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Jan. 14th, 2008 09:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ebonlockMy weekend mostly consisted of watching stuff and fighting off a nasty sinus headache, not really my favorite combination. Oh and throw in Pye vomiting all over the place including on my project bag full of yarn and my latest afghan...and well you won't blame me if I'm decidedly "Eh" about the whole thing.
I liked "Shoot 'Em Up" well enough though some of the action scenes were so outside the bounds of reality that they became a bit silly. The off-handed misogyny made me wince more than once, and more than one of the one-liners actually had me groaning aloud. Still it was more entertaining than "Smoking Aces", which is very sad indeed.
I pretty much blew through season 2 of SGA and came to the conclusion that it was perhaps for the best that I didn't actually start paying much attention to the show until season 3. There were a few moments in episodes throughout that season that made me happy, and I liked the character development they allowed Rodney especially in "Grace Under Pressure". Also him high on enzyme and babbling to himself as he tries to get the DHD working made me laugh and laugh. I finally also have data points to fill in some blanks in a few of the fanfics I'd read so that's good too.
There were three moments in the latest ep that actually entertained me, one was the confrontation between Teyla and John in the locker room, mostly because Rodney sat there with this incredibly curious and oddly vulnerable look on his face. I dubbed it the "mommy and daddy are fighting" look, and the fact that he was quite happy to stay there and listen to the whole conversation until Ronon came back and plucked him out of the room. Since we didn't get to see Rodney finding out about Teyla no longer going on missions (and again I shake my fist at the writers/producers, why, why would you not let us see his reaction?), this was at least a slight nod to the fans that McKay's still processing all of this.
The second moment was on the hive ship when Ronon touches something and then acts like an 8 year old when McKay calls him on it. Very cute moment that even had![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
aelfsciene giggling. And finally when the queen was interrogating John and she very quickly turned to Rodney to threaten, well I took that as a nice little shout-out to the slash fans.
And that's pretty much it. I thought the overall plan was kinda dumb, the execution of said plan even dumber, and Teyla's inclusion (such as it was), just downright sad. It would be really, really nice if this show could actually make the Wraith coherent bad guys. Is that really so much to ask? The queens seem to basically be uglier, paler, and moister versions of Goa'ulds with the male Wraith as their Jaffa. Only the Goa'uld had an actual society, each one with a distinct personality, they all had their reasons for doing what they did that often came down to being petty, greedy or sociopathic. With the Wraith there's no there there, they just are. The queens have slightly less personality than your average Borg and the writers/directors seem to think that hissing and thrusting their bodies in clearly uncomfortable ways makes up for the fact that nobody's put any thought into them as characters.
I'm not saying SG-1 was perfect, god knows, and I've already copped to the fact that the Ori were just cheap knock-offs of DS9's Pagh Wraiths, which were sad and lame to begin with. The replicators were fun until they went human-form and then they just made me want to beat my head against the nearest hard object. I've lived with this villain frustration for years so it's not exactly new, but if they're not going to fix the Wraith could they please just wipe them out and start over with a bigger, badder, better planned out baddie? Is that really asking so much?
I'm not going to go into a huge Teyla rant (though I could), I've never been fond of the character but I'd at least grown to tolerate her in the past couple of seasons. This whole pregnancy plot, though, has re-set me back to open dislike. A tough female character can remain tough and female and pregnant all at the same time. They don't have to turn into weepy, fragile flowers. It isn't necessary. Just go back and watch DS9, see the episodes with Kira pregnant and you'll note how it's done. The scene at the end of the episode where Teyla's all, "Oh you were so right, John, all of my priorities are now shifted, no more missions for me!" just made me want to throw something at the screen. I don't know who that character is but she ain't the Teyla I'd almost, kinda', sorta' started to like.
So basically the episode came down to the fact that the Wraith could make clone armies, which while mildly disturbing in an, "OMG now they're stealing from the SW prequels?" kind of way didn't do much for me.
Ok I watched "Duet" finally and got to see the beginning of the McKay/Brown "relationship" on the series. Apparently they have been dating since then...and yet we've seen little to nothing onscreen. Indeed we've even seen McKay actively flirting with other women, or at least attempting to. From what we've been given in the show itself he's seemed to pretty much take the woman for granted. And hey, fair enough, as she's never even bothered to show up at his bedside when he's been near death. I mean jeez, not so much as a mention in "The Tao of Rodney", though he made sure to find the time to spend with every member of his team.
So seriously, WTF is going on with him asking her to marry him in the next episode?
Is it a comfort thing? He's just gotten used to having someone around who seems to like him and will let him have sex with her? Presumably that is, I mean canon-wise we haven't heard a thing about it. For all we know they sit around playing Scrabble all night. Is it an insecurity thing? Jeannie's rather nasty little comment in "Miller's Crossing" about how he'd never find anybody better and he should just marry Katie before she wised up and dumped his ass? Self-improvement maybe? He realized in "Tabula Rasa" that he didn't tend to treat those he cared about as thoughtfully as he should and now he's making a grandiose effort to prove to himself that he can...or something.
It just doesn't compute, and frankly it's a lazy-ass way to drum up some drama in a show. I don't mind if you hand wave minor characters hooking up, but a lead character deserves something better. The sad thing is that as soon as I saw the pic of McKay and Brown trapped together I just groaned, I knew right off that either she was going to dump him or he was going to ask her to marry him. The former would've been so much more interesting and so much more true to what we've seen onscreen. She's an after thought to him, and while she's nowhere near as bad as any of Sam's former paramours (except Martouf, I liked him), it's the same damn problem. Hooking main characters up with NPC's doesn't work. SG-1 learned this lesson over and over again. Please, please stop making the same mistakes your predecessor did. Please.
Send her back to Earth. Kill her. Turn her into a bug. Whatever. Just get rid of Katie Brown and either throw someone at McKay who's actually worthy of him or leave him the hell alone.
On a brighter note Aelf and I settled in to watch the first two episodes of this season's The Wire, which were superb.
I like the focus on the press this season, it's already drawn me in to the politics of the newsroom and just how a story goes from idea to paper. Also the literary humor is just killing me. Oh the snark we're going to get in the newsroom alone is worth tuning in for.
Watching McNulty self-destruct in an even more rapid and senseless way is just heartbreaking. His actions at the end of the second episode in particular even broke Bunk, which I wasn't sure was even possible. As Aelf pointed out, when the shit hits the fan he's going to be wishing he could be tossed back out on shore patrol.
Avon now being the defacto boss of his prison was great, and I loved him subtly attempting to reign in the young turk, Marlo. Somehow, though, I don't think this is going to last too long. And I almost feel a little sorry for Proposition Joe and the consortium he's put together as Marlo's clearly planning to tear it down around his ears. On the other hand, Marlo's vendetta against Omar may turn out to be his Achilles heel. Marlo may be vicious, but Omar is far smarter and wiser, and if anyone can take him down, Omar can.
The break up of the special crimes unit (again) didn't come as much of a surprise, but it was lovely to see Lester not taking it lying down. Loved the end run he and McNulty attempted to the FBI, though it was doomed for political reasons. I still like Carcetti, weasel that he is, and was actively cheering when the paper went after Nerise.
Also the music in the show just keeps getting better. If anyone knows who does that cover of "Piece of my Heart" that Lester was listening to while staking out Marlo please let me know. I would like to own it.
Again I am forced to wonder why all shows can't be this well written/acted/planned. They manage to balance how many different plot threads and characters in a single episode? And they do it damn near perfectly every single time.
I liked "Shoot 'Em Up" well enough though some of the action scenes were so outside the bounds of reality that they became a bit silly. The off-handed misogyny made me wince more than once, and more than one of the one-liners actually had me groaning aloud. Still it was more entertaining than "Smoking Aces", which is very sad indeed.
I pretty much blew through season 2 of SGA and came to the conclusion that it was perhaps for the best that I didn't actually start paying much attention to the show until season 3. There were a few moments in episodes throughout that season that made me happy, and I liked the character development they allowed Rodney especially in "Grace Under Pressure". Also him high on enzyme and babbling to himself as he tries to get the DHD working made me laugh and laugh. I finally also have data points to fill in some blanks in a few of the fanfics I'd read so that's good too.
There were three moments in the latest ep that actually entertained me, one was the confrontation between Teyla and John in the locker room, mostly because Rodney sat there with this incredibly curious and oddly vulnerable look on his face. I dubbed it the "mommy and daddy are fighting" look, and the fact that he was quite happy to stay there and listen to the whole conversation until Ronon came back and plucked him out of the room. Since we didn't get to see Rodney finding out about Teyla no longer going on missions (and again I shake my fist at the writers/producers, why, why would you not let us see his reaction?), this was at least a slight nod to the fans that McKay's still processing all of this.
The second moment was on the hive ship when Ronon touches something and then acts like an 8 year old when McKay calls him on it. Very cute moment that even had
aelfsciene giggling. And finally when the queen was interrogating John and she very quickly turned to Rodney to threaten, well I took that as a nice little shout-out to the slash fans. And that's pretty much it. I thought the overall plan was kinda dumb, the execution of said plan even dumber, and Teyla's inclusion (such as it was), just downright sad. It would be really, really nice if this show could actually make the Wraith coherent bad guys. Is that really so much to ask? The queens seem to basically be uglier, paler, and moister versions of Goa'ulds with the male Wraith as their Jaffa. Only the Goa'uld had an actual society, each one with a distinct personality, they all had their reasons for doing what they did that often came down to being petty, greedy or sociopathic. With the Wraith there's no there there, they just are. The queens have slightly less personality than your average Borg and the writers/directors seem to think that hissing and thrusting their bodies in clearly uncomfortable ways makes up for the fact that nobody's put any thought into them as characters.
I'm not saying SG-1 was perfect, god knows, and I've already copped to the fact that the Ori were just cheap knock-offs of DS9's Pagh Wraiths, which were sad and lame to begin with. The replicators were fun until they went human-form and then they just made me want to beat my head against the nearest hard object. I've lived with this villain frustration for years so it's not exactly new, but if they're not going to fix the Wraith could they please just wipe them out and start over with a bigger, badder, better planned out baddie? Is that really asking so much?
I'm not going to go into a huge Teyla rant (though I could), I've never been fond of the character but I'd at least grown to tolerate her in the past couple of seasons. This whole pregnancy plot, though, has re-set me back to open dislike. A tough female character can remain tough and female and pregnant all at the same time. They don't have to turn into weepy, fragile flowers. It isn't necessary. Just go back and watch DS9, see the episodes with Kira pregnant and you'll note how it's done. The scene at the end of the episode where Teyla's all, "Oh you were so right, John, all of my priorities are now shifted, no more missions for me!" just made me want to throw something at the screen. I don't know who that character is but she ain't the Teyla I'd almost, kinda', sorta' started to like.
So basically the episode came down to the fact that the Wraith could make clone armies, which while mildly disturbing in an, "OMG now they're stealing from the SW prequels?" kind of way didn't do much for me.
Ok I watched "Duet" finally and got to see the beginning of the McKay/Brown "relationship" on the series. Apparently they have been dating since then...and yet we've seen little to nothing onscreen. Indeed we've even seen McKay actively flirting with other women, or at least attempting to. From what we've been given in the show itself he's seemed to pretty much take the woman for granted. And hey, fair enough, as she's never even bothered to show up at his bedside when he's been near death. I mean jeez, not so much as a mention in "The Tao of Rodney", though he made sure to find the time to spend with every member of his team.
So seriously, WTF is going on with him asking her to marry him in the next episode?
Is it a comfort thing? He's just gotten used to having someone around who seems to like him and will let him have sex with her? Presumably that is, I mean canon-wise we haven't heard a thing about it. For all we know they sit around playing Scrabble all night. Is it an insecurity thing? Jeannie's rather nasty little comment in "Miller's Crossing" about how he'd never find anybody better and he should just marry Katie before she wised up and dumped his ass? Self-improvement maybe? He realized in "Tabula Rasa" that he didn't tend to treat those he cared about as thoughtfully as he should and now he's making a grandiose effort to prove to himself that he can...or something.
It just doesn't compute, and frankly it's a lazy-ass way to drum up some drama in a show. I don't mind if you hand wave minor characters hooking up, but a lead character deserves something better. The sad thing is that as soon as I saw the pic of McKay and Brown trapped together I just groaned, I knew right off that either she was going to dump him or he was going to ask her to marry him. The former would've been so much more interesting and so much more true to what we've seen onscreen. She's an after thought to him, and while she's nowhere near as bad as any of Sam's former paramours (except Martouf, I liked him), it's the same damn problem. Hooking main characters up with NPC's doesn't work. SG-1 learned this lesson over and over again. Please, please stop making the same mistakes your predecessor did. Please.
Send her back to Earth. Kill her. Turn her into a bug. Whatever. Just get rid of Katie Brown and either throw someone at McKay who's actually worthy of him or leave him the hell alone.
On a brighter note Aelf and I settled in to watch the first two episodes of this season's The Wire, which were superb.
I like the focus on the press this season, it's already drawn me in to the politics of the newsroom and just how a story goes from idea to paper. Also the literary humor is just killing me. Oh the snark we're going to get in the newsroom alone is worth tuning in for.
Watching McNulty self-destruct in an even more rapid and senseless way is just heartbreaking. His actions at the end of the second episode in particular even broke Bunk, which I wasn't sure was even possible. As Aelf pointed out, when the shit hits the fan he's going to be wishing he could be tossed back out on shore patrol.
Avon now being the defacto boss of his prison was great, and I loved him subtly attempting to reign in the young turk, Marlo. Somehow, though, I don't think this is going to last too long. And I almost feel a little sorry for Proposition Joe and the consortium he's put together as Marlo's clearly planning to tear it down around his ears. On the other hand, Marlo's vendetta against Omar may turn out to be his Achilles heel. Marlo may be vicious, but Omar is far smarter and wiser, and if anyone can take him down, Omar can.
The break up of the special crimes unit (again) didn't come as much of a surprise, but it was lovely to see Lester not taking it lying down. Loved the end run he and McNulty attempted to the FBI, though it was doomed for political reasons. I still like Carcetti, weasel that he is, and was actively cheering when the paper went after Nerise.
Also the music in the show just keeps getting better. If anyone knows who does that cover of "Piece of my Heart" that Lester was listening to while staking out Marlo please let me know. I would like to own it.
Again I am forced to wonder why all shows can't be this well written/acted/planned. They manage to balance how many different plot threads and characters in a single episode? And they do it damn near perfectly every single time.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-01-14 08:40 pm (UTC)Except, that takes work. So much easier to have them be irredeemably evil. Then the lead characters can do horrible, horrible things and still feel morally superior. Sheppard's behavior towards and comments about the Wraith who has been helping them against the Replicators are the perfect example of this.
But the Wraith have evolved absolutely nowhere in 4 years. 4 fucking years! GAH!
And now you know why I am writing original fiction: because I like my aliens to actually have a culture beyond "Bug Eyed Monsters."
no subject
Date: 2008-01-14 09:28 pm (UTC)And see I'd had hope, dim, futile hope but hope nonetheless that they'd take the opportunity with the Wraith guy they've been holding captive (I've dubbed him Casper, it's better than Todd if you ask me) to actually start making a real character there. Maybe he could have second thoughts about the eat all humans thing. Maybe he could work with them to see if there aren't other species he and his kind could feed on. Maybe he could have a single thought like, "Oh hey these monkeys are people too, maybe it ain't entirely right to eat them." But sadly no, and can you explain to me why a race of top level predators would suddenly think, "Hey, let's increase our numbers exponentially so there are millions of more mouths to feed and a limited food supply!"
I'm seriously going to end up having a stroke from all of the dumb soon...
no subject
Date: 2008-01-14 09:36 pm (UTC)*headdesk* I know. As soon as they revealed that the site was a massive cloning facility I was like, "But ... aren't they at war with each other because there isn't enough food to support their numbers?" Oh, and can you also explain to me how a female is capable of producing male offspring via parthenogenesis? Coz, last time I checked, that means she should be producing identical copies of herself. o.O
The stupid hurts my head.
no subject
Date: 2008-01-14 09:51 pm (UTC)The stupid hurts my head.
Well at least when we both have strokes we can keep each other company. Surely the writers can at least consult Wikipedia or something and glean some very basic understanding of biology before spewing nonsense all over the place. I remember most of this shit from high school for Christ's sake, it's not that hard. Their science is starting to make me think back fondly on ST:VOY and that show was about as scientifically coherent as your average manga.
Again I say GAH!
no subject
Date: 2008-01-14 09:55 pm (UTC)I'll be sure to save you the blue jell-o. *g*
no subject
Date: 2008-01-14 09:57 pm (UTC)