Spontaneous Musings

I suppose I should do separate reviews, but easier to just do them all at once. This is basically, the good (House), the okay (SPN), the bad (Terra Nova), and the just plain ugly (American Horror Story) - although to be fair are any horror stories supposed to be pretty?

1. House - I think we are on S6 or S7, can't remember which, not sure if it will be the finale season or not. Will state that the premier was surprisingly good. Reminded me of the episode in which House was in the psychiatric ward for several months. ( spoilers )

2. Terra Nova - hmmm, this appears to be as poorly written as BBC's Outcasts and has more in common with Outcasts than with either Jurrassic Park or Earth 2, which is not a good sign. Quite dumb in places. The second episode is worse than the pilot. I'm beginning to understand why David Fury jumped ship - it's really not his cup of tea, too...Swiss Family Robinson, not enough Jurassic Park. The writing makes Star Gate look like Shakespeare in comparison. Very clunky and silly. But, I remain curious about a few things - so may stick with it a bit longer. I know it is basically dead in the water. The series is too expensive to survive the low ratings it has, but Fox invested so much into it - that it will run all 12 episodes, which I guess is better than what they did with Lone Star (although Lone Star was a better written television series.)

3. SPN or Supernatural - eh, not thrilling me.( vague spoilers )

4. American Horror Story - sorry to say but Supernatural and Secret Circle were scarier this week than American Horror Story. The reason? I wasn't given any reason to care about the people in American Horror Story. Note to Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuck - it's a good idea to build up the audience's sympathy for the main characters before you start with all the scares and hijnks. Even Kubrick seemed to understand that concept, at least to a degree, with The Shining. American Horror Story borrows heavily from classic haunted house horror films. There's the Geoffrey Rush remake of House on Haunted Hill with all the bizarre experiments in the basement and jaws with baby heads, the gothic windows of Amityville Horror and the fire references, the twins from The Shining, and the beautiful woman seducing the husband who in reality is an old and possibly dead crone - also from The Shining. It's almost as if they took these films threw them in a meat grinder and added a few bits from Eyes Wide Shut.

I didn't find the episode all that shocking. I don't know what that says about me? Or that scary. Just sort of dull and a bit boring.
Nor did I really care about any of the characters. The best - are Vivian (Connie Britton), the wife who lost her child, and Connie (Jessica Lange) , the nosy neighbor, but that has more to do with the actresses than the script. Dylan McDermot isn't having enough fun with the role - and I already miss the guys from Nip/Tuck - Dylan Walsh would been better in this role...McDermot lacks warmth. (I'm admittedly not a fan of the actor - didn't like him in The Practice either.)

The plot isn't that complicated.
( detailed spoilers for the first episode )

[Catching up on my reviews. I'd promised to do one on Supernatural, but time got away from me.]

The last three episodes of Supernatural focused on what it is to be without a soul. A topic that I first saw dealt with by Fritz Leiber -in the novella Conjurer Wife. That novel has a refrain that continues to haunt me...the wife in the novel has her soul taken and she is constantly saying ..."I want my soul". Here's Lieber's description of the wife with her soul gone:

Tansy sat stiffly, wearing Norman's bathrobe and fleece-lined slippers, with a blanket over her knees and a bath towel wrapped around her head. They should have made her look childlike and perhaps even artlessly attractive. They did not. If you were to unwind the towel you would find the top of the skull sawed off and the brains removed, an empty bowl - that the illusion Norman experienced every time he made the mistake of looking into her eyes.

The lips parted. "I know nothing. I only speak. They have taken away my soul. But my voice is a function of my body."

You could not say the voice was patiently explanatory. It was too empty and colorless even for that. The words, clearly enunciated and evenly spaced, all sounded alike. They were like the noise of a machine.

"But Tansy, if you can talk about the present situation, you must be aware of it. You're here in this room with me!"

The toweled head shook once, like that of a mechanical doll. "Nothing is here with you but a body. 'I' is not here."

His mind automatically corrected "is" to "am" before he realized that there had been no grammatical error. He trembled. "You mean," he asked, "that you can see or hear nothing? That there is just blackness?"

Again that simple mechanical headshake, which carried more absolute conviction than the most heated protestations. "My body sees and hears perfectly. It has suffered no injury. It can function in all particulars. But there is nothing inside. There is not even a blackness. "


It's worth noting that Lieber was fascinated by Jungian psychology and highly influenced by HP Lovecraft as well as Campbell, much as many of the modern Hollywood tv horror writers appear to be.
Except in modern takes on souls...the writers seem to be struggling to determine what a soul actually is. Whedon didn't know. His examination of what a soul meant both literally and metaphorically in both Angel and Buffy...covered a vast amount of territory and rarely was consistent. A professed atheist - the whole concept of "soul" went counter to his own philosophical or religious views...yet, like many of us, he did not know and he wrote with partners who did believe. So what we see in Whedon's horror verse tends towards psychological, but is also to a degree metaphysical, albeit less so than Leiber's.

Kripke, Gamble and notably Ben Edlund's take on what a soul is in Supernatural ...is closer in some respect's to Whedon's yet also has quite a bit in common with Lieber. Like Lieber, Gamble and Kripke are clearly influenced by Lovecraft, but equally by the urban legends and American Christian mythos of the Midwest. Supernatural delves deep into the urban legends and folklore of the Modern American working class culture. At times red-neck and heavily male, it bares a great deal in common with another genre - the Western, and the B-Horror flicks, notably by the late great Roger Corman.

( Supernatural...spoilers for the last three episodes )

Whenever I post something on my journal online, does not matter what it is or the style I choose, I worry about how people will choose to respond to it. I can imagine all the possibilities, and certainly speculate about each and every one, but I never know how exactly they will respond. And the responses invariably are the opposite of what I expect and more often than not surprise me. Proving that human beings are not predictable and defy categorization or definition. And to be honest? I can't even predict what my own taste or interest will be on any given occasion. It is constantly in flux, inconsistent, and often defies pattern-analysis or pigeon-holing. The best I can come up with is that I am intrigued by certain aspects in characters or human behavior. Why people do what they do, and in particular the decisions people make that defy expectation, that go against what one might predict.

Thought about the tv shows that I currently adore and don't want to miss in comparison to those that I half-watch or am more ambivalent about. Or even those that I tried and quickly gave up on. What is it that keeps me enthralled? What is the common deminoator. Why do I want to pick Lone Star as opposed to The Event next week? OR why do I adore House but find Castle dull?

Here's a list of the shows that I adore, with a quick explanation of what keeps me enthralled. Well, I will certainly attempt to be quick. Please note the style of this post is more serious in tone and less conversational. This is deliberate. It means, I'm being serious and not snarky. I change my writing style to fit mood and intent. It's my way of letting the reader know how to respond or rather how I will most likely read their response.

If you choose to do this yourself? Basically list the tv shows or books or films or whatever you adore and explain why. Is it a character that keeps you enthralled, or a theme, or a plot?

1.( House )
2. ( Vampire Diaries )

3. ( Smallville )
4. ( Supernatural )
5. ( Grey's Anatomy )
6. ( Gossip Girl )

7.( Mad Men )

I meant for this to be brief, but I apparently had more to say regarding the shows and this topic than I thought. But, it's late and seven tv shows is enough. I know, I know, I watch far too many. Please, I beg of you dear reader, do not attempt to pigeon hole me by these shows, because I have not listed all the ones I watch. And most of these, I rarely discuss. And it would be wrong to state that these are the only ones I love or that I love them all the time or are always compelled by them.

There is for instance The Good Wife ( Read more... )

Or for that matter tv shows like Glee - ( Read more... )

And finally The Big Bang Theory - which is the only sitcom I'm DVRing at the moment, with possible exception of Community - which I'm on the fence about. Big Bang sucked me in. Sheldon who is annoying, yet endearing. Leonard who is the Oscar to Sheldon's Felix in Big Bang's reworking of the Odd Couple. With Penny playing straight woman to them. At first it felt sexist, and perhaps it still is, but when you realize the pov, it isn't. I watch for Sheldon, who reminds me at times of my own cousin, an odd cat, brilliant yet dumb, contradictions. And I guess it is here we see the pattern - I love the contradictions. Characters who are contradictory things. Greg House who is nasty, yet also kind. Damon who is cruel, but comforting. Razor sharp, yet vulnerable. Two things that don't appear possible. Good and evil, light and dark, male and female, lies and truth, life and death...all exist hand in hand, yin and yang, both inside us at the same time. No one truly is just one or the other. We have male and female aspects in our personalities. Some swing more one way than the other, some are clearly both. The contradiction fascinates me. How we handle having both? How do we choose which is which or what is what? Characters that are contradictory are human, characters that aren't - well are idealized versions or simplestic allegories of what we want human to be.

It would be simpler, I think sometimes, if I could be pigeonholed. If I could swear that I'm good, that I would not hurt anyone. But I don't know what I'll do. I try not to, I choose not to. But there are days that I am wickedly stupid and cruel, and others that I am kind and wise. Characters who traverse this landscape, who struggle with the inherent contradictions inside and often flail wildly, as they hover over the abyss intrigue me. I root for their survival for them to succeed, but I never know if they will - any more than I know for certain any of us will.

Stories for me - are ways to deal with pain, with fear, to understand myself, to understand others, and to laugh, to love, to cry, and figure out the problems...that haunt dreams and nightmares. I do not expect others to share my tastes or the stories and characters I've fallen for. I am, in truth, more often than not, somewhat surprised and bewildered when they do. I was shocked to find so many people around the world of various ages, creeds, races, sexes, etc - who adored Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And that so many loved it in the way I did...shocked me even more.
I did not expect it. I was equally shocked to learn people loved Kimba as kids, as I did.

It is actually more shocking to me to find those who share my views, than those who don't. I expect the rejection, I expect the argument. I dread it. Hence the worry about posting. The fear.

You want to connect, but you don't expect it. And you think how silly, or rather I do (you here is meant generally not specifically), it is just a tv show, just a story, not worth the worry or the time to write about it. The term the idiot box is ground into my head by peers, parents, teachers, bosses..And at work, it is a rare thing to find someone who watches the same show I do. But we rarely speak of it. There are no water-cooler chats - which others brag over. So, in most cases, not all, the watching of the tale or the reading of it is a solitary invent. The sharing of it - a gift, whether that sharing be in joy, or mockery, or ranting...the meeting of minds over one of the three or all together - brings a laugh or a smile. While the discordant disagreement a rise in blood-pressure and painful self-examination...struggling to understand the other view, while at the same token, struggling to explain my own without erupting with frustration in my failed attempt to do so. I think when the latter happens, that I've failed miserably as both writer and reader. And wonder to myself why bother at all. While at the same time - I rail at myself for caring so much, and am deeply embarrassed. As well..as well as thinking, disagreement is good, it challenges.

The problem with life, sometimes I think, is there are no clear-cut or comforting answers. Only endless questions.

[I'm writing this on my new MacBook PRo, which I'm still getting used to.]

Not getting much of anything done today. It's raining and has been off and on most of the day, which explains the crankiness yesterday - I'm a human weathervane. Have been basically vegging - watching tv, surfing the internet, sporadically eating, sketching, and browbeating myself for not writing or working on revisions, queries, and synopsis. Also taking the mental stink off the work week. It wasn't bad necessarily, but it was stinky in some respects. In a way that writing about it just makes it feel stinkier. Really needed a break from the stinkness of human relations today. So today, I took a mental head rest and the equivalent of a cereberal shower.

On TV front:

1. Vampire Diaries reminds me more of Dark Shadows (the old 1960s Dark Shadows complete with cheesy dialogue and bad acting, not the cheesy remake which had somewhat better dialogue and better acting) than it does Buffy,Forever Knight, Moonlight, Blood Ties or Angel for that matter. Actually the plot is right out of Dark Shadows, except they decided to make Barnabas young and pretty, and give him an evil brother. I did like the bit of dialogue about Twilight, but that's only because I abhor the existence of the Twilight books and cannot speak of them without snarking on the abdomiable writing. (Since I know quite a few people online and off (notably off) that adored them (shrugs), I have learned to try to stay silent about them generally speaking even though it is really really hard.)

2. Project Runway -( cut for spoilers )

(Ah the sun has poked its head out. Granted there's only about two hours left of sunlight in the day, but better late than never, I suppose.)

3. Supernatural - ( Supernatural Spoilers )

4. Dollhouse - ( spoilers for Dollhouse )

5. Glee - ( cut for spoilers )

6. House...I adore House. Each season in my opinion is better than the last. House this week who figured out that being compulsive about something staves off the pain. It provides us with a distraction. If we think about it, we are all to a degree like House.

I've given up on Grey's Anatomy finally. It's just gotten silly. Even I have my limits.
Still loving Gossip Girl, but feel no need to write about it. Just loving it. Also still watching HIMYM, which continues to entertain, all though not so much this week. Haven't watched SGU yet. I may like the set-up of SGU better than SG1 and SGA. We shall see.

These past two weeks have just been one long suppressed scream (well except for on my lj where I did scream at a couple of folks, depending on one's point of view, which may have been in retrospect a re-soundly stupid thing to do).

Yesterday, had a brief reprieve - wandered about with Wales, where we both lusted after a handblown lamp by New Orleans artist. It has a red/orange/and blueish shade in handblown glass, with a bronze stand and comes to $250 bucks. I spent most of last night talking myself out of it. As beautiful as it is...I'm not sure it's all that practical. (Which explains why I buy comic books that I don't need and am embarrassed to tell people about -such as Fray, and part II of Brian Lynch's Zombie story Everybody is Dead, which makes me laugh. )

Today, thought was at the end of my edgy, frustrating week - it is an absolutely beautiful day - so beautiful, I opened up my windows to get some fresh air. But turns out, not so much, when I discovered I can't find the password to a database I've got to get into to electronically file a financial non-disclosure statement with the state. It's required of all state employees that handle state money. Apparently the password was sent in a separate letter from the user id (which I did find) for my own protection. This is how bureaucracy is created from paranoia and well good intentions.

( Small Favor )

( tv shows -American Idol, Gossip Girl, Lost, Supernatural, House, Smallville )

Ack, February...it is showing its true colors finally. Cold winds, blustery weather, and weird temperature ranges. Not my favorite month of the year. Even without the annoying Hallmark holidays, one of which I've sucessfully boycotted since college. We won't speak of it, except to hint that it takes place this week. ;-) Oh well, least I get two days off work -one this week and one next. Gotta love the Presidents days. Also got a shitload accomplished this weekend - taxes filed, cleaned house, food shopping, movie, and contacted a few people that needed contacting. Yay me!

Watched a lot of tv, yet less than usual because of lovey DVR device, which tapes things for later viewage. From what I've been reading this is turning out to be an interesting tv viewage year - we actually have not one but three suspenseful presidential races - the Republicans, the Democrats, and of course the Finale. I've no clue who's going to win this round. The frustrated poli-sci major in me is having a blast watching it all unfold.

On the fictional tv front - the WGA strike appears to finally be drawing to a close. With any luck they will be back to work on Wed. Which, according to the tv press, we'll get more episodes of Lost, Desperate Housewives, Ugly Betty, Grey's Anatomy, the Office, Supernatural, Brothers & Sisters, Mad Men (which already brokered a deal) and Smallville. No word yet on 30 Rock, House or BSG. Dirty Sexy Money, Heroes, Life, Chuck, Friday Night Lights and Pushing Daisies won't be back until next season. If I didn't list your favorite - it's because I don't watch it. Doctor Who and Torchwood are BBC so not affected. Very happy about the ones I'll get additional episodes on.

Loved Lost the last two weeks. It reminds me a great deal of a lot of the quirky sci-fantasy tv shows I watched in the 70s and 80s, with people stranded in weird locals trying to figure out which reality they were in. Course I'm a fan of psychological horror and mystery. So this helps. I think while watching Lost - you have to keep in mind this is a horror series a la Stephen King and Rod Serling. As such? It is unlikely to end on a happy note. The writers seem to enjoy tragic irony.

( Lost spoilers )

Other's I've enjoyed are Smallville (if you gave up on it two or three seasons ago, you have no idea what you are missing. It has gotten a lot more interesting. This actually may be the best season I've seen. I gave up on it after season 2, found the season with Zhod almost unwatchable, then out of curiousity tuned into last season over the summer and became intrigued. Somewhere along the way they hired good writers and the actors got a little better. ( spoilers )

Supernatural - haven't seen this week's episode yet. Loved last week's - in which Dean finds out that demons, all demons, were once humans - their humanity has been stripped from them by the rigors of hell. Interesting and very dark, almost Lovecraftian mythology with touches of Stephen King and urban legend mixed in. I don't find scary any more so much as intriguing.

I tried to watch Cashmere Mafia and Lipstick Jungle - but both lack the humor of Sex and The City. They also lack something else Sex had - in Sex & the City - the gals were mostly single.
They weren't into committment, almost afraid of it. Just wanted to have fun. The men had code names or nicknames - we never really knew the real ones for some of them. Mr. Big was well Mr. Big - meaning of course the size of well, you know. Everything had a sexual conotation. It made fun of the dating scene. Fun of the glamorous image of NYC. And the women were far from successful at anything. They were clutzes. Sarah Jessica Parker's character was always screwing up in some way. She was a freelance columnist for a mag with a cool apt. Totally unrealistic, total fantasy, yet her dialogue and quips - were right out of my girlfriends mouths at the time. Lipstick - has no one I can identify with. I don't know these women and this is not my city. Same deal with Cashmere. I don't like the women. I don't like their outfits. And I don't recognize their talk. I give Lipstick points over Cashmere for having better looking and more charismatic male leads - Paul Blackthorn and Andrew McCarthy. But outside of that? It isn't worth the time.

Still adoring Project Runway. Much fun. And I like the designers/designs better than last years. They are better designers, just not as melodramatic and bitchy. So the focus is more on the challenges.

Okay off to make dinner and relax before work tomorrow. Busy day.

After spending two hours this morning doing laundry in a sweaty crowded laundramat,complete with a mosquito who bit me on the leg, retreated homewards, made bed up clean and broke in the new air conditioner by reading, watching the telly, and knitting all day. Good day for it too, since the sky threw a tempertantrum complete with thunder, lightening and pouring rain.

Anywho... I feel I should apologize to the folks on my flist regarding Supernatural. I was wrong. You were right. Yes, I've changed my mind. It happens.

( Why I've changed my mind about Supernatural for the remotely curious. )

I'm also watching Smallville - which was really good last year, again with a few minor exceptions. Welling actually has figured out how to act and keep his own opposite Rosenblum. And Kristen Kuerk is doing more than just looking pretty. Eric Endurance's Lois is a great addition, as are Jimmy Olsen, and Oliver Green - who is clearly taking Bruce Wayne's place in this series - since they can't get the rights to use Batman. Sort of happy about that, since I know less about the Green Arrow. Smallville is doing some interesting things and entertaining the heck out of me.

Tried Mad Men with Wales, we were both bored. Of course it did not help that the actors mumble and are difficult to hear. We had to keep rewinding to figure out what they were saying. Also as Wales put it - it is a bit too blatant about its sexism and racism.
Yes, we know the 50's were a bit like that...but we don't need it repeated in every frame.
We gave up on it twenty minutes in.

Also gave up on Rescue Me finally. Again was just bored. The characters don't appear to be evolving and it is just depressing. I'm tired of watching people scream at each other. I can see that in my real life on a daily basis don't need to watch it on television. Also Denis Leary's character is terribly whiny and starting to get on my nerves.

Saving Grace ? Not sure about this one. A bit too preachy. A bit too obvious. But I like Holly Hunter and the rest of the cast. I'll watch two or three more then decide.

Doctor Who - the jury is still out. It's incredibly campy and silly. And Freema Agyman isn't impressing me. Tennant is almost too twitchy for my taste. And the monsters a tad over-the-top. I should state at this point that I'm not overly fond of camp. The campier episodes of Buffy turned me off as well - never liked Go Fish, Reptile Boy, or a good percentage of the episodes in the first season. I found them silly not funny. It's my sense of humor, which is admittedly on the dark side of the fence. At any rate - I did not like the second episode with Shakspeare and the Witches, nor did I like the episode with the Runaway Bride, but I did like the one with the hospital on the moon. Have not seen the last two - still on DVR. So will wait until I see a few more before deciding one way or the other.

The previews for Torchwood look like a lot of fun and much better than Doctor Who.
(No, James Marsters isn't going to be on it yet. We're getting the FIRST season. The episodes with Marsters won't premiere in the States until Fall 2008 - if that. So, when I say that Torchwood looks interesting, it is not because Marsters is going to be on it.)

Anyone watching The 4400? Is it just me or is this beginning to resemble the X-Files? Or rather the X-Files meets the X-men? It even has it's own version of the lone gunman and the cigarette smoking man. Not sure I like the similarities - X-Files government conspiracy stuff got on my nerves.

PS: Does anyone have any cool Jo or Ellen icons from Supernatural? Really like those two characters.