![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Sunday night and I need to get to bed because I have class tomorrow, I have to start my jogging program and I'm flying to Bournemouth Tuesday, so there's stuff to do to make that happen as well. Also, I need to be up and about in time to cook breakfast for myself tomorrow morning (making lunch wouldn't hurt either). So, a brief note on recent activities and then bed.
This weekend was fairly quiet. Met fellow Int'ls from my course in Blackrock for coffee, dinner and then we went to the pub to watch France lose to England in the Rugby World Cup semi, which was a bit of a bummer, since I've developed a crush of Sebastien Chabal, the massive French forward with the long hair and scary prophet beard. R and I called him "Evil Jesus" and would exhort the ball to "Come to Jesus" and basically were silly. French defeat aside, it was a fun night.
Today was spent asleep and going up to town to see Black Sheep, a horror comedy about mutant, cannibal, zombie were-sheep. It was brilliant and gross as all hell - I watched most of the second half through my t-shirt.
On the way home, I grabbed a lamb schwarma (doing my part to keep the ovine population down) and the papers.
Recent media consumed: Grey's Anatomy 4x03, Pushing Daisies 1x02, Ugly Betty 2x03, Private Practice 1x03, and all of Bionic Woman (mostly on fastforward because, really, you think I'm going to watch Isaiah Washington be all fake mentory when I could be watching Katee Sackhoff chew scenery?).
So far, the clear winner of the season is Pushing Daisies, which managed to be sweet and whimsical for a second straight week. And there was a musical number to boot! PD deserves praise for going balls-out and giving Kristin Chenoweth a moment to shine.
I came to the realization while watching Private Practice that ( I don't give a shit about any of the characters )
As for Grey's Anatomy, ( while the episode was fine, why does Shonda Rhymes hate women? )
But when all seems lost, there's always Ugly Betty FTW. It just makes me happy, partly I think because even though there's a definite 'lesson' in each episode, the characters themselves remain human - even the camp ones - and there are no overnight conversions or "hallelujah" moments. Nothing comes too easily and it grounds the show's otherwise delightfully soap operatic tone in just enough reality to keep me interested and empathetic towards the characters. Also, Ashley Jensen is always spot-on brilliant and never fails to make me laugh.
Finally, there is NBC's Bionic Woman, which is nothing like the Lindsay Wagner version I grew up watching as a kid. ( I don't know if that's a good thing or not )
The current remake borrows the name and general premise (woman suffers tramautic injuries and is saved by cybernetic technology). The rah-rah 'Sisters are doing it for themselves' subtext from the original is almost entirely absent and, while this is probably a good thing, the fact that the titular character is a borderline whiny, directionless, amorphous creation who's most distinct characteristic to date is her attachment to the teenaged sister she's raising is most certainly not. Moreover it's apparently this Jaime's ability to nurture that distinguishes her from her nemesis, Sarah Corvus, the "first" bionic woman. Basically, 30 years after Lindsay Wagner first hoisted a VW bus about her head, this Bionic Woman tells us that a woman's "mommy instinct" is all that keeps her from becoming a dangerously deranged and detached killing machine.
Oh, yeah, we've come a long way, baby.
Fortunately, Western Civilization may be spared the worst of David Eick's dubious "feminist" impulses as a writer because the Bionic Woman pilot sucked ass. ( Does David Eick Hate Women? (spoilers) )
Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately if you're a BW writer, ( Katee Sackhoff is seven kinds of awesome )
Finally, I haz grafficks progrum. Oh, hi. I makes iconz now.
*It has to be noted that BW reportedly has one of the most unstable writers rooms in LaLaland; Jason Katims (Roswell, Friday Night Lights) has been brought in to take over and original writer Laeta Kalogridis (Birds of Prey) and then her replacement Jason Smilovic (Karen Sisco) have left the show and I suspect that pretty much everything presented in the pilot except for the fact that Jaime Sommers got bionic implants is now in play. Kalogridis is no loss - BoP was a disappointment from start to finish and her other credits include such great works as the Vikings vs. Indians steaming pile of shit, Pathfinder. Smilovic, otoh, was the head writer on Karen Sisco, Carla Gugino's short-lived Out of Sight spin off. While KS didn't entirely escape the 'strong woman in the office, fucking wreck in the home' stereotype, KS came closer than any other show of the last five years (except Veronica Mars) to portraying a woman in law enforcement who was both a kick ass cop (marshal) and actually happy and content in her admittedly imperfect private life. I would have been interested to see what he brought to BW. OTOH, Katims, despite some truly shit work in his background - like seasons two and three of Roswell - has shown a surprisingly deft and nuanced hand on Friday Night Lights. If Katims has anything to do with how the women on that show are portrayed - particularly Mrs. Coach (Connie Britton, who is six kinds of awesome in the role) - that can only mean good things for BW.
**You could argue, for example, that empathy is Superman's chief motivation - he cares and that's why he does what he does. He's also an iconic, well-rounded, full-fleshed character and even that doesn't preclude shit awful Superman stories from being written: see examples a) Smallville and b> Superman Returns, which I loved despite it's flaws.
This weekend was fairly quiet. Met fellow Int'ls from my course in Blackrock for coffee, dinner and then we went to the pub to watch France lose to England in the Rugby World Cup semi, which was a bit of a bummer, since I've developed a crush of Sebastien Chabal, the massive French forward with the long hair and scary prophet beard. R and I called him "Evil Jesus" and would exhort the ball to "Come to Jesus" and basically were silly. French defeat aside, it was a fun night.
Today was spent asleep and going up to town to see Black Sheep, a horror comedy about mutant, cannibal, zombie were-sheep. It was brilliant and gross as all hell - I watched most of the second half through my t-shirt.
On the way home, I grabbed a lamb schwarma (doing my part to keep the ovine population down) and the papers.
Recent media consumed: Grey's Anatomy 4x03, Pushing Daisies 1x02, Ugly Betty 2x03, Private Practice 1x03, and all of Bionic Woman (mostly on fastforward because, really, you think I'm going to watch Isaiah Washington be all fake mentory when I could be watching Katee Sackhoff chew scenery?).
So far, the clear winner of the season is Pushing Daisies, which managed to be sweet and whimsical for a second straight week. And there was a musical number to boot! PD deserves praise for going balls-out and giving Kristin Chenoweth a moment to shine.
I came to the realization while watching Private Practice that ( I don't give a shit about any of the characters )
As for Grey's Anatomy, ( while the episode was fine, why does Shonda Rhymes hate women? )
But when all seems lost, there's always Ugly Betty FTW. It just makes me happy, partly I think because even though there's a definite 'lesson' in each episode, the characters themselves remain human - even the camp ones - and there are no overnight conversions or "hallelujah" moments. Nothing comes too easily and it grounds the show's otherwise delightfully soap operatic tone in just enough reality to keep me interested and empathetic towards the characters. Also, Ashley Jensen is always spot-on brilliant and never fails to make me laugh.
Finally, there is NBC's Bionic Woman, which is nothing like the Lindsay Wagner version I grew up watching as a kid. ( I don't know if that's a good thing or not )
The current remake borrows the name and general premise (woman suffers tramautic injuries and is saved by cybernetic technology). The rah-rah 'Sisters are doing it for themselves' subtext from the original is almost entirely absent and, while this is probably a good thing, the fact that the titular character is a borderline whiny, directionless, amorphous creation who's most distinct characteristic to date is her attachment to the teenaged sister she's raising is most certainly not. Moreover it's apparently this Jaime's ability to nurture that distinguishes her from her nemesis, Sarah Corvus, the "first" bionic woman. Basically, 30 years after Lindsay Wagner first hoisted a VW bus about her head, this Bionic Woman tells us that a woman's "mommy instinct" is all that keeps her from becoming a dangerously deranged and detached killing machine.
Oh, yeah, we've come a long way, baby.
Fortunately, Western Civilization may be spared the worst of David Eick's dubious "feminist" impulses as a writer because the Bionic Woman pilot sucked ass. ( Does David Eick Hate Women? (spoilers) )
Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately if you're a BW writer, ( Katee Sackhoff is seven kinds of awesome )
Finally, I haz grafficks progrum. Oh, hi. I makes iconz now.
*It has to be noted that BW reportedly has one of the most unstable writers rooms in LaLaland; Jason Katims (Roswell, Friday Night Lights) has been brought in to take over and original writer Laeta Kalogridis (Birds of Prey) and then her replacement Jason Smilovic (Karen Sisco) have left the show and I suspect that pretty much everything presented in the pilot except for the fact that Jaime Sommers got bionic implants is now in play. Kalogridis is no loss - BoP was a disappointment from start to finish and her other credits include such great works as the Vikings vs. Indians steaming pile of shit, Pathfinder. Smilovic, otoh, was the head writer on Karen Sisco, Carla Gugino's short-lived Out of Sight spin off. While KS didn't entirely escape the 'strong woman in the office, fucking wreck in the home' stereotype, KS came closer than any other show of the last five years (except Veronica Mars) to portraying a woman in law enforcement who was both a kick ass cop (marshal) and actually happy and content in her admittedly imperfect private life. I would have been interested to see what he brought to BW. OTOH, Katims, despite some truly shit work in his background - like seasons two and three of Roswell - has shown a surprisingly deft and nuanced hand on Friday Night Lights. If Katims has anything to do with how the women on that show are portrayed - particularly Mrs. Coach (Connie Britton, who is six kinds of awesome in the role) - that can only mean good things for BW.
**You could argue, for example, that empathy is Superman's chief motivation - he cares and that's why he does what he does. He's also an iconic, well-rounded, full-fleshed character and even that doesn't preclude shit awful Superman stories from being written: see examples a) Smallville and b> Superman Returns, which I loved despite it's flaws.