skywaterblue (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
skywaterblue) wrote2009-11-09 12:59 pm
skywaterblue) wrote2009-11-09 12:59 pm
Entry tags:
This Post Is Mainly About Doctor Who:
Actually, I'm going to try and get through some real life announcements first:
The selling of the zine at the Vegas Valley Comic Fest went well. I sold about twelve copies and gave out some freebies to the publishers (as you do) who were not THAT interested but polite about it (as they are). I was kind of bummed about it, but that's life, you gotta keep chipping at it to get shit done. If you for some reason want a copy, it will be up on etsy in a bit for three bucks, and you'll be able to pick one up at Alternate Reality in Las Vegas, and Chicago Comics/Quimbys as soon as I have the time to run some more off and send them out, etc.
Anyway, Abby and Joe and I had a good time, despite the fact I had slept all of six hours in the last 72 and was about to kill someone to eat their flesh. (Or fall asleep over my drawing board, one or the other.)
Now to Doctor Who shit. Before "The Waters of Mars" airs, I just want to mourn the death of my long strangled ditch-baby spec script.
It was called "Wolves of Europa" and involved the Doctor and Donna arriving on a UNIT research base on Europa, looking for what else, life on other worlds. It was also an homage to all those Troughton 'we're on a space station in the near future!' episodes. The Europan seawolves were like these ocean snakes that lived off of pure energy from the planet's core or seavents or whatever, and they attacked the base for the electricity it was running off.
The plot twist was that the girl they ran into tricked the Doctor into going back in time and causing a casualty loop out of selfishness due to the fact that the base commander, her dad, and the lead scientist, her crush, didn't notice she existed. And it was the paradox energy that had attracted the monsters.
At the end, it involved a show-down in front of the lifepod between two versions of the girl - the one who the Doctor and Donna had rescued in the beginning and had seen everyone die because of the wolves, and the one who had been running around with them for the rest of the episode. The Bad Version does something to short herself out - 'causing the others to escape in the rescue pod and the Doctor and Donna to drop the Good Version back on Earth with the horrible punishment that now she really HAS been erased from time and none of the people on the Base will ever remember her.
Anyway. I quit working on it some time in March when it became apparent that "The Waters of Mars" was also going to be a homage to near-future 'we're on a space station!' episodes. AND now it looks like it has some timey-wimey paradox ending too.
I'm not saying mine is better than RTD's, because quite frankly, mine has some epic plotholes where even diagramming couldn't help me figure out how the timey-wimey worked. I just think it's a hilarious story that I will tell you all now for bragging rights.
Now some reviews of TV:
Sarah Jane Adventures: This week's baddie was a Time Lord in Disguise. That makes two Time Lords in Disguise this season. I actually thought it was kind of boring, missed Luke a lot. As usual, Clyde had all the best lines. The Aspie Science Kid was annoying.
Merlin: Jesus fucking Christ were the Troll episodes a waste of time, which is all I have to say about them. Well, actually, Uther making out with the troll was kind of brain bleachy too, despite the fact you knew the show was gonna go there.
I really thought they might off Gaius this episode and they didn't do that. Gaius is an annoyingly fascinating character in that he's been plot redundant since the end of the first season, BUT the show is keeping around because he's a regular. Gaius himself seems to have very little regard for his life - one suspects that every night that character goes to bed realizing he could die the next day for Morgana or Merlin and being OKAY with that.
And at the same time, the show makes a big deal out of the fact that Merlin loves him to bits as a father-figure even though Merlin is ALSO AWARE but unwilling to deal with the fact that Gaius makes bad choices. He's submissive to Uther when he shouldn't be, and trusts him more than he should for no good reason - which quite honestly, puts Merlin and Gaius both into far more danger than they are ever actually in using magic surreptitiously.
To the show's credit, I think the writing staff knows this and hence the big confrontation at the end of this one. Anyway. It was quite dark, and not exactly enjoyable mainly because it's hard to care if Gaius lives or dies when the character himself seems fine with it either way.
I did like the scene where Gwen called back to when her own father got falsely accused and executed, to persuade Arthur to intervene in the situation. It worked really well.
Next week looks really awesome, though, because shit's about to go down.
Mad Men:
I had two predictions: one, that Betty was going to leave Don for Henry (correct) and two, I thought Don was going to get fired at the end of the season. Which... sort of happened but not really, eh?
Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce is an AWESOME firm name. I basically adored the shit out of this episode and even fell over laughing at one point. (Roger accidentally drops the truth about Betty and Henry - Don realizes he totally got played. LOL.) I'm quite glad that Pryce is going to stick around. I think he's a good addition to the cast.
I unexpectedly quite love Trudy and Pete. They're too cute. I hope Pete stops being a complete cad and cheating on her with other women. Though I do think that he has all the makings of a forty year old sexual predator. (You THINK the au pair thing was bad, just wait until he has some real power and wealth of his own.)
I also don't hate Betty. First, because I think 'liking' or 'disliking' a character on Mad Men is kind of a pointless activity - the show is not about you getting a rush because the characters are doing something you approve. I think Betty is one of those examples of most of the people watching it not getting it, even as I acknowledge that they push the boundaries of how unlikable a character can be with her just about every episode. I'm glad she's getting the fuck out, I think Henry might be a better choice for her than we all think. It would be TOTALLY hilarious if by the end of the series, she was a hardcore feminist who quotes Betty Fredian and runs for office herself, forcing all the haters to have a hard choice.
Though I think this leaving thing is problematic in that I'm not sure that being wife-of-Henry and ex-wife of Don is enough screentime to justify keeping her around.
Peggy got to be super awesome tonight too, in that she laid out for Don what she does and doesn't like about their relationship in a firm way. We'll see if he learns anything from it, though I'm doubtful.
Unlike others, I have no real love for Joan, though I'm glad she's back. The storyline with the teacher who Don was fucking is just hanging out there - I kind of hope we don't see her again. Now Don's free to pursue some of the women that seem more his type, the liberated powerful protofeminists with creative careers. I want to see a Rachel Menken redux, but this time there can be actual consequences.
Some more predictions: I think we'll have a big time jump next season - at least a year. Why? I think for practical reasons they'll want to save money by redressing the existing set to be the new firm. Though it does mean we'll miss a lot of potentially important, interesting stuff. (Goldwater's Presidential campaign which presumably Henry will be involved in, the Beatles, LBJ signing the Civil Right Act.)
Pointedly, I don't actually think Weiner cares if he shows the big events everyone's expecting him to check off the list. I think he would have skipped the JFK assassination if he thought he could get away with it.
In fact, I think the first shot of the new firm will have black faces in it, to signal the new change. I think Sal will be back, but I hope Weiner sticks to this reboot and cuts down on the familiar faces. Even if that means losing my beloved Paul Kinsey, office liberal douchebag. (He's still my favorite.)
I think we'll see more of Duck Phillips as the rival firm. In fact, maybe Kinsey and the other guys are there and angry about it.
Betty will be with Henry but it will be problematic because it will turn out this is not be the life she wanted either.
Looking forward to next year!
The selling of the zine at the Vegas Valley Comic Fest went well. I sold about twelve copies and gave out some freebies to the publishers (as you do) who were not THAT interested but polite about it (as they are). I was kind of bummed about it, but that's life, you gotta keep chipping at it to get shit done. If you for some reason want a copy, it will be up on etsy in a bit for three bucks, and you'll be able to pick one up at Alternate Reality in Las Vegas, and Chicago Comics/Quimbys as soon as I have the time to run some more off and send them out, etc.
Anyway, Abby and Joe and I had a good time, despite the fact I had slept all of six hours in the last 72 and was about to kill someone to eat their flesh. (Or fall asleep over my drawing board, one or the other.)
Now to Doctor Who shit. Before "The Waters of Mars" airs, I just want to mourn the death of my long strangled ditch-baby spec script.
It was called "Wolves of Europa" and involved the Doctor and Donna arriving on a UNIT research base on Europa, looking for what else, life on other worlds. It was also an homage to all those Troughton 'we're on a space station in the near future!' episodes. The Europan seawolves were like these ocean snakes that lived off of pure energy from the planet's core or seavents or whatever, and they attacked the base for the electricity it was running off.
The plot twist was that the girl they ran into tricked the Doctor into going back in time and causing a casualty loop out of selfishness due to the fact that the base commander, her dad, and the lead scientist, her crush, didn't notice she existed. And it was the paradox energy that had attracted the monsters.
At the end, it involved a show-down in front of the lifepod between two versions of the girl - the one who the Doctor and Donna had rescued in the beginning and had seen everyone die because of the wolves, and the one who had been running around with them for the rest of the episode. The Bad Version does something to short herself out - 'causing the others to escape in the rescue pod and the Doctor and Donna to drop the Good Version back on Earth with the horrible punishment that now she really HAS been erased from time and none of the people on the Base will ever remember her.
Anyway. I quit working on it some time in March when it became apparent that "The Waters of Mars" was also going to be a homage to near-future 'we're on a space station!' episodes. AND now it looks like it has some timey-wimey paradox ending too.
I'm not saying mine is better than RTD's, because quite frankly, mine has some epic plotholes where even diagramming couldn't help me figure out how the timey-wimey worked. I just think it's a hilarious story that I will tell you all now for bragging rights.
Now some reviews of TV:
Sarah Jane Adventures: This week's baddie was a Time Lord in Disguise. That makes two Time Lords in Disguise this season. I actually thought it was kind of boring, missed Luke a lot. As usual, Clyde had all the best lines. The Aspie Science Kid was annoying.
Merlin: Jesus fucking Christ were the Troll episodes a waste of time, which is all I have to say about them. Well, actually, Uther making out with the troll was kind of brain bleachy too, despite the fact you knew the show was gonna go there.
I really thought they might off Gaius this episode and they didn't do that. Gaius is an annoyingly fascinating character in that he's been plot redundant since the end of the first season, BUT the show is keeping around because he's a regular. Gaius himself seems to have very little regard for his life - one suspects that every night that character goes to bed realizing he could die the next day for Morgana or Merlin and being OKAY with that.
And at the same time, the show makes a big deal out of the fact that Merlin loves him to bits as a father-figure even though Merlin is ALSO AWARE but unwilling to deal with the fact that Gaius makes bad choices. He's submissive to Uther when he shouldn't be, and trusts him more than he should for no good reason - which quite honestly, puts Merlin and Gaius both into far more danger than they are ever actually in using magic surreptitiously.
To the show's credit, I think the writing staff knows this and hence the big confrontation at the end of this one. Anyway. It was quite dark, and not exactly enjoyable mainly because it's hard to care if Gaius lives or dies when the character himself seems fine with it either way.
I did like the scene where Gwen called back to when her own father got falsely accused and executed, to persuade Arthur to intervene in the situation. It worked really well.
Next week looks really awesome, though, because shit's about to go down.
Mad Men:
I had two predictions: one, that Betty was going to leave Don for Henry (correct) and two, I thought Don was going to get fired at the end of the season. Which... sort of happened but not really, eh?
Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce is an AWESOME firm name. I basically adored the shit out of this episode and even fell over laughing at one point. (Roger accidentally drops the truth about Betty and Henry - Don realizes he totally got played. LOL.) I'm quite glad that Pryce is going to stick around. I think he's a good addition to the cast.
I unexpectedly quite love Trudy and Pete. They're too cute. I hope Pete stops being a complete cad and cheating on her with other women. Though I do think that he has all the makings of a forty year old sexual predator. (You THINK the au pair thing was bad, just wait until he has some real power and wealth of his own.)
I also don't hate Betty. First, because I think 'liking' or 'disliking' a character on Mad Men is kind of a pointless activity - the show is not about you getting a rush because the characters are doing something you approve. I think Betty is one of those examples of most of the people watching it not getting it, even as I acknowledge that they push the boundaries of how unlikable a character can be with her just about every episode. I'm glad she's getting the fuck out, I think Henry might be a better choice for her than we all think. It would be TOTALLY hilarious if by the end of the series, she was a hardcore feminist who quotes Betty Fredian and runs for office herself, forcing all the haters to have a hard choice.
Though I think this leaving thing is problematic in that I'm not sure that being wife-of-Henry and ex-wife of Don is enough screentime to justify keeping her around.
Peggy got to be super awesome tonight too, in that she laid out for Don what she does and doesn't like about their relationship in a firm way. We'll see if he learns anything from it, though I'm doubtful.
Unlike others, I have no real love for Joan, though I'm glad she's back. The storyline with the teacher who Don was fucking is just hanging out there - I kind of hope we don't see her again. Now Don's free to pursue some of the women that seem more his type, the liberated powerful protofeminists with creative careers. I want to see a Rachel Menken redux, but this time there can be actual consequences.
Some more predictions: I think we'll have a big time jump next season - at least a year. Why? I think for practical reasons they'll want to save money by redressing the existing set to be the new firm. Though it does mean we'll miss a lot of potentially important, interesting stuff. (Goldwater's Presidential campaign which presumably Henry will be involved in, the Beatles, LBJ signing the Civil Right Act.)
Pointedly, I don't actually think Weiner cares if he shows the big events everyone's expecting him to check off the list. I think he would have skipped the JFK assassination if he thought he could get away with it.
In fact, I think the first shot of the new firm will have black faces in it, to signal the new change. I think Sal will be back, but I hope Weiner sticks to this reboot and cuts down on the familiar faces. Even if that means losing my beloved Paul Kinsey, office liberal douchebag. (He's still my favorite.)
I think we'll see more of Duck Phillips as the rival firm. In fact, maybe Kinsey and the other guys are there and angry about it.
Betty will be with Henry but it will be problematic because it will turn out this is not be the life she wanted either.
Looking forward to next year!