![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
114. Terry Pratchett - Choosing to die
Ouch.
115. Highlander the Series season 1.
It's kind of odd, watching Highlander for the first time - I mean, I'm quite thoroughly spoiled. I doubt you can be in fandom and not be, Highlander being so omnipresent. So it's hard to be non-biased - hard to tell if things you're seeing are actually there - foreshadowing and suchlike - or simply you seeing things, as it were. As far as the show goes, well, the storytelling feels slower than most of what I'm used to watching, and I'm not really falling for Duncan, but then, I didn't expect to - he's too much take-charge-alpha-male for my tastes and not enough balancing characters. Ritchie I'm also pretty meh about, and as for Tessa - sometimes I like her, but mostly, she's just - well, a love interest/occasionally damsel in distress, and while she has her moments, well. I grew up with Buffy and Nikita and remember watching Beauty and the Beast as a little kid, I expect women characters to be a bit more active than she is most of the time. Not necessarily action heroines, just, she seems like a character from just before television really figured out that women are awesome, does that make sense? Anyway, only 38 more episodes until Methos...
116. Small Island
I wonder why so few of Benedict Cumberbatch roles are straightforward good guys - I mean, Bernard is hardly as nasty a character as the guy from Atonement - more sorry than villain, his sin mostly being that he's like all the other guys, that he doesn't rise above, and at the end, when it just appears like he'll get the chance, even that's taken from him... I need more stories where BC plays good guys. Heroes. Or at least sympathetic individuals...
117. Life on Mars season 1.
Hmmm. Well, it's okay - I like Gene Hunt just fine, but, well. My favourite sort of time travel tales are actually past-to-present ones - and anyway, I spend an uncomfortable amount of time looking away or fastforward because I get this weird second-hand embarrasment every time you can tell Sam ought to know or realize something or doesn't... But it's okay, and I like how Gene and Sam manage to become friends - somehow. I wonder if somebody's made a fanvid using that "Kiss with a fist" song of this...
118. Howl
Sitting down to watch this movie, I was expecting, well, a drama, courtroom scenes, freedom of speech arguments - and it does have those, but, how to put this. It isn't so much a movie about the poem Howl as it a movie of it. The story of Ginsberg, the publishing, the reaction, interpretations, inspirations, and over and around and in between is the poem itself, spoken, animated, repeated, weaving the tale together - and it's surprisingly good. Very good. Definitely worth a watch.
119. Threshold
This series reminds me of Fringe. A lot. Right down to the use of old Star Trek actors. Seriously, there should be a drinking game. Unfortunately, after an excellent start it kind of feels like it looses momentum - I mean, Peter Dinklage is fun, Brent Spiner is fun, and the character of Molly is - well, okay, not particularly engaging, but I just bet she's written the contingency plan in case of zombie apocalypse too. But the main plotline with the alien invasion? I watch Fringe, I watched Prey back in the day, I've seen others - it's pretty, well, predictable. It could have been interesting if a second season would have run with the hints that the invasion is less an invasion and more a humanitarian (alientarian?) effort, it would be very interesting to see a story where the heroes we've been cheering for all along turns out to be wrong! Wrong! Wrong! Alas, the end of this season didn't exactly leave the impression that that would have been the direction it would have went. Ah well...
120. The Lazarus Child
I don't get why people bother to hire a pretty decent actor like Peter Wingfield and then they give him - what? - two lines in one scene? Why? Why this waste?
121. Life on Mars season 2.
I actually liked the second season more than the first, partly because Sam has found his stride in the 70s and spends less time giving me acute second-hand-embarassement. And I like the friendship, the trust, between Sam and Gene. And the end reminded me of Neverwhere and similar tales, the hero choosing to go back to fairyland because he no longer feels at home in the real world - even if it is a fucked-up thing, committing suicide to get back to the world inside your own head... I wonder if there are fic out there with Gene winding up somehow returning to the 21st century with Sam? I looked and found a couple of ficlets, but I've hardly made a serious effort. I wonder...
122. Garrow's Law season 2.
Still gorgeous and interesting and I quite like the characters, but truthfully, I'm annoyed with the Lady Sarah and Garrow thing. I mean, for a series displaying late 18th century law it's an excellent way of showing another side of the law than the straigthforwardly criminal one, it's just, well, sometimes I would wish there were more men and women in television just being friends. No UST, no not-affairs, not love stories all the times. This series has one major female character and of course she gets to be the love interest, and the fact that early on she seemed to be a woman of ideals and intelligence and opinions gets lost in a squalid little love drama. Boring. The rest of the series is fun, but that bit? Boring.
Ouch.
115. Highlander the Series season 1.
It's kind of odd, watching Highlander for the first time - I mean, I'm quite thoroughly spoiled. I doubt you can be in fandom and not be, Highlander being so omnipresent. So it's hard to be non-biased - hard to tell if things you're seeing are actually there - foreshadowing and suchlike - or simply you seeing things, as it were. As far as the show goes, well, the storytelling feels slower than most of what I'm used to watching, and I'm not really falling for Duncan, but then, I didn't expect to - he's too much take-charge-alpha-male for my tastes and not enough balancing characters. Ritchie I'm also pretty meh about, and as for Tessa - sometimes I like her, but mostly, she's just - well, a love interest/occasionally damsel in distress, and while she has her moments, well. I grew up with Buffy and Nikita and remember watching Beauty and the Beast as a little kid, I expect women characters to be a bit more active than she is most of the time. Not necessarily action heroines, just, she seems like a character from just before television really figured out that women are awesome, does that make sense? Anyway, only 38 more episodes until Methos...
116. Small Island
I wonder why so few of Benedict Cumberbatch roles are straightforward good guys - I mean, Bernard is hardly as nasty a character as the guy from Atonement - more sorry than villain, his sin mostly being that he's like all the other guys, that he doesn't rise above, and at the end, when it just appears like he'll get the chance, even that's taken from him... I need more stories where BC plays good guys. Heroes. Or at least sympathetic individuals...
117. Life on Mars season 1.
Hmmm. Well, it's okay - I like Gene Hunt just fine, but, well. My favourite sort of time travel tales are actually past-to-present ones - and anyway, I spend an uncomfortable amount of time looking away or fastforward because I get this weird second-hand embarrasment every time you can tell Sam ought to know or realize something or doesn't... But it's okay, and I like how Gene and Sam manage to become friends - somehow. I wonder if somebody's made a fanvid using that "Kiss with a fist" song of this...
118. Howl
Sitting down to watch this movie, I was expecting, well, a drama, courtroom scenes, freedom of speech arguments - and it does have those, but, how to put this. It isn't so much a movie about the poem Howl as it a movie of it. The story of Ginsberg, the publishing, the reaction, interpretations, inspirations, and over and around and in between is the poem itself, spoken, animated, repeated, weaving the tale together - and it's surprisingly good. Very good. Definitely worth a watch.
119. Threshold
This series reminds me of Fringe. A lot. Right down to the use of old Star Trek actors. Seriously, there should be a drinking game. Unfortunately, after an excellent start it kind of feels like it looses momentum - I mean, Peter Dinklage is fun, Brent Spiner is fun, and the character of Molly is - well, okay, not particularly engaging, but I just bet she's written the contingency plan in case of zombie apocalypse too. But the main plotline with the alien invasion? I watch Fringe, I watched Prey back in the day, I've seen others - it's pretty, well, predictable. It could have been interesting if a second season would have run with the hints that the invasion is less an invasion and more a humanitarian (alientarian?) effort, it would be very interesting to see a story where the heroes we've been cheering for all along turns out to be wrong! Wrong! Wrong! Alas, the end of this season didn't exactly leave the impression that that would have been the direction it would have went. Ah well...
120. The Lazarus Child
I don't get why people bother to hire a pretty decent actor like Peter Wingfield and then they give him - what? - two lines in one scene? Why? Why this waste?
121. Life on Mars season 2.
I actually liked the second season more than the first, partly because Sam has found his stride in the 70s and spends less time giving me acute second-hand-embarassement. And I like the friendship, the trust, between Sam and Gene. And the end reminded me of Neverwhere and similar tales, the hero choosing to go back to fairyland because he no longer feels at home in the real world - even if it is a fucked-up thing, committing suicide to get back to the world inside your own head... I wonder if there are fic out there with Gene winding up somehow returning to the 21st century with Sam? I looked and found a couple of ficlets, but I've hardly made a serious effort. I wonder...
122. Garrow's Law season 2.
Still gorgeous and interesting and I quite like the characters, but truthfully, I'm annoyed with the Lady Sarah and Garrow thing. I mean, for a series displaying late 18th century law it's an excellent way of showing another side of the law than the straigthforwardly criminal one, it's just, well, sometimes I would wish there were more men and women in television just being friends. No UST, no not-affairs, not love stories all the times. This series has one major female character and of course she gets to be the love interest, and the fact that early on she seemed to be a woman of ideals and intelligence and opinions gets lost in a squalid little love drama. Boring. The rest of the series is fun, but that bit? Boring.
Tags: