skywaterblue

Vikings, a History Channel (yes, really) drama that loosely adapt the Ragnar Lothbrok legend for American audiences is a show that shouldn't work for American audiences. There is no brook given for the Viking culture: characters fervently believe in the Gods of the Aesir and willingly participate in human sacrifice without moralizing judgement. Characters rape and plunder, they slaughter Christian priests with abandon and you hope they pull it off. One woman serves as a shield-maid while the other is a high noble's wife; no one in the Earldom finds either role exceptional enough to comment on the differences in their choices, and Ragnar's right-hand man Floki is an inventor and wiseman who appears to be a priest of Loki at the bare minimum.

Very little explanation is given to fill the audience in; you either sink or swim and every episode produces a little alien shock as you get thrust into a cultural situation played out in full by the rules of the Viking world. Characters die frequently on the battlefield, and from illness and mishaps. They make choices no modern human would make, see the Gods in trees and despite this, are surprisingly magnetic.

It is also surprisingly pacey, even for a nine-episode first season. Each three episodes roughly become their own arc, the first being about a plan Ragnar has hatched with Floki to navigate to "the West" - England, a previously unaccomplished goal which the Earl they have sword fielty to has expressly forbidden.

I also want to give special notice to Travis Fimmel as the lead; a former underwear model, he is the dead-sexy kind of lead that I usually associate as being chosen for empty eyed beefcake rather than lead performance. He's actually shockingly, stunningly good at keeping Ragnar from devolving into either pure Magnificent Bastard territory or Woobieism. He's both a man oozing with daring ambition, a good family man, and at once perfectly aligned with his culture. You can't trust him for a minute, but you sure would like to...

Reviewing media things is the only thing I'm doing with this journal lately. Still. Let's go.

1. ( Pirates Four )

2. Doctor Who was good this week, but you should never review them until the second part. Sure, it's mostly a hash of a bunch of different science fiction stories, but if you must rip, rip shamelessly and from the best. There's some subtle character choices and at least one really nice scare. Looking forward to the next part. Gulp. Almost at that season divide already?

3. This week's Game of Thrones was the best one yet! Script by Jane Esperson. Of course. ( Golden Crown )

4. A little fandom wank: Joshua Malina, of Sports Night and Will Bailey fame, apparently made a fake Bradley Whitford twitter account tonight and has spent the day trolling gullible fans. Which is a terrible thing to do, no less to spoof a divorced father of three by following NAMBLA and joking about his ex-wife. Yo dude, there's a line, and it was WAY THE FUCK BACK THERE. Also, dude, you're not a good enough actor for me to find that funny and if I were involved in hiring you, you wouldn't be.

5. Speaking of, Bradley Whitford has some serious alimony issues or something because he's been on three guest spots in less than a week. I always look forward to seeing him on TV and the first two roles were awesome, but he could do a lot better than Slimy Defense Lawyer of the Week on a Law and Order Spinoff.

1. I am reading Game of Thrones, but very very slowly. It's not that interesting to me and often I will read one chapter and be like 'that was great' and then the very next chapter will have me saying 'and that was complete shit'. I think this may be one of those books where if I was LESS well-read in the genre I would be more impressed, because mainly what I keep thinking is that it's basically a Very Good YA Novel. I think many of the books fans would choose to object to me and say 'but you can't do that and that in a YA book' and a. that isn't true now and b. wasn't that true back then either.

( These aren't really spoilers, but I'm cutting for length. )

2. I am sorry to say I thought the pilot episode for the Game of Thrones TV show to be poorly done. Very adapted by the numbers. One of the big problems with adapting this show is that all of the book is written via the perspective of a character. And that character (at least at the point of the book I'm in) is an obvious authorial stand-in. They observe which characters are evil slimy bastards and the narrating character is So Obviously Correct About It. And a lot of times I find that decision authorially boring. Like, wouldn't it be way more interesting to see that wedding from the eyes of Dany's brother?

This runs into even more problems in the TV show, which has some appallingly poor edits in the pilot that break up any tension the scene was developing. More than the info dumping, what the producers of this show need to develop is a sense of POV perspective when they write and film these scenes to match (or alter) the book.

It's not like the author's great skill is in dialogue here. There's some witty lines but it's not Mamet or anything, guys. (And tragically, the script and directing fucking /dumps/ all over what wit was in the book to begin with leaving the actors stepping all over the good lines.)

So anyway. It's got some problems besides its issue with the male gaze (inherited from the book) and awkward Race pony people.

Flat, flat, flat. Moments in the book imbued with great foreshadowing importance or drama are rendered inert and the problems clearly lie in the screenwriting and later overall direction. It can only improve, one hopes.

3. Doctor Who, "The Impossible Astronaut".

So much fucking better than the pilot episode of Game of Thrones for one clarifying reason: Steven Moffat understands how to navigate the audience/character POV perspective in television. In fact, there's no one in screenwriting I can think of right now who does this better than he does.

Go back through and watch this episode. Is River Song indeed, finally as sympathetic to the audience as the reviewers claim? (I think the answer is yes, but I was never against her from the start.) Why? Go back and watch this episode again - how many of the scenes are being expressly written from River's Point of View. The answer: almost the entire episode.

( More about this and other things I liked: )

Anyway, I thought this episode of Doctor Who was structurally fabulous from top to bottom with everyone from the main cast giving a perfect performance. Great television.

Hollywood Reporter says that the inevitable Sandman TV show is going to be written by Eric Kripke of Supernatural.

I swear to God, I read this on Twitter in class and I actually did vomit in my mouth a little. Iced mocha latte, not so good on the second time, but not as vile as some other things it could have been.

I am this close to starting a protest website. I don't live in a universe where Death and Delirium of the Endless get written by this guy. I don't want to share a fandom with Supernatural. In fact, my life exists avoiding Supernatural. Ugh ugh ugh.

I don't think I've been so upset about a fandom thing since the 'Golden Compass' movie.

I bah-leeted a long thing about Inception that basically summed up some stuff. Non-spoilery: it's still a great film, but I probably won't see it a third time and I won't recommend anyone go who has suicide 'issues' as it's really quite triggery. I thought I was good, but both times I saw it I spent the next day feeling rather awful, so yeah.

( I'm convinced... )

ANYWAY.

Mad Men 4.2: ( Spoilers )

Rubicon 1.2: Um, it was on before 'Mad Men' and 'Sherlock' wasn't done downloading? Actually, the second episode is vastly better than the first one. The spycraft is still dumb as shit - I hate it when I've read the same reference material as the show's writing staff? But the main character's team consists of a mixed sort of pathological wastes, all of whom seem borderline Aspergers and they get a lot more fleshed out this week. They must be asking them to make this acting choice, because even the wizened old salt who the main character is going to for help with the arc plot seems messed in the head.

I approve. They're way more entertaining than the arc plot, though that too is getting fun now that Miranda Richardson actually has scenes?

West Wing Season 7: It occurs to me that all my first reaction posts to that are now buried in Friends lock. I'm sure they're embarrassing to reread so I won't unlock them. I've been going through this season again on DVD, and as far as I recall my reactions to the episodes NOW are basically the same as they were then. Though I think I remember liking the Debate at the time but now I'm firmly in the 'no, that breaks the rules of the show AND it sucked' camp.

If you want to read me bitch and moan about it, I've been spamming Twitter.

Finally found time to watch this. I wasn't going to cut it, but it turned out longish...

( There's no spoilers: Hamlet dies at the end. )

In conclusion: I enjoyed watching it, didn't pause it to pee break or anything so it moved at a good pace and kept me involved. I think I like the modern dress Hamlet in 'Slings and Arrows' a little better? I hope no one from the RSC reads this and is insulted by that, because c'mon, 'Slings and Arrows' is a tough act to follow.

I finally watched the last two episodes of this last night, out of duty. Eh. I sort of resent the decision to make this a serious drama rather than wacky hijinx with your monster flatmates. Making it a drama brings up the inevitable comparisons to Buffy, and Being Human looks particularly poor in comparison because the big threat is on BBC budget and ... yeah. Just didn't believe that Bristol was in the slightest danger of becoming overrun with vampires.

( More spoilers )

1. Battlestar Galactica

( Hmph. )

Dollhouse: I will keep watching this. I have always liked Eliza Dushku, and the pilot is not NEARLY as big a mess as I was led to believe. Plus I genuinely am not really sure what will happen in the next episodes at this point.

Being Human: Ugh. Wish they hadn't brought this back. The new cast is mostly serviceable, but they're less solid actors than the ones in the one-off pilot and next to them, Russel Tovey's general crappy whining as the main character is even more grating than in the original. Plus, I feel like the show has betrayed a lot of the refreshing originality by having the ghost and the vampire spend more of the episode whining about being monsters. Meh, I tell you, meh. Now it's every dumb urban fantasy with vampires ever. Fuck that noise.

I am rationing the Party Animals to two episodes a night. It's too good. It's like Gossip Girl made babies with the West Wing - Aaron Sorkin cries at night and wishes he could show people actually fucking and snorting lines of coke on broadcast television.

The best thing about the new Doctor is that someone might write fanfic about this show.

Every time Law and Order comes on downstairs (for my mother's going through a major thing), I rush down to see if this is one of the magical, magical Jeff Goldblum episodes I have been promised. And it never is. I was starting to pick up a sulk about this. I was promised Jeff Goldblum, dammit, where's Jeff Goldblum?

Then I wikied it and it turns out he doesn't start until February.

Oh.

In other TV news, apparently Nip/Tuck's season 5.2 started tonight. In a sign of how completely I've broken up with that show, I didn't know until an hour before and then didn't watch. I wish Pretty/Handsome had been picked up... but I guess Joseph Fiennes is in the Flashforward pilot so... like yeah.