jencat: (dr who)
I don't even know... On one level there was major, major heartrendingness, and yet I never actually tipped over into crying.  

Well, ok, this is because River was still around, and that was such a rare bird this season that it actually outweighed the Ponds being... Angeled? So I cared, I really did, but we've been Ponded out for the past few eps, and seriously River-deprived, and it's not really any surprise where my heart really lies, so...

As much as I love Amy and Rory, we've had a really, really long time to get used to the idea of seeing them go.  Rory's died SO MANY TIMES already, and he's always come back. He did this time, too, and so did Amy, and (oh, nice Time Traveller's Wife shout-out in reverse there Moff, when elderly Rory sees young Amy again after waiting all this time.... With young!Rory standing right next to her for a twist. Very clever). So there was that whole lack of tension right there. Amy has to choose Rory every time, that's been the entire theme for this bit of the series, and that's fine, but it felt a bit like it was lacking a sense of... consequences?

There's not so much sense of the life the Ponds are giving up, yet again - aside from Brian, it goes without saying - because every other part of their lives has been dismissed and airbrushed out systematically everytime it's featured.  Amy's parents haven't even been mentioned I think since the wedding, Rory's mum has never had any screentime at all, and there's no 'say goodbye to them from me' from Amy at all in her little farewell. Parents do matter at some point, surely; even if you're not talking to them for some reason at the time, it tends to prey on your mind.  We do get River being her best self - which is to say, the Doctor's alternate; knowing when to let go while he is too busy acting out to even remember what she's losing. And has lost. And what Amy has already lost in her, and can't lose Rory too? Gah. Am missing the ironically slightly more hopeful days of A Good Man Goes To War right now...

Also: my brain was a little busy ticking over wondering why, even if the TARDIS can't go back to the exact time and space of where they were taken back to in NY 1938, then... what exactly is stopping the Doctor going slightly further away or later (like ANY POINT in the next 60 years?!) and just making his way there without the TARDIS? And obviously they aren't now stuck in the same room for all that time like Rory was threatened with? So what's stopping them travelling somewhere else and meeting up with him? I mean, Day of the Moon still happened in this reality didn't it; they were all running around the  States in the 60s, including NY surely? And how does River get the book to Amy anyhow - why is it only the Doctor they can never see again?! I get that there's a paradox involved but I can't figure out what the hell the parameters of the blasted paradox are, and it makes things so damn confusifying.

On a slightly less mindmelting note... It was so nice to have a Moffatt ep again, and to finally see the actual emotional follow-up to Wedding that we'd been waiting the past year for. There was all the angsting, and the squee and the gutwrenching sadness that this is never even going to work properly for any length of linear time because as River succinctly puts it, the TARDIS can't handle more than one psychopath at a time.  Bless her, but she hasn't really called him that to his face that I remember?

Oh, and the wrist. *dies*
More happily, the preening. And the many many times they keep addressing each other as husband and wife after the rest of the eps (minus one teeny tiny Moffatt mention of being married in the prequel to Asylum) where frankly River didn't even seem to exist (which she bizarrely apparently doesn't for any of the other DW writers.). There was a lot of good stuff, and a sense of everything being so inherently broken at the end that it can never be fixed.  It's not supposed to be fixed. Oh, and River's little telling heartbreaking comments which suggest she's been running this path with him for the longest time, and that as this is one of their rare linear meetings, you get to see the whole range of what she does to manage it. Everything she has to do - up to and including snapping her own wrist, because River has always been a hardcore BAMF - and keep from him. They also confirm she knows him better than Amy does; or at least she knows him more honestly.  

And the whole thing with the regeneration energy, which she reacted really, really badly to - because he's putting himself at risk to do it, and everything she does is to protect him (from himself or anyone else?). And they do seem to fit together in a slightly unhealthy way at this point, because he's acting out all over the place. And she's totally enabling it. River is always so terrified of losing him somehow, and we already know how ironic that is, even though she can't bring herself to stay with him even when it's made so important that he not be alone. 

We got some answers dammit. We got the definitive as to why River just doesn't take over as companion - because she honestly believes it's unwise - and what happened to her murder conviction when her supposed victim erased himself from history (harking back to the elusive pardon that drove her to the last Angels two-parter; part of a season that was all about erasing people from history in general). And she's the Professor she is in the Library episodes now; we're heading for the end-game. (although, Moffatt has fucked with the time line and the re-sets and the do-overs so very very badly for the last 10 eps that I can't even keep up. We still have an entire two centuries missing in the middle somewhere, and we know they definitely happened for the Doctor and somewhat for River - although at what point in her timeline it's impossible to say. Theoretically - if you go by the 'everything is in reverse!' claim, they should have happened prior to Wedding for her. Which has proved to be bullshit, as we very obviously saw the older River tonight, who genuinely did look like she'd been running with him on and off all this time, and it was wearing her down, and she was scared that it was freaking him out because Eleven has such a young face *sob*  (although as usual Matt Smith somehow makes him the definition of an old soul every second he's on screen)

Also: the slow-mo run back to grab the fateful last page that was a direct and deliberate re-enactment of Ten running for the sonic after River's death. Although running back to upload River actually had a point, and theoretically achieved something. All Eleven got from Amy was a note making everything fluffy (and there are lots of ways to leave notes through the years, if you think about it. Also ways to get another copy of a book. It wasn't necessarily the only chance to do that.). Let's just say, it made everything OK, which wasn't what happened with Rose, and Donna. Rose's original exit was the only one out of the lot that had me in tears, oddly enough, because it was so, so bleak. 




jencat: (dessert spoons)
Oh, Castle. I may have been a little bit late to work this morning because I seriously couldn't not watch the first ep of series 5 as soon as was humanly possible.  And it was Such. Good. Stuff. 



It didn't actually keep up the crazy shippy focus all the way through like it could have - which worked much better in the end. Because who could resist the switch from angst to swooning, to pure bedroom farce, to piling on the angst again until something had to break.  And it broke beautifully, Castle propping Beckett up until she could see a way to take back control of the situation.  

Because storming a senator's fundraiser, complete with gun for a spot of bluffing/blackmail, was an awesome way of getting that done. Neatly enough, it fixes Kate's whole being targeted for assassination problem too (even if, amusingly, the boys all assumed she was actually crazy enough to go kill a senator right up until the last minute?! Not that it's totally outside her skill-set/stress level, but a little faith wouldn't go astray guys, surely?)

Not sure what was my favourite part - Martha storming the bedroom and Kate spitting feathers (and throwing pillows) in the closet? Hungover and miserable Alexis inadvertently curtailing the morning after scene everyone had been waiting months to see, and all Castle could think of was trying to deprive her of aspirin while Kate sneaked out... 

Also loved Javi all the way through being awesome, and Ryan being plucky and put upon and also awesome. Everybody got to save the day in this one at various points (except Lanie was mysteriously missing, and Martha and Alexis were reduced to comedy cameos, but hey).  The evil senator's monologue was seriously creepy, and Kate's response was totally spot on. Frankly she showed a hell of a lot of self control not shooting him just for subjecting her to that...

Best of all, Castle and Beckett are just... together.  Not really much angst at all, apart from the whole trying to keep it secret thing (that attempt will go FABULOUSLY guys. No really.).  They had one 'so this is serious, right?' conversation, and then it just.. is.  And Beckett watching Castle sleep while she got ready to go on her mission was heartrending, even if it did end well (the lift scene!) We got the initial 'eep' scenes, so the audience is happy, and now they get to have the perfect set-up for the summer off gallivanting together (details of which can probably be found in a thousand fics online right now...) and we'll see them again when Beckett comes back to work - because procedurals have to, er, be procedurals, right?

I keep comparing it with Bones, purely because they have such similar trajectories. And even though Bones was winning me back over towards the end of the series, it's not the show it was.  Booth and Brennan still feel like they don't quite fit - and frankly, overprotective!Booth made me want to throw things at the TV.  I keep watching because it's not completely lost it - not in the sense that I now pretend House ended at season 7, because it jumped the shark so completely at that point that I had no interest in anything after that.  

But Castle was a masterclass in how to do it almost perfectly - they could have loaded on the shippy stuff a tad more; I wouldn't have complained - but oddly enough it worked like this, as it wasn't the main plot, not when everyone's focus had to be on finding the assassin and keeping anyone from trying to kill Kate yet again.  And Kate solved her own problem in the end, and didn't have to be rescued, and got her job back, and walked off into the sunset (temporarily) with her guy for a well-earned break? It's all rather lovely, and probably definitely can't last. But it was so much fun to watch.


jencat: (dr who)
I'm going to be restrained and only say this once, but this series of Who is shaping up to be a massive continuity fail due to the distinct lack of my favourite character.  I'm not saying River should be in every episode (we were so spoiled last year..!), but this week's ep had stetsons, and prison, and making amends for your past crimes, and what constitutes punishment and forgiveness, and even a freaking conversation about how Amy is a mother.  And not one mention of the one character who has connected all those things previously
Read more... )
jencat: (hello)
Although I had a lovely and rather civilised NYE being fed a delicious seven course meal and nice booze aplenty, it was really all a lead-up to being able to watch A Scandal in Belgravia again tonight.  With subtitles, so as not to miss a delicious word of dialogue this time around...

I really am itching to watch it for a third time, but I'm trying to be good and not overindulge all at once... but, oh, it was still all rather splendid.  I'm so happy it's all as good as I remembered :o)


insanely spoilery for Sherlock 2x01 and a little bit for Game of Shadows... )
jencat: (brain)
Y'know, I'm sure there's a reason, somewhere deep down, why I'm still watching the banal parsimonious fluff that is Terra Nova.  I just... can't for the life of me think what it is.

And I'm totally getting why Kelly Marcel took the money for a co-creator credit and ran as fast as she could.  It's shockingly brainless, trite and for a SF show, a tragically amateur approach to the actual laws of science.  I've seen the vast majority of the cast in other, better, shows, and frankly I just spend most of the episodes embarrassed for them.  The rest of the time I just want the dinosaurs to eat them.

Most irritatingly of all is the fact that it makes life in what is basically a frontier colony so insanely cosy. The fishing scene in tonight's ep had me fastforwarding, and the scene at the end with the apple orchard just defied all known tenets of biology last time I looked (beetles eat mould off apples, and the previously mouldy apples are miraculously perfect again afterwards?).  Last week we had a full three minutes of Jason O'Mara singing a stupid song about spiders. It's not cute or funny, it's just absurd.  I think I keep watching for some lingering loyalty that the previously fabulous Shelley Conn got the lead in a major network show, but also that it shows so little sign of life that I keep expecting it to be cancelled any day now and I may as well see how it ends.  Hmmm.. may have to rethink that plan.




jencat: (dr who)
Seeing as how the season 6 boxset won't be arriving for another couple weeks, and Sky now have season 1 on the Anytime menu, I had a yen to rewatch the first couple of eps for once... 
I probably wasn't concentrating so much when I watched Rose the other day, but it was still as cute and quirky as I remembered from way back when (ended up watching it in a hostel in Norfolk at Easter the first time around, on a very fuzzy tv, and it was such a nice surprise at how awesome it was.)

Tonight was The End of the World (and, let's be honest, new Who destroys the world at least once a series as a rule.. they eventually had to upgrade to destroying the universe a couple of times now, just to up the ante a bit, let's face it).  And I'd forgotten quite how impressive it was, especially considering how early on it is, with hardly any of the later canon established.  There are some lovely one-liners, Zoe Wanamaker shamelessly stealing the show as the voice of a CGI strip of skin - and bizarrely, Tainted Love and Britney's Toxic making an appearance on a jukebox (hey, Toxic as a soundtrack improves almost anything, it's true..).  Also the trees! 

Read more... )

And.. now I have much-sought-after tickets for the Sherlock preview next month, which started off as a whole 'will Moffatt show up?!' (we only got Mark Gatiss at Big Screen, after all) and then descended into a OMG THE BFI ARE EVIL from lots of other people who didn't get tickets after the date was changed by the BBC.  I can totally see how you could miss out on the tickets, after all that - they took the online booking offline just as it was about to open, the phone lines immediately got blocked with frantic phone calls (I know, as I was hitting redial constantly for 35 minutes and couldn't even get through to the queue), and in the end I decided it was quiet at work and I was 2 tube stops away from the box office so trotted off down there.  Looks like I made the reservation list just in time, 35 mins after it theoretically opened - and I got through to the phone queue just as I walked into the box office, lol! 

jencat: (Default)


So, some months later.... the season finales have been and gone (and more new stuff has arrived. My brain hurts, and my mega upgraded Sky planner cannot keep up.) Some actually new stuff, some hangovers from last year that have only just schlepped across the Atlantic (and I couldn't be bothered to obtain via other means). And it's been an interesting bunch of stuff. Just not always in a good way, unfortunately.  These two especially are still bugging me all this time later...

Worst of the bunch has to be whatever the hell the House writers came up with.  An unholy mess might be putting it kindly.  House ranting... )

Next up was Bones, which kinda ticked all the season finale big moment boxes on paper, but went about it in such an odd way that you couldn't help feeling a little flat when it was over.  Last year dealt with all the insanely complicated emotional angst so well - firstly by giving us the big flashback 100th episode which appeared to end badly, but actually quietly reiterated why they weren't going in that direction just yet, and then on to finally rewarding us with reuniting Ange and Hodgins before sending the whole gang in out different directions to go find themselves (and not have to deal with fiendish murders on a daily basis any more. Except Cam, who would be hard pressed to make a living without fiendish murders, as it were).

And last year's ending was appropriately heartrending, but not necessarily disappointing - satisfaction deferred a while longer, to give the show a little more longevity (understandable, considering what just happened to House after they gave into  making Huddy official at the end of last year.  It's stil the freaking Moonlighting kiss of death).

It was hard to tell where Bones was heading exactly this year -
Bones ramblings... )

jencat: (stress)

ok, so it's not great that i'm kinda thieving wifi from the only other poor soul on our street who leaves their network unsecured (cos, er, normally that's our thing) but dear god I'm incredibly grateful that someone else has as lax ideas about net security as I apparently do (i started out of compatibility issues but i had a workaround for that that I haven't reinstated for a couple of months, so now just out of sheer laziness, ho hum).

Mostly, obviously, because the thieving bastards over at Orange broadband decided to take advantage of my dad's complete ignorance of how broadband works whilst he was upgrading his phone, and basically hijacked our phone line for their crappy broadband (that I wouldn't pay for in a million years thank you very much).   I like my current broadband.  It hasn't dropped out once in 3 freaking years, which is why i was a little surprised when it went down completely weds evening, and didn't reappear.  Cue much time spent on helpline to Tier 1 call centre peeps who try their hardest, bless 'em, but frankly I can do everything they have on their little checklist all by myself before wasting time and money calling a national rate number...

snarly broadband crap )
*deep breath*
My personal tv channel (my old on-the-brink-of-expiring Sky+ box) is currently running...
too much goggleboxing..! )
jencat: (brain)
One thing I'd never have predicted... the CW's ridiculously overhyped 'reimagining' of Nikita is actually really rather good.  Shocking, I know.

It shouldn't work.  Really, given that I've loved the original film, the last tv series and, yep, even the Bridget Fonda version many many moons ago... this one shouldn't work.
Read more... )

 





jencat: (dr who)


Ohhhh, I didn't realise Toby 'Being Human' Whithouse wrote this week's ep until Confidential kicked off... what a nice surprise, lol!

To be fair, I've still only really seen about three-quarters of the bloody thing (mostly via subtitles!) due to my sister et al rocking up within three minutes of it starting, but, y'know, enough.  Any excuse for a re-watch, obv :o)

From what I caught of the beginning..

spoilery 'Vampires of Venice' ramblings... )






 


jencat: (dr who)


Heh.  Sure I was watching Who tonight with all my usual avid squeeing but now... I'm kinda finding it a little hard to remember great chunks of the ep after it ended like that.

 

very spoilery stuff for 5x05 )

 


jencat: (dessert spoons)



(As an aside, before I begin my DW ramblings, I'm seriously curious what kind of blackmail material Mark Sheppard holds over casting agents because the dude crops up in everything. I just watched the pilot ep of White Collar, which already had a serious Leverage vibe, which was then compounded by Mark Sheppard cropping up as the bad guy in that as well... seriously. Everywhere. Firefly, Medium, Bionic Woman, BSG, Dollhouse, Warehouse 13, the two aforementioned...)

Anyhoo.
Stephen Moffatt, obviously, rocks.  After last week's absolute mess of an ep, the Moff stepped back in and we got 'Time of the Angels', our double-sequel ep: River Song and the Weeping Angels. All at once.  And while it was easier, earlier, to make assumptions about why she knew who Ten was (and therefore why Ten had to have gone met her when he was having his little jaunt before regenerating)... now we get some answers!

spoilery )



Aaand I just spent half an hour writing a ridiculously involved amount of speculation, and the LJ gremlins just ate the last half of my post... gah! Will have to remember if again tomorrow dammit.. heh. Cliffhanger. Exhausted. Angels. Something about Amy having issues...

jencat: (legend of seeker)

Because of course I do watch too much TV, and my beloved ancient Sky+ box is getting ridiculously full up again, I seem to spend most weekends at the moment in a frenetic catch-up... The trouble is, however many shows I watch get cancelled every year, I can still find a couple dozen things to keep track of, and the damn things all get transmitted at the same time.. it's a tough life.  I do of course have a few hundred far more serious things to stress about, but it's strangely comforting to rather worry about not watching everything instead.  Makes more sense to my narrative-addicted brain, somehow...

Hmmm.. in the interest of trying to keep track of everything:

House is ticking over nicely, but it is just ticking over.  They've kinda run out of steam with all the shippy plots (I'm really supposed to be interested in freakin' Taub? Seriously?) but it's perfectly pleasant watching everthing pootle along.  The Cuddy episode was really quite lovely, though.. the lady herself was very cool, and it was the first time you get a real sense of what actual (fictional) medical administration is really like (and why I don't want to get any  more involved in said administration than I already am, lol). It's buzzy and exceedingly stressful and I'm always entertained by how many medical doctors are willing to trade off their clinical time to become managers.. but that's another story.

Also today was the 99th and 100th eps of Bones... lordy, five years already.  And 100 was a kinda-classic slightly spoilery )I like it.  I've always had a soft spot for this show, right from the post-modern freakery of very loosely basing it on an author's life, rather than the books (except they then stole the name from the books, and made the author character write books about the real-life author.. and then my brain started hurting).  It settles for being silly sometimes, but it's well-written and acted (I loved so much of Booth's dialogue in the 100th ep) and the characters are fun. Ticks all my boxes, anyhoo..

Brothers & Sisters I veer between adoring and vaguely liking..  Kitty's lymphoma storyline was heartrending, right up to when they lost me at that exceedingly silly version of a bone marrow transplant (as they tried to make clear before she went through with it, transplants are harsh.  B&S ramblings )

Legend of the Seeker is, as per usual, my total guilty pleasure - although I'm surprised sometimes at how well it measures up to more 'worthy' stuff.  The cinematography in 'Perdition' last week was kinda fantastic, Hero/House of Flying Daggers inspired (it certainly outdid anything in the unfortunate Clash of the Titans) and this week's epic silliness of 'split!Kahlen' was so much fun I sat there cackling most of the time.. LOTS blather )




jencat: (Default)

Cos I've come to the conclusion that I've got some kinda.. deficiency... in it. Or something.  I'm also 4 eps behind in Lost, which is frankly shocking considering it's the final season.  Probably the spoiler that Charlotte came back and had some whole kinda thing with alt!Sawyer rather than Dan has pushed me over the edge, and I'm really hoping there's not gonna be a repeat of the whole BSG thing where I still haven't seen the last 12 eps, or Razor, or The Plan,  mostly cos it ended up heading in a direction that made my brain zone out...

(Seriously, the current ad break is making my head hurt... they're playing what I could swear is Mumford and Sons on a tv ad for lastminute.com.  And just switched off for a break from rewatching The Devil's Whore, and I'm suddenly hearing John Simm doing the voiceover for an Orange ad.... My brain is suitably confused.)

(apparently I also have issues with, er, focus too..)

The reason I'm also watching TDW  again now is that I went to see Solomon Kane last weekend (after a marathon sour cream chocolate birthday cake baking session, long story), and was oddly impressed considering it was a Euro-stock-fantasy with a tiny budget that takes itself very seriously indeed.. but there was, equally oddly, distinct flair in the visuals with a real sense of plague-ridden, Puritan-esque England where it rains all the sodding time.  Basically, it's earnest, grim, dour, definitely indebted to LOTR and seriously atmospheric. Also, there are demons. And zombies!

This would probably also be a good moment to mention that there's also a lot of James Purefoy being all noble whilst mostly dressed in leather trousers, finding lots of excuses to go topless

lots of spoilery Solomon Kane/Devil's Whore ramblings )


Hmm...also I finally saw Avatar in Imax 3D, was highly impressed, and before that got a tad upset when it didn't get Best Picture at the Oscars (hey, I stayed up til 5.30am watching the wretched thing, and while I would be spitting blood if Kath Bigelow hadn't got Best Director, I think the amount of work that went into Avatar, how impressive the finished product turned out to be, and the amount of success it's had does actually deserve to be recognised as well.)  It's quite extraordinary how much better it is in Imax, and after the inital 3D clips at Moviecon last year made me kinda ill.. Hell, I sat there like a little kid with a big grin on my face the first few minutes as it zoomed over the forest, and actually went to brush away the falling ash after Hometree burned.  I honestly can't see 3D very well normally (apparently the Imax glasses and wearing contacts make a big difference) so it was fantastic stuff.

Aaand now I need to stop blathering and go get some sleep... tomorrow would be my next writing retreat and last time was not a great success due to my fabulous sleep-deprived zombie interpretation...!


jencat: (through the door)


Well, it's been an interesting season this year... vast amounts of snow (but never a white Christmas, naturally), vast amounts of alcohol for one night only (the work xmas party, of which i remember scarily little. And then had to call in sick the next morning with, er, not a hangover. Honest. It was a cold!).  There was a surprisingly fun little 'office do' where we handed out the Secret Santa pressies, and our manager decided to bribe us with M&S party food, and now I don't have to be back at work for another... nine days, woohoo!  Not that it's particularly awful, but I am starting to feel a little like the Ghost of Christmas Past these days, drifting around with lots of things leftover to do but no real purpose.  It doesn't exactly encourage mustering much enthusiasm for the whole thing, hence it was kinda easy to give in to the hacking cough that's been plaguing me this week and not roll in until the afternoon on Monday, Tues and Wednesday... ho hum.

And then I did all my lastminute shopping yesterday with surprisingly little stress, wrapped everything in existence last night while downing a bottle of mulled wine fizz (surprisingly drinkable!) and watching rubbish tv.  As everyone managed to behave themselves today, the only real moment of stress was hacking open both turkey crowns to realise they still hadn't bloody cooked properly, despite not showing any signs of this when we took them out of the oven originally... (although, given the vast amounts of butter and maple syrup stuck in and on the things a la Nigella, there was no chance they were ever going to be dry..!)

But it was good... only one kinda dud present that I really really hope my parents didn't spend much money on in which i am ungrateful )



The guy who wrote Scroogenomics kinda has a point, which is why this year I had no qualms about buying stuff I wanted myself and handing it over to parents/grandparents for them to wrap up and give me.  Half the time I don't even get the money back, but I'm not really bothered about that - I really just can't see the point of buying meaningless crap that isn't wanted or likely to be used.  seasonal whining )

Oooh, btw, was somebody feeding Russell T Davies lots of sugar and/or caffeine before he wrote the Doctor Who finale? Because all I've read in interviews is him raving about how epic and heartrending it was to write, and what we got in the first part tonight was a couple of brief moments of epic/heartrending, but mostly it felt like the hyper ADD kicking off of someone on a severe sugar high.  DW spoilery rants )


jencat: (pushing daisies; windmillery)
I'm not sure that watching four episodes straight of Private Practice is good for anyone's brain, but hey, at least the sky+ box has a teeny tiny bit more space on it now... hopefully. Also, I got to fastforward through every single scene featuring Sam and Naomi, so it was way less whiny than usual
ramble ramble ramble  )



jencat: (pushing daisies; windmillery)

Obviously it is Saturday  night and I'm home alone, thank the lord.  Just me, the Doodle Dog and a cacophany of constant bloody explosions to keep me entertained.  Apparently I'm kinda over Fireworks Night at this point, who knew...

it used to be different when we were kids... like, sparklers! and fire of some description! And I still love fireworks, but standing in a cold muddy field to watch an organised display doesn't appeal these days, also, now the pets are kinda more of a priority.  Doodle's not well, poor sausage - what might be mange apparently, added to conjunctivitis.. not a happy itchy dog.

Really, I need to go make soup, or start knitting the Xmas Pressie Blanket of Doom for little sis, or write some more (I've been writing! It's so... novel!), or, y'know, wade through a couple hundred more pages to finish Wizard's First Rule while I'm still on a LOTS kick (I like the book so far, just thinking 700-odd pages is excessive, and the thought of that many similarly sized sequels is making me think i'm gona give it a rest before looking for the next one...)

Ack. At the moment, Strictly this year is kinda blah... I can barely remember who the contestants are, let alone care who wins (although I do have a sneaky soft spot for Laila Rouass, if only for Primeval (also, yay, reprieve!! we get the cliffhanger resolved!)) and I keep getting forced to watch XFactor. Kill me now.  Strictly  was sooo different last year that this is decidedly dull now.

although, flicking past XFactor just now, and the major, major kerfuffle over Simon Cowell making one of his contestants do a 'movies' song from an obscure 90s indie flick.(er, Gummo).. the amusement value of hearing a Harmony Korine flick being namechecked about a billion times by Louis Walsh repeatedly saying he'd never heard of it... kinda priceless.  The song itself obviously not obscure, being Roy Orbison's Crying... and I have to say, around here it's probably more likely to be remembered for the cringy version in Only Fools and Horses ("Cwying, cwying, over yooooo")

Heh. Must go do stuff at this point, fearing for my brain now I'm actually watching Simon Cowell voluntarily... eep!


 

jencat: (legend of seeker)

kinda starting to learn my lesson... the laptop has to stay off on weeknights if i want to get to bed anytime before 1am.  It was a little bit ridiculously obvious when i was getting three hours less sleep (and digressing, but wtf Sky One seems to be re-enacting the Austen Powers/sausage/milkjugs scene for a trailer about a nudist show?! Decidedly odd, in context). Also, the Avatar tv adverts kicked off today... only 6 weeks to go?

Aaand, today I've been online for about a million hours. Muscles may well be atrophying, i probably wouldn't even notice, but I have finally managed to watch the first 4 eps of Stargate Universe. 
 

SGU ramblings )


And, dammit, just noticed The Village is on. 

Village love )



Whew, while I'm staying up late yet again, I may as well post all the stuff I haven't bothered with for the past few weeks... 

Legend of the Seeker spoilery finale ravings... )

Also... Ah, I accidentally ended up booking tickets to the Mayor's Gala showing of Bright Star at the London Film Festival week before last, and have been raving about it to anyone who stands still long enough ever since. But it was brilliant!   

Boris! )Bright Star )


 


jencat: (Default)
The idea of taking time off work is starting to freak me out just a tad at this point... taking two days this week has meant working more than a day's worth of overtime over the rest of the week.  And it's not even like it's worth taking the time back in lieu, as i'm not exactly using up enough annual leave to make it worthwhile... gah.

Rolling home at 9pm every night does odd things to your brain, as it happens... I can barely string a sentence together most evenings  - although I've still managed to keep the knitting up, to a point... turns out moss stitch is not my favourite thing in the world.  After forty-odd rows, my shoulder has seized up completely (I'm starting to remember this used to happen a hell of a lot back when I still did yoga, badly...), so I finally admitted defeat and decided the damn thing wouldn't be ready in time for the party.. ho hum.  300-ish rows to finish the hood was, frankly, never gonna happen in that time frame even without the RSI kicking in.  As happens, my fabulous grandmother happened to ask about the knitting this morning, and promptly offered to lend a hand... she really is impressive, considering she called round to pick it up this morning, and called by 5pm to say half of it was finished already!! Did I mention she was fabulous?!

Being realistic, it's gonna need blocking, badly, so Saturday stil isn't really an option for it being ready... but it  only being a week late is looking realistic now, so I'm not too cut-up about it...!

Heheh.. two days off! There are birthdays tomorrow, and cakes to bake, so I'm not exactly sitting around doing nothing without the knitting.  As is, finally managed to see (500) Days of Summer tonight, which was really very cool.  Zooey Deschanel isn't nearly as unsympathetic as a lot of the reviews were making out (and was oddly channeling her sister at points in Summer.  The concept was refreshingly real, for once.. charming and bittersweet, and decidedly grown-up (whilst still being hopelessly romantic).

Of course, I now seem to have developed a irrational liking for Legend of the Seeker since they started showing double-bills on SciFi... Irrational because it's seriously silly for a great deal of time, with occasional forays into darker stuff now and then... Lordy, it's all so po-faced and serious about the absolute daftness, it kinda cracks me up.

And... kinda shipping it too. Gah. Still not sure why, as the acting is truly all over the place (the accents suffering the Curse of Xena, with a bunch of Kiwis flipping between NZ/faux English/American as and when), but the main cast take it all so seriously. It has improved over the past couple of eps, especially when they stripped down Kahlen's make-up and hair a bit and her acting magically improved... except for the seriously crack!fic episode last week when the leather-clad dominatrixes came out to play, and it was suddenly kinda disturbing... (oh and now Kahlen's just dressed up as one this week, so that's just creepy on a whole 'nother level).

It has a weird identity crisis thing going on (and I've never read the books, but have a fair idea of what they've changed).. the plots are usually frankly bobbins, and the stock fantasy cliches are all present and correct, except then they chuck in random bits of Dark Stuff every so often to make it stick  with the OTT melodrama (at least one person per ep has to keel over spewing blood, by the look of things).  And yet the concepts are kinda interesting, sometimes, the action is surprisingly well-choreographed, and it's not like we get a lot of straight high fantasy on TV these days... Apparently I'd rather watch this than Private Practice, who'd've thunk...

jencat: (Default)

Heh.  Last night was Half Blood Prince at the Imax...








 

HBP ramblngs... )

 

dollhouse - ep 13 )

 


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Jennifer Howell

July 2015

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