Life on Queen Street

Adapted from various places around Elle-Jay:

1) List 10 characters of any gender (I went for a 50-50 split, which tilted the list a little shippy YMMV):

1. Sarah Connor
2. Veronica Mars
3. Sam Carter
4. Aeryn Sun
5. Helen Magnus
6. Kyle Reese
7. John Crichton
8. Teal'c
9. John Druitt
10. Logan Echolls (it was a coin-toss between Logan and Wallace. I went for the angst over the pure of heart. And I hate myself just a little for it)

2) Write a fic of 25 words or less for each of the following prompts:
( Pick your characters before you read the prompt list )

3) Write 12 fics totalling not more than 300 words:
( Here Be 11 Very Short Ficlets and one longer ficlet: Farscape, The Terminator, Stargate SG-1, Sanctuary, Veronica Mars )

Oh, dear.

Kristen Bell has been awarded, if that's the right term, her own tag on GoFugYourself.

Personally, I blame Catholic school. I've heard from those with reason to know that it's hard to figure out how to dress yourself for formal occasions when you've spent your formative years in kilts and cardigans, surrounded by other girls wearing kilts and cardigans, high school teachers, and, well, nuns.

Not that I'm any fashion plate (my how-to-dress book would be called "After That Time My Friends Held an Intervention About My Blue and White Plaid Flannel Shirt, I Stopped Dressing Like a Lumberjack"), then again I do know that ruffles belong on tuxedo shirts circa 1974 and not your little black cocktail dress so we'll split the difference and call it even.

AIGH! DUDE! INAPPROPRIATE! YOU'RE GOING TO BLIND WALLACE!!!

1) I have just posited my first online theorem, which I call Barnum's Law of Online Intelligence: the level of discourse, maturity and courtesy in any online forum is equal to the mean age and intelligence of the lowest third of its members. AKA TWoP's Law (the original version of Barnum's Law: "You'll never go broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public” - see The Search for the Next Pussy Cat Doll).

2) Veronica Mars last night was fun but not awesome - what was up with the happy ending there, Thomas? But the episode did successfully incorporated all my favourite VM characters and some good detecting moments which bumps its grade to a solid B despite being a little light on Teh Noir.

3) The ratings for last night's VM sucked - as expected. Everyone who didn't watch: you all also suck.

4) I am fairly resigned to VM being cancelled. I don't think that in all fairness you can expect The CW to continue to pay for a program that consistently underperforms in the ratings the way VM does, even a show like VM, which is The CW's best reviewed show and arguably its most high-profile product.

5) I don't think the fault lies with Rob Thomas or VMstaff: Veronica Mars, like Friday Night Lights, is the kind of show that will never do well on US network television.

Like Hollywood in the depression, US network TV is built on providing a certain level of escapism from current events. During the recession of the 80s, that meant outrageous, soapy offerings about the impossibly rich like Dallas and Dynasty. Today, it's Heroes, CSI and Grey's Anatomy - the fantasy of material wealth has been replaced by spiritual wealth: progressive narrative diegeses peopled by characters that are well-intentioned, proficient, honest and compassionate, and villains that are easy to spot. The narrative worlds of Friday Night Lights and Veronica Mars hew closer to the reality of contemporary American experience, full of unease, uncertainty, diminished expectations and limited opportunities both literally (Friday Night Lights) and metaphorically (Veronica Mars). The potential success of both shows on network TV is therefore limited at the outset by the stories they chose to tell.

Sometimes, just to torture myself, I wonder about the show Veronica Mars would have been if it had been picked up by a cable outlet like Showtime (Dexter) or HBO (Deadwood, Rome, The Sopranos) where a different audience and a different business model might have suited VM's California Noir vision much better.

6) How does a girl get over stomach turning literary works of nasty, nihilistic cannibals: Grey's Anatomy, lots and lots of Grey's Anatomy (see 5) above).

I'm torn between growing respect for Shondra Rhimes as a plotter and showrunner (watch all 60 or so episodes of Grey's Anatomy in a week and it becomes increasingly apparent that she really did have the George & Izzie hook-up in her back pocket all along) and wondering about her judgement - seriously, you think Grey's Anatomy needed more adultery? Seriously?

Even if Rhimes created Callie Torres specifically to be George's rebound girl (which would suck BTW because Sara Ramirez is awesome although it would explain why the character is so schizoid: crazy insecure, pushy, needy and irrational with George, awesome with everyone else - except Izzie, natch) we needed to see George cheat on his wife why again?

One of Rhimes' strengths is that she's fine with letting her characters be unlikeable but there's a difference between staying true to a story by allowing your characters to do stupid, unlikeable things and manipulating a storyline for effect - *cough*cuttingtheLVADwire*cough* I think Rhimes has veered further and further into the latter category ever since the bomb-in-the-guy's-chest episode last year and that's not good. However, I'm withholding judgement on George & Izzie until the season finale: 1) I so called that hook up back in season one; 2) the progression from friends to drunken sex to emotional affair has been pretty well written and really well acted, so I want to see how it plays out before rendering judgement upon it.

1) The sewage she is gone from my bathroom. Alas, I still have to clean it, my rugs, my bath buddy, my slippers and, oh, heck - just about all my laundry and most of the rest of the apartment. Boo. Sucks.

2) The only thing worse than turning on your TV to discover another school massacre is to to turn on your TV to discover another pointless discussion of the gun registry. Yes, how terrible awful that people should have to inform the government that they own a gun. I mean it's not like we licence cars or anything. How about this, when I rule the universe, I'm taking all your guns away and then you'll really have something to complain about, eh? Until then just STFU.

3) Mike Duffy? Seriously - you're so on my "Shovels and Stakes" list. There should be some sort of law against that degree of pompous gasbaggery perpetrated on TV by somone who's not Rex Murphy.

4) Veronica Mars fandom and Superhero comic books - I love VM and I love Batman but about 84.69 per cent of VM "fandom" and the fanboy/creator circle jerk that is the Big Two these days makes me yearn for a cattleprod and an airlock to call my own.
   - Note that this doesn't stop me from a) haning around VM fandom or b) reading comics because that would be...
     oh, I don't know... smart?

5) Oh, BBC - Doctor Who, Torchwood and Life on Mars: if it weren't for you, I'd be forced to go read a book and then I'd be really difficult to get along with.

---

On a different subject entirely, as much as I love Batgirl in all her variations, this is just not right.

Also, Fafblog just blomitted about 30 entries from 2006 on my friends' page - dude, it's not cool to spam the flist.

From TVguide.com:

• Episode 2 of the CW's The Search for the Next Pussycat Doll (2.52 million) was down 1.3 mil from the premiere, delivering 220,000 fewer viewers than the most recent Veronica Mars.

Whoo. Hoo.

If they do cancel Veronica Mars it will be a shame because I think they're getting better at writing the mysteries. I was concerned but the shorter arcs are definitely the way to go.

( Also well played )

Gah....

Gah....

Gah...

Gah-ot to be kidding me!!!

( SPOILER )

There a came a moment this morning, in between reading Battlestar Galactica fluff-fic and reading the daily correspondence, that the music on my iPod insinuated itself into my consciousness and I realized that, yes, I was listening to a Belle and Sebastian song about laundry. And that I was bopping along in my desk chair - it's the little things that add colour to our lives.

After I finished watching Rome last night (a disappointing episode except for Vorenus and Pullo and Octavia's weirdly matter-of-fact approach to her mother's latest atrocity adventure), I switched to Veronica Mars. After the horror of last week's promo, I was justifiably apprehensive but instead "There's Got to Be a Morning After Pill" turned out to be one of the best episodes of Veronica Mars ever, with the sneakiness, Father-Daughter hijinks, sly wit, continuity porn and fine writing and performances that I have come to expect from VM - certainly the best episode so far this season.

Now, if only they lure Wallace out of that motel he's locked himself in while teaching himself mechanical engineering...

I am just not sure that I like Neko Case's solo album.

Hmm. It's either totally awesome or very so-emo-I-could-die and I can't really decide which way to jump on this question.

Ugly Betty is a rerun tonight, which makes me sad. Grey's Anatomy isn't but I'm feeling "soooo over" GA right now - I think I have bigot burnout.

On that subject, since when did they send you to rehab for being an asshole? And if so, should I start wearing my good undies so that I'm not embarassed when they come to lock me away?

I really, really, really liked the last episodes of Veronica Mars and Battlestar Galactica - Rome, while good, is starting to make me nervous with it's deviations from the historical timeline. And... any other thoughts I might have have to wait as I'm about to miss my bus - for frak's sake.

eta - can anyone on my flist point me towars Lee, Helo and Sam icons? Preferably all three of them together? I'm developing a fetish.