We watched the first three episodes, what would be a movie if they put it on DVD, and I must say I'm kind of impressed. I've watched all the many variations of the X-Men cartoons, even the bad ones (I'm looking at you, early nineties), and this is not a bad one. So far, something inexplicable happened to the Professor and Jean, which seems to have wiped them out and destroyed the mansion, and in the wake of this, Wolvie went walkabout, Beast moved into the basement, Angel and Iceman went back to their parents, and Scott went all scruffy and reclusive. Senator Kelly is all up in the whitehouse, and the Sentinels have just been unveiled. Mutants are having to be registered, and the dangerous ones are being locked away. Genosha is open to the public and Magneto wants all the mutants to join him there, and Kitty Pryde is on the way to do just that.
A year after it all falls apart, Wolvie tries to get the team back together to do something about the missing team mates and the messed up world that needs them, and then it's a rollicking game of Name That X-Man while mutants are being attacked and jailed, and then break out and help or run off. Meanwhile, Rogue, who was all emo in the highschool version of the show, is still all emo, and has gone over to the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants (which has Domino instead of the more expected Mystique, which is fun), and Emma Frost has closed down her own school (which should have been the soon-to-die Hellions) because her students keep getting kidnapped and locked away, and she wants to help them. In her frosty, bitchy, can't quite trust her way.
Like I said, I'm pretty impressed. There's an interracial couple right at the beginning, and their kid is not a stereotype, which is great. The characters are complex and seem to actually have emotions without being overly melodramatic (I'm looking at you again, early nineties). And best of all, the plot line is complex and variable, even when you know the storylines they're basing all this on, and it's pretty fresh-seeming without feeling like it's too updated, which is almost my biggest problem with the highschool version.
I like. Let's see if it holds up to weekly storylines after the three-part first ep.
Showing posts with label side project. Show all posts
Showing posts with label side project. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
side project week 8: classic who
The Monster of Peladon (parts 1,2,3 of 6)
The first half of this story finds us back on Peladon with the Doctor, and this time with Sarah-Jane. The Doctor wants to see his old friend the king, but they find that he's been dead for ages and his young daughter is on the throne-- and, as usual, he's a legend. Alpha Centauri is there, and he recognizes the Doctor, but the planet of Peladon seems to be plagued with advisors to the crown who are more suspicious than wise, and so he thinks the Doctor is a spy. See, there's this problem in a mine-- like always for the third Doctor, who is more in a mine than in a quarry-- where the Galactic Federation is trying totake over some mineral and the people don't want to, they just want the weapons. There's a rebellion and there's doublecrossing, Sarah-Jane is often separated, and starts out kinda whiny before she gets the hang of doing things for herself, the Doctor sings his song again, they get tossed into a pit and are immediately brought back out after the cliffhanger, there's political intrigue that's not very intriguing, there's people who have weird fros that take over much of their faces and contain skunk-like streaks...
So far, I'm not terribly impressed with the show, but we're only half way through, so maybe it will improve by the end. Mostly, though, it seems that it's all things we see all the time on this Doctor's run, social upheval, the need for strong women, people in charge not knowing what's going on and / or lying to everyone else, mining disputes... I want something new to happen, but I'm not holding much hope. It almost feels like parts that were taken out of the original story, especially when Sarah-Jane goes all Jo-whiny, but if that's the case, they were cut for a reason and I could have been fine without them.
This is the second-to-last episode for the Third Doctor, and I hope his last one is better.
The first half of this story finds us back on Peladon with the Doctor, and this time with Sarah-Jane. The Doctor wants to see his old friend the king, but they find that he's been dead for ages and his young daughter is on the throne-- and, as usual, he's a legend. Alpha Centauri is there, and he recognizes the Doctor, but the planet of Peladon seems to be plagued with advisors to the crown who are more suspicious than wise, and so he thinks the Doctor is a spy. See, there's this problem in a mine-- like always for the third Doctor, who is more in a mine than in a quarry-- where the Galactic Federation is trying totake over some mineral and the people don't want to, they just want the weapons. There's a rebellion and there's doublecrossing, Sarah-Jane is often separated, and starts out kinda whiny before she gets the hang of doing things for herself, the Doctor sings his song again, they get tossed into a pit and are immediately brought back out after the cliffhanger, there's political intrigue that's not very intriguing, there's people who have weird fros that take over much of their faces and contain skunk-like streaks...
So far, I'm not terribly impressed with the show, but we're only half way through, so maybe it will improve by the end. Mostly, though, it seems that it's all things we see all the time on this Doctor's run, social upheval, the need for strong women, people in charge not knowing what's going on and / or lying to everyone else, mining disputes... I want something new to happen, but I'm not holding much hope. It almost feels like parts that were taken out of the original story, especially when Sarah-Jane goes all Jo-whiny, but if that's the case, they were cut for a reason and I could have been fine without them.
This is the second-to-last episode for the Third Doctor, and I hope his last one is better.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
side project: classic who
Invasion of the Dinosaurs
A fun, interesting story that was only slightly damaged by the dinosaurs of the title. The
effects were awful. Classic Who usually does better, or at least, so much worse that it's
amusing, but these were just bad. The sea monster the Sea Devils brought up when the
show was still in black and white was better. And I think they were just convenient. Like the
script writers decided that a plot about a secret society of people who wanted to hand-
chose the people who would survive their attempt to roll back time and reset the world in a
time free of pollution and crime and overcrowding wasn't cool enough and needed more
monsters.
I disagree.
All that stuff was well-written, complex, and pretty riveting. You have no idea while watching
just what's going on, and the dinosaurs are distracting to a plot that's already convoluted
enough, and happens to hold together without them. Any plot device could have been in
their place-- as the purpose was to clear out all the people they didn't want to save,
anyway.
Sarah Jane continues to be feisty and able to solve her own problems, which is great,
especially since the men, including the Brig and the Doctor keep acting like she's helpless
as Jo. But Benton can't tell her no and helps her when they want to leave her behind, even
though it ends with her getting knocked out and rescued.
And then there's Yeats. Oh Yeats. He gets involved with the baddies and tries to help them,
thinking that rolling back time is a good idea and making it so most of the population of the
earth never happens is an acceptable risk. Gone is our charming, sweet, spunky Yeats,
and here is a new one that's sad and tense and has beliefs that have led him astray, but he
still tries to do what he thinks is right. And in the end, he's sent away and asked to resign,
so I guess he's no longer there. Which makes me sad. But all I kept thinking was that he
missed Jo and was broken up when she went off and married someone else, whether that's
what was intended or not, and that it left him sort of lost and easily swayed by someone
with a strong will and a bold plan. Old Yeats never would have gotten involved in this.
Over all, a very good episode, even if three or four of the six parts did end on the same shot
of the t-rex...
A fun, interesting story that was only slightly damaged by the dinosaurs of the title. The
effects were awful. Classic Who usually does better, or at least, so much worse that it's
amusing, but these were just bad. The sea monster the Sea Devils brought up when the
show was still in black and white was better. And I think they were just convenient. Like the
script writers decided that a plot about a secret society of people who wanted to hand-
chose the people who would survive their attempt to roll back time and reset the world in a
time free of pollution and crime and overcrowding wasn't cool enough and needed more
monsters.
I disagree.
All that stuff was well-written, complex, and pretty riveting. You have no idea while watching
just what's going on, and the dinosaurs are distracting to a plot that's already convoluted
enough, and happens to hold together without them. Any plot device could have been in
their place-- as the purpose was to clear out all the people they didn't want to save,
anyway.
Sarah Jane continues to be feisty and able to solve her own problems, which is great,
especially since the men, including the Brig and the Doctor keep acting like she's helpless
as Jo. But Benton can't tell her no and helps her when they want to leave her behind, even
though it ends with her getting knocked out and rescued.
And then there's Yeats. Oh Yeats. He gets involved with the baddies and tries to help them,
thinking that rolling back time is a good idea and making it so most of the population of the
earth never happens is an acceptable risk. Gone is our charming, sweet, spunky Yeats,
and here is a new one that's sad and tense and has beliefs that have led him astray, but he
still tries to do what he thinks is right. And in the end, he's sent away and asked to resign,
so I guess he's no longer there. Which makes me sad. But all I kept thinking was that he
missed Jo and was broken up when she went off and married someone else, whether that's
what was intended or not, and that it left him sort of lost and easily swayed by someone
with a strong will and a bold plan. Old Yeats never would have gotten involved in this.
Over all, a very good episode, even if three or four of the six parts did end on the same shot
of the t-rex...
Monday, October 27, 2008
classic who: the time warrior
A new season, John Pertwee's last, and a new companion, Elizabeth Sladen's first. I've been waiting for the Sarah-Jane years; she was always my favorite, and her first go as companion is not disappointing... though the rest of the show is kind of dumb. The story goes like this: A Sontaran is having some issues with is ship and has crash-landed in the middle ages outside a pair of castles that are at war(ish). He starts kidnapping the best scientists from throughout time to help him fix his ship, and starts giving weapons to the local Saxons to get their resources. The Doctor waits for one of the scientists that UNIT has sequestered to disappear, and then follows in the Tardis, which Sarah-Jane has already wandered into. When she comes out, she's in the past and doesn't know what to think of it, and, naturally, she and the Doctor are on opposite sides of the little war between the castles.
Sarah-Jane is fun because she's feminist where Jo was willing to let men lead the way, and because she's resourceful and quick-- and because she doesn't automatically get all impressed with the Doctor. She thinks he's working for the Sontaran, and hatches a plan to kidnap him before she figures out that he's trying to fix things. I'm glad she starts off good. She didn't once twist her ankle, and she changed her clothes several times, and none of those outfits included her later-trademark ugly raincoat.
The plot, however, kind of bored me. Sontarans are always kind of meh to me, and while he wasn't that bad, the Saxon dude, whose name sounded like Iron Lung or Iron Gor depending on who said it, was just irritating, and the placement in the middle ages was only a convenience, and the acting was low even for Doctor Who.
Sarah-Jane is fun because she's feminist where Jo was willing to let men lead the way, and because she's resourceful and quick-- and because she doesn't automatically get all impressed with the Doctor. She thinks he's working for the Sontaran, and hatches a plan to kidnap him before she figures out that he's trying to fix things. I'm glad she starts off good. She didn't once twist her ankle, and she changed her clothes several times, and none of those outfits included her later-trademark ugly raincoat.
The plot, however, kind of bored me. Sontarans are always kind of meh to me, and while he wasn't that bad, the Saxon dude, whose name sounded like Iron Lung or Iron Gor depending on who said it, was just irritating, and the placement in the middle ages was only a convenience, and the acting was low even for Doctor Who.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
side projects: classic who
classic who: the time warrior
A new season, John Pertwee's last, and a new companion, Elizabeth Sladen's first. I've
been waiting for the Sarah-Jane years; she was always my favorite, and her first go as
companion is not disappointing... though the rest of the show is kind of dumb. The story
goes like this: A Sontaran is having some issues with is ship and has crash-landed in the
middle ages outside a pair of castles that are at war(ish). He starts kidnapping the best
scientists from throughout time to help him fix his ship, and starts giving weapons to the
local Saxons to get their resources. The Doctor waits for one of the scientists that UNIT has
sequestered to disappear, and then follows in the Tardis, which Sarah-Jane has already
wandered into. When she comes out, she's in the past and doesn't know what to think of it,
and, naturally, she and the Doctor are on opposite sides of the little war between the
castles.
Sarah-Jane is fun because she's feminist where Jo was willing to let men lead the way, and
because she's resourceful and quick-- and because she doesn't automatically get all
impressed with the Doctor. She thinks he's working for the Sontaran, and hatches a plan to
kidnap him before she figures out that he's trying to fix things. I'm glad she starts off good.
She didn't once twist her ankle, and she changed her clothes several times, and none of
those outfits included her later-trademark ugly raincoat.
The plot, however, kind of bored me. Sontarans are always kind of meh to me, and while he
wasn't that bad, the Saxon dude, whose name sounded like Iron Lung or Iron Gor depending
on who said it, was just irritating, and the placement in the middle ages was only a
convenience, and the acting was low even for Doctor Who.
A new season, John Pertwee's last, and a new companion, Elizabeth Sladen's first. I've
been waiting for the Sarah-Jane years; she was always my favorite, and her first go as
companion is not disappointing... though the rest of the show is kind of dumb. The story
goes like this: A Sontaran is having some issues with is ship and has crash-landed in the
middle ages outside a pair of castles that are at war(ish). He starts kidnapping the best
scientists from throughout time to help him fix his ship, and starts giving weapons to the
local Saxons to get their resources. The Doctor waits for one of the scientists that UNIT has
sequestered to disappear, and then follows in the Tardis, which Sarah-Jane has already
wandered into. When she comes out, she's in the past and doesn't know what to think of it,
and, naturally, she and the Doctor are on opposite sides of the little war between the
castles.
Sarah-Jane is fun because she's feminist where Jo was willing to let men lead the way, and
because she's resourceful and quick-- and because she doesn't automatically get all
impressed with the Doctor. She thinks he's working for the Sontaran, and hatches a plan to
kidnap him before she figures out that he's trying to fix things. I'm glad she starts off good.
She didn't once twist her ankle, and she changed her clothes several times, and none of
those outfits included her later-trademark ugly raincoat.
The plot, however, kind of bored me. Sontarans are always kind of meh to me, and while he
wasn't that bad, the Saxon dude, whose name sounded like Iron Lung or Iron Gor depending
on who said it, was just irritating, and the placement in the middle ages was only a
convenience, and the acting was low even for Doctor Who.
side projects: catching up:
sanctuary: folding men
Sanctuary goes up against Folding Men and finds a story about minority rights and drug
addiction. Who'd have thunk it? Well, having watched the previous episodes, I'd say I would,
actually.
They catch a guy wanted for robbery and accessory to murder, and Wil's doing his best to
get through to him as he goes through withdrawal, and they get little snippets of info off of
him that lead to Folding Men parents with missing children, a crumpled up body in a
washingmachine, and false leads on drug processing, not to mention that Wil proves to be
very easily manipulated when he thinks he's helping people, which will hopefully be really
interesting in the future. There wasn't nearly as much running and shooting as before, so I
guess they're finding their groove, and it's a pretty sweet groove at that. It's a really
interesting show. Even if I do sometimes get distracted by the fact that all the CGI
environments kind of look too open and spacious, like no one in this weird city can afford
enough furniture. Or when I take twenty minutes off in the middle of the show to see if I
know the actor behind some of the prosthetics-- I do know the one who plays Jack the
Ripper from the pilot, as he played both Halling and Todd the Wraith on Atlantis, but I was
looking for the Bigfoot, who doesn't get a billing on IMDB or the official website yet.
supernatural: monster movie
Inexplicably, one of the episodes I missed was a perfect little horror movie aware that it was
a horror movie! Meta fiction! I love it! They show up in Pennsylvania in time for Oktoberfest in
a little town that looks like a European village, following a reported vampire attack-- that has
all the movie monster cliches. When they're just about to write it off as a loony, a wolfman
attacks a kid in lover's lane, and a mummy kills a guard at the museum. A bar wench gets
kidnapped by Dracula and he insists on calling her Mina and the boys Harker and Van
Helsing, and crazy ensues. Turns out it's a shapeshifter who was born like this, beaten alot,
chased away alot, and went batty in such a way that he wanted to be a classy movie
monster instead of a regular beat up monster.
It's all in black and white with the camara going in and out of focus at random times, with a
soundtrack every bit as melodramatic as you'd think, with mist and storms and a big castle
that's made of foam and fiberboard, and a nod to both Frankenstein and Phantom of the
Opera. Best of all, this ep has some really truly funny parts, and it's a welcome respite from
the heaviness of the coming actual Apocalypse in the previous episodes. Dean gets the girl,
the bad guy gets defeated, and they drive off triumphant-- but I like Jamie, and I think these
boys could use a girl in their team. Keep them honest. Give them something to look after
and someone to look after them. I vote that she comes back and joins up-- or, better, that
she starts hunting baddies on her own and they run across her later. I mean really, could
you survive that and then go back to pouring beer for a living?
On a side note, the CW viewer is crap. Clunky, full of ads, jittery, and when it runs
comercials, it drops out of full screen mode and doesn't go back. Suck. Hulu is so much
better.
supernatural: metamorphosis
Aw. Looks like last week never actually happened. Bummer.
So apparently monsterism runs in families, and this ordinary guy is coming into his
inheritance. That he didn't know about. Because a Hunter killed his dad ages ago and he
was put up for adoption. He's about to turn into a Rugeru-- something Dean keeps pointing
out sounds like it's made up. Sam wants to see if he can get the guy to fight it, to appease
it with alot of raw meat, and never eat human (which completes the transformation), and live
like a recovering alcoholic instead. Travis, an old Hunter friend, wants them to flame it and
get it before it kills. Of course, this old Hunter gets himself killed almost immediately, and
it's a wonder there are any Hunters left the way they all get killed off around the
Winchesters-- it's like they're Angela Fletcher or something. And the guy turns and loses
everything and gets flamed, because this show seems to be mostly about fighting fate and
fate getting you anyway.
So of course, this all leads to an arguement between the boys over whether or not Sam
feels kinship with this guy who has evil inside him but is a good person, and whether or not
Dean is a jerk and that's why Sam never told him about the demon blood or his experiments
with turning the bad he's been given into something good-- and whether Heaven is jumping
the gun a little on this whole issue. In the end, Sam decides to give up creepy powers, but
there's the whole issue of how long and you keep from killing people when you have the
ability to save them... and then, how long before the Wrath comes down again?
valentine: pilot
There's these old Gods, see, and they are about to become irrelevant in the modern world, so they have to find a new way to fit in as things change. Irrelevant Gods turn mortal and die off, and they're getting fewer and fewer clients every year, so they want to avoid the bad and stay in the good, and they take on a romance writer to tell them about modern love and get them back in the game.
Kate takes the knowledge that there are gods very well-- especially after Aphrodite gives her
a screaming orgasm of pure love. Which was funny-- and jumps right in with helping a boy
and a girl find eachother, when the Gods have almost messed it up.
The first episode is funny and sweet and charming, and like a little bitty rom com, which is
my not-so-secret vice. And I get to watch people be in love every week! It's a hopeful, if not
terribly delicate message: there's someone out there for everyone, and there are people
making sure we get the chance to find them. Yay!
valentine: daddy's home
The god of war stops by to check on his family that he's usually too busy causing war to
bother with. Ares is trying to take over the love business, saying that something's going
down where they'll be in danger and he wants to protect them-- the only way he can, which
is to get them all to help him start wars. Danny / Eros distracts him by love-shooting Kate
and sending them home together, on the excuse of giving Ray / Hephaestus a chance to
secure Aphrodite's heart, now that she claims to love her first husband and despise her
second.
Meanwhile, a perfume chemist and a good Indian girl need to get married. The girls pose as
wedding photographers as the parents plan an arranged marriage for her, and the boys try
to convince the chemist to declare his love and demand her hand in marriage so the
arranged one can't go through. When he finally does, the groom is as relieved as she is,
and it's her mother that okays it! Yay!
All this means that Morgan and Nisha are happy and there's a great Bollywood dance
scene, and that Ray's in trouble with Grace / Aphrodite for fixing Danny's gun (what was
once arrows), and Ari is not at all happy with getting turned down. And right at the end,
Phoebe drops some of Kate's hair in the Oracle, looking for some dirt, and gets an image of
Grace literally under the axe. Spooky, and who knows what that means? Let's see what the
next episode says, shall we?
valentine: act naturally
This week: celebutant trainwreck and small-time theatre owner. She's had a few flops that
made her doubt her talent, and he's about to go out of business until she's forced to work
with him for community service-- thanks to the Valentine crew. Add in a manager who
seems to be intentionally running her into the ground, and you've got yourself a sweet little
rediscovering who you really are sort of story.
On the home front, Phoebe gets Leo to work with her to steal something of Kate's to prove
she's wrong, and they manage to burn down her house, which leaves her homeless, with
most of her stuff gone. Danny softens up a bit and lets down his guard enough to awkwardly
try to cheer her in a sweet little scene that ends with her moving into the mansion with a
box of stuff and a cat. Phoebe goes through the box and finds books about Greek Gods,
and takes it to mean the worst-- though she's probably just writing a story and doesn't want
to embarass herself by mentioning it. And someone-- a girl-- sneaks in and poisons the
Oracle, and we can't be sure if the clarification of the Grace-dead oracle is the truth or the
poison, or if this is, say, Eris, Queen of Discord, or if it's whoever Ares mentioned was
going against the Old Gods. Oooh, plot!
Three episodes in, there's what we know about the characters: Danny is erotic love
embodied, which makes him kind of a rockstar and means he knows nothing about real love
and can't see how it's different from lust (which likely means he'll fall in love himself before
the season is up); Leo / Hercules stalled out somewhere around the 70s fashion-wise, but
is sweet, if somewhat simple on occasion; Grace / Aphrodite is old-fashioned and
somewhat over-sure of herself; Kate means well, but is either going to go bad or is going to
be framed; Pheobe has trust issues and is pretty immature; and Ray / Hephaestus is
jealous and swayable.
Sanctuary goes up against Folding Men and finds a story about minority rights and drug
addiction. Who'd have thunk it? Well, having watched the previous episodes, I'd say I would,
actually.
They catch a guy wanted for robbery and accessory to murder, and Wil's doing his best to
get through to him as he goes through withdrawal, and they get little snippets of info off of
him that lead to Folding Men parents with missing children, a crumpled up body in a
washingmachine, and false leads on drug processing, not to mention that Wil proves to be
very easily manipulated when he thinks he's helping people, which will hopefully be really
interesting in the future. There wasn't nearly as much running and shooting as before, so I
guess they're finding their groove, and it's a pretty sweet groove at that. It's a really
interesting show. Even if I do sometimes get distracted by the fact that all the CGI
environments kind of look too open and spacious, like no one in this weird city can afford
enough furniture. Or when I take twenty minutes off in the middle of the show to see if I
know the actor behind some of the prosthetics-- I do know the one who plays Jack the
Ripper from the pilot, as he played both Halling and Todd the Wraith on Atlantis, but I was
looking for the Bigfoot, who doesn't get a billing on IMDB or the official website yet.
supernatural: monster movie
Inexplicably, one of the episodes I missed was a perfect little horror movie aware that it was
a horror movie! Meta fiction! I love it! They show up in Pennsylvania in time for Oktoberfest in
a little town that looks like a European village, following a reported vampire attack-- that has
all the movie monster cliches. When they're just about to write it off as a loony, a wolfman
attacks a kid in lover's lane, and a mummy kills a guard at the museum. A bar wench gets
kidnapped by Dracula and he insists on calling her Mina and the boys Harker and Van
Helsing, and crazy ensues. Turns out it's a shapeshifter who was born like this, beaten alot,
chased away alot, and went batty in such a way that he wanted to be a classy movie
monster instead of a regular beat up monster.
It's all in black and white with the camara going in and out of focus at random times, with a
soundtrack every bit as melodramatic as you'd think, with mist and storms and a big castle
that's made of foam and fiberboard, and a nod to both Frankenstein and Phantom of the
Opera. Best of all, this ep has some really truly funny parts, and it's a welcome respite from
the heaviness of the coming actual Apocalypse in the previous episodes. Dean gets the girl,
the bad guy gets defeated, and they drive off triumphant-- but I like Jamie, and I think these
boys could use a girl in their team. Keep them honest. Give them something to look after
and someone to look after them. I vote that she comes back and joins up-- or, better, that
she starts hunting baddies on her own and they run across her later. I mean really, could
you survive that and then go back to pouring beer for a living?
On a side note, the CW viewer is crap. Clunky, full of ads, jittery, and when it runs
comercials, it drops out of full screen mode and doesn't go back. Suck. Hulu is so much
better.
supernatural: metamorphosis
Aw. Looks like last week never actually happened. Bummer.
So apparently monsterism runs in families, and this ordinary guy is coming into his
inheritance. That he didn't know about. Because a Hunter killed his dad ages ago and he
was put up for adoption. He's about to turn into a Rugeru-- something Dean keeps pointing
out sounds like it's made up. Sam wants to see if he can get the guy to fight it, to appease
it with alot of raw meat, and never eat human (which completes the transformation), and live
like a recovering alcoholic instead. Travis, an old Hunter friend, wants them to flame it and
get it before it kills. Of course, this old Hunter gets himself killed almost immediately, and
it's a wonder there are any Hunters left the way they all get killed off around the
Winchesters-- it's like they're Angela Fletcher or something. And the guy turns and loses
everything and gets flamed, because this show seems to be mostly about fighting fate and
fate getting you anyway.
So of course, this all leads to an arguement between the boys over whether or not Sam
feels kinship with this guy who has evil inside him but is a good person, and whether or not
Dean is a jerk and that's why Sam never told him about the demon blood or his experiments
with turning the bad he's been given into something good-- and whether Heaven is jumping
the gun a little on this whole issue. In the end, Sam decides to give up creepy powers, but
there's the whole issue of how long and you keep from killing people when you have the
ability to save them... and then, how long before the Wrath comes down again?
valentine: pilot
There's these old Gods, see, and they are about to become irrelevant in the modern world, so they have to find a new way to fit in as things change. Irrelevant Gods turn mortal and die off, and they're getting fewer and fewer clients every year, so they want to avoid the bad and stay in the good, and they take on a romance writer to tell them about modern love and get them back in the game.
Kate takes the knowledge that there are gods very well-- especially after Aphrodite gives her
a screaming orgasm of pure love. Which was funny-- and jumps right in with helping a boy
and a girl find eachother, when the Gods have almost messed it up.
The first episode is funny and sweet and charming, and like a little bitty rom com, which is
my not-so-secret vice. And I get to watch people be in love every week! It's a hopeful, if not
terribly delicate message: there's someone out there for everyone, and there are people
making sure we get the chance to find them. Yay!
valentine: daddy's home
The god of war stops by to check on his family that he's usually too busy causing war to
bother with. Ares is trying to take over the love business, saying that something's going
down where they'll be in danger and he wants to protect them-- the only way he can, which
is to get them all to help him start wars. Danny / Eros distracts him by love-shooting Kate
and sending them home together, on the excuse of giving Ray / Hephaestus a chance to
secure Aphrodite's heart, now that she claims to love her first husband and despise her
second.
Meanwhile, a perfume chemist and a good Indian girl need to get married. The girls pose as
wedding photographers as the parents plan an arranged marriage for her, and the boys try
to convince the chemist to declare his love and demand her hand in marriage so the
arranged one can't go through. When he finally does, the groom is as relieved as she is,
and it's her mother that okays it! Yay!
All this means that Morgan and Nisha are happy and there's a great Bollywood dance
scene, and that Ray's in trouble with Grace / Aphrodite for fixing Danny's gun (what was
once arrows), and Ari is not at all happy with getting turned down. And right at the end,
Phoebe drops some of Kate's hair in the Oracle, looking for some dirt, and gets an image of
Grace literally under the axe. Spooky, and who knows what that means? Let's see what the
next episode says, shall we?
valentine: act naturally
This week: celebutant trainwreck and small-time theatre owner. She's had a few flops that
made her doubt her talent, and he's about to go out of business until she's forced to work
with him for community service-- thanks to the Valentine crew. Add in a manager who
seems to be intentionally running her into the ground, and you've got yourself a sweet little
rediscovering who you really are sort of story.
On the home front, Phoebe gets Leo to work with her to steal something of Kate's to prove
she's wrong, and they manage to burn down her house, which leaves her homeless, with
most of her stuff gone. Danny softens up a bit and lets down his guard enough to awkwardly
try to cheer her in a sweet little scene that ends with her moving into the mansion with a
box of stuff and a cat. Phoebe goes through the box and finds books about Greek Gods,
and takes it to mean the worst-- though she's probably just writing a story and doesn't want
to embarass herself by mentioning it. And someone-- a girl-- sneaks in and poisons the
Oracle, and we can't be sure if the clarification of the Grace-dead oracle is the truth or the
poison, or if this is, say, Eris, Queen of Discord, or if it's whoever Ares mentioned was
going against the Old Gods. Oooh, plot!
Three episodes in, there's what we know about the characters: Danny is erotic love
embodied, which makes him kind of a rockstar and means he knows nothing about real love
and can't see how it's different from lust (which likely means he'll fall in love himself before
the season is up); Leo / Hercules stalled out somewhere around the 70s fashion-wise, but
is sweet, if somewhat simple on occasion; Grace / Aphrodite is old-fashioned and
somewhat over-sure of herself; Kate means well, but is either going to go bad or is going to
be framed; Pheobe has trust issues and is pretty immature; and Ray / Hephaestus is
jealous and swayable.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
side project: classic who
The Green Death
So here we have the last episode for Jo "I'll make a list" Grant. It was actually pretty good. She decides to go off on an adventure for the first time by herself, without the Doctor, to do things she has her own opinions on, and he finally gets to Mirabillis III, which they've been talking of visiting all season-- she falls in love with someone who reminds her of the Doctor, but younger, while he has a horrible time without a companion. He winds up in southern Wales where she is after she goes missing, and there's much quarry and UNIT and glowing green slime and the word 'fungus' instead of mushroom. And maggots. Two-foot-long mutant maggots. And environmentalism-- she goes to a coal mine where a psycho machine is getting people to dump toxic waste down in the closed shafts, except there's still people mining nearby, and they start getting sick with something that smells like rot and makes them glow green until they're dead. She hangs out with Proffessor Cliff who yells at her much the way the Doctor does, and she's immediately back to being a bumbling walking accident, but she gets to talk more, have opinions of her own, and tries to help with the problem of the freaky-large maggots, which they have to stop before they turn into mutant bugs and fly away.
Dispite Jo's habit lately of falling for guys, this one seems more realistic-- she already knew who he was, and he returned the affection and worried about her when she was stuck down the mineshaft. When he got sick, she did all the could to help him, and when he woke up, he was disarmingly happy to see her. And he was a fairly-well-rounded character who was basically a good man despite being a weird hippy scientist a bit over-fond of fungi. In the end, he asked her to go into the amazon with him and to marry him along the way, and she agreed-- and they actually got to kiss, which I was expecting would be disallowed by the BBC.
And this is really one of the first times we get to see a little of the Doctor's inner life. When Jo and Cliff start getting close, the Doctor tries to make up reasons to keep them apart, and when she decides to leave UNIT and leave him and give up travelling the galaxy for love, the Doctor says goodbye and then leaves the party alone, obviously sad. He yells at her, but he's fond of her, and the fact that she left him for someone who reminds her of him didn't help any.
A good end to the season and a good send-off for Jo, letting her be a person and not just an ankle-twister. I could have done without the BOSS smarmy computer, who got really irritating by the end, but the monsters and disasters main plot was fun.
Next up, Sarah-Jane Smith, and one more season of Pertwee before we get to Doctor Four, Tom Baker.
So here we have the last episode for Jo "I'll make a list" Grant. It was actually pretty good. She decides to go off on an adventure for the first time by herself, without the Doctor, to do things she has her own opinions on, and he finally gets to Mirabillis III, which they've been talking of visiting all season-- she falls in love with someone who reminds her of the Doctor, but younger, while he has a horrible time without a companion. He winds up in southern Wales where she is after she goes missing, and there's much quarry and UNIT and glowing green slime and the word 'fungus' instead of mushroom. And maggots. Two-foot-long mutant maggots. And environmentalism-- she goes to a coal mine where a psycho machine is getting people to dump toxic waste down in the closed shafts, except there's still people mining nearby, and they start getting sick with something that smells like rot and makes them glow green until they're dead. She hangs out with Proffessor Cliff who yells at her much the way the Doctor does, and she's immediately back to being a bumbling walking accident, but she gets to talk more, have opinions of her own, and tries to help with the problem of the freaky-large maggots, which they have to stop before they turn into mutant bugs and fly away.
Dispite Jo's habit lately of falling for guys, this one seems more realistic-- she already knew who he was, and he returned the affection and worried about her when she was stuck down the mineshaft. When he got sick, she did all the could to help him, and when he woke up, he was disarmingly happy to see her. And he was a fairly-well-rounded character who was basically a good man despite being a weird hippy scientist a bit over-fond of fungi. In the end, he asked her to go into the amazon with him and to marry him along the way, and she agreed-- and they actually got to kiss, which I was expecting would be disallowed by the BBC.
And this is really one of the first times we get to see a little of the Doctor's inner life. When Jo and Cliff start getting close, the Doctor tries to make up reasons to keep them apart, and when she decides to leave UNIT and leave him and give up travelling the galaxy for love, the Doctor says goodbye and then leaves the party alone, obviously sad. He yells at her, but he's fond of her, and the fact that she left him for someone who reminds her of him didn't help any.
A good end to the season and a good send-off for Jo, letting her be a person and not just an ankle-twister. I could have done without the BOSS smarmy computer, who got really irritating by the end, but the monsters and disasters main plot was fun.
Next up, Sarah-Jane Smith, and one more season of Pertwee before we get to Doctor Four, Tom Baker.
Monday, October 13, 2008
side project: nu who revisted
Gridlock and Daleks in Manhattan
I mostly remember series three as sub-par. I didn't love Martha (hertofore called Marfa), and I wasn't a fan of the tone of the season. But we watched all of it before introducing it to D, and we've been re-watching it in a piecemeal sort of way to catch him up with where we are now. Tonight, we watched eps three and four.
Gridlock was one of the better episodes of the season, and I did remember liking it, but I didn't remember a whole lot about the events in it. The Doctor and Marfa land on New Earth and quickly get separated, Marfa taken into the depths of permanent traffic jams and the Doctor to a Senate where only Novice Haim and The Face of Boe are still alive, and it's up to the Doctor to put everything right, as usual. The plot is fun, but it's the characters that make this episode-- Brannigan the Cat and his lovely human wife and their litter of hybrid kittens who have never seen the ground; The Sisters, who are actually a married lesbian couple who have been on the road for twenty three years; all the random characters the Doctor drops down on as he hops from car to car, looking for Marfa before Haim kidnaps him. It's fun and it's straight forward, and it's good Who. Not the best, not like Blink, but good, and definitely a high point of the season. But even this is haunted by the fact that the Doctor's heart is broken and he's in willing denial, trying to start over with Marfa without really letting her know anything at all about why he won't talk about things and where he's from and what he's running from. We get some stories of Gallifrey in the end, and it sounds lovely, and we get the all important "you are not alone" that will define the end of the season, but that's not the point of this ep. The point is the Doctor being the Doctor and saving people.
Daleks in Manhattan is another issue all together. It's just not good. I'll admit that on my second watch through, it's not as bad as I remembered, but I know how bad it's going to get, and I think it's because now I know how it all goes, I can be more forgiving. There isn't the shock of it's badness smacking me in the face like before. But it's still bad. Why are there pig slaves? Why pigs? And there's no wait on the big bad's reveal. I mean, we know it's Daleks, but they're right there, plain as day, in the first fifteen minutes and that leaves nothing to the imagination and flattens any excitement the reveal might have had. The Doctor plays with a squishy jellyfish that has no purpose by to tell him where it's from, there's Tallulah who could stand to be less annoying, though I do like her love-conquers-all approach to the fact that her boyfriend's a pig now, and then-- then there's that whole crap with the Worst Villain Evar. D's reaction when he was revealed: 'seriously??', and mine back 'yeah. see?', and then he understood why we didn't want to rewatch this one. The season would be better if these two eps were just removed-- or, better yet, if they were replaced with something better. When I first watched this season as it aired, this was almost enough to make me walk away entirely, and only my love of a certain lead male kept me watching, hoping it would improve, and this two-part set is a large part of why I didn't like this season. One and two were so good, so rich, everything worked and even the dumb eps were passable, but three... three feels like it's limping, damaged, things are missing. If that's what they were aiming for, they hit it dead on. But mostly I think it was missing the joy; a heatbroken Doctor screams too much and has that horrible about-to-cry face that I can hardly stand to look at. And the lack in this season allows this ep to just fall flat.
I mostly remember series three as sub-par. I didn't love Martha (hertofore called Marfa), and I wasn't a fan of the tone of the season. But we watched all of it before introducing it to D, and we've been re-watching it in a piecemeal sort of way to catch him up with where we are now. Tonight, we watched eps three and four.
Gridlock was one of the better episodes of the season, and I did remember liking it, but I didn't remember a whole lot about the events in it. The Doctor and Marfa land on New Earth and quickly get separated, Marfa taken into the depths of permanent traffic jams and the Doctor to a Senate where only Novice Haim and The Face of Boe are still alive, and it's up to the Doctor to put everything right, as usual. The plot is fun, but it's the characters that make this episode-- Brannigan the Cat and his lovely human wife and their litter of hybrid kittens who have never seen the ground; The Sisters, who are actually a married lesbian couple who have been on the road for twenty three years; all the random characters the Doctor drops down on as he hops from car to car, looking for Marfa before Haim kidnaps him. It's fun and it's straight forward, and it's good Who. Not the best, not like Blink, but good, and definitely a high point of the season. But even this is haunted by the fact that the Doctor's heart is broken and he's in willing denial, trying to start over with Marfa without really letting her know anything at all about why he won't talk about things and where he's from and what he's running from. We get some stories of Gallifrey in the end, and it sounds lovely, and we get the all important "you are not alone" that will define the end of the season, but that's not the point of this ep. The point is the Doctor being the Doctor and saving people.
Daleks in Manhattan is another issue all together. It's just not good. I'll admit that on my second watch through, it's not as bad as I remembered, but I know how bad it's going to get, and I think it's because now I know how it all goes, I can be more forgiving. There isn't the shock of it's badness smacking me in the face like before. But it's still bad. Why are there pig slaves? Why pigs? And there's no wait on the big bad's reveal. I mean, we know it's Daleks, but they're right there, plain as day, in the first fifteen minutes and that leaves nothing to the imagination and flattens any excitement the reveal might have had. The Doctor plays with a squishy jellyfish that has no purpose by to tell him where it's from, there's Tallulah who could stand to be less annoying, though I do like her love-conquers-all approach to the fact that her boyfriend's a pig now, and then-- then there's that whole crap with the Worst Villain Evar. D's reaction when he was revealed: 'seriously??', and mine back 'yeah. see?', and then he understood why we didn't want to rewatch this one. The season would be better if these two eps were just removed-- or, better yet, if they were replaced with something better. When I first watched this season as it aired, this was almost enough to make me walk away entirely, and only my love of a certain lead male kept me watching, hoping it would improve, and this two-part set is a large part of why I didn't like this season. One and two were so good, so rich, everything worked and even the dumb eps were passable, but three... three feels like it's limping, damaged, things are missing. If that's what they were aiming for, they hit it dead on. But mostly I think it was missing the joy; a heatbroken Doctor screams too much and has that horrible about-to-cry face that I can hardly stand to look at. And the lack in this season allows this ep to just fall flat.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
side project week 5: classic who
This week brings us Planet of the Daleks!
Which totally doesn't deserve that exclamation point at all. I found it long and boring, and weird in that what-were-they-thinking way. Liquid ice that never hardens? A whole planetary core made of it? A jungle that the Daleks want to trundle around in? Plants that spit tobacco juice that makes a gross fungal coating that has nothing to do with anything except that Jo gets it and spends a big portion of the serial unconscious? Big hairy purple creatures?? A guy that Jo falls in love with, only to very easily tell him no, which he doesn't fight at all, knowing that she's leaving at the end of the next serial?
Not at all impressed. Hopefully the last Jo story will show her at her best so she can go out on a high note.
Which totally doesn't deserve that exclamation point at all. I found it long and boring, and weird in that what-were-they-thinking way. Liquid ice that never hardens? A whole planetary core made of it? A jungle that the Daleks want to trundle around in? Plants that spit tobacco juice that makes a gross fungal coating that has nothing to do with anything except that Jo gets it and spends a big portion of the serial unconscious? Big hairy purple creatures?? A guy that Jo falls in love with, only to very easily tell him no, which he doesn't fight at all, knowing that she's leaving at the end of the next serial?
Not at all impressed. Hopefully the last Jo story will show her at her best so she can go out on a high note.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Side Project Week 3: Classic Who
This week's Classic Who was Frontier in Space. In my head, it's all in diagonal font like the old b-movies. Frontier - In - SPAAAACCCEEEE!
Anyway, it's not a fav. The Doctor and Jo (still wearing her inexplicable knee-boots and capris ensemble) land on a ship that is about to be attacked by another. It's a freighter carrying tons of flour (?) and it's the latest victim of what people think are Draconian attacks. There's much running about in hallways that look mostly the same; there's much being in jail, escaping, and being back in jail; there were parts that looked very clearly as if they should have been the cliffhangers, and then weren't. We're of the opinion that the serial had to be expanded and it threw off the pacing.
Good points: Jo gets to talk more than ever before, and takes her hand at making escape plans. The Draconians are a really neat design, and the prosthetics were only a little awkward. Madam president had the neatest little space-seventies tertiary-color dresses, and new hair to coordinate with each. There were parts that looked like they were filmed in the Barbican, and I've been there.
Bad points: The Doctor is back to being condescending to Jo. The Master a-freaking-gain. Weird pacing. I felt bad for the Ogrons-- they're just sort of dull and scared and the Master keeps yelling at them and the Draconians keep killing them. The Master never has motivation for wanting to start wars or take over universes. Daleks? Huh? And there's no conclusion because it goes right into the Planet of the Daleks, which is the end of the season.
Anyway, it's not a fav. The Doctor and Jo (still wearing her inexplicable knee-boots and capris ensemble) land on a ship that is about to be attacked by another. It's a freighter carrying tons of flour (?) and it's the latest victim of what people think are Draconian attacks. There's much running about in hallways that look mostly the same; there's much being in jail, escaping, and being back in jail; there were parts that looked very clearly as if they should have been the cliffhangers, and then weren't. We're of the opinion that the serial had to be expanded and it threw off the pacing.
Good points: Jo gets to talk more than ever before, and takes her hand at making escape plans. The Draconians are a really neat design, and the prosthetics were only a little awkward. Madam president had the neatest little space-seventies tertiary-color dresses, and new hair to coordinate with each. There were parts that looked like they were filmed in the Barbican, and I've been there.
Bad points: The Doctor is back to being condescending to Jo. The Master a-freaking-gain. Weird pacing. I felt bad for the Ogrons-- they're just sort of dull and scared and the Master keeps yelling at them and the Draconians keep killing them. The Master never has motivation for wanting to start wars or take over universes. Daleks? Huh? And there's no conclusion because it goes right into the Planet of the Daleks, which is the end of the season.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Side Project Week 3
We didn't watch Classic Who last night, but we did watch Pushing Daisies in an attempt to catch up since the show is coming back so very soon after so very long a hiatus (stupid writers' strike!). I've seen all the episodes before, of course, but it was almost like watching them for the first time. I'd forgotten just how charming the show was, how vivid the world was-- entirely stylized and colorful and strange, nothing boring and normal in it at all. I want to live in Lilly and Vivian's house. I want to work at the Pie Hole. I want to look out my window and see endless miles of yellow daisies.
I hope the show stays as it is-- long breaks can break the flow, and I think it would just be a tragedy in this case. There was such a cohesive feel to these nine little episodes, such a unified idea of what was happening. I have trepedations about the new episodes more than I usually do at the start of a new series...
I hope the show stays as it is-- long breaks can break the flow, and I think it would just be a tragedy in this case. There was such a cohesive feel to these nine little episodes, such a unified idea of what was happening. I have trepedations about the new episodes more than I usually do at the start of a new series...
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Side Project Week 2: Classic Doctor Who
Up this week: Carnival of Monsters!
This one is sillier than usual, even for Classic Who. The Doctor and Jo, recently restored to free range time travel after saving the Timelords in the Three Doctors, aim for some perfect planet and wind up on a ship in the Indian ocean in 1926. In a time bubble. With a pleisiosaur. Meanwhile, intergalactic hucksters Vorg and Shirna wind up on a gray planet full of weird little gray people, trying to sell their show-- a peepshow of several species from all across the galaxy in little mini-habitats, like a traveling zoo. Three and Jo, of course, are inside the machine, and, also of course, they get out, into the guts of the device, where there is much running about. After getting into a Dashig habitat, they're chased about in high Who fashion by said Dashigs, which eventually make it into the real world after the Doctor, while Jo is still inside. The Doctor prevails and Vorg and Shirna are not thrown in jail.
Like I said, sillier than usual. Shirna sounds almost exactly like Jackie Tyler, and has eyebrows made of sequins, and Vorg looks like some sort of proto-Doctor Six with his crazy clashing outfit. His bowler hat is see through and tends to fog us under the lights. But both of them are amusing enough, the gray guys are amusing and mincing and somewhat like Ferengis, and the scenes on the ship are fun, especially since they keep repeating and somehow Jo is the only one who remembers what happened last time. Best of all, though, is the continued development of Jo as a reasoning, useful and competent human being, not just an ankle-twister.
Next week: Frontier in Space, and then only three more stories with Jo before she gives way to Sarahjane Smith.
Friday, September 12, 2008
Side Project Updates 1
classic who: the time monster / the three doctors
In the wake of the most recent season-ender for New Doctor Who and the fact that there will be no more Who until Christmas, my roomates and I have been watching our ways through the Classic Doctor Who. At this point, we're half-way through Doctor 3, John Pertwee, and into the last season of silly companion Jo Grant, so that's where I'll start our discussion.
The Time Monster is remarkably fast-paced; the old habit of having nothing happen for the first three segments of a six-segment story seems to have fallen by the wayside and been replaced with Story right off the bat. The Master is stealing ancient god-powers from Atlantis and using them to conduct time experiments in the 60s, which of course brings UNIT into the equation and gets the Doctor and Jo involved.
Overall, it's pretty neat. The monster of the title is Chronos, the Titan that apparently gave Atlantis all it's power, and manifests as a blinding-white bird-winged monster which is far cooler when all you get is an impression of it so you can't see how low the budget was, and who has a habit of knocking people out of time on the Master's command. Jo gets a little volition of her own, as well as the ability to retain information and figure things out, and it's nice to see Jo being something other than a flake who twists her ankle and gets in trouble-- I mean, she's supposed to be an agent of UNIT, right? Atlantis is apparently full of the worst actors they could find, and everyone is far too in love with hair-crimping and an aesthetic that looks like an early version of Abydos from SG1, but the Minotaur (played by original Vader sans James Earl Jones voice for extra geek points) was neat, and the sets were almost definitely borrowed from some other show because they were huge and detailed.
The Three Doctors is just silly, but in a fun way, like all the Doctor-meets-himself storylines. Doctor Three is sent by the Time Lords to fix a power-draining black hole after a weird anti-matter blob starts stealing things from Earth, and as they have their hands full with the drain, the only help they can send him comes in the form of his previous selves. Lots of bickering about who's better and how to handle the situation ensues. It's worth it to see the Doctor using his sometimes-forgotten-about telepathy and the way the Brigadier just can't handle having two Doctors around while Benton accepts it easily.
When we finally get everyone through the blackhole to an anti-universe, we get Omega (pronounced more like OO-meh-gah), who is downright funny in his overacting and his woe-is-me emo-ness, and his blobby-bubbly-crab thing henchmen. All in a gravel quarry, in high Who fashion. There is much running about, much sciencing of the fiction, everyone is separated up and then brought back together, and the Doctor(s) stops the villain with a trick, not a weapon, though it amounts to the same.
Cute, and fun, and again Jo gets some better writing, but definitely more silly then good, and a prime example of how you have to watch Classic Who for the rediculousness sometimes, like watching old movies that might wind up on MST3K.
comics: the collected ninth doctor stories
I recently got my hands on a copy of these stories, and they were charming. The art was a little weird sometimes, but you could always see the Christopher Eccleston-ness of the Doctor, and Rose always looked distinctively Rose-like. They defeated villains, they ran about, they inspired people, they saved the world and they saved individuals, they bantered and they cared about each other and it was a perfect collection to remind me why I liked the first season of Nu Who so much. The Ninth Doctor was war-scarred and darker then the previous eight (except maybe six; I've only seen a little of him, so I can't judge just yet), but he was also silly and mouthy and really in love with the Universe, and he really really cared about Rose, and all of that comes through perfectly.
up next:
Later tonight after Atlantis airs, we'll have the weekly round-up, and then we'll see what happens as we wait for Roundup 2!
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