labingi

I was reading a comments thread (not about Good Omens) discussing how some people just don’t get satire, and I thought, “Is that me?” I understand the concept. I know “A Modest Proposal” is not a serious proposal, and I love The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, which is endless social sendup. I get (intellectually) that a lot of Good Omens is also satire, but it doesn’t land for me as it does for many.

Now, the love story between Aziraphale and Crowley is the best I’ve encountered in a long time. (The next most recent that might be competition is probably in the manga Acid Town (2017), so, yeah, best in at least six years.) Hence, my bemused feelings about Good Omens, especially S2: part in love and part confused.

Disclaimer: I have not read the book; I’m only referring to the TV series.

Spoilers behind the cut ( Read more... )

Yep, I’m going to gripe about Strange New Worlds S2, ep. 5 (the Spock one), so if that’s going to kill your buzz, please feel free to skip.

The (Mostly) Good
To begin with (virtually spoiler free), this episode had a couple of very good things:

1) Amanda. New Trek Amanda has been written very well in general, and this may be the best Amanda episode in all Star Trek. I love how she is now being treated like full, complex person.

2) The aliens. Though they loosely fall under the “super-evolved energy being” trope, they are different from every other ST alien I can recall, and that’s a quite a trick after almost 60 years of media. They’re benevolent but also narrowminded and just culturally different in their communication patterns. Well done.

I have only one complaint, which is the universalization of the “friendship doesn’t matter” trope. Alien as these beings are, they 100% agree with us (21st century US, for ex.) and our heroes (23rd century) that friendship doesn’t matter much, thereby presenting this not as a cultural quirk but a universal law. As a friendship bonder, this sets my teeth on edge exactly as I imagine the “bury your queers” trope does queer people’s: (not exact quote) “We’re friends, but I want something...” (wait for it) “...more.” Okay, I’ll stop now.

3) Bonus good: Pike. He was a minor character in this, but he came through for Spock as a supportive friend and it spoke well of his character.

4) Bonus good: Excellent acting throughout. This includes Chapel, who is bringing her A game.

5) Bonus good: A lot of the jokes, in and of themselves, were funny.
Spoilers and griping follow.( Read more... )

Recent prestige TV shows seem to follow two different theories of writing. One I’d describe as character driven: the writers construct characters and figure out how they’d react under certain circumstances. Examples of this kind of writing are Andor, The House of the Dragon, and The Last of Us. The other I’d describe as theme or message driven: the writers determine what theme(s) or social message(s) they want to present and construct characters and situations to deliver them. Examples of this kind are The Rings of Power and much of New Star Trek and pieces of Boba Fett and Obi Wan Kenobi.

It’s probably clear that I prefer the former style of writing. At the end of the day, I don’t know what storytelling is about if it’s not about the human experience. Messages only matter because they are part of the human experience. I’ve never really understood the point of placing message ahead of character. In my opinion, that ultimately just blunts the message. (This is approximately what I argued in my long-ago essay on why Buffy Season 7 didn’t work for me.)

I’m not saying having messages is bad or trying to make a backdoor argument about messages being “too woke.” Andor has the message “fight fascism,” and that’s a good one. Buffy S7 has the message “spread the female empowerment,” and that’s good too. It’s about how whether the messages will end up feeling like an insightful illustration of human experience or a simplistic bludgeon. Spoilers follow for Picard, potentially all seasons and warning for disorganized, Covid-induced rambling( Read more... )

The Mary Sue has an interesting article on Meryl and Millie in Trigun Stampede, which prompted a long fannish comment from me. I'll go ahead and post it here, too, as a bit of Trigun meta.

Very interesting article! Huge fan of Trigun here (especially the manga), so here I go with some thoughts. I agree that women were not as well represented in season 1 of Stampede as in the '98 anime (or manga). I agree that season 2 will probably do better as we meet older Meryl and Millie. I agree that Vash's behavior toward Dominique is something Stampede would do well to omit. (Some Trigun spoilers follow.)( Read more... )

I fell off the radar in writing about the IWTV (TV) around episode 4 for a couple of related reasons: 1) the show was making me unhappy and (2) I was/am grappling with a lot of chronic pain, exacerbated by computer use. Both sapped me of energy and capacity to say anything. I'm still pretty sapped but will try.

The most galling thing about this show is that in many ways it's very good, and it seems to have been very well received. The latter may be because (unlike LotR, Star Wars, Star Trek), there isn't a huge fandom around the book waiting to spot every change from canon. (Just me!) If I had come to this show cold, knowing nothing about Rice's books, I probably would have liked it a lot and now consider myself a fan.

The problem is it has almost nothing to do with the book. And, yes, that is a problem for an adaption. It's not for a fan fic (which is what this is, a very AU fan fic), and it's not for the 700th iteration of a classic story like King Arthur or the Trojan War. But for the one legally allowable adaption of a copyrighted work, for which AMC paid millions of dollars to forestall anyone else from adapting it—yes, having nothing to do with the thing it's adapting is a problem. Whatever the showrunners may say, whatever they may believe, it is disrespectful to the book. It essentially says, "The book is worthless; it's not even worth engaging with except for some vague name recognition."

And it's not worthless. It's not a work of genius, but it's a good book. It's an unusual book and an important book in the history of vampire lore, and it deserved an adaption, not a radically AU knock-off. And, no, the 1994 movie was not the adaption it needed. It was 1000 times more an adaptation than this, but it was poorly cast and did not capture much of the spirit.

But before I complain more, let me offer some things I liked:

(SPOILERS for season 1 follow...)( Read more... )

This show has ended up wildly skewed for me. There are parts I hate and parts I love. Therefore, I'm going to rank 'em, worst to best (as I experience it). I'll rate them 1-10, with 1 being worst, and explain why.

Scale calibration:
1 = I love Lexx, but that gender swap episode of Lexx that is just one interminable rape joke.
10 = The finale of Blake's 7, "The Body" in Buffy, Tyrion in Game of Thrones seasons 1-4.

Okay, here we go. Spoilers for Season 1 and book stuff( Read more... )

This is more meta than review, but here we go. Light spoilers for the episode, promo stuff, and book follow…

This is a fantastic quality show. Of the shows I'm following right now (The Rings of Power, House of the Dragon, Andor, and this), ep. 1 suggests this may be the best—or it's vying hard with Andor. If I were coming in cold with no knowledge of TVC, I would be enthralled and an instant die-hard fan… ( Read more... )

I'm probably hurting myself and limiting my imagination by being an old-school Tolkien fan here. But as of episode 3, I can't figure out what Rings of Power is trying to say. I can't figure out its philosophical underpinnings. ( cut for mostly vague spoilers )

Warnings: This is a rant about NuTrek Vulcans. If that's going to be a bummer, you may wish to stop here. Light SPOILERS (a couple of details) for SNW through season 1, ep. 7 and a tiny bit beyond.

I feel torn between not wanting to spew negativity and wanting to get something off my chest. Chest has won. I hope this has a germ of a useful cultural point. This is, of course, my own perspective; many others don't feel the same way and that's fine.

I like Strange New Worlds. I've mostly enjoyed it; I'm glad it exists. I think it's the best of the NuTrek shows—but I cannot stand the NuTrek Vulcans—or actually the Vulcans on any series dating back to Enterprise. But I'm going to focus on NuTrek.

The problem with the NuVulcans, as I see it, is the writers approaching science fiction from an ethnocentric perspective. They seem not to know how to write (or see the value in writing) a culture other than their own. Thus, they write Vulcans as us, our culture. The Vulcans are arguably the most intriguing culture Star Trek ever created. Over the lifetime of Nimoy Spock, they are fleshed out across decades of writing, not always brilliant or consistent, but amounting to a civilization both instantly recognizable and subtle, relatable but extremely culturally alien. NuTrek has thrown most of that away. A few examples:( Read more... )

The reason I call myself a science fiction fan is that I love science fiction's capacity to explore the human condition by comparing "us" (our in-group) to something different. This might be done via different cultures, technologies, biologies, environments, etc. I love it when a well-written story changes something and explores how that change ripples out, transforming how existence works for the characters and cultures under consideration. When a story does this well, I find it absolutely magical. I also find it's frustratingly rare. And, therefore, I am over the moon to have found this kind of sci-fi with Foundation's Cleons.

Spoilers for the Foundation TV series ( Read more... )