It's Monday! - More thoughts on Heroes

So for the past two weeks, Monday has not held the same excitement for me because my local NBC affiliate got into a bidding war with our cable company. Now we have Starz Kids & Family instead of The Office, Chuck and Heroes.

[Note: I've been having major issues with the carpal tunnel these days and am attempting to type with one of those cushiony thingies in front of the keyboard. I feel like I'm learning to type all over again. If more typos slip past than usual, please forgive.]

So now I watch Chuck and The Office on the computer and Heroes on G4--all a day later. And it sucks. So if my usual TV wrap-up is late, please understand. And for some reason, in honor of the show that will not let me hate it, I give you my Heroes sunshine and clouds:

Actually I have to give props to my livejournal friend of awesomeness Fiareynne, for telling me I was taking it all way too seriously and needed to see the humor in what was happening. So last week I tried to do just that, and...and...I think I liked it!

Don't get me wrong, Peter is still a whiny little bitch. He seems to do things without thinking twice about the consequences, such as taking on Sylar's power and then getting pissed at Sylar for having his murderous impulses. Really, Peter, that fact that future-Sylar told you it was a bad idea just wasn't enough? No, you're Peter, you must save the world, which is in constant threat of being blown up.

I can't wait to see the episode wherein we find out the world is actually going to blow up because some mutant squirrels have been chewing through wires at a nuclear power plant.

The future-Heroes is still unimpressive to me. Goth!Clarie is as annoying as Cheerleader!Claire. She just has more of an excuse to be all pissed off now, what with the false eyelashes making her eyes itch all the time. And they're trying to set up all this complexity as in: who's bad? who's really good? OMG, maybe Peter is the bad guy! And I get wrapped up in wondering and then I remember Tim Kring created Crossing Jordan, so what was I expecting, really? Just keep giving me more Parkman and I'll be happy.

Another reason the future storyline bugs me is this idea that the future is fixed. It doesn't seem to matter who does what or how they do it or who gets hurt in the process, the end result is the same: squirrels chew through the wires at a nuclear power plant and blow up the planet. Someone oughtta be out hunting squirrel.

But...but, all that aside, I loved future Sylar. I was curious who the mother of his son is. Okay, I will admit to a moment of , wouldn't it be cool of the mother is Claire, that kid would be unstoppable! Oh! the angst! and then I remembered Claire is Sylar's niece and ewwed all over the place.

Then came the crowning moment I loved. The part that, no matter how formulaic and predictable, makes me get all giddy inside: Nathan flying. I don't know why I turn into such a girly-girl whenever Nathan flies out to save someone. Maybe it's touching on my childhood mad crush I had on Christopher Reeve and I believed I too could win the heart of Superman. Though unlike Lois, I would never let him give up his powers for me. In fact, now that I'm examining it, I think Reeve/Superman was my first actor-as-character obsession. In my head, I was writing fanfic all over the place.

I don't even care for Adrian Pasdar that much. His voice is a little too nasal and I get the impression he's a wee little thing (I could be wrong, but the higher pitched voice gives me that impression). And I'm getting sick of the repeating political storyline the same way I'm tired of Peter's whining and Hiro's Ando abuse. But in an HRG-free episode, I'll take all the heroic saving the damsel in distress (can I say fucking ugh already!) I can get.

(Sort of) Friday Frivolity

More about LiveJournal is crack: there's a community called Fandom Secret which works like Post Secret, but is fandom-centric (I don't have the time or energy to explain what "fandom" means right now, but if someone else would like to take a shot, go for it in the comments). Anyway, I came across one today that I loved (and, in my opinion, had little to do with fandom, which made it refreshing after millions of posts with anime characters in them and random rantings about Dr. Who). Anyway, love Alice, love the artwork, love the secret:


Fellow Fairy Tale Fanatics: Anyone who knows my love of Animal Bridegroom tales can see why I'm interested in this book, but I would love some insight from those who may be in the know as to whether or not I should make the purchase.

Looking forward to Bones: I love this TV show for so many reasons, not the least of which because it stars the luminous Emily Deschanel. The smarts, the chemistry, the character interactions all keep me involved even when the series finale makes me go, "What the F?!?" Unfortunately, I've been reading a few too many spoilers about the upcoming season and I've decided to put a stop to it. No more. I want to be surprised. And a note: Yes, Angela and Hodgins belong together. No ifs, ands, or buts. So stop with the unnecessary plot twists that may tear them apart.


And finally: I send you packing for the weekend with a Return of the Jedi Haiku from Haikuvies

Ewoks overcome
Imperial weaponry
but not fanboy rage

I'm late finding out everything...

...mostly because I rarely touch a computer on the weekends. I sit in front of one all week. Weekends are for reading, hanging out with my husband, and watching addictively bad movies on the SciFi channel. So imagine my surprise this morning when I go to the Reel and find out Warren Leight is leaving as showrunner for LOCI.

But, unlike my fellow obsessives, I don't quite see it as a loss. Oh sure, the series's ratings increased in its move to USA, but that couldn't have been hard considering the disaster known as the sixth season (Leight's first as head script writer for the show), which had some of the weakest storylines, worst guest acting, and intelligence-insulting crap to be shown on network TV. No wonder their ratings dropped. Not that the entire season was a loss. The Goren-backed bookends Blind Spot and Endgame were brilliant in that way something mediocre is made brilliant by a talented cast. The rest of the season was a complete waste of the talent Leight was handed on a silver platter, as he attempted to salvage the floundering show by making it more a cross between the cringe-inducing CSI Miami and the last three seasons of SVU.

Gone were the days when the actual criminal intent was a part of a show titled Criminal Intent. Gone was relying on talented local acting in favor of badly used guest stars (really? did anyone really care that Fran Drescher was in an episode? or Doris Roberts? Brooke Shields? really?). Gone were the carefully nuanced scripts that balanced the sophisticated crimes against the intellect and detecting prowess of the teams. Oh no, we must RIP FROM THE HEADLINES!!! And not headlines from days of yore, but ACTUALLY YESTERDAY'S HEADLINES!!! WHAT HAPPENED YESTERDAY!@!! OOOH LOOK!, LIZA MINELLI! SHE CAN'T MOVE HER FACE, BUT WE'LL STILL USE HER!!! WAIT, IS THAT TOM ARNOLD?!? GAY PREACHER SCANDAL ANTI-TYPECASTING! SQUEEE!

Please.

And gone were the days when our favorite detectives actually detected, apparently because they only need to be led around by the nose from suspect to suspect until the solution was blaring across the screen in giant letters. Doesn't anyone else remember that smirk Goren would get when he know someone was telling him a big fat lie? When he would sit in that room and stare at something waiting for the pattern to emerge, chips bags and coffee cups artfully strewn about? He and Eames poring over files together? Remember when Logan episodes were - while not brilliant - actually watchable?

The only thing the sixth season brought us that kept me returning were amped up personal storylines, pulled off only by the amazing acting abilities of the core cast. That and the hope it would eventually get better. Which, in the first half of season seven, it seems to have. Detecting returned. Depths showed some research happening. Self-Made reminded us Goren sometimes does get a clue on his own. The usual crime-solving hijinks came across in Courtship. And so I look forward to the remainder of the seventh season if only because the first half showed so much improvement over last season. Because, honestly, if it hadn't, the only reason I would be watching at all anymore is this man:


PS, if you want an even longer, more intelligent sounding, and more direct post about the travesty that was season 6, read this. My favorite is when the author basically equates it with fanfiction due to the high emotional content.

Thank You, Music Wench!

This one is even longer than the one I saw! How exciting. Now you can all share in my excitement:

Personally, I think...

...people do over-philosophize at times.

I think too much. I know I do. But what I'm usually over-thinking are real life situations involving real people. Or my own place in this endless universe, my role or purpose, or whether I'm meant to have a purpose at all.

It is times like these I wonder if I am a freak of nature. If I'm just one of those weird people who sees the world too differently than everyone else. Then I remember I am not that unique at all. Or, rather, my uniqueness is no more special than anyone else's.

I don't know why I can have the patience of Mother Theresa in most situations, but then stick me in a fan forum and I want to go Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver all over the place. I've worked with children; I've worked in the service industry; I've worked retail, for fuck's sake, and held my cool.

And I'm really sorry if the one of you (who I like bunches) who will know exactly what I'm talking about here gets insulted by what I'm venting about, but this is my forum and I apparently need to vent.

I just don't think I belong. I don't like how judgmental I become. I don't like that I sit there and think, "What a load of pretentious, nonsensical garbage. You can't intellectualize character action on a TV show, no matter how many mythos you tie it to. And something else, obscurity is not a virtue. Just because you sound intelligent doesn't mean you're right. And just because people ooh and aah over what you write doesn't mean they understood one freaking word. And another thing? You make no fucking sense, and I am saying that with full confidence in my intellectual ability."

I say all that in my head, I do.

What do I do in the forum? Most times, I ignore what I read and go about my business. Sometimes the discussion veers somewhere I feel like jumping in. And sometimes it's fun. But then someone else will jump in (or the original poster) and steer it off into the never-never land of fanciful meandering, Jungian archetypes, and the like. And I say...

It doesn't fucking matter what I say (so sayeth The Rock). Obviously I also take this way too seriously. Even I know that. If one person or another wants to post Marina Warner-like theses about a TV show, what do I care? And if I'm going to get annoyed every time it happens, then maybe it's time for another break.

Of course it would help if the goddamn show would come back on the air. And then maybe a couple of us could actually get together and discuss what I want to discuss. Things like, why do you think he did that? I don't remember that being mentioned before, can someone point me to the episode where that happened? how does all this tie into that other thing that happened?...you know...actually discussing the show?

I know I'm overly fond of my deep thoughts, but anyone who has discussed Buffy the Vampire Slayer with me ad infinitum knows I love to talk about my shows and their characters, and that I love hearing different opinions. When they make sense, that is.

Oh hell. I'm going to go bury my nose in a book for another couple of weeks.

I'm having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day...

It occurs to me I have become a misanthrope of sorts.

As I've mentioned before, I am not a loner (though I once thought so until I read this book and realized, "hey! that's not me!"), but an introvert. As an introvert and a quasi-ambidextrous (and therefore dual-brained) person, I take twice as long to process nonsense and crap before I figure out that it is nonsense and crap and therefore not worth my ire. This is very true, for example, of most of what I encounter on the Internet. Seriously folks, if I took every comment I either agreed with or didn't that is posted to every blog I read (talking mainly about The Very Serious Ones here) and responded emotionally to them, I would go batshit crazy in about a week. I just forced myself - forced myself, I tell you - to stop even visiting a certain blog because I had become embroiled in the most inane comment discussion about a certain television show. Don't get me wrong: I love discussing TV I love, or hate, or hate to love, or something like that. What was inane about the whole thing was that the person with whom I was having said discussion and I basically agreed about everything, but were just tied up in the logistics of our own perceptual filters.

I love perceptual filters. They influence everything we see, do , hear, watch. They color every conversation and interaction. And most people aren't even aware of their own and the role they play. Most people don't even realize they possibly - for example - view every mixed-race couple in mainstream media as a relationship of abuse and power, and so therefore the creator of a show which features such a couple is obviously a racist fetishist, because that's what she experienced in her own home. No, this is her opinion, and she is an educated and intelligent woman, ergo she is right and everyone else can just suck her left one.

People like that exhaust me and the Internet is full of them. Every article, popular blog, and flickr photo has someone who has apparently no other venue by which to voice his or her opinion and that opinion must be voiced.

Why? I have opinions every damn second of every day and keep them to myself and for good reason: The majority of them aren't worth the air I would use to speak. Added to that, aside from my obvious slacker-like tendencies today because (see blog title), who the fuck has the time to get that involved?

As I mentioned in a recent post, I have seriously cut down on my time spent in a certain TV-show-based fan forum. First it was all fun and games, but then I was ready to put someone's eye out. I suddenly felt weighed down by the sheer frustration of, oh, I don't know, the pointlessness of it all? Was discussing one particular character trait with someone I felt wasn't understanding the character's motivations changing my opinion of the character at all, and really who gives a fuck? Because when you boil it down, it's a TV show. And the characters? They aren't real. I like them. I enjoy looking at them and seeing how they grow or develop. But other people's opinions of them are no more real than the characters themselves. They are just blips on a screen that I wasted too much time reading. And those opinions I was sharing? As worthless as everyone else's.

Help me, online diary (that I post to in a public forum because in this mixed-up crazy 21st Century world, I have become as exhibitionist as the next assclown with a blog), help me let go of all these other opinions and their (seeming) importance so that I can continue to enjoy my Internet time and not feel I have to go find out what that jerk Anonymous is saying now!

Oh, and one more thing...

I miss TV.

I miss my (imaginary) friends...

So here are some pictures to keep us all going.