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ravenI am watching the XF episode "Kill Switch", I'm alone in the house, it's nearly midnight, and err. I had to stop. I'm scared. Thankfully VH1 is currently playing "Saturday Night" by Whigfield, so I'm not hiding under the bed just yet.
(Oh, come on. You know the song. "Saturday night, and I like the way you move?" Terrible, terrible video, insanely catchy tune? Wiki tells me it was released in 1994, which makes sense as it's one of the earliest songs I can remember being really popular when I was in primary school. There was even a dance, which I failed spectacularly to master. Ten years later![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
hathy_col attempted to teach me the Macarena, with similarly lacklustre results. ("Hand, hand, hip, hip, arse, arse, oh my GOD you're doing it wrong now jump! No, to your right!") Needless to say, bad things cannot happen when "Saturday Night" still exists.)
But yes, "Kill Switch" equals scary. How can this not be construed as scary? The fingernails, OMG! So I am not watching that, but deliberately not watching it, so my not watching it is in a different category from all the other things I am not doing right now, for example sleeping, working, eating chilli sauce, smoking pot, climbing the Sydney Harbour Bridge, etc., etc. I should be doing more of one of those things, and I shall leave the gentle reader to guess which one it is. I meant to spend some of tonight writing the feminism essay that I have not started yet - oh dear - but procrastination rules me. I will have to do something about it fairly soon. I'm beginning to worry about it. Yes. Never mind.
Um. I have been watching a hell of a lot of television this week. On Tuesday, I went to seeamchau, and it was wonderful fun. Despite grim weather and hideously late trains, I got to Watford at some point mid-afternoon and we had a lovely time. Am-Chau's family are marvellous people who think nothing of explaining two millennia of religious history over the dinner table, happily join in long debates as to how anyone with mentally competent parents acquires the first name "Fox" and keep carnivorous plants in the study. Best of all, not a one of them set off any of my crazy buttons. I was happily, blissfully, fannishly sane for two whole days, and yes, we watched a lot of TV.
The logic behind this is very simple.amchau and I met in a television fandom. We have not watched television together in four years of knowing each other. (I have a vague memory of watching the SG-1 episode "Abyss" at a con once, but I'm not sure she was there or that I haven't imagined the event in question.) Consequently, we watched the following, with episode list nabbed from her:
M*A*S*H -- Springtime and Check-Up
"Springtime" is the one where Klinger gets married over the radio wearing a white wedding dress. It is marvellous. "Check-up" is the one where Hawkeye and Trapper say goodbye, even though it's not the one where Trapper leaves. That makes sense, yes.
The X-Files -- Paper Hearts
I was having trouble picking an episode, out of the season four and five DVDs, to showamchau, who hadn't seen the show before. The problem with that is there aren't any really marvellous monster-of-the-week episodes I could think of. In the end I picked "Paper Hearts" because it's a fairly comprehensible myth-arc episode (amchau found this notion quite, quite hilarious) and also because, well, I like it. I like it very much. I like the intensity of it, the way Mulder is ever-so-slightly out of control all the way through, reeling towards disaster, and most of all, because I love the idea of the choice. One child to be taken, one to be the unwilling witness, both eternally fucked-up. This is the core idea behind my now-stalled bad-sex-scene fic, but yes, it's stalled and shall not be seeing the light of day for a while.
The only other one I could have chosen, I think, is "Never Again", but it is atypical and the X-file[1] itself is a little silly. I may watch it again myself anyway, because it is a marvellous character episode. More on that anon.
The West Wing -- Premiere
Ahahah. I loved this. Loved it. Loved every single damn minute of it. I initially thought "bicycle accident" was a euphemism for something, and it wasn't, which made me love it more, and then all the characters were so sweet and awww, Sam. His impassioned speech to Leo's daughter made me giggle very, very much. I don't think I've ever really watched a Sorkin show before, and this was marvellous; I thoroughly enjoyed the swivelling-heads-at-Wimbledon style of dialogue and the sheer authenticity of the content. They're going all out to make it real whilst simultaneously keeping it thematic and stylised. I like, and I may be saying that as a student of political science, but still. I like.
Frasier -- The Show Where Woody Shows Up and Three Valentines
My favourite show of all time. No, really. I've never been fannish about it, but it's one of the few things I have nothing bad to say about. It just is. These were the two episodes that happened to be on television, and well, I may not have another convert on my hands, but give me time.
The West Wing -- Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc
I said, with a title like that, how can I not like it? (And I must say my off-the-cuff translation was slightly better than Josh's - I got to "after that, therefore [something] that", which does not make recognisable sense but then I am not a Fullbright scholar. Huh.) And I did like it, but not as much as the pilot. It didn't gel into a neat resolution, which I suppose makes political sense, but not as much narrative sense, if that makes sense.[2]
The X-Files -- Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man
Ah, yes. In other words, an excercise in TOTAL INCOMPREHENSIBILITY foramchau, who confessed herself utterly baffled. As part of the mythos, the episode makes no sense. As a monster-of-the-week, it also makes no sense. That said, I quite like it simply for the strangely sad, poignant characterisation it gives us for the Cigarette Smoking Man. I had earlier tried to argue to amchau that he represents one of the few examples of a villain who is not only entirely sane, but occasionally sympathetic. He really, truly believes that he can only do what he does do, that it is the only right thing to do. Which Frohike understands, and the CSM then very deliberately doesn't kill him, leaves him alive because he understands.
Add that to the other touches - the CSM as a failed author, the way he gives Christmas presents out like in any other workplace, and his twisted but genuine affection for Mulder - and I'm sort of disposed to a sneaking sympathy for both man and episode.
M*A*S*H -- Life With Father, Alcoholics Unanimous, and A Full Rich Day.
amchau had to look up the episode titles - I'm slipping! - but I think the key point to make here is not episode anaylsis but how easy and comfortable it is to sit and watch M*A*S*H with fannish people. I can't ever forget the fandom and its inhabitants, but I was beginning to forget how much I liked the show itself. "Alcoholics Unanimous" is the episode where Frank decides to declare the entire camp dry, and for once he's right: Hawkeye, Trapper and Margaret actually do behave like alcoholics going cold turkey. But the point I was tring to make was, well, Mulcahy. This is a pretty Mulcahy-heavy episode, featuring a delightfully surreal digression into three girls "and a man with a whip", and then his making a temperance sermon whilst very, very drunk.
I was thinking, then, that I never thought much about Mulcahy when I was in the fandom, other than thinking ooh, I betscarlatti loves this bit. And there is something so, so bittersweet about the thought. I couldn't put another word on it. But it's horrible and sobering to think that Susan won't ever see an episode of this again, she won't ever squee, she won't ever use an icon of a drunken Mulcahy, and at the same time to think we can watch this on tape and repeats, the thing she loved won't ever die. Does this make sense? It doesn't really to me, even. But I remembered how much she liked them, and I missed her such a lot while watching these.
Just as I was thinking this, Rhiannon turned to me and said much the same thing. It feels good to remember Susan. It does, although it hurts, too.
The X-Files -- Demons
If I'd had time, I would have actually shownamchau Gethesemane/Redux, because they achieve the laudable feat of being myth-arc episodes that are actually affecting and make some little sense. But that's a three-episode arc, and yes, there were time constraints. So I picked "Demons", because I think it's a nice example of consistent characterisation. Mulder at the end of this episode is perfectly believable as a man who will, in a few weeks, attempt to take his own life, and also it has the best teaser of any episode of anything ever (Am-Chau agreed).
(It opens with a violent, highly coloured flashback from Mulder's POV. Cut to a dark, damp, unfamiliar room. Mulder wakes up fully dressed, on the floor in the dark, with two days missing from his memory and someone else's blood on his shirt. Sheer poetry. Err. Sort of.)
As per the rest of it, I believe the phrase "holy angst, Batman!" is appropriate here; on paper, it sounds silly, what with ketamine hallucinations and crazy doctors and headlights in the dark and Mulder getting slapped by his mother - um, yay? - but is redeemed by the desperation of it all, the lack of resolution and the way Scully tries and tries but she can't save him from himself. It's very dark in tone and in lighting.
I did actually make a long, detailed post about why "Gethsemane" is so marvellous, and why it has the world's best episode title. Sadly, my laptop ran out of power without saving it. In absence of that, I will scribble a brief bit here, even though I watched it about two weeks ago now. Basically, I think it's wonderful because you can interpret it in one of two entirely different mindsets. The first time, it's face value. The title suggests betrayal. In fact, just off the title, you could suggest the plot: Scully betrays Mulder, denies her loyalty to him exactly three times, on the day of his death.
This is, in fact, what happens, more or less. My initial thought was the framing device - Scully recounting the sequence of events to the FBI inquiry panel - and that it must have been used three times. It was actually used five times. One of those times, though, Scully only reveals to the panel that she has cancer, and the last time is the big reveal. I have to admit, the part of my brain that remembers its English A-level wanted to point out the effectiveness of the dispassionate, clinical language - "self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head" - with the content of what's being said. Obviously I knew Mulder couldn't have committed suicide, he was in three seasons after this one, but still: it's pretty damn good stuff.
"Redux", however, changes the interpretation entirely. It basically rehashes Gethsemane with the additional information that Mulder faked his own death. I didn't like it much - feasibly I would have liked it more had I been seeing it after a long hiatus - but it did introduce one disturbing element into the story. The internet is a pretty spoilery place, and of course I knew that Mulder had faked his own death, he hadn't actually killed himself. But I was honestly shocked by the rewind of sorts that shows not a man about to fake his own death but a man about to bring it about. Basically, he sits all night crying in the dark, gets up, picks up the gun, checks it's loaded, lifts it - and the phone rings.
And the episode that follows - and Redux II, which is very, very good - characterises him as someone who would be about to come severely unglued if it weren't for the fact he has to stay together for someone else, namely Scully. Regardless, he kills a guy in cold blood, nearly beats the crap out of Skinner and almost gets into a Faustian deal with the CSM. Which sounds silly on paper but is wonderfully written, wonderfully gripping. I liked Skinner telling him, "You move pretty fast for a dead guy." I was half-expecting to use the Zaphod Beeblebrox response - "Yeah, I'm dead, I just haven't stoppped moving yet" - but Mulder says, "I'm only half-dead", and there's a cut to Scully, who is significantly closer to death than he is. So much to be read into that. Like I said, wonderful writing. I don't cry at television usually. And I didn't this time! But the moments in the dark, with Mulder on the floor, mirroring the night before, but this time he's crying for her rather than for himself, and I don't know.... waaah.
(Which implies that by the end of the episode he hasn't slept in four days. No wonder he's unhinged.)
I could, actually, ramble about Redux all day. It is marvellous. But I will try and restrict myself and finish by saying that if you then watch Gethsemane knowing Scully isn't betraying Mulder, that she's doing what he asked her to do, then you have to find the parallels in other places. They're there - Scully's loss of faith in general, Mulder's night alone in the dark - but they're more subtle. I suppose the real betrayal is not of a person but of the concept of "the truth" - I like how pointed the phrase is in the context of the show - as they're both finally forced to lie to save each other. And there's a redemption there as well, because Mulder won't let her die lying to save him.
The final note on the episode title is this: from the point of view of the inquiry panel, Mulder rises from the dead! (And I love how very resentful some of them are about this. "Seeing as you are very much alive" - snerk.)
Okay. I will now return to what I was doing before. That was quite the longest digression I have ever made.
The West Wing -- A Proportional Response
Love! So much love for this show and how witty and unashamedly complex it is. And I particularly loved Toby and Leo in this one, the former for bringing in the Secret Service and the latter for taking the President in hand before he pisses off everyone he knows. And oh, Sam, getting so very righteously pissed off at the interference into private lives - "He's asking if you're GAY!" - and Charlie was love, and yes. Love.
Also, I have discovered that E4, or possible Channel 4, are showing the entire series from the beginning, starting tomorrow. At one episode a week it will take until approximately 2010 to see it all, but never mind.
M*A*S*H -- but I forgot to make a note of which episode. I can't remember it either, but it was one with Colonel Potter, and featured the phrase "Emotionally exhausted and morally bankrupt" and that amused me no end.
And yes, that was the end of the TV-watching and oh, my, this is the longest post ever. Well, I can tell that by the fact it's taken me two hours to write. (And I just spelled that as "wright". I must be getting tired.) In addition to that, we also took more than one long walk through Watford, discussing its ethnic diversity and biodiversity, and also fannish history and my incredibly geeky interest in disused Underground train stations, and also religion and the importance of salad. It was a fun trip, and much too short.amchau walked with me up to the station, and we got to bickering over who had to come and visit the other first, and the ticket-inspector guy, apparently amused by proceedings, pushed her through the barriers without a ticket and said we had to sort out who was visiting who before coming back out. It feels like longer ago than Wednesday, actually.
And now I shall go back to watching "Kill Switch" - it's now a quarter to three - but before I go, the reason I made this entry, finally. It is, sadly, another tale of my tragic love life. But I met a guy today. He's nice. He's really nice. He's sweet, and started up conversations for no reason at all, and made me endless cups of coffee, and I sort of thought maybe he might be flirting with me a little bit.
Er. Once again. He's GAY. That makes, oh, the third one this year? My mother wanted to know if I'm doing it on purpose. Um. No.
Sigh.
[1] When you're referring to the X-files within the fictional context of the show, is "files" capitalised? This is the sort of thing that keeps me up at night.
[2] Yeah, kill me now.
(Oh, come on. You know the song. "Saturday night, and I like the way you move?" Terrible, terrible video, insanely catchy tune? Wiki tells me it was released in 1994, which makes sense as it's one of the earliest songs I can remember being really popular when I was in primary school. There was even a dance, which I failed spectacularly to master. Ten years later
hathy_col attempted to teach me the Macarena, with similarly lacklustre results. ("Hand, hand, hip, hip, arse, arse, oh my GOD you're doing it wrong now jump! No, to your right!") Needless to say, bad things cannot happen when "Saturday Night" still exists.)But yes, "Kill Switch" equals scary. How can this not be construed as scary? The fingernails, OMG! So I am not watching that, but deliberately not watching it, so my not watching it is in a different category from all the other things I am not doing right now, for example sleeping, working, eating chilli sauce, smoking pot, climbing the Sydney Harbour Bridge, etc., etc. I should be doing more of one of those things, and I shall leave the gentle reader to guess which one it is. I meant to spend some of tonight writing the feminism essay that I have not started yet - oh dear - but procrastination rules me. I will have to do something about it fairly soon. I'm beginning to worry about it. Yes. Never mind.
Um. I have been watching a hell of a lot of television this week. On Tuesday, I went to see
amchau, and it was wonderful fun. Despite grim weather and hideously late trains, I got to Watford at some point mid-afternoon and we had a lovely time. Am-Chau's family are marvellous people who think nothing of explaining two millennia of religious history over the dinner table, happily join in long debates as to how anyone with mentally competent parents acquires the first name "Fox" and keep carnivorous plants in the study. Best of all, not a one of them set off any of my crazy buttons. I was happily, blissfully, fannishly sane for two whole days, and yes, we watched a lot of TV.The logic behind this is very simple.
amchau and I met in a television fandom. We have not watched television together in four years of knowing each other. (I have a vague memory of watching the SG-1 episode "Abyss" at a con once, but I'm not sure she was there or that I haven't imagined the event in question.) Consequently, we watched the following, with episode list nabbed from her:M*A*S*H -- Springtime and Check-Up
"Springtime" is the one where Klinger gets married over the radio wearing a white wedding dress. It is marvellous. "Check-up" is the one where Hawkeye and Trapper say goodbye, even though it's not the one where Trapper leaves. That makes sense, yes.
The X-Files -- Paper Hearts
I was having trouble picking an episode, out of the season four and five DVDs, to show
amchau, who hadn't seen the show before. The problem with that is there aren't any really marvellous monster-of-the-week episodes I could think of. In the end I picked "Paper Hearts" because it's a fairly comprehensible myth-arc episode (amchau found this notion quite, quite hilarious) and also because, well, I like it. I like it very much. I like the intensity of it, the way Mulder is ever-so-slightly out of control all the way through, reeling towards disaster, and most of all, because I love the idea of the choice. One child to be taken, one to be the unwilling witness, both eternally fucked-up. This is the core idea behind my now-stalled bad-sex-scene fic, but yes, it's stalled and shall not be seeing the light of day for a while.The only other one I could have chosen, I think, is "Never Again", but it is atypical and the X-file[1] itself is a little silly. I may watch it again myself anyway, because it is a marvellous character episode. More on that anon.
The West Wing -- Premiere
Ahahah. I loved this. Loved it. Loved every single damn minute of it. I initially thought "bicycle accident" was a euphemism for something, and it wasn't, which made me love it more, and then all the characters were so sweet and awww, Sam. His impassioned speech to Leo's daughter made me giggle very, very much. I don't think I've ever really watched a Sorkin show before, and this was marvellous; I thoroughly enjoyed the swivelling-heads-at-Wimbledon style of dialogue and the sheer authenticity of the content. They're going all out to make it real whilst simultaneously keeping it thematic and stylised. I like, and I may be saying that as a student of political science, but still. I like.
Frasier -- The Show Where Woody Shows Up and Three Valentines
My favourite show of all time. No, really. I've never been fannish about it, but it's one of the few things I have nothing bad to say about. It just is. These were the two episodes that happened to be on television, and well, I may not have another convert on my hands, but give me time.
The West Wing -- Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc
I said, with a title like that, how can I not like it? (And I must say my off-the-cuff translation was slightly better than Josh's - I got to "after that, therefore [something] that", which does not make recognisable sense but then I am not a Fullbright scholar. Huh.) And I did like it, but not as much as the pilot. It didn't gel into a neat resolution, which I suppose makes political sense, but not as much narrative sense, if that makes sense.[2]
The X-Files -- Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man
Ah, yes. In other words, an excercise in TOTAL INCOMPREHENSIBILITY for
amchau, who confessed herself utterly baffled. As part of the mythos, the episode makes no sense. As a monster-of-the-week, it also makes no sense. That said, I quite like it simply for the strangely sad, poignant characterisation it gives us for the Cigarette Smoking Man. I had earlier tried to argue to amchau that he represents one of the few examples of a villain who is not only entirely sane, but occasionally sympathetic. He really, truly believes that he can only do what he does do, that it is the only right thing to do. Which Frohike understands, and the CSM then very deliberately doesn't kill him, leaves him alive because he understands.Add that to the other touches - the CSM as a failed author, the way he gives Christmas presents out like in any other workplace, and his twisted but genuine affection for Mulder - and I'm sort of disposed to a sneaking sympathy for both man and episode.
M*A*S*H -- Life With Father, Alcoholics Unanimous, and A Full Rich Day.
amchau had to look up the episode titles - I'm slipping! - but I think the key point to make here is not episode anaylsis but how easy and comfortable it is to sit and watch M*A*S*H with fannish people. I can't ever forget the fandom and its inhabitants, but I was beginning to forget how much I liked the show itself. "Alcoholics Unanimous" is the episode where Frank decides to declare the entire camp dry, and for once he's right: Hawkeye, Trapper and Margaret actually do behave like alcoholics going cold turkey. But the point I was tring to make was, well, Mulcahy. This is a pretty Mulcahy-heavy episode, featuring a delightfully surreal digression into three girls "and a man with a whip", and then his making a temperance sermon whilst very, very drunk.I was thinking, then, that I never thought much about Mulcahy when I was in the fandom, other than thinking ooh, I bet
scarlatti loves this bit. And there is something so, so bittersweet about the thought. I couldn't put another word on it. But it's horrible and sobering to think that Susan won't ever see an episode of this again, she won't ever squee, she won't ever use an icon of a drunken Mulcahy, and at the same time to think we can watch this on tape and repeats, the thing she loved won't ever die. Does this make sense? It doesn't really to me, even. But I remembered how much she liked them, and I missed her such a lot while watching these. Just as I was thinking this, Rhiannon turned to me and said much the same thing. It feels good to remember Susan. It does, although it hurts, too.
The X-Files -- Demons
If I'd had time, I would have actually shown
amchau Gethesemane/Redux, because they achieve the laudable feat of being myth-arc episodes that are actually affecting and make some little sense. But that's a three-episode arc, and yes, there were time constraints. So I picked "Demons", because I think it's a nice example of consistent characterisation. Mulder at the end of this episode is perfectly believable as a man who will, in a few weeks, attempt to take his own life, and also it has the best teaser of any episode of anything ever (Am-Chau agreed). (It opens with a violent, highly coloured flashback from Mulder's POV. Cut to a dark, damp, unfamiliar room. Mulder wakes up fully dressed, on the floor in the dark, with two days missing from his memory and someone else's blood on his shirt. Sheer poetry. Err. Sort of.)
As per the rest of it, I believe the phrase "holy angst, Batman!" is appropriate here; on paper, it sounds silly, what with ketamine hallucinations and crazy doctors and headlights in the dark and Mulder getting slapped by his mother - um, yay? - but is redeemed by the desperation of it all, the lack of resolution and the way Scully tries and tries but she can't save him from himself. It's very dark in tone and in lighting.
I did actually make a long, detailed post about why "Gethsemane" is so marvellous, and why it has the world's best episode title. Sadly, my laptop ran out of power without saving it. In absence of that, I will scribble a brief bit here, even though I watched it about two weeks ago now. Basically, I think it's wonderful because you can interpret it in one of two entirely different mindsets. The first time, it's face value. The title suggests betrayal. In fact, just off the title, you could suggest the plot: Scully betrays Mulder, denies her loyalty to him exactly three times, on the day of his death.
This is, in fact, what happens, more or less. My initial thought was the framing device - Scully recounting the sequence of events to the FBI inquiry panel - and that it must have been used three times. It was actually used five times. One of those times, though, Scully only reveals to the panel that she has cancer, and the last time is the big reveal. I have to admit, the part of my brain that remembers its English A-level wanted to point out the effectiveness of the dispassionate, clinical language - "self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head" - with the content of what's being said. Obviously I knew Mulder couldn't have committed suicide, he was in three seasons after this one, but still: it's pretty damn good stuff.
"Redux", however, changes the interpretation entirely. It basically rehashes Gethsemane with the additional information that Mulder faked his own death. I didn't like it much - feasibly I would have liked it more had I been seeing it after a long hiatus - but it did introduce one disturbing element into the story. The internet is a pretty spoilery place, and of course I knew that Mulder had faked his own death, he hadn't actually killed himself. But I was honestly shocked by the rewind of sorts that shows not a man about to fake his own death but a man about to bring it about. Basically, he sits all night crying in the dark, gets up, picks up the gun, checks it's loaded, lifts it - and the phone rings.
And the episode that follows - and Redux II, which is very, very good - characterises him as someone who would be about to come severely unglued if it weren't for the fact he has to stay together for someone else, namely Scully. Regardless, he kills a guy in cold blood, nearly beats the crap out of Skinner and almost gets into a Faustian deal with the CSM. Which sounds silly on paper but is wonderfully written, wonderfully gripping. I liked Skinner telling him, "You move pretty fast for a dead guy." I was half-expecting to use the Zaphod Beeblebrox response - "Yeah, I'm dead, I just haven't stoppped moving yet" - but Mulder says, "I'm only half-dead", and there's a cut to Scully, who is significantly closer to death than he is. So much to be read into that. Like I said, wonderful writing. I don't cry at television usually. And I didn't this time! But the moments in the dark, with Mulder on the floor, mirroring the night before, but this time he's crying for her rather than for himself, and I don't know.... waaah.
(Which implies that by the end of the episode he hasn't slept in four days. No wonder he's unhinged.)
I could, actually, ramble about Redux all day. It is marvellous. But I will try and restrict myself and finish by saying that if you then watch Gethsemane knowing Scully isn't betraying Mulder, that she's doing what he asked her to do, then you have to find the parallels in other places. They're there - Scully's loss of faith in general, Mulder's night alone in the dark - but they're more subtle. I suppose the real betrayal is not of a person but of the concept of "the truth" - I like how pointed the phrase is in the context of the show - as they're both finally forced to lie to save each other. And there's a redemption there as well, because Mulder won't let her die lying to save him.
The final note on the episode title is this: from the point of view of the inquiry panel, Mulder rises from the dead! (And I love how very resentful some of them are about this. "Seeing as you are very much alive" - snerk.)
Okay. I will now return to what I was doing before. That was quite the longest digression I have ever made.
The West Wing -- A Proportional Response
Love! So much love for this show and how witty and unashamedly complex it is. And I particularly loved Toby and Leo in this one, the former for bringing in the Secret Service and the latter for taking the President in hand before he pisses off everyone he knows. And oh, Sam, getting so very righteously pissed off at the interference into private lives - "He's asking if you're GAY!" - and Charlie was love, and yes. Love.
Also, I have discovered that E4, or possible Channel 4, are showing the entire series from the beginning, starting tomorrow. At one episode a week it will take until approximately 2010 to see it all, but never mind.
M*A*S*H -- but I forgot to make a note of which episode. I can't remember it either, but it was one with Colonel Potter, and featured the phrase "Emotionally exhausted and morally bankrupt" and that amused me no end.
And yes, that was the end of the TV-watching and oh, my, this is the longest post ever. Well, I can tell that by the fact it's taken me two hours to write. (And I just spelled that as "wright". I must be getting tired.) In addition to that, we also took more than one long walk through Watford, discussing its ethnic diversity and biodiversity, and also fannish history and my incredibly geeky interest in disused Underground train stations, and also religion and the importance of salad. It was a fun trip, and much too short.
amchau walked with me up to the station, and we got to bickering over who had to come and visit the other first, and the ticket-inspector guy, apparently amused by proceedings, pushed her through the barriers without a ticket and said we had to sort out who was visiting who before coming back out. It feels like longer ago than Wednesday, actually.And now I shall go back to watching "Kill Switch" - it's now a quarter to three - but before I go, the reason I made this entry, finally. It is, sadly, another tale of my tragic love life. But I met a guy today. He's nice. He's really nice. He's sweet, and started up conversations for no reason at all, and made me endless cups of coffee, and I sort of thought maybe he might be flirting with me a little bit.
Er. Once again. He's GAY. That makes, oh, the third one this year? My mother wanted to know if I'm doing it on purpose. Um. No.
Sigh.
[1] When you're referring to the X-files within the fictional context of the show, is "files" capitalised? This is the sort of thing that keeps me up at night.
[2] Yeah, kill me now.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
on 2006-08-06 02:08 am (UTC)It does to me, so far as I can tell.
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on 2006-08-06 06:01 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2006-08-06 02:24 am (UTC)You too? Yay! I'm not alone! (I want to go to Aldwych station one day.)
XF was amazing in seasons four and five. Redux is fab.
Frasier was one of my favorites while it was still on the air, although it had definitely passed its peak by the end.
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on 2006-08-06 06:04 pm (UTC)I'm loving XF at the moment, and I think I can probably stretch to one more set of DVDs. Would you say season 3 or season 6? I'm leaning towards the former, right now.
When Frasier was good, though, it was really good. There's one episode where Niles gets served with divorce papers and then covered with shaving foam that makes me laugh just thinking about it. :P
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on 2006-08-06 06:37 pm (UTC)Argh, yes. Although I think they do fundraising/charity things down there occasionally still? Possibly not. More expensive than I could afford, anyway.
You're the first person I've ever met to share this particular geeky interest.
Same here! Although I suppose that particular interest is a bit rarer over here than where you are. ;) But yeah, they hit my two geek kinks of trains and abandoned/haunted places, so I'm all over them. :)
Would you say season 3 or season 6?
Ooooh, hard decision. Really hard. In general, I would say that S3 has the better mytharc episodes, while S6 has better stand-alones. (Although S3 has things like Pusher and Clyde Bruckman, so...) S6 is where the Chris Carter really started painting himself into a corner with the mythology, IMO--but it had really fantastically funny episodes like Arcadia, How the Ghosts Stole Christmas, and Dreamland, as well as great dramatic ones such as Triangle, Monday, and Milagro. Also, one of my absolute favorites, The Unnatural (which is both funny and poignant), is from that season. It's more overtly shippy than S3 as well. But S3 is definitely the scarier of the two. (Teso Dos Bichos is not one to watch alone with the lights off.)
Way too long story short, I personally would probably go fo S6 because I remember it better, I liked the 'ship, and because the mytharc never did much for me. But you really can't go wrong with either of them.
I'm so helpful, aren't I? ;)
When Frasier was good, though, it was really good.
Very true.
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on 2006-08-06 10:34 pm (UTC)Argh, you're not making it easy to choose! I cannot get both, I just can't. And they both sound so good.... argh.
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on 2006-08-07 05:57 pm (UTC)They are nifty. I like the Underground in general; it's easy to navigate, and has cool station names, and is jsut all around cool. (I think I have a thing for trains because they are so rare here, as far as carrying passengers goes. I hadn't ever been on one until I got to the UK in 2004.)
If you ever make it over here, we must go and search them out.
We should! We should go sneeeeaking. *g*
Argh, you're not making it easy to choose! I cannot get both, I just can't. And they both sound so good.... argh.
Heh heh heh. Are there no rental options anywhere around?
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on 2006-08-06 02:35 am (UTC)Watching telly with fannish people is a wonderful, wonderful thing. Yes. I capitalise the F because otheriwse it looks silly to me.
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on 2006-08-06 06:09 pm (UTC)Watching telly with fannish people = LOVE. *nodnod*
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on 2006-08-06 02:36 am (UTC)(2) God. I haven't watched an episode of M*A*S*H in a while, but what you said here about Susan makes me want to. A lot of random things have been making me think of her lately, and every single time it's like the world just... skips a beat. Like it catches on something for a moment.
(3) TWW is such deeply fantastic television--at its high points, probably the best television I've ever seen, television that makes me laugh so hard the couch shakes and tear up so much the screen blurs--and I'm so glad you like it. (And Sorkin's dialogue, which either wins your heart or turns you off in two minutes.) In 2008, when you finally see "Noel," come talk to me about how it's the best of M*A*S*H all over again.
(4) I have decided I am not allowed to watch another episode of Supernatural until that beta is in your inbox. So... you know, you should maybe expect it in the next hour. :)
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on 2006-08-06 06:12 pm (UTC)2. Oh, that's definitely the feeling. I find myself thinking about her entirely unexpectedly, and it's good, it really is, even if it doesn't exactly feel like it.
3. *laughs* I shall be sure to remember that. They're showing the pilot in about forty-five minutes and I am childishly excited about the prospect of seeing it again.
4. Thank you very much! I was awake when you sent it, but then I abruptly realised it was four am. But yes, thank you, and you are NOT A FLAKE OMG. :)
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on 2006-08-06 02:50 am (UTC)YES.
The only things worth watching are series one through four, anyway. Five to seven are optional.
You MUST watch "Celestial Navigation." Series one. MUST.
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on 2006-08-06 06:13 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2006-08-06 04:07 am (UTC)I enjoy reading your thoughts! I hadn't actually studied out the Redux trilogy the way you have. The episodes I've seen, I've mostly only watched once so far. **gets them from the library.** But there definitely are many layers of the show and the characters to be intrigued by!
I love Musings of a Cigarette-Smoking Man. I still wonder, though, how much of the story the Lone Gunmen found was true in reality. In any case, I agree with your ideas of how CSM perceives what he does. He's one of the most fascinating villains on any show.
I also see that you like M*A*S*H. Yay! That show was so brilliant.
I'm very sorry about the loss of your friend Susan. Losing treasured friends is always very hard.
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on 2006-08-06 06:17 pm (UTC)I do think my tendency to overanalyse pop culture is one of my major character flaws. *g* But it's probably enough to say that Redux is marvellous. I like Musings... too, and I definitely see your point about how much of the story is true. Even so, I kinda figure that either it is true, or else the CSM wishes it were true - because those are both compelling reasons for him not to kill Frohike. If it's not true, it's sort of sad, because that would mean that the CSM wants Frohike to think better of him than the truth. Does that make sense? I'm hoping so.
Ah, M*A*S*H. A very old and well-loved fandom of mine. Susan was a well-loved friend of mine from it; thanks for your nice words.
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on 2006-08-06 10:43 am (UTC)Er. Once again. He's GAY. That makes, oh, the third one this year? My mother wanted to know if I'm doing it on purpose. Um. No.
I met a guy last night at the pub who was terribly nice and sat there drinking vodka and orange juice with me for three hours and arguing about etymology, and he turned out to be a future priest. That wouldn't have mattered so much if he didn't also turn out to be a supporter of George W. Bush and tell me earnestly "well, I'm not sexist, but I do believe there are certain roles in society which is it improper for women to play..."
I'm glad you're getting into the West Wing, I think it was kind of my first proper fandom, and I get hugely warm and happy when I think about it. Even if I stopped watching after two episodes of season 5. I'd loan you my first series DVDs, but, um, they're in Edinburgh. (I could loan you the second, when you get there.) The first series is as good and as happy as it gets: the second series is equally wonderful in terms of writing/plot, but it has a growingly dark tone (culminating in Two Cathedrals, which will break your heart). There are still some fantastic moments in series three and four, but I have a sneaking suspicion that they never really live up to the first two.
X-Files was my fandom that never was. I dimly remember, when I was in secondary school, catching late night episodes on a tiny, fuzzy TV, and loving them, but I never really watched enough to make sense of the whole myth-arc and whatnot. It's been one of those shows in the back of my mind, like Babylon 5, that I always intend to buy the DVDs of and make a concerted effort to watch all the way through, when I have unlimited funds.
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on 2006-08-06 06:21 pm (UTC)Everyone in the world whose taste I trust has told me to watch TWW, so I may take you up on the DVD offer at some point. Such a fun show. And yep, my relationship with XF was just the same; I liked the show in school, and here I am trying to re-watch as an adult and realising exactly how much went over twelve-year-old-me's head. It's really rather wonderful.
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on 2006-08-09 01:39 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2006-08-09 04:03 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2006-08-06 04:14 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2006-08-06 06:27 pm (UTC)