Let's see, it's been a while, so I have some catching up to do. But what I really want to talk about is TV, of course.

First, my freaking DVR has been randomly erasing programs for no apparent reason. The cable company asked me all sorts of questions designed to get me to confess that I didn't know how the thing worked. Fortunately, I do understand that I can set the box to automatically delete things after a certain point in time, and I also know how to keep that from happening. After much to-ing and fro-ing, I even managed to convince him of that, and it appears that the only sure remedy would be to either replace the box or reformat the hard drive, which would involve me losing what programs it hasn't already erased on its own. So I'm trying to watch what's left as quickly as possible, to allow that to happen.

Last night saw the first halves of the season finales of Stargates SG-1 and Atlantis. The SG-1 episode was pretty dull, I have to admit. Most of the time was spent in an alternative timeline where Daniel Jackson and Samantha Carter were embarassing stereotypes of nerds. Much talking, much trying-too-hard cuteness, no real drama. And no real suspense about whether everything will be eventually restored to The Way It's Supposed To Be, either.

Meanwhile, on Atlantis, we got a pretty dark, suspenseful build-up to the climactic Wraith attack (which has been a danger since the very first episode). There was conflict, there was drama, there was humor that wasn't childish, there were ships getting blown up, and a recurring character was killed. This one, I'm honestly not sure how it's going to turn out. I really enjoy both shows, but it's become clearer and clearer as the season has worn on that I really prefer Atlantis. Maybe it's the thrill of the new, maybe it's that SG-1 is the pulpier, more fun one, while Atlantis is a bit darker and edgier (as befits their respective timeslots, I guess), but this is a rare case where the spin-off is every bit as strong as the original. (Sort of like Deep Space Nine vs Star Trek: Next Generation, only I like SG-1 so much better than Next Generation...)

Meanwhile, Battlestar Galactica continues to be as dark and nasty as ever. And I think I may be falling in love with Mary McDonnell.

And there are two episodes left for American Dreams. NBC is saying it's two episodes left until the end of the season; I'm betting that it'll be the end of the series as well, sadly. So please, while Lost is in reruns, watch American Dreams while you can. Probably won't do any good at this point, but still...

The Mighty Boosh - Shiny Shelf
I have a new radio comedy passion, and it's all the fault of this review. Because we share a mutual loathing of Green Lantern: Rebirth, I feel that the folks at Shiny Shelf and I are sympatico, so I took a chance on the CD of The Mighty Boosh based on their recommendation. 2/3 of the way through, it's genius. (And, God help me, it's now a TV series, with the first series due out on DVD in the fall.)

Yahoo! News - 'Buffy' Creator Lassos 'Wonder' Helm for Warners
I'm not sure, but I may have just heard the geeks of the world having a collective orgasm.

SFX - FEATURE: Doctor Who episode two picture preview

More pictures, this time from the second episode of the new Doctor Who. Of course, it's possible they'll look lousy when actually moving, but they certainly appear to be a far cry from the papier-mache/cardboard/duct tape of the original...

Entertainment News - [TV Guide Online]: "WHERE'S THE HATE?: Ah, here it is: A music video for 'We Are Family' featuring whippersnapper faves ranging from SpongeBob to Miss Piggy is being distributed to more than 60,000 schools to promote tolerance of diversity — and of course, conservatives are freaking out. The editor of the American Family Association's journal has asserted that 'one of the differences being celebrated [by the project] is homosexuality.' And as everyone knows, gay kids are not to be accepted but rather mocked, cast out or beaten. Nice."

SFX - REVIEW: Doctor Who, episode one

Okay, I just saw the first episode of the new Doctor Who series and wrote an extensive, heartfelt entry about what Doctor Who means to me, and why I can't be objective about it or anything. And then freaking Blogger lost it.

So, instead, here's a review that pretty much says what I thought about the episode (almost verbatim, really), and I'll maybe try to reconstruct the blog entry later. Although it won't be the same.

BBC - Doctor Who - Homepage

Okay, the official BBC Doctor Who site has posted these tiny little teasers for the new series, and in them, we get a glimpse of the TARDIS interior (designed by comics artist Bryan Hitch). Which probably means nothing to most of the folks reading this, but I'm pretty excited.

Apparently, a copy of the first episode leaked out onto the Internet last weekend, and all sorts of negative reviews are being posted to Ain't It Cool News, clearing house for All Things Loser. Me, I've only read excerpts of one professional media review, which was apparently quite positive, and read the review Warren Ellis put out on his mailing list, which was also quite positive. (And he tends to hate everything; hated Farscape, hated the Battlestar Galactica miniseries, liked the first episode he saw of House, but doesn't think there's enough variety... I think he may have hated Firefly, too, but who knows?) Me, the impression I get of the great, steaming geek-fest that is AICN is that it's a bunch of fat, sexless losers who still live in their mothers' basements (all metaphorically speaking, of course), who are so desperate to not be seen as, well, what they are, that they try to put on an air of sophistication and disinterest by hating almost everything. Having said that, it's the crowd that loved box office (and, in my opinion, artistic) failure Sky Captain and the Pretty, but Dull, Plotless, Uninvolving, and Personalityless World of Tomorrow, so that shows how much their opinions affect the rest of the universe...

Last night was an HBO night: Season premiere of Deadwood and a new episode of Carnivale. Deadwood, of course, was insanely wonderful. It's almost like they've taken the success of the first season as license to go even further, and I don't mean with the coarse language and violence everyone knows the show for (although that's certainly there, and makes The Sopranos look like a tea party). No, it's like the dialogue is even more stylized and highly crafted, like some mutant old west hybrid of Shakespeare and David Mamet.

Carnivale is headed firmly into the final quarter of the season, which hopefully won't be its last (although I'm not holding my breath; ratings have plummeted calamitously... Crap, now David Milch has me talking like that...). This week featured a particularly disturbing tar-and-feathering sequence that I won't soon forget. Definitely like nothing else on TV, that's for sure, which is probably why so few people are watching it.

And they ran an ad for a new series coming this fall: Rome. From the brief clips shown, it looks gorgeous. Can't tell who's in it, don't know who created it, nothing, but it stands more than a chance of being great. (I mean, I'm not a fan of all HBO's shows, but I won't deny their qualities, even if they don't appeal to me.)

And I managed to download a couple of episodes of the New Captain Scarlet TV series, only to discover they won't play on my computer, or on the ones at work. They do, however, play on my DVD player. Well, sort of. One of them plays without sound, which is weird, because you'd think they'd both have that problem... Anyway, so I remain optimistic that I'll be able to watch the New Doctor Who fairly close to its broadcast date. Which is all I really want, really.

And I can't comment on the Captain Scarlet episodes, because I haven't actually watched them yet.

Another Friday night and I was too goddamned tired to watch TV. Thank goodness for the DVR (assuming it's working).

What I did watch this morning, having recorded it last night, was the second episode of Law & Order: Trial By Jury, the twenty-seventh consecutive L&O spin-off series. (Seriously, it's only the third, making a total of four prime-time hours a week NBC devotes to Law & Order, not counting the nights they rerun it, plus the reruns of all the shows on various cable networks...)

Yes, you heard right: I watched two whole episodes of a Law & Order spin-off. How did NBC force me to do that which I hate? They cast Bebe Neuwirth in it. That's right; Fraser Crane's ex-wife, Lilith, is now a NYC prosecutor. And she's such a fantastic actress--like so many of the L&O cast members--that she manages to rise above the incredibly wooden lines flying around her. And, of course, like any L&O show, the dialogue continues to be crap. It's the same stilted, trying-too-hard dialogue that continues to drive me away from the CSI family, the school of writing that insists that if someone is killed by decaptitation, someone has to say something like, "He'll never get ahead in life." It's the kind of stuff that you expect to hear with an Austrian accent in an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, but not coming from folks we're expected to believe are real people.

Still, it's got Bebe Neuwirth as Robotrix Prosecutor, and that's just fine. (And Amy Carlson, who starred on Third Watch and the underrated series Peacemakers (or CSI: Deadwood), rerunning on CMT, of all places.) And it featured Jerry Orbach's last performance--making lame cracks about his ex-wife, still; who'da figured?--so it's kind of bittersweet.

Anyway, not recommending it, but I'll probably stick with it as long as it's replacing Medical Investigation, and not adding something to my schedule.

And I got the new Doctor Who Magazine yesterday, the first with tons of new photos and previews of the new TV series. March 26, it's supposed to premiere in the UK. And they're saying the DVDs may come out as soon as October. (Hopefully, I'll be able to catch it online before that, otherwise I won't be able to read my magazines...) I'm all giddy with excitement.

Not to harp on Green Lantern: Rebirth again, but here's another "critic's" non-critical view:

NEWSARAMA - JOURNEY INTO COMICS: GREEN LANTERN'S RETURN AND SHORT TAKES: "DC relented and with Green Lantern: Rebirth (DC, $2.95) Jordan is coming back as Green Lantern in a six-issue series followed by a regular monthly title.

Writer Geoff Johns and artist Ethan Van Sciver came up with a perfect vehicle to explain away Jordan’s insanity, sacrifice, death and resurrection. The series, now up to issue 4, is a thing of beauty."

Perfect vehicle? Thing of beauty? Again, ladies and gentlemen, I give you the story that takes away a human emotional response and replaces it with the yellow fear alien.

Lest it appear that I don't do anything besides watch TV, I just finished a book the other day: The Nimble Man by Christopher Golden and Tom Sniegoski, both authors whose work I've enjoyed in the past. This is the first in a new "dark fantasy" series, featuring Arthur Conan Doyle as the immortal magician leading a team of ghosts, vampires, and other mystical beings in a bid to defend the Earth against... well, other mystical, creepy stuff. All very Buffy, really, which makes sense, because Golden is perhaps best known as the author of about a million Buffy novels. (He also cowrote the Ghosts of Albion webcast series with Buffy actress Amber Benson, also soon to be a series of novels.)

Anyway, as I said, this first novel featured a story that felt straight out of Buffy or Angel, with some big, horrible Power From Beyond Time menacing the planet. And the novel fell a bit flat for me, partly because the plot did feel so familiar, and partly because this is the first time we've seen these characters, and they're up against what is reportedly such a huge threat. Time and time again, Doyle tells his people (and the readers) that this problem is far greater than anything they've ever faced before. Trouble is, we haven't seen how they've handled anything else before, and when (surprise) they win here, it doesn't seem all that hard, either. Very much ado about nothing, really. (And then, the book sets up future stories when we're told that there's something even worse coming down the pike, but again, if the fairly generic Ultimate Evil Monster they face in this book was supposed to be such a challenge, then how bad are we supposed to believe the next one to be?)

The next book comes out sometime this spring, I think, but it's not a high priority. (A higher priority is the first full Ghosts of Albion novel in the fall, because the web series has been a lot more fun.)

So last night was, of course, the series finale of NYPD Blue. I think it may take some time for that to sink in. I mean, the show ran for twelve years, and I watched it all the way through, from the first episode to the last. Okay, I may have missed the occasional episode here and there, but that's different from, say, drifting away completely, as I did with Law & Order, or joining partway through, like Stargate SG-1, or even leaving and coming back, like ER and Judging Amy. In fact, I think the only show I watched so faithfully for so long has been Doctor Who. Funny how one leaves the air mere weeks before the other comes back...

Anyway, it was the perfect conclusion to the series. Andy Sipowicz--the only character to stick around through the whole series--has entered a new phase of his life and career, so there was a sense of completion and closure. But there's also the sense that life, and the world, goes on. For the most part, the story was just another episode, with very little to distinguish it from the rest, and that's the way it ought to be. Only at the end, when all the characters, one by one, stopped by Andy's new office to say goodnight, did it feel like something was coming to an end.

And the whole thing was preceded by a retrospective hosted by former cast member Jimmy Smits (who almost makes me want to watch The West Wing this year, but not quite). It reminded me of how much I had consistently enjoyed the show for the past 12 years, and how much I'll miss it. The first two seasons have been released on DVD, and, of course, I own them. (I own freaking One Tree Hill, Wonder Woman and The Greatest American Hero on DVD; you think I'm not going to buy my favorite show?) And when I watch those early episodes, I am reminded of how groundbreaking and different the show was when it premiered and, although quite honestly, as time passed, it did grow to look more like the rest of what was on TV, it remained very good right up until the end. I hope, hope, hope, the remaining ten seasons get released on DVD, because it's a series I don't want to let go of.

Of course, last night also saw the premiere of The Amazing Race 7. It appears to be off to a great start, although I already hate Survivor vets Rob & Amber. They're just so freaking smug, and they really don't need to be on another show like this. (And they're using their fame to get the advantage, which just sucks.) I was sorry to see that the first team to be eliminated was the redneck friends, because I would have liked to have seen if they were more than the stereotype. Teams I already don't like: the really annoying gay couple, and the on-again, off-again couple. I do like the mother-son team (although she's already showing some irritating traits), and I like the war "hero"/beauty queen couple. In a lot of ways, they remind me of the previous race's Jon & Kris, who almost won by remaining calm and competent throughout, and only lost through sheer dumb luck. This couple seems similarly nice, only they're not as bright, and they're letting other teams walk all over them. I'd really like to see them grow a spine and start taking charge.

Oh, and my stupid DVR, which has been giving me my share of problems lately (the other week, it deleted a bunch of WB shows for no apparent reason) failed to record the first two episodes of the new Gordon Ramsey series, [B]Boiling Point[/b], and I didn't realize it until it was too late.

So it hasn't been officially announced by the producers yet, but apparently, Lexa Doig has joined the cast of Stargate SG-1 as the new medical officer (and possibly the daughter of Beau Bridges' new character). Now, I'm a huge Lexa Doig fan--she was the only reason I was watching Andromeda, until even that wasn't a good enough reason--so that's good news, as far as I'm concerned.

(Beau Bridges? Doesn't he have an Oscar, too? Or is it just the other new recurring cast member, Lou Gossett, Jr?)

So, despite my earlier comments, I find myself watching the Oscars after all. (Which is odd, since I haven't seen any movies this year, really.) And they just had the tribute to people who passed away over the past year, and I felt a lump in my throat when they showed Christopher Reeve.

Okay, so the Oscars are on tonight, and before anyone asks, I only care to the extent that there's no new episode of Desperate Housewives.

According to SciFi.com, the New York Post is reporting that Joss Whedon, who hasn't even officially been confirmed as making a Wonder Woman movie, has two actresses in mind for the lead part: either Jessica Biel, the young female lead of Seventh Heaven/Blade: Trinity/Texas Chainsaw Massacre fame, or Kim Bassinger, who is pushing 40 (pushing it right back into 50, at this point...) I wonder which one of these names seems more likely?

Trying to get caught up on stuff (okay, TV) that I didn't get done over the weekend I was at the convention. So I don't want to take the time to write a long entry right now. Besides, Penelope seems to be too happy to see me for me to want to ignore her while I type away.

She's sitting on my lap right now, purring away. Actually, now she's standing up, making it a little difficult to type... Anyway, I talked to her vet last night, and it turns out her latest thyroid level test results were lower than the last time, so Dr Suzuki is inclined to believe that we don't have to worry about hyperthyroidism after all. (Which means no radiation therapy. This is a good thing.) Also, while it's raining again outside, it stopped for most of the day, and my house failed to float away or acquire a brand-new carpeting of water. Good things, all.

How's this for irony? After the rainy drive home, after the flood warning, after discovering my DVR mysteriously erased episodes of Gilmore Girls, One Tree Hill, and Smallville that I hadn't seen yet, and after getting far too many phone calls from my parents in the space of an hour (I love my dad, but after spending the weekend away, and after driving five hours through non-stop rain, I'm just not in the mood to talk about the latest opera he listened to, you know?), I listened to the latest Tomorrow People CD from Big Finish, ironically titled A Living Hell. Actually the perfect way to end the day, having met so many folks from Big Finish over the weekend. This particular CD wrapped up some ongoing threads from the previous couple of year's worth of stories, and felt very much like a season-ending cliffhanger for a TV show.

Anyway, I just wanted to point out that BBC America has a bunch of new stuff either on or coming. The new season of Monarch of the Glen premieres this Saturday, although they ran the Christmas special this past Saturday, and I watched it then. It's obviously a made-for-the-tourist-board romanticized, isn't-the-landscape-pretty series, like Ballykissangel, but in both cases, I enjoy them for the characters and humor, not because I'm looking for a documentary about the region. And Gordon Ramsay has a new show, Boiling Point, coming March 1. I really enjoyed Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares (all four episodes), so I'm looking forward to this one.

Just got back from Los Angeles (okay, Van Nuys) to find that my neighborhood is under a severe flash flood warning. Figures. It was pouring down rain all the way from Southern California to here, and I'm pretty seriously hoping that my house doesn't float away.

Anyway, I was in LA for Gallifrey One, the big West Coast Doctor Who convention. I'll write more about it later, probably, but right now, I'm still all excited about having met Elisabeth Sladen, an actress from the show who was an early adolescent crush. (She played the lovely Sarah Jane Smith.) I had decided fairly early on that I wasn't going to try to get any autographs this year, and had resigned myself to the idea that I would only be seeing her when she was up on stage. The final night, though, after the closing ceremonies, I saw her talking to someone in the hall just as we all came walking out of the big room, and asked her if a con-friend (someone I had just met at the convention) could please take a picture of me and her. She said yes, so I actually have a photo of me with a childhood heroine, and I managed to completely fail to say anything completely embarrassing. So I'm pretty much still walking on air.

untitled

I'm looking across the library at a woman wearing this had with a huge, wide brim decorated with (silhouetted against the back windows, and at a distance) appears to either be a phenomenal feather boa, or a caribou hide.  I wasn't aware they made hats like that any more, and was even less aware that people wore them.

 

This may be the first time ever that I've wished I had a cell phone camera.

So I broke down and bought me an iMac. Pretty much loving it so far, although the keyboard cord is too short and the mouse cord is too long. Go figure. So I've got things a little oddly arranged on the desk right now. Had a few hiccups getting connected to the Internet, since the cable modem apparently thought it was still connected to a PC (bastard), but all is right with the connection now. Obviously.

Sent in my comics order for April today, which is the first one without Batman on it. I want to say I'll miss it... but I doubt it. It's just become pretty superfluous, and there's a ton of Batman-related miniseries and stuff coming out this summer, to tie in with the new movie, so I think I'll survive.