary. That always helps.

Met a cute translator at the studio, I think we even got introduced, but of course the name bounced right off my brain. Also had a bit of a laugh with the nexus girl. Recession is so funny. Ha ha.

My parents went to Cracow for the weekend (and Wroclaw, and Wolsztyn, and Kalisz, and Lodz, all in all, they covered 1500km), so I stopped by today to learn how their trip went, and tell them about Berlin. Halfway through one of mom's stories I caught myself feeling this little spike of misty-eyed exuberance, the sort you sometimes get when you're kind of drunk and having a really good time talking to someone you like. Which was pretty awesome. Dad's going in for tests on Thursday, but they seemed in really good spirits, so... Well, we'll see.

I've been watching the new season of In Treatment and was a bit disapointed at first,that none of the patients' stories drew me in, and some of them even annoyed me. I'm on week five now though, and find myself really looking forward to the Mia sessions, even though I used to find her completely unpalatable. April's ok too, and Gina - the one constant - never fails, because I find Dianne Wiest just too damn engaging. So that makes 3 out of 5. Not bad, I guess. I still liked the first season better, but I also admire how they actually moved shit forward. Paradoxically, I almost like seeing Paul, the main character, reveal in the Gina sessions what an asshole he is, or use these kind of low, transparrent gambits during his own sessions with his patients. It makes him feel so real. And it's quite a progression - it wasn't so pronounced in the first season. The signs were there, but you didn't see him openly struggle with his life.

Aaand that's that.

Kings and Fools

There's this new series called Kings, starring Ian McShane of Deadwood fame, and some other people. It is set in an alternate reality, in a small, fictional, and by all appearances pretty much absolute monarchy located on the eastern coast of North America (its capital is a NYC lookalike called Shiloh). Sounds pretty nifty, right? And it is. Unfortunately, it is also offensively stupid. In freezeframe it's resplendent, but the moment the subject comes back to life, there's gurgling, and drool, and quite possibly feces. And the setup was so promising. The visual tone of the show is pretty spectacular - the city seems quite otherworldly, even though it's obviously New York. A little dab of mysticism nicely rounds up the "dark fable" feel, and there's high politics and court intrigue aplenty. But the actual story...

*spoilers ahead*

The kingdom's embroiled in a positional war (how that's even possible with current technology - no idea, but whatever) with its military superior. The word "outgunned" makes several appearances in the pilot episode. But then it somehow forces its opponent into an armstice by way of a grand symbol - the destruction of one of its invincible Goliath tanks. A wee bit mythical, but fine. Then, the kingdom - for pretty plausible reasons I won't go into - executes a sneak attack against said miltarily superior nation, breaking the truce it just achieved. Fine. And then the kid who blew up their tank before, charges at the enemy lines with a bloody sheet (his brother just died, y'know), and delivers a mindbogglingly ridiculous speech about his nagging deathwish, which convinces them to sign a peace treaty.

Let me translate this into our reality for a moment. It's 1938. Poland, for some reason, invades Germany, and gets its ass handed to it on what used to be its silver platter. Then, a young,Slavic boy is spotted on the battlefield, brandishing a bloody rag. He spews gibberish. Hitler gives peace a chance.

That's not all. There is also a state luncheon scene, in which our young miracle worker of simple origins is addressed directly by a foreign head of state and - would you believe it? - deftly finds just the right response. Which involves saying his brother just died, while sporting an aw-shucks smirk*. I shit you not. And a scene in which the peace treaty doesn't get signed based on some technicality, AFTER which the boy wonder grabs the departing foreign head of state by their arm... and somehow that becomes why the treaty wasn't signed. And, finally, the king ordering the kid murdered, and then changing his mind because the episode is almost over and the writers haven't figured out a good reason for him to change his mind. I'm not sure if that explanation actually made its way into the dialogue, but neither did any other one, so...

Damn. And I really wanted to like it.

* which, granted, is an acting WTF, and shouldn't be blamed on the writers, unless the script actually instructed the guy to grin like an idiot

The finale

I hate to break it to you, Gaius, but the things you mentioned? That's not God. Those are plot holes.