donutsweeper

So, I've watched Guardian. Sort of. Really enjoyed the first 22 or so episodes and then the merit brush storyline just dragged and dragged and the baddies for that turned out to have such STUPID reasonings and backstories I started skimming and skipping here and there to get through the show because otherwise I knew I'd give up and never finish it.

slightly critical babble ahoy

I loathe misunderstanding as a plotline and when that was the root to *both* the fruit seller neighbor guy AND Sha Ya? I didn't buy the way the wife's death happened or was dealt with (at the hospital) but at least they'd stressed over and over than he wasn't a smart man so maybe 50% of his actions were based on that and another chunck on being manipulated, but still. Grr. Not the kind of storyline I like. And then there was Sha Ya's reasonings, which, really? REALLY?

The 10k years ago stuff was... confusing and not what I thought it would be. So ZYL gets dropped back then and assumed the role of the murdered Kunlan, okay, fine. I loved the way he rolled with it (it was so IC and he seemed to really take to the role) but he spends all of a few days (at most?) and totally turns the tide of the battle, has Shen Wei totally fall for him and he earns Da Qing's respect/support/whatever in that time? If they'd implied he'd actually spent a decent amount of time there I could buy that more, but as it was shown? It felt really, really rushed. (Still some great bits between SW and ZYL though, especially the lollypop stuff)

Overall, the last third of the show felt rushed and ill-plotted, honestly. Like they'd figured out how to tweak some of the book to fit with the censorship rules and to be a tv show but then ran out of time in doing the rest and just slammed stuff together.

I'm unclear on when exactly (compared to present day) Shen Wei reemerged considering he had a whole role and history with people in the university. Five years ago? 10? Whenever it was, the comparative recentness of it made his OMGness at spotting ZYL in the first ep a little less powerful. I'd assumed he'd missed him for the whole 10k. And speaking of that scene, if ZYL hadn't experienced the meeting yet, then why did he have the reaction he had to seeing Shen Wei? An also... the whole team seemed to be familiar with the Black Robe Envoy by then so how the hell did that work? Why hadn't Shen Wei already met/recognized him?

The whole Ye Zun-in-the-pillar thing was kind of ridiculous considering how many people randomly wandered up to it and had conversations and/or eventually got controlled/eaten by him.

And, honestly, Ye Zun in general I had so many issues with. Because AGAIN it was a misunderstanding as motivation with so much death and destruction as a result. And the misunderstanding was SO DUMB. Why would he believe badguy that Shen Wei just up and abandoned him? Wtf?

The end was... meh, okayish despite the massive plotholes. Both Shen Wei and ZYL sacrificing themselves for the better universe worked okay within the story tptb probably had to tell. I felt kind of bad for the people who knew ZYL and had to see otherguy in his body afterwards, how do you grieve when the man you're grieving is standing in front of you?

Generally speaking, I think they did an okay job at not no-homoing while not being allowed to show the m/m from the book but that The Untamed did it a million times better. I don't ship easily but totally bought WWX/LWJ and while I could be sold on SW/ZYL fic, I didn't see it in canon happening in itself and the story would have to sell me on their relationship first, established relationship fic just won't quite work based on what we were shown. Also, it'd have to be set after, or address, ZYL's initial suspicion of SW. I just can't buy a detective like ZYL getting involved with someone who was a person of interest in a case, let alone as suspect.

I also have no interest whatsoever in woobie or whumped Shen Wei which seems to be popular. I came out much more interested in ZYL. (Among other things, the way he dealt with the blindness SL was just SO GOOD)

So anyway, decent enough as canons go, but not something I'll probably be fannish about.

I am person of Very Little Brain today so just decided to nom the same thing I did last year: Strange World (TV 1999) with characters Major Lynne Reese, Paul Turner, The Thing From Another World (1951) and character Captain Patrick Hendry, and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and character Lee Crane. On the off chance anyone is familiar with those and wishes more characters, let me know as there's 4 character slots per fandom.

The post on how to nominate is here if you want to nom something yourself. If you have small fandoms you should. Yuletide is a great exchange and it's really fun to participate in.

Annoyingly, a different, new show titled "Strange World" began airing recently so I had to add the 1999 to make it clear which Strange World I was requesting and I decided to put together a comment about it for the promo post so I figured I'd C&P it here too:

FANDOM NAME: Strange World (TV 1999)

WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: Do you like tv shows about scientific investigations? Especially when they look into government conspiracies, environmental hazards, biological weapons, questionable technology, or human experimentation? Do you appreciate protagonists with their hearts in the right place even if their heads may not be?

The characters are truly engaging. The two main ones are:

Paul Turner (Tim Guinee), a doctor for The United States Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), who suffers from a rare form of aplastic anemia as a result of exposure to chemical weapons. Said disease is currently in remission due to a temporary cure he was given by a mysterious woman (Vivian Wu) who is working for a shadowy organization that wants to influence/direct some of his investigations, although she seems to also have an agenda of her own.

Major Lynne Reese (Saundra Quarterman) was his superior back when he was still in the army and did not listen to his concerns which resulted in his getting exposed to the chemicals and therefore becoming ill, something which she has always felt guilty about. Six years after that incident she recruits Paul (in the pilot) into her division to help prevent things like that from happening to more people and preventing further criminal abuses of science and technology.



WHERE CAN I FIND IT?: ABC only aired three episodes of the show before cancelling it and was completely hands off in its production which allowed its creators to develop the show and tell the story they wished without interference. All 13 episodes eventually aired on SCI FI in 2002. It was never released on DVD but can be found on youtube.

I can't figure out how to just post the video here, but follow this link to the most adorable set of panda cubs and their perpetual attempts to prevent their keeper from raking up leaves in their enclosure. (Actually, also just check out the entire Great Panda Conspiracy facebook page, it's guaranteed to make you smile.)

Person of Interest had its series finale this week and I was happily surprised how well it went out. Yes, there was death (which I totally expected) but entirely truly in character and for plot reasons. Overall, I'm very happy with how the show spent its last season and the arc it gave its characters.

Wynonna Earp also finished its season (possibly series, neither renewal nor cancellation has been announced) and I was pretty content with everything it chose to do until the last 60 seconds or so when it decided to go the 'OMG SURPRISE UNEXPECTED TWIST' as their ending. Which, blargh. I still recommend it as a show, but those few seconds really soured my overall love of the show.

Preacher began on AMC a few weeks ago. It's free to watch via the AMC app (no log in necessary, but it's probably region-locked). Dominic Cooper (aka CA:TFA's Howard Stark) is AMAZING in it and Ruth Negga is incredibly kickass. It's based off a comic (which I know nothing about). To sort of sum it up Dominic plays Jesse, a small town Texan preacher with a sordid past, Ruth plays Tulip, his former partner who wants to drag him back into the life (of crime? off-book political stuff? it's unclear) and Joseph Gilgun is Cassidy, an Irish vampire who literally drops into town shortly before some weird/alien/supernatural thing crashes into Jesse and gives him powers. It's more convoluted than that? No real idea where the show is going but the cast is amazing and it definitely has going for it the fact this is something I haven't seen before a million times.

Been watching a lot of football (soccer) here between Copa America (how did the US make it to the semi's? How?) and Euro 2016 but thankfully there haven't been too many bad calls so the animals haven't been awoken by my yelling at the refs. (Because we all know how loudly you yell at the refs for making a terrible call, the better they're later calls will be. Or something.)

What's my flist up to these days?

So three more shows have had their season finales and, oddly enough, the multiverse did not get destroyed, the earth did not get nuked into Armageddon and the sun did not go supernova. Shocker, right?

I am just... weary of tptb's need to have these big, huge, OMG kind of finales where we know the heroes will battle valiantly, appear to be losing, but then in the end, be triumphant. Because, of late, they put no effort into the storyline other the will they/won't they win aspect and, to be frank, that's a given. To quote the Tick (the cartoon, which, OMG, is on youtube now, brb see you in a few days while I rewatch) "You can't destroy the Earth, that's where I keep all my stuff!" So, the chance that the US/world/universe/multiverse is destroyed? Absolutely not existent.

The thing is, you can write a decent season finale where the heroes are in mortal peril and even though we the viewer know that they're going to somehow survive the insurmountable odds, it's still a good story. Let me tell you about the one with the killer ants. Yes, you read that correctly. There was a show where our heroes™ were menaced by KILLER ANTS. Now, I will readily admit that the 2000 syndicated tv show Sheena, set in the madeupia part of the African jungle, was not what most folks would qualify as a good show. But it knew that. It couldn't afford amazing sets or effects or anything and it knew that too. It did, however, understand you could have a ridiculous, life threatening premise of a storyline but, if you focused on the characters and how they dealt with it, TELL A GOOD STORY. I had the killer ants episode on VHS and watched it a ton of times. Did I ever think the ants would ever kill and eat them? No. Did I think the premise was ridiculous? Kind of, yeah. But so did they. Yet still there managed to be tension (he was sick and fading fast, she usually saved everyone no problem but this time hadn't been able to do that) and character growth (they learned things about each other's backstories and got closer) and there were some sweet scenes and overall, it was just a decent episode to watch.

I can't remember the last time I felt that way about a modern 'omg will they survive' kind of episode of a show. Nowadays, it seems like they spend all their time and effort on just the 'will they survive' part, and, since that's a given 99% of the time, there's no tension to it and the whole thing just winds up being unsatisfying. I think that's one of the reasons I miss the old mystery/case/monster/whatever-of-the-week style of story telling. Season after season of that can get tiring, and it's too easy for them to ignore character development and character growth, but at least there's the chance of failure and unexpected outcome.

SIGH. Come on, fandoms, step up to the plate. Show me what you can do.

Continuing the lazy (I mean, *ahem* surprising and powerful) writing of TV these days four characters were killed off on shows I watched Monday and Tuesday. Is it sad that I'm only surprised that there were characters killed in only 3 of the 5 shows?

Of the deaths, the best (least awful?) written one was sadly completely unsurprising and I had assumed was coming. One death was off screen and poorly done, one a *sigh you have to be kidding me* kind of thing (although, I guess it's possible the person isn't dead) and the last had a totally ridiculous deathbed confession addition to it that went entirely against previously established canon.

The deaths happened in ( spoilers for names of shows (characters not named) ).

*sigh*

I recently binge watched Da Vinci's Demons (which, confusedly, is not about demons at all) and despite it's historical inaccuracies I really liked it. Definitely going for it was that despite being a premium cable show it never went for gratuitous nudity/sex/violence/etc (yes, there was some, but it mostly made sense plot-wise and never felt tacked on to shock or whatever like in most shows) but there was one scene that made me SUPER HAPPY.

The show revolves around Leonardo da Vinci (unsurprisingly) and focuses on him and his friends becoming involved in political intrigue (Medicis/Catholic Church/Pazzis/Ottoman empire stuff) and inventing a ton of stuff as a result with a cult or two and a prophecy thrown in. Anyway, for the scene in question Leonardo has uncovered a book someone died to try to hide and wants to learn more about it so he goes to his friend because "your Hebrew is better than mine," he explains as he hands it over. And the friend takes the book and proceeds to open it from the left (what you'd consider the back if looking at a book printed in English) and begins to page through it.

I get this is a minor thing and most people wouldn't notice it at all but HE OPENED THE BOOK THE CORRECT WAY. Hebrew is printed left to right instead of right to left like most European languages and the books go in that direction as well- the first page is what would be the last page in other languages. Someone involved in the show (writer, director, actor, who knows) had the foresight to stop and think about the fact that a book published in a different language might be read a different way instead of just assuming it'd open and be read the way most other books are.

Such a minor thing. Yet so important. And it made me just so ridiculously happy.

I've been meaning to do a post on the 15 minute rule for a while but life kept getting in the way. Basically, the 15 minute rule is the idea that a movie has the first 15 minutes (or a book has the first few chapters, or a TV show the pilot episode) to set the rules for its universe. For example: Modern day setting except there are superheroes/secret agency that fight the Big Bad! Or, ancient Britons with magic and dragons! Or, huge robots that fight huge monsters! Sometimes, it doesn't even need that long to set up its 15 minute rule- think about the Gilligan's Island theme song (or Brady Bunch's, etc) or the VO introduction to Pacific Rim or Sleepy Hollow.

( not that long, but cut to save flists )

Dramatic license will always give tptb wiggle room, sometimes I just wish they understood the difference between a little leeway and outright disregard for the world they themselves created.