gategrrl

My mother introduced Mermaid to Veronica Mars. Ever since last week, Mermaid has been obsessively watching VM on Netflix. My god, that show seems to go on *forever*. Seriously! Every season is 22 episodes, and every episode is about 48 minutes, and so much is packed into those episodes, every season seems twice as long as any other show I've ever seen. Seriously.

At least Mermaid is learning more about roofies and rape and college than she ever did watching DiGrassi (yuck).

Veronica seems too wise, hip and knowledgable to be a real high school student, and even at her level of income (her fathers) she and just about every other student has a car. She does things no high school student should be able to do, and she looks much too old to be a high school student. So do all the other actors. That said, the show is great fun, except for some time in the second season, when Veronica's love life took over her detective work. I for one had a hard time distinguishing between her two rich boyfriends because as far as I was concerned, they were both equally skeevy, priviliged and identical, and the number of mean girls and rich kids was boggling.

It's hard to believe that Veronica was ever as innocent as she was meant to be in her graduation dream flashback. After all, all her skills had to come from somewhere, right? Even before her friend Lilli was murdered and she was booted out of the rich kid club. I'm not convinced she was ever as naive and sweet as she pictured herself, or however her boyfriends preferred her from her current suspicious incarnation.

I lovelovelove the relationship Veronica has with her father Keith. Colosantos is a terrific actor. His character is warm, tough, loving, sympathetic, and has one of the best father-daughter relationships on television I think I've seen for a long long time. It beats out Castle's father-daughter relationship by a marathon of miles. Veronica here isn't used as a device to help her dad solve cases. Here, she touches base with her dad, and they *help each other out* as they learn things about their cases and when their cases intersect.

I also like her friends/sidekicks, Wallace and Mac. I really love Mac's actress, because she all the right notes for being an awkward, not-movie-star weight girl compared to all the slim and thin girls around her. Wallace is awesome, too. He'll do almost anything for Veronica (though I'm not clear on why) and they don't flaunt his athleticism. He's more dorky than an athlete, and that's nice, because thank god, not all athletes are overbearing assholes--although there's a reason for that stereotype.

Anyway. Tonight Mermaid is having sleepover at a friend's house and we're getting a break from Veronica tonight. We were all up until 3am watching the third season, and saw the Dean murdered, and the college rapist caught. I get tired just thinking about it!

Yes!!!!!

Netflix finally downloaded and is streaming the BBC 2010 Sherlock! I was so bouncy happy last night! I watched the first episode about half-way through to make sure they did a good job of converting it, and it looked good. Yayz!

Yep. I still despise Vala with the heat of a thousand suns. Fortunately, my aversion to Claudia Black, because of that role, has finally worn off, and I was able to sit down with the Guy and watch Farscape on Netflix and enjoy a show I liked the first time around. It was nice to be able to see it in order, without stupid network breaks or hiatuses (as SyFy channel does, those total crapshoot idiots).

Loved Rigel, and how he slowly changed, sort of, from the self-absorbed self-centered asshole to one slightly more compassionate, at least toward his shipmates. Loved Zhaan. What's not to love about Zhaan, really? I understand why the actress had to leave-hell, I would have too-but it was great seeing her here and there in later episodes, and *how much the other characters missed her*. Stargate? Can still eat shit about that. I even finally got to understand where the old woman came from, and what her own agenda was, and Jool. Even she was tolerable, and even understandable--the misunderstood and annoying geek amongst the rough and tumble. And of D'argo. I loved how his backstory went, and how, even though he hadn't killed his wife, he HAD beaten her when in his rages, and regretted it to the point where...well, she didn't want to tell him, but I'm glad they didn't let him get off easy. And he had child trouble. Chiana, IMO, although she wasn't the romantic heart of the show, was certainly it's heart, and I also loved how the show didn't flinch in showing her recovery from being raped and abused (although it wasn't directly called that, it was pretty obvious that's what's happened when she left Moya). And that you can love more than one person, and it be similiar, but have no jealousy and stay friends. And of course Aeryn and John. John had the potential for being the blandest, least interesting character on the show, along with Aeryn, but thanks to the writing and acting, they managed to keep up with the less ordinary looking characters. Pilot had a soul, and guilt.

And of course there are the bad guys, who no one can trust even after letting them in--Chrais, Scorpious..and Grayza. Ms. Cleavage. And Scorpious' right hand man, who keeps to the same ideal that Aeryn does, almost to a fault.

Seriously it's one hell of a show.

Mythbusters is hands down my favorite reality/science show. Why? Well, it's fun as hell. Sure, they like explosions and making things go boom. But what I appreciate the most is how the producers show (or used to show) the process of how the cast figured out how to test the different myths. It's slowly edged away from showing them using equations to figure out what they need, and how they decide to use one machine instead of another. But hey, it's still using the scientific method, and got my daughter and son interested in how science works. Now, that ain't bad at all for a "silly" science show. I wish Junkyard Wars was still on, since that had a lot of the same sort of cleverness in it, too. Ah well.

Unfortunately, as the show moves on in years, and has settled down with its cast, I'm finding myself missing, more and more, Scottie Chapman. She featured in the earlier seasons, and it was absolutely awesome (truly) how they showed Scottie, famed for her tattoos, soldering metal, cutting metal, working with metal, making the gadgets the team used to figure out how to prove or disprove the sometimes WTF myths they were supposed to bust.

Here's Scottie, if you don't remember who she is, exactly:

Now, Kari Byron (see the above picture)--she was trained as a fine artist, and does do some work on the show demolishing things--but more often than not, you see her taking a back-seat to the guys. IE, they'll be jumping out of airplanes or bungee jumping while she's driving the car. (she may have been pregnant during those shoots, so, okay, no problem there) But she's not quite as involved in the down and dirty machining as Scottie was.

And when Scottie was there at the same time as Kari, you got some great scenes with just the two of them science geeking it out. They had a decent dynamic, and it was a great relief from all the testosterone that flowed on the set later on. Sure, they're all science/explosion/SFX geeks on Mythbusters, but I really miss having two women simultaneously on the show, sometimes in the same scenes, working on the same projects.

Don't get me wrong; it's still my favorite go-to show when I want to watch something fun, clever, silly (except when Ghost Adventures fills that bill nicely and I want male eye-candy) and with a mystery to be worked out.

But Mythbusters: can't you please have another woman on the set? And not just a "mythtern". A full-fledged Mythbuster team member. It would make THIS fan happy as happy can be. It's a mystery that should be busted as to why there's only one woman now on the cast.

Ghost Adventures...oh boy. It's a silly show, and we know it. Mermaid loves to watch it, if only to say through out the show that Zak is "HOT! He's SO HOT!" He also works out like a demon with the dumbbells, too. His pals are pretty funny, too, with the guy on the right filling the Shaggy role of always being the one to freak out before the others do. Meanwhile, Zak runs around challenging innocent ghosts to come out and do him some damage cuz they be so bad. They do some pretty stupid stuff that has nothing to do with the ghosts themselves, like in a recent episode they climbed to the top of a rusting 200 foot water tower with steps in the ladders with loose bolts, or missing bolts. They love scaring the crap out of themselves, and some of the people they interview at the sites are clearly amused by them.

(edited to add:) But we still watch it. Why? Yeah, it's silly good-natured fun, and while you're at it, you can get to learn all about creepy places in the USA (and Edinburough Scotland!). I keep waiting for that Stephen King hotel room moment, however--the moment when the drowned green woman in the bathtub appears to strangle one of them, or an evil presence locks them in and plays with their minds for realz. Not gonna happen, but wouldn't it be amazing if it did?

The new Sherlock series on KCET (via BBC). Is awesome. At least the first episode was. Functioning sociopath, eh? I liked that the police detective wasn't a daft idiot in order to make Sherlock look smarter. I also liked that yes, Sherlock admitted that sometimes HE was suspected in some of the murders he worked at solving. And Mycroft! Bwahaha! And Sherlock chiding Watson for not taking the money-that they could have split it! Gonna have to watch it again. Can't wait for next week. --oh, and although the serial killer's modus opperendi (sp?) seemed familiar, it was still a good mystery. And he was devious.

OTHER:

CSI: Vegas, WTF are you all about? Splashy dinosaur killing. And Katie Sackoff playing a brown-haired Starbuck detective. I know she does anger really well, but honestly, can't she play anything else? The big win in this recent episode was the (to me) twisty main mystery about where those two 15 year old girls were buried. I thought the anguish of the mother came across as very real, and honestly, I kept flashing on, What if that were MY daughter? I'd probably go insane with grief, too, not knowing what happened to her or where she was. I don't know how real parents of real murder victims who disappear deal with that pain.

Bones is another death show that's showing it's ass. WTH? I still ff past most of the personal stuff. No one's changed, everything's the same--except I really like Hannah, that new character. I get that, as a viewer, I'm supposed to secretly root for Bones to get together with Sealy's character, but I really couldn't give a shit, and hope she finds someone as literal, brilliant as she is. Cuz he isn't it. Proximity doesn't make a match. Let's light that fire, okay producers? Just, clear that will-they-won't-they relationship totally off that crap table and move on completely? But anyway. Guidos? Really? The best part is when they show the body at the beginning, and then talk about how the person might have died.

I don't watch The Mentalist anymore. It lost my interest. So not into the tiresome Red John adversarial thing. Bored. The characters I like the best are shown the least (argh, the asian detective, spacing out on his name, he's fantastically dead-pan and gets some of the best lines)

Psych is coming back! I can't wait!

ROCKS, man! I LOVED it! I can't wait til next year!

Fringe is that OTHER show that's on directly opposite of Supernatural. Fortunately, our digital recorder can record both at the same time, so I can go back and watch either one in any order I like.

That said--does anyone on the flist watch Fringe?

I only caught episodes here and there, but as the season went on, the show kept getting better, and now I regret having missed so many of them. It's gone from a over-hommage of the X-Files to something much more cohesive and science fictiony. Parallel worlds, cataclysms, mental powers opening rips between universes--and a very engaging, appealing group of characters. The most outstanding one is Walter, a ruthless, "family is everything" scientist who had a nervous breakdown and admits to having done some very horrible things to children in the name of science. He's complex, lovable, and in many ways, repulsive except that he's had to acknowledge his bad behavior. John Noble (I think he is?) the actor is a master of his character. Lots of pathos. Excellent acting. And the younger two leads (and Astrid, a supporting character, Walter's helper/nurse/friend/tech assistant) are also excellent, and also appealing.

If you like Supernatural, you might like Fringe--lots of family issues, father-son relationship that has its ups and downs, a competent woman in an authoritative job (FBI agent) and a Boss in charge of it all that you don't want to mess with, who supports his Team to the hilt (played by the also excellent Lance Reddick).

I'd also like to mention here that unlike Supernatural, and many other shows I've seen lately in this genre, there are two regular cast members who are POC out of five, AND that has more than one powerful woman in the cast.

( A cut: Was it cutting? Was it expected? More if you click )

I really should stay off the flist, seeing as how many of y'all are talking about it.

Mercy on us West Coasters, kay?

There's a show on The Learning Channel (TLC) that's into it's fourth season called Say Yes to the Dress. It takes place at a huge bridal shop in Manhattan that employs 250 salespeople, has 35000 square feet of space (I may have lost a zero in there, but think; this is *Manhattan*!) and tons of dresses.

The one episode that sticks with me like a cold virus is the one where a woman-child in her early twenties comes into the store. She's designed a dress that their seamstresses have made for her. What does it look like? She wants her dress to be transparent, with no seams showing on the bodice. The dress is pure ballroom, and all she wants is lace. Just lace, no other material to help hold it together. She tries the dress on and her father, who is on his cell phone, takes a look. His twenty-something daughter looks like a fancy prostitute in the dress she designed. He looks over, nods, says "Whatever you want, love" (in so many words) and goes back to his conversation. The cost of this dress? $24,000. The bride doesn't want it because it doesn't conform to her vision of near-nekkid lace. The sales people try to convince her to take another dress (that is WAY more tasteful) that is still expensive, but can be altered to suit her vision. They've already explained why her vision of a totally form-fitting lace dress can't happen the way she wants--it needs seams for the construction. And Daddy is happy to pay for it all. He's rich, he's on his cell, and all he wants is for his little girl to ~~be happy~~ leave him alone to conduct business on the phone.

I keep going back to this sequence on the show. Was it the fact the bride looked like a ho in her chosen design? Well, okay, that was surprising enough, but honestly, she's spoiled and has probably never been told No when it comes to the THINGS she wants. Daddy is happy to give it to her. As long as he can conduct business.

And so I guess that's why my mind keeps going back. Her father didn't care enough to tell his daughter she'd look like a bridal fetish doll going into myriad bachelor parties the night before by wearing the dress she'd designed. No. She ended up rejecting it--on the surface, because it didn't fit with her perfect "vision" of a bride's dress. Thinking back on it (with no evidence to support my theory, mind you), it's as if she'd designed that outrageous, in appropriate dress to get Daddy's attention. It barely registered on him.

She ended up buying an expensive designer rack-dress modified just for her. Thankfully the bridal store employees kept it much classier, much more beautiful than her original designed dress. It was still a hard sell. That rich girl is going to have a hard row to hoe to get any of dad'sgenuine attention. I *might* feel sorry for her, but with all with all that money she has access to, it's hard to feel too sympathetic. She's never going to get her father to really *care* about her, though. Oh, I'm sure he loves her in the way a father is supposed to love his daughter. But he'll never care enough to set his own limits or give her a steady portion of his attention.

Burn Notice is filled with appealing actors, and characters. It's stumbled a few times here and there during its run. But the second-to-last episode this season (or break? I'm not sure!) was a wowser, if only because Gilroy, the guy Sam and Fiona keep telling Mike is a bona-fide psycho--actually seemed sympathetic at the last minute. Oh, it doesn't absolve him of creepily and amusingly flirting with Michael during his meetings and then threatening to murder anyone Michael knows if he doesn't do what he wants. But...he saved Michael's life!

Now I'm waiting for Madeline to come out and announce to the crew that she's a former spy herself, all along. And was the one that actually had Michael burned out of the service. (the Guy and I have had suspicions about her for a while now)

Check out the series if you haven't started watching it. It's a lot of fun-and dudes, it has Bruce Campbell in it, and Sharon Gless! Burn Notice: Season 1 & 2 Set

Grac graciously pointed out that Castle: The Complete First Season is on sale

So is Bruce Campbell's The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr.: The Complete Series!!!

I've only seen Briscoe County here and there back in the ninties. I didn't "get" everything back then. Hmm. Bruce. Bruuuuuuuce!

What I Like About You is a long-cancelled sitcom starring Amanda Bynes and Jennie Garth (yes, she who is campaigning against immunizations because she thinks they cause autism).

It ran for four disjointed years with a supporting cast that changed practically every season. Bynes plays Holly, originally about 16 years old, and Garth plays her older sister who has custody of her. Garth's Valerie is uptight, a real Felix to Holly's Oscar Madison. The show starts out emphasizing Holly's klutziness, often inspired by The Lucy Show and other classics of the sitcom genre, and rapidly moves into both women's relationships with the men in their lives. They do have female friends, of course, and male friends. One friend has a long-standing affair with a married man-and isn't apologetic about it. Holly has a string of boyfriends whom she drops as soon as things "get serious".

I haven't thoroughly analyzed it because honestly, it annoys the hell out of me. Sure, it's great that it has two female leads, just like The Gilmore Girls; a rare beast on television! Of course, since it's a sitcom, the situations are often embarrassing, or stupid, or really stupid. Valerie, the uptight older sister, ends up very drunk in Vegas and marrying a fireman she had a crush on. This is after another attempt at marriage when she left her fiance at the alter because he called up his ex-girlfriend without telling her.

It can be amusing, and does have some genuinely funny moments, but...and I don't know why this show irritates the crap out of me. Is it Jennie Garth's shrillness? Is it Amanda Byne's often smarmy insincerity as Holly?

It DOES fulfill the Bechdel Test--but if you listen a crapload of the sisters' conversations are about men. Often enough, sure, it's about their relationship as sisters, or conversations with their friends, female and male.

But after watching two episodes of it in a row (which Mermaid loves to do, now that she's seen all of the Gilmore Girls) I want to kick the TV in. And The Guy would not like that.

USA is showing a marathon of Monk episodes-so, last night I decided to watch Mr Monk and the Child (or something close to it) and OMG! That has to be one of the funniest, sweetest Monk episodes *ever*. Monk/Tony Shaloub had the best chemistry with the most adorable toddler/actor I've ever seen. The little boy was so *cute* as to be unbelievable. The director and actors got so much out of him, he was hysterical! I actually had tears in my eyes, flowing down my face at the very end, when Monk decides he really can't take care of the little boy the way he'd like to. It's a shame the little boy hasn't been referenced since that show-no photographs of him up on the wall, or on a table, no mentions...it's too bad.

And this brings me to a question. Can't believe I'm asking this: does anyone know of a really good (and I mean *good*) Crossover fic with Monk and Psych? With all the characters in question in character? Without the premises stretched beyond recognition?

No spoilers here. Just my opinion.

It was okay. Not great. New starting montage, they decided to skip the simple black and white "Mentalist" definition from last season.

I have to admit, I do like the actors-especially the secondary actors-in this series. The only name I remember for the characters off-hand is "Cho" because honestly? I see him in commercials all the time these days, and he's got a terrific dead-pan, tongue in cheek quality to him that I just love. The others are likable, but they haven't hit my "I KNOW THEM!" actor meter.

I don't feel that The Boss really felt like a Boss. It felt like her authority was downgraded somehow from last season-and I don't mean any plot development, I mean in the character herself. It's as if she's been directed not to be so "hard-assy"; but at least the other characters under hers *definitely* respect her authority. The writers made sure the tall white guy cop, who reminds me of a younger, dippier David Boreanaz, called her Boss and was the least sure with them doing anything she hadn't okayed. It meant more coming from him than the other two.

Also, it could just be MY problem...let me put this out there. I don't think the camera man is filming a specific angle or anything as blatant as what the Stargate crew did with Sam Carter (focusing on her breasts with a backlighted computer monitor). But even tho the women on the team were professionally dressed-more than last season, I think- my eyes still kept slipping to their chests when they were walking. I think their chests are in the middle of the screen, center, during those walks down the hall, or outside, because that's where my eye is falling. Not on the faces or anywhere else! It's bizarre! I found myself noticing this on Castle, too, where the woman detective's chest was located during a scene, and how she was filmed during her scenes.

Anyhow, I'll keep watching The Mentalist, but right now? Psych is a ton more fun with the same type of detective--only without all the Wife and Child in the Fridge Angst for the main character.

I've been watching Bones on the DVR lately because it's there, and I'm tired of the CSI franchise and bored with the L&O franchise.

What were the writers thinking? Seriously. What were they thinking by pairing off Hodges and Angela? It took me about a season's worth of episodes to start not disliking them.

And what's the fascination with everyone talking about everyone else's love/sex life like it's Jr or High School? Is that ALL these people think about, besides getting to the bottom of a case?

The premise and the science fiction 3-D imager aside (that's just so...stupid, and I'm glad they toned down its use)...anyhow, I watch it for the mystery involved.

I'm also not sure why all the characters have to behave as if Booth and Brennan are the center of their lives, as if...really, aside from gossip reasons, does anyone ever really care if a couple is getting it on? It gets tiresome for random people to keep asking them, or assuming, that they ARE a couple. It's OLD. OLD OLD OLD.

Meaning, EVERYbody! I've mentioned before there was a new series based on that special called "Life After People", right? It's showing new episodes on Tuesday nights, and it is so cool! You get to see Washington crumble, just like in many post-apocalypse stories. You get to see bridges shatter and fall into the rivers they span over. You get to see animals take over what's left of the buildings, and see what happens into the far future.

It is SO COOL! I LOVE this stuff! *bounces*

This series is a disaster writer's dream.

Huh. Never thought I'd say this, but Medium has drawn me back in, after totally turning me off with the first episode of season before this--you know, the rodent exterminator who murdered a little boy by feeding him a huge amount of rodent killing chemical? It just completely disgusted me, how they showed the detective finding the little boy's body. It was too much. I don't like it when shows over-rely on child-murder, so I'm glad Medium appears to have cut back or changed their approach to child murders.

( read more with spoilers, dudes )

Last night's episode ( There be spoilers here...only spoiler 'ho's allowed )

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Entries tagged with television

Veronica Mars and Mermaid

OMG! Netflix has it!

Farscape

A Plea to Mythbusters

Ghost Adventures (edited)

TV

Dr Who finale

Fringe! It's excellent, it's renewed, watch it!

Supernatural season finale--opining and SPOILERS

Supernatural finale

Say Yes to the Dress on TLC

Burn Notice!

Castle season 1 on sale on Amazon!

What I Like About You (TV show (2002-2006)

Mr Monk and the Child and a request for a xover fic

The Mentalist. Eh. I'll Watch It.

Bones

LIfe After People

Medium--finale to a three-part episode

SPN: The One Where Castiel Isn't Himself