Finally, Monday nights rock
Feb. 4th, 2003 10:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gwynSpoilers for Miracles (as if anyone's watching!)
Last night’s episode of Miracles wasn’t as strong as the pilot. Naturally, because I’d told everyone I know they absolutely had to watch it, so they were probably all tuning in, going, she really is the biggest idiot around. Nevertheless, I found a lot to like about it, and while in order to progress the story a bit and move Callan into his new role of working with this investigatory group, as well as introduce these two characters into his life, they had to do that step-step-step approach, I did really enjoy it. There were, again, a lot of cool visuals (this is going to be fun to vid to!), and Skeet Ulrich is just wonderfully twitchy and haunted (literally, it seems, especially on the twitchy part). Angus MacFadyen was amusing with his portentous phrases and arch delivery, and then turning it around and almost mocking himself. His character is going to be very interesting.
It’s hard to tell with only two episodes so far, but it appears they are going to give us the emotionalism that I crave in a fannish-type show — the ending was a nice touch, and gives us a good indication of what Callan’s struggling with, trying to make these emotional connections to people while also being caught up in something darker and more frightening. While some of the passengers’ post-“miracle” experiences were a little far-fetched, the little girl who saw her future really got to me (how unbelievably creepy would that be to see at age 11 all the shit you’re going to go through as an adult, the failures and the emotional problems, and know there’s probably not a damn thing you can do about it?), as did the woman who burned up — if they hadn’t performed the autopsy, she’d have come back to life, and how really icky and freaky is that? Definitely going for that heebie-jeebie X-Files vibe and succeeding there, in a big way.
It doesn’t hurt that I’m really in love with Skeet, now. Yummy — but I want them to get him out of those sweater/shirt combos and into tees more often, and those shirts do nothing for him. This boy is delicious, they need to let him show it off. And Angus has trimmed down nicely (I noticed that in Equilibrium, even though there he still seemed on the portly side, which he seems to get on occasion) and looks quite dashing in his flowy coat. The two boys have a nice dynamic, I look forward to seeing more.
Veritas
This is wonderfully goofy and over the top. Not much else to say other than “speaking of nice dynamics” — Alex Cross and Arnold Vosloo make for a tasty, tasty dish. They have that cool adventurer and sidekick chemistry; I almost wish everyone else was off the show so they could just run around together. Vosloo’s character, with his martial arts teachings and deadpan asides, was just the highlight of the show — he’s a riot with his Zen cool master of all things attitude. And if you close your eyes when Alex Cross talks, he sounds exactly like Callum Keith Rennie. It’s freakish. But man, he’s easy on the eyes. Forget the annoying kid, keep the dad and Arnold, and let them be cool and vibey together, I say.
Non-reviewy life issues stuff
I’m having a minor crisis of faith about fanfic, or maybe it’s just a crisis of categorization — I’m working on a story in Mag 7 that is so not my pairing, as a gift for someone, and a really short story in Buffy that is ostensibly about Spike and Buffy, but Buffy’s not even in it (mostly because the longer, even weirder piece just is not coming together). And it’s lame and kinda pointless, I suppose. And I wonder about these kinds of things — I want to update my home page (anyone out there gifted at making banner .gifs for the graphically challenged? Have the Optima typeface and can translate what a non-designer would like to have, who’s also an idiot? Want to take on helping said idiot?), but even if I could update, I still have a structure where I focus on specific pairings within my fandoms (I’m completely J on the Myers-Briggs scale, and have to organize everything just so, or I get wiggy). I’m not sure what to do with stories like these precisely, where they don’t fit into my “one pairing, 24/7” motto, and I’m not even totally certain I should post them.
If one’s a gift, once it’s given, I’m not certain it’s something I even should post — and I’m not the type to send to archives; I’m a control freak and if I don’t put something on my page, I usually won’t do anything with it at all because I hate the idea of having stories floating around with my name on them that I don’t have ultimate control over (I realize that in reality I have none once they’re on the Web, I just like the delusional feeling of control). And the other story is just kind of stupid and short and dialogy, with Dawn and Spike — and I’m not certain it’s something I can say is Spuffyish, and fits in with my “Spike and Buffy 24/7” position, and maybe worse, whether it’s a complete waste of time. If people get to know your writing in a fandom and expect certain things from you, is it worth it to step outside that? (Not that I’m, like, a name or anything, but...) Fan writing is so different from my RL writing that I wonder a lot about expectations and assumptions. If you’ve structured your fandoms by certain ‘ships, and then you step outside those or come up with something that doesn’t fit perfectly within them, what do you do?
And if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around, does it make a sound?
Last night’s episode of Miracles wasn’t as strong as the pilot. Naturally, because I’d told everyone I know they absolutely had to watch it, so they were probably all tuning in, going, she really is the biggest idiot around. Nevertheless, I found a lot to like about it, and while in order to progress the story a bit and move Callan into his new role of working with this investigatory group, as well as introduce these two characters into his life, they had to do that step-step-step approach, I did really enjoy it. There were, again, a lot of cool visuals (this is going to be fun to vid to!), and Skeet Ulrich is just wonderfully twitchy and haunted (literally, it seems, especially on the twitchy part). Angus MacFadyen was amusing with his portentous phrases and arch delivery, and then turning it around and almost mocking himself. His character is going to be very interesting.
It’s hard to tell with only two episodes so far, but it appears they are going to give us the emotionalism that I crave in a fannish-type show — the ending was a nice touch, and gives us a good indication of what Callan’s struggling with, trying to make these emotional connections to people while also being caught up in something darker and more frightening. While some of the passengers’ post-“miracle” experiences were a little far-fetched, the little girl who saw her future really got to me (how unbelievably creepy would that be to see at age 11 all the shit you’re going to go through as an adult, the failures and the emotional problems, and know there’s probably not a damn thing you can do about it?), as did the woman who burned up — if they hadn’t performed the autopsy, she’d have come back to life, and how really icky and freaky is that? Definitely going for that heebie-jeebie X-Files vibe and succeeding there, in a big way.
It doesn’t hurt that I’m really in love with Skeet, now. Yummy — but I want them to get him out of those sweater/shirt combos and into tees more often, and those shirts do nothing for him. This boy is delicious, they need to let him show it off. And Angus has trimmed down nicely (I noticed that in Equilibrium, even though there he still seemed on the portly side, which he seems to get on occasion) and looks quite dashing in his flowy coat. The two boys have a nice dynamic, I look forward to seeing more.
Veritas
This is wonderfully goofy and over the top. Not much else to say other than “speaking of nice dynamics” — Alex Cross and Arnold Vosloo make for a tasty, tasty dish. They have that cool adventurer and sidekick chemistry; I almost wish everyone else was off the show so they could just run around together. Vosloo’s character, with his martial arts teachings and deadpan asides, was just the highlight of the show — he’s a riot with his Zen cool master of all things attitude. And if you close your eyes when Alex Cross talks, he sounds exactly like Callum Keith Rennie. It’s freakish. But man, he’s easy on the eyes. Forget the annoying kid, keep the dad and Arnold, and let them be cool and vibey together, I say.
Non-reviewy life issues stuff
I’m having a minor crisis of faith about fanfic, or maybe it’s just a crisis of categorization — I’m working on a story in Mag 7 that is so not my pairing, as a gift for someone, and a really short story in Buffy that is ostensibly about Spike and Buffy, but Buffy’s not even in it (mostly because the longer, even weirder piece just is not coming together). And it’s lame and kinda pointless, I suppose. And I wonder about these kinds of things — I want to update my home page (anyone out there gifted at making banner .gifs for the graphically challenged? Have the Optima typeface and can translate what a non-designer would like to have, who’s also an idiot? Want to take on helping said idiot?), but even if I could update, I still have a structure where I focus on specific pairings within my fandoms (I’m completely J on the Myers-Briggs scale, and have to organize everything just so, or I get wiggy). I’m not sure what to do with stories like these precisely, where they don’t fit into my “one pairing, 24/7” motto, and I’m not even totally certain I should post them.
If one’s a gift, once it’s given, I’m not certain it’s something I even should post — and I’m not the type to send to archives; I’m a control freak and if I don’t put something on my page, I usually won’t do anything with it at all because I hate the idea of having stories floating around with my name on them that I don’t have ultimate control over (I realize that in reality I have none once they’re on the Web, I just like the delusional feeling of control). And the other story is just kind of stupid and short and dialogy, with Dawn and Spike — and I’m not certain it’s something I can say is Spuffyish, and fits in with my “Spike and Buffy 24/7” position, and maybe worse, whether it’s a complete waste of time. If people get to know your writing in a fandom and expect certain things from you, is it worth it to step outside that? (Not that I’m, like, a name or anything, but...) Fan writing is so different from my RL writing that I wonder a lot about expectations and assumptions. If you’ve structured your fandoms by certain ‘ships, and then you step outside those or come up with something that doesn’t fit perfectly within them, what do you do?
And if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around, does it make a sound?
