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Reasons why I am already stanning hard for this series (spoilers ahead):
It is both a steampunk romance and a parody of steampunk and romances
The author’s real name is Tofa Borregaard and she has a Master’s in archaeology or something
The heroine’s name is Alexia.  Unfortunately, Alexia is a medical condition which involves a person sustaining a brain injury that renders them unable to read
Because of our buddy Tofa’s background, I think she knows this.  
Alexia doesn’t speak Latin, so she refers to octopi as “octopuses”
Ivy’s awful hats
The two protagonists are totally useless!  Whenever they need to Solve a Crime or Save a Life, they just make out.
The vampire Lord Akeldama, who is a fabulous queen
Romanticized Scottish werewolves!
Everything is so tongue-in-cheek, winking at the reader, as if to say, “It’s all right, bb, you are smarter than this, but it’s okay to indulge when you have been working this hard in grad school.”  Once you realize that the narrative is smart satire of itself, it works.
I am about to write a screenplay of this ridiculous/amazing book and make millions because it is self-aware fluff and I am on this crazy train in the long run.

Reasons why I am already stanning hard for this series (spoilers ahead):

  • It is both a steampunk romance and a parody of steampunk and romances
  • The author’s real name is Tofa Borregaard and she has a Master’s in archaeology or something
  • The heroine’s name is Alexia.  Unfortunately, Alexia is a medical condition which involves a person sustaining a brain injury that renders them unable to read
  • Because of our buddy Tofa’s background, I think she knows this.  
  • Alexia doesn’t speak Latin, so she refers to octopi as “octopuses”
  • Ivy’s awful hats
  • The two protagonists are totally useless!  Whenever they need to Solve a Crime or Save a Life, they just make out.
  • The vampire Lord Akeldama, who is a fabulous queen
  • Romanticized Scottish werewolves!
  • Everything is so tongue-in-cheek, winking at the reader, as if to say, “It’s all right, bb, you are smarter than this, but it’s okay to indulge when you have been working this hard in grad school.”  Once you realize that the narrative is smart satire of itself, it works.

I am about to write a screenplay of this ridiculous/amazing book and make millions because it is self-aware fluff and I am on this crazy train in the long run.

  • H: i also like that aidan is a very old vampire from revolutionary times
  • H: he didn't like paul revere apparently
  • G: hahahahahaha
  • G: awesome
  • G: things he does like: lifting weights
  • G: with his arms
  • H: bet he put a lot of tories in headlocks with those arms
  • G: mm yeah
  • H: he really showed the red coats
  • H: with his biceps of freedom~
  • H: true patriots should always wear tshirts and not long sleeves
  • G: BICEPS OF FREEDOM
  • G: dying
  • ...
  • H: everyone should know about the birth of america!

This is where I pretend Being Human (the UK series) ended, if you leave out the coda at the end with the werewolves.  When I watched this today, I cried.  It was the fulfillment of a plot line but also fulfillment of a journey for Annie and Mitchell.  Of course, there are inklings here of the story to come, and there were some impressive developments in the third series, but given the way the show went after this episode I pretend that this was the end.

I’m not watching the fourth series.  Maybe I will eventually, but what worked about the show were the relationships between the three—and then four—original cast members as well as the supporting cast.  The vampire/werewolf/ghost mythology was a mere backdrop for exploring what being human really entails.  Moving forward, I’m sure that we will get to see Annie finally develop as a character and meet a host of supporting characters just as engaging as those in the first two series, but I am not emotionally invested and I want to remember the show the way it was.

I also do this with Battlestar Galactica.  For me, the emotional apex of the show was in “Someone to Watch Over Me” when Starbuck finally calls forth the song she remembers on the piano, or perhaps when she and the Admiral draw a line down the hangar deck to divide who is going on the rescue mission and the Admiral announces, “This is likely going to be a one-way trip.”  In these two moments near the end, we know a great change is coming.  The way the last few episodes were handled did not live up to the emotional charge of that moment.

I wish Being Human well, but it is going the way all of my favorite shows have been going lately.  It values what Toby Whithouse called “exploding story lines” (or something) over humanity, the epic over the personal. 

I cannot stop talking about Irene Adler in BBC Sherlock’s ”A Scandal in Belgravia.”  (Spoilers ahoy.)  Every facet of Adler’s character was linked to sex in some way, making her a caricature of a clever call girl rather than a real character.  Come on, Belle on Secret Diary of a Call Girl is more believable.  It’s not impossible to create a femme fatale who is also complex and strong - look at Alice Morgan on Luther.  I could go on for paragraphs about how this travesty* could have been improved, but instead I’ll give you some bullet points of what might have been fixed to alleviate my stress about this episode:

  • Her vermilion nails stroke Sherlock’s image in the newspaper.  That was a Bit Much.  For the most part Lara Pulver was styled impeccably, but give her some dark nails and make her stop stroking things.
  • Saying “I knew what he liked” once would have been enough.  We get it, she gets secrets with her ~mysterious sexy lady powers.~
  • If my memory of Secret Diary of a Call Girl is correct, dominatrices often don’t have sex with their clients, which doesn’t seem to be the case here. I’m sure Stephen Moffat did not actually do any research into sex work or psychology because he’s running his Doctor Who game of making shit up + space math.
  • The twinned montages of Sherlock and Irene getting ready to meet each other was brilliant.  I liked the idea of them mirroring one another.  However, having Irene show up naked was gratuitous and shows her as Sherlock’s inferior because she miscalculated his reaction.  While he was surprised, her nudity didn’t throw him off guard.  
  • This and a series of mistakes ending in her downfall completely destroy the characterization of Adler as The Woman who bested Sherlock Holmes.
  • The Irene of the story “A Scandal in Bohemia” would not have repeated demands for dinner.  She might have sent him puzzles, annoyances, mysteries that would catch his attention.
  • THAT STUPID SIGHING TEXT ALERT.  You know what would have been funny?  A whip crack.  It would have been in keeping with her character but not so… desperate.
  • Look at the image above, when Sherlock solves the mystery with his name because criminal mastermind Irene Adler uses her crush’s name to hide state secrets like a fourteen-year-old girl writes her crush’s name on her notebooks.  He is reaches across Adler, upstaging her once and for all, having overcome her silly feminine ways with great masculine reason.
  • The rescue at the end was infuriating.  Irene Adler is no longer the only one to ever best Sherlock Holmes.  It’s a male fantasy, rescuing the femme fatale turned damsel.

Honestly, I prefer Rachel McAdams’ portrayal of Adler in Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes franchise; as controversial as that is, she comes off as more liberated in 1891 than 2012.  I won’t even get started on Sherlock’s treatment of Molly and John’s treatment of Jeannette.  If you remain unconvinced or want to go down a procrastination spiral of reading about this, I recommend “Is Sherlock Sexist?” in The Guardian and the related ONTD post.  

* Yes, travesty.  As much as I enjoy the complexity of the show and the portrayal of the male leads (and Mrs. Hudson), Irene Adler was a hot mess and everyone from Moffat to the costume department need to go read about the male gaze.

[Screencaps from rawr-caps.net]

I love a Christmas special.  They are always absurd and are often game-changers for an entire series — even though they are not part of a season, so not all viewers will end up watching them.  Some prime examples from years past:

  • Voyage of the Damned, Doctor Who (I have never made it all the way through this episode.  I just… I don’t even know.)
  • That Misfits special from last year (Nathan randomly commits to a pregnant girl, there is a gross afterbirth-stomping scene, Nicki dies, and OH YEAH THEY ALL GET NEW POWERS)
  • okay I really just wanted to mention those two.

This year, both Doctor Who and Downton Abbey indulged us.  I’ll avoid spoilers for the latter, but not the former because it’s become so formulaic that there Are No Spoilers.  In “The Doctor, the Widow, and the Wardrobe,” Who offered a forgettable Narnia knockoff (but with spaceships) that I thought was focused on a mother’s love by defining it as strength; however, it actually reduced motherhood to a biological function and then some trees were sentient.  Also Bill Bailey and Dawn French (underused).  Madge (Claire Skinner) was a superb, fierce mother, though, which I did appreciate.   

Doctor Who always grants Christmas this semi-cosmic significance without quite considering why.  Oh, it’s Christmas, so there will be aliens and a derivative story line.  Last year’s “A Christmas Carol” took on Scrooge-lite in analyzing generosity and love at Christmastime, but this year’s special didn’t do much for me.  And yet the episode nearly saved itself in the last few minutes with a surprise happy ending and the Doctor understanding what it was to cry with happiness.  Amy and Rory returned.  Amy continues to have beautiful hair.  I continued not to give a shit.

Because Christmas specials are all about ~feelings~, Downton Abbey nearly gave everyone a heart attack with the unraveling of scandals both upstairs and downstairs.  I imagine people will get upset about spoilers, so I won’t get into them.  The tension felt real, but then I remembered what show I was watching. On Downton Abbey there are rarely any consequences for any characters.  Obviously the denouement of this special was amazing and perfect and YAY, but I’m a bit tired of the same problems being rehashed as if they were new plot points and hope the show can finally move forward.  I’m at the point where I don’t much care about Bates anymore, and was relieved not to have to deal with Branson being a domineering d-bag making Sibyl feel bad about class issues for 90 minutes.  

That said, Dame Maggie Smith was on point, as always, and of course the ending was a cause for joy, celebration, parades in the streets etc.

In the midst of all of this, I wasn’t really into Christmas this year after a long semester and a week of intense holiday admin.  So it was a relief that the triumphant return of Absolutely Fabulous had nothing to do with the holidays.  How this show manages to stay relevant is beyond me; it’s a work of genius, ageing with its characters through a variety of social contexts.  And for all the feel-good warm-and-fuzzy feelings the previous shows doled out, nothing inspired me more than the handshake between Patsy and Saffy.  That, friends, is a true statement of peace for mankind.

[DW and DA screencaps from rawr-caps.net; AbFab image from The Telegraph.  Font is ChocolateBox.  I’ve forgotten how to use Photoshop with any dignity.]

Hey! Top TV Men is back! And today we’re recognizing the contributions of one extremely talented man - Idris Elba!

Elba may be working more in film these days (he’s got a brace of scifi flicks coming up - Ridley Scott’s Prometheus in later this year and Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim in 2013), but his body of tv work speaks for itself. Working steadily on the small screen in the UK since the mid-90s (Insiders, Ultraviolet, Dangerfield), Elba’s turn as Stringer Bell on HBO’s The Wire brought him to the attention of American audiences in 2002. Since starring in the gritty cop drama, his career has taken off, and thankfully we can all look forward to many years of Idris Elba on our movie screens and tv sets.

Proving that his range knows no limits, Elba has starred in two tv comedies - the US Office, and The Big C opposite Laura Linney. When you’re as charismatic and versatile as Idris Elba, you can literally take any job and transform it into a piece of art. But when it comes to Elba’s status as a Top TV Man, one entry on his resume really seals the deal; and it turns out the Hollywood Foreign Press Association agrees, because they honored our Top TV Man with a Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television for his work as DCI John Luther in the BBC’s Luther.

Elba’s consistently wonderful portrayal of tortured cop Luther is the stuff dreams are made of; well, if those dreams involved sexual tension with a parent-killing ginger sociopath, training up a cute protege in the art of nabbing serial murderers, or becoming besties with a teenage porn star. In any case, we’re grateful that a third series of Luther is being produced, insuring his place on our tv screens, in our hearts, and in the Top TV Men pantheon.

About AMC’s Hell On Wheels

I’m going to start this review of the first two episodes of AMC’s Hell On Wheels by flat out stating that the writing needs to improve. The editing could use some work as well. Given the decent production values, and the seemingly capable cast of actors, it seems a shame that the writing relies so heavily on failed attempts to be clever and listless dialogue. Plot-wise I think there have been a few missteps as well. I’m hoping that things improve, because the cast is fairly diverse and I am very interested to see how the storylines involving the freedman Elam Ferguson and the Cheyenne preacher Joseph evolve. I mean, obviously I need to keep my expectations realistic - an interesting, nuanced picture of two men of color on one tv show is a lot to ask for in this day and age~

Anyway, writing aside, Hell On Wheels is basically a Western with a revenge plot thrown in (which I suppose is a pretty standard combination). Former Confederate solder and plantation owner Cullen Bohannon*, played by Anson Mount, is out to get revenge on the Union soldiers who raped and murdered his beloved wife sometime during Sherman’s March South. In the process of tracking down these men, Bohannon joins up with the construction of the Union Pacific Railroad, which is industriously moving right through Cheyenne territory in Oklahoma. Construction of the railway is carried out by a number of former soldiers from both sides of the Civil War, and a large contingent of former slaves, including Elam Ferguson, played by Common. Elam is clearly being set up as Cullen’s confidant/right-hand-man on the railroad work crew. They’re even already conspired to kill a man together! Bonding!

Leading the push to create the railroad and milk the federal government for everything it’s got in the process is Thomas Durant, played with seeming relish by Colm Meany. Durant is predictably an avaricious blowhard, bent on getting rich at the expense of everyone (one feels that being able to dick people over is the main reason Durant got in the money-making business to begin with). I thought the scene where Durant was sticking even more arrows into the dead bodies of his survey crew in order to generate more outrage against the Natives was very interesting - the show dabbles in making astute commentary on its historical subject matter. Another good moment was when Robert Bell (Robert Moloney) reminds his wife Lily (Dominique McElligott) that her perceptions of the West as uninhabited are wrong - he rightfully tells her that they are in the heart of Cheyenne territory, not some untouched, unclaimed land.

It has to be said that the show also dabbles in making some not so astute commentary, like the continual usage of racial slurs, on which Common has said, “Even if you try to think that they’re acting, it still just doesn’t feel right…You get that feeling like, ‘Man, this is not good.’” I agree that it is not good, and I am hoping that (however “historically accurate” some of these terms may be) they fall out of use in the show’s scripts. I also feel bad that Common has expressed discomfort about this part of his work environment and nothing has been done by the show’s producers to address it. They could very easily cut out certain terms they are using and the narrative would not be impacted at all.

This does bring out a point I want to address about the general conceit of the show - it feels like the writers are trying to go for an “ultra-realistic” take on historical events, and hope to justify their use of certain terms and tropes in this way. However, the writer’s also clearly want their protagonist, Cullen Bohannon to be sympathetic to the audience, and in an effort to achieve this they have made him into some sort of exceptional, enlightened hero-figure. what I mean is, when it is revealed that Bohannon owned slaves, in addition to fighting for the Confederate Army, it was a realistic and complicated part of that character’s past. When it was revealed that Bohannon has actually freed his slaves before the Civil War broke out, due to the saintly influence of his Northern wife who helped him see the evils of slavery, I was, frankly, offended. Because:

a) am I supposed to care that he saw the error of his ways? He owned slaves! He participated in one of the most egregious human rights violations in history. I don’t really commend people for realizing slavery is bad - we should all know that anyway! and

b) the writer’s clearly want to cash in on some sort of pre-Civil War southern glamor, where men like Bohannon are “noble” or “gentlemanly” or “well mannered” or whatever, irrespective of their participation in the slave economy. But, they realized that an outright, unrepentant slave-owning Confederate soldier would not be very sympathetic, so they decided to make him into an enlightened, error-of-his-way seeing slave owner and Confederate soldier. How clever! They get to have their Confederate cake and eat it too - except that this means their main character is completely unrealistic.

For a show that has no problem throwing around racial slurs, this magically relatable non-racist white savior protagonist is rather eye-roll-worthy. If the writers of Hell On Wheels were more capable, they might be able to navigate the complexities of a less idealized main character, and Hell On Wheels would be a stronger, more nuanced show.

*Seriously, did they find a Confederate soldier/southern gentleman name generator somewhere?

It’s happened.  I am chasing the Misfits crack Frisbee*.  This show makes no sense and I’m surprised that no one has actually fallen into a plot hole yet, but I’m there.  As long as they cut it out with the rapey undertones that have haunted the series from its inception, I can handle it.  

Misfits tried to become an “epic” show last series, and I think it has gone completely in the other direction in series 3.  I don’t really care about Simon time traveling or how their powers work (although the constant shuffle is getting tedious).  It’s a morally ambiguous comedy.  Kelly is my chav queen and I ugly-laugh every time Rudy opens his mouth.  Stick to what you’re good at, Misfits.

*  a nicer, more pop-culture-related manner of expressing “drinking the Kool-Aid,” as it references Peep Show rather than mass suicide.

(Source: fashioncircus)

My frustration with the second series of Downtown Abbey is a matter of red herrings, mostly.  How many times in this season were we presented with a shocking possibility regarding injuries or blackmail or impossibilities or long-lost relatives, only to have them cast off—sometimes within the same episode?  The main points of tension in this series, really, were tired remnants from the first series:  covering up the scandal regarding “the Turkish gentleman,” and dealing with Mr. Bates’ wife.
This series covered way too much ground in so few episodes.  I suppose this was a device allowing Matthew to be home on leave just about every episode, but the series felt rushed, hurtling toward the end of the war and the 1920s.  Despite this rapid passage of time, we leave the series in much the same way we found it at the beginning of the first series.  A few characters have come and gone, but there are few major upheavals besides the one that ends the final moments of the last episode—but given what we have seen so far, I cannot feel any real sense of anxiety about how that story line will unfurl.
The lack of consequences on this show, oddly, is a circumstance that really only applies to the “upstairs” half of the cast.  The servants face death, financial ruin, single motherhood, guilt.  I don’t know what message we can take from this; the aristocracy is constant, but humanity lies with The People.
While I always enjoy watching Downton Abbey, and was moved almost to tears several times over the course of the series, I feel that this second go lacked a certain spark that the first series had, which is strange since the first series didn’t take place during a war.  I want to demand tougher decisions, more elegant writing, better dialogue.  I quite like this show but want more from it.  

My frustration with the second series of Downtown Abbey is a matter of red herrings, mostly.  How many times in this season were we presented with a shocking possibility regarding injuries or blackmail or impossibilities or long-lost relatives, only to have them cast off—sometimes within the same episode?  The main points of tension in this series, really, were tired remnants from the first series:  covering up the scandal regarding “the Turkish gentleman,” and dealing with Mr. Bates’ wife.

This series covered way too much ground in so few episodes.  I suppose this was a device allowing Matthew to be home on leave just about every episode, but the series felt rushed, hurtling toward the end of the war and the 1920s.  Despite this rapid passage of time, we leave the series in much the same way we found it at the beginning of the first series.  A few characters have come and gone, but there are few major upheavals besides the one that ends the final moments of the last episode—but given what we have seen so far, I cannot feel any real sense of anxiety about how that story line will unfurl.

The lack of consequences on this show, oddly, is a circumstance that really only applies to the “upstairs” half of the cast.  The servants face death, financial ruin, single motherhood, guilt.  I don’t know what message we can take from this; the aristocracy is constant, but humanity lies with The People.

While I always enjoy watching Downton Abbey, and was moved almost to tears several times over the course of the series, I feel that this second go lacked a certain spark that the first series had, which is strange since the first series didn’t take place during a war.  I want to demand tougher decisions, more elegant writing, better dialogue.  I quite like this show but want more from it.  

(Source: chinderesistance)


(via lucette)

rudi van disarzio

In 2007 I went through a hardcore Mighty Boosh phase, and have recently been re-watching old episodes because I need television that will not make me angry.  One of my favorite episodes of those halcyon days is “The Priest and the Beast,” which encounters Rudi van Disarzio (Julian Barratt) and Spider Dijon (Noel Fielding) in the desert searching for the New Sound.  And for the first time I paid attention to the fact that Barratt was playing a black man.

Everyone in this episode has weird accents for no reason, and I don’t think Barratt portrays Rudi specifically as a black man or as a stereotype of anything, but the face that he’s painted brown is a problem.  He has an Afro containing the Door of Kukundu, out of which various objects appear, because he is a psychedelic monk.  (If you’ve never seen The Mighty Boosh, know that the Door of Kukundu is one of the more normal things you will encounter.)  For me this raises a question of whether portraying someone of a different skin color can be separated from the culturally- and racially-charged “blackface,” because on a show as weird as The Mighty Boosh a lot of systems of meaning have broken down.  

Nevertheless, it made me uncomfortable to realize this, and I think the show should have been more cognizant of the issues it was raising in “The Priest and the Beast.”  In the first series, Rudi appeared in “Jungle” as a man with his face and hands painted sticking out of a wooden frame which depicted his body and Afro-framed door:

What do we take from this?  On the one hand, you have a small cast and low budget portraying people of other races as well as animals aliens.  On the other, you have a show oblivious to the history of blackface as part of racial oppression.  As innocently as they might have meant it, and as much as they tried to remove racial stereotypes from the depiction of Rudi, this is something that should not go without comment.