Any World (That I'm Welcome To)

I've loved C.J. Sansom's Matthew Shardlake mystery series for years. A few weeks ago, I found out that (a) it was now a TV series, and the first season (based on the first book, Dissolution) had just been released, and (b) Sansom had died a few days prior after a long illness. I hope he got to watch the show first, and that he liked how the adaptation turned out.

I thought it turned out pretty well! They do a fantastic job creating a looming, threatening, and just plain spooky atmosphere at the monastery, freezing and isolated on the high point rising from a boggy marsh. Sean Bean is as fantastic a Cromwell as you could wish for. ( Read more... )

Now that streaming platforms are throwing a billion dollars into shows, I have a suggestion for one which would be absolutely, stunningly gorgeous in addition to having great storytelling: The Books of the Raksura by marthawells. Highlights: ( Read more... )

When The Rings of Power was announced, I was dubious, to say the least. But now that I’ve finally gotten a chance to watch the show, I was surprised how much I enjoyed it. If nothing else, it is really pretty. Elven cities at their heights! Khazad-dum in its glory! A Dwarf woman who sings to the stone! Numenor! Amazing details everywhere! Color instead of that grayish filter so many modern movies use in a vain attempt to look serious! Everyone involved in the costuming and sets (real and virtual) ought to get awards.

I also found myself enjoying the characters and plot, though. I’m some things will bother me more on a rewatch, and of course it could fall apart in future seasons. I’m willing to wait to see if they handle the colonial occupation theme well, but I suspect they won’t, for example.

But this isn’t about the good, bad, or ugly of the show. ( Read more... )

I managed to see the first two episodes of Obi-Wan Kenobi. Wow, starting with an angry young man and a bunch of guys with guns slaughtering children is a bit much right now, Disney. I know they couldn't predict specific events, but it's not like a lot of real people weren't already all too familiar with such tragedies. If you're going to open with something like that, maybe make it clearer how it's relevant to the actual plot some time during the first two episodes to justify it instead of just plonking it in to let us know that the show is dark, man, dark? I saw one suggestion that we should have gotten some obvious signs that Reva and the Jedi youth Obi-Wan doesn't help were both in that group of kids that escapes, and they should have recognized each other. That would have been a start.

Tiny Leia and her tiny shoes sure are adorable though.

Also, Obi-Wan has a job butchering a...sand whale? Giant sand tuna? What the heck is that thing, and does it actually swim through sand? Why are they apparently only butchering it during day shifts instead of working round the clock to finish the job before the meat spoils in the devastating Tatooine heat? Or is there a night shift too, and they don't Gonk-clock in until a few minutes after the day shift Gonk-clocks out? Do they really expect us to concentrate on the plot when we're wondering these things?

And if there's a sand whale, why aren't they singing sand shanties while they butcher it? We know Ewan McGregor can sing! So far this show appears to be designed to deliver maximum id vortex indulgence: shiploads of Prequel Trilogy actors pressed back into service, a bunch of expanded universe stuff, cute kiddos, scruffy emo Ben, badass evil people in black leather, Darth Vader, a comedy Jawa, Alderaan, painfully ironic comments about what it will be like when Leia rules Alderaan someday, a cyberpunk Crime Planet, a marketable baby droid, you name it. Why not toss in a few Tatooine sand shanties? (For the record, I also thought Law & Order criminally wasted the opportunity to come up with an excuse for a musical episode when they had Jerry Orbach and Jesse L. Martin playing buddy cops together.)

Come on, Disney! It's not like anyone believes you're devoted to making quality Star Wars content anymore, so you wouldn't be losing any dignity or anything. Let's have a Special Musical Edition!

Until that happy day, I will accept your sand shanty lyrics.

Thanks to my sister's excellent advice, I signed up for BritBox so I could watch Gardener's World. I think I would like all my entertainment delivered by soothing British gardeners from now on. I mean, The Irregulars was fun too. But this show somehow offers the closest thing to the uplifting, restorative feeling you get from being in an actual garden while also somehow being really compelling. Learn how magnolias evolved to be pollinated by beetles because bees didn't exist yet that long ago! Also, how do you lay a terrace? What can you do if you only have a tiny front patio or a windowsill? What tools are really handy if you are gardening while using a wheelchair or otherwise unable to bend down or reach too far? How do you explain to a tree which branches it should put more or less energy into growing? How exactly do you take cuttings from different plants? So many ideas for people to try. Also, adorable dogs and cats frequently jump into frame.

This is especially handy right now because I'm recovering from a cold (which I don't even know how I caught, since I barely leave the house these days, but I can catch a cold at a hundred paces through a brick wall, so here I am). For me, even a minor cold means weeks of an irritating reactive cough whenever I move or talk, so I've been spending a lot of time on the couch propped at the exact angle that's easiest on my lungs watching Gardener's World, and the show is probably more effective than almost all of the cough-soothing remedies I've ever tried. It makes being stuck on the couch relaxing rather than kind of a bummer.

If British people with soothing voices talking about plants and petting cute animals sounds at all appealing to you and you have a way to get ahold of the show, check this one out!

For some unfathomable reason, I started watching Alphas. I... well, I think I keep watching because there are things I like about the concept and I keep hoping the show will live up to what it could be.

But wow, there's characters who flirt with the dark side, and there's HOLY SHIT TERRIFYING WHY IS THIS PERSON ON THE TEAM AND WHY ISN'T EVERYONE TERRIFIED.( Spoilers. )

I have approximately three million backlogged, half-finished thoughts on Stuff I Have Read/Watched Lately. Here's a few to clear out the queue.

( A Stranger in Olondria / Sofia Samatar )

( Ascension: A Tangled Axon Novel / Jacqueline Koyanagi )

( Criminal Minds, 200 )

( Hamlet (And Claudius) )

I am well aware of series rot from long experience. I know that those nagging problems at the beginning are highly unlikely to be a set-up for subverting cliches and stereotypes and will probably grow until they overwhelm everything that was once good about the series. And yet I keep hoping. Futilely, so far.

Some recent disappointments:

The Angel of Darkness by Caleb Carr

Granted, based on The Alienist I wasn't expecting much more than a competent mystery. But I was encouraged by the relative absence of gore and prostitutes, because it's nice to see criminals who are driven to do things other than murder prostitutes for once. And it started raising some interesting points about how much damage the constant message that a woman must have babies and be nurturing to be A Real Woman and worth anything causes, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton makes a cameo appearance, and Sara Howard's friendship with Nellie Bly is mentioned in passing. Also Stevie drops a not-so-subtle hint that Sara might get her own novel to narrate someday. (Alas, this does not seem to have happened...)

But. ( Small spoiler, not that it wasn't dead obvious from the start... )


The Big Bang Theory

I know, I know, this one was obvious. But sometimes they had such good science and fannish jokes! Like the episode where they had the (movie prop of the) One Ring and it started working on them and we got the fabulous makeup job turning Sheldon into Gollum.

And they had Amy Farah Fowler. For maybe three glorious episodes, she was the kind of character who said things like this:( Cut for AWESOME followed by crushed hopes. )


The Day Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko

I enjoyed The Night Watch, overall, though it had its annoyances. Like the whole tired Light vs. Dark thing, and this faintly skeevy undercurrent whenever a woman appeared on the page. But I expected, as one might, that - for instance - now that two of the women were no longer untrained and clueless or stuck as an owl, that they would become more prominent and interesting in the next book, only as opponents because the female Day Watch character would be narrating the whole of the sequel as Anton had narrated the first book. The twisty intrigues also promised to continue, especially given the huge cliffhanger at the end of the first book.

( Cut for spoilers. )


Downton Abbey

Hey, they were emphasizing from the beginning that Society Is Changing, and they would occasionally point out how the aristocrats were majorly screwing up something or other. I could hope that they actually meant it. Right?

( Cut for spoilers. )I'll still keep watching, because I am a sucker like that. Maybe Cora will not just cave and forgive him tonight, and there will be lasting consequences for his bad judgement! Also, Lucy will totally let me kick that football this time.

And what have I been doing, after so many disappointments? Watching Fringe. I deserve whatever's coming.

I've started watching Elementary, because Lucy Liu is Watson and we all know that Watson was a woman and how awesome to see that on screen? What a pity that they didn't make Holmes a woman as well. And/or Moriarty, who has not appeared yet but surely will. Me, I nominate Nicole Wallace as an arch-nemesis to shake things up. Surely Goren isn't the only genius detective after her? Come to think of it, isn't he halfway to being Holmes already? ...but I'm getting off track.

So. Original Watson was an army doctor back from Afghanistan after being wounded and sick. The modernized Watson of BBC's Sherlock has the same backstory, because duh, you don't have to change a thing! In Elementary, they've played up Holmes's drug addiction even more - the show starts with him getting out of rehab and being assigned Dr. Watson as a companion to keep him on the straight and narrow - so you think you know her backstory too: an army doctor sick and/or wounded in Afghanistan, she's now devoted herself to trying to heal people's mental wounds after seeing many of her former army buddies end up addicted to drugs.

Except no, she has no military background that we've yet heard. She was a civilian surgeon in New York, killed a patient, and changed careers. Because now that she's a woman, she can't just be done with her term of service; she has to have triple the insecurity or something, I guess.

Blech.

There is now a Downton Abbey rap. With some of the background guitar sampled from "Black Cow" by Steely Dan. Which means now you can enjoy an awesome show and one of the most awesome bands ever at the same time!

Well, actually I'm still waiting for someone to make a vid with Steely Dan's song Don't Take Me Alive showing Sharon Valeri's season 1 arc, because even though it is about Charles Whitman, it totally sounds like a Cylon song. I hear my inside/the mechanized hum of another world, you say?