This blog has not been abandoned, believe it or not

Part of the problem here is that I haven't been reading very much.  Over the weeks between Thanksgiving and New Year's Eve, I've been working through a lot of my lunches.  Since I do the bulk of my reading during work lunches, this has really cut into my page count.  Now that the holidays are over, I should be picking some books back up.

This brings me to another problem: what to read.  I'm sort of in the mood to catch up on all the Neil Gaiman that I haven't read yet.  But I'm also watching Syfy's The Expanse and so now want to go back to that series, rereading the two I've already read (Leviathan Wakes and Caliban's War) and then go on to the rest of them.  And I also want to go back and reread the first two books of the Millenium series (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played with Fire), go on to The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, and then finish with The Girl in the Spider's Web, by David Lagercrantz, which continues the series and which I received for Christmas.

Watching-wise, I'm enjoying The Expanse, although half the time I'm wracking my brain, trying to remember what happened in the books.  I certainly like it better than Syfy's miniseries Childhood's End, which I found a little disjointed, dropping and picking up characters willynilly.  I am all caught up with Sherlock and have just one episode to go with Master of None, which I have really enjoyed (the episode "Mornings" is an entire, sweet, well-done, intelligent, funny, heartfelt rom-com in and of itself).  I've got just a couple more episodes of S4 of Game of Thrones (that fight between the Mountain and the Viper!) and I'm still loving Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries.  And then there's television coming back, and the return of Agent Carter and  Better Call Saul, and OMG the return of The X-Files ...

At least I should be able to consume enough to merit some more regular posting soon.

So busy

I don't mean to derail the True Blood momentum - and, in fact, I have watched the next two episodes and will get to recapping them soonish - but there's some other stuff I've read and watched recently that is pretty damn good.  (And, frankly, when compared to True Blood, very damn good.)  Take a gander and let me know if you've partaken of any of these.

• Black Mirror - A satirical British science fiction anthology series from the mind of Charlie Booker, Black Mirror is a dark and twisted treat.  Each episode - and there are only a few - has a different story and a different cast, and all of them involve technology that is not that far away from us right now.  As an X-Files, Fringe and Twilight Zone fan, as well as a fan of dystopian fiction, it's like this show was made for me.  It's got a great cast too, which made it great fun to recognize people (from Sense8, Agent Carter and the U.K. version of Skins, among others).  
• Howl's Moving Castle - I read the book.  I don't think I even realized there was a book and thought it was just the acclaimed Miyazaki animated movie.  But no, it was a book first, by British author Diana Wynne Jones.  It's a lightweight YA fantasy novel about Sophie, the eldest of three sisters and, in the world of fairy tales, thus doomed to a boring and unfulfilled life.  When Sophie inadvertently pisses off the Witch of the Waste, the Witch turns her into an old woman.  Her only chance at breaking the spell is the Wizard Howl, he of the titular moving castle.  Sophie insinuates herself into Howl's household and then the adventures begin.  Howl's Moving Castle is stuffed full of fire demons, jilted lovers, fancy outfits, animated scarecrows and plain old magic.  I got sucked in against my will and now I'm just going to have to move the movie up to the top of my Netflix queue.
• Doctor Who - It wasn't as though I was actively resisting Doctor Who, I just figured that I needed a chunk of time to watch a bunch of episodes in a row to really gain appreciation for it.  Everything I have read said that the 2005 revival, with Christopher Eccleston as the Ninth Doctor, is a good place to start - that those of us new Whovians don't really need to delve into the classic episodes.  I'm almost all the way through the series (I understand that Eccleston only played the Doctor for the one series) and I'm really quite liking it.  It has some fairly scary monsters for such a silly show (the Dalek, the Empty Child zombies, the Autons).  I have a big ol' girl crush on Bille Piper, who plays the Doctor's companion, Rose.  And Eccleston does a very nice job with the Doctor: he's got some darkness to him, this incarnation.  Good fun.  I'm anxious to finish out this series and see what fan-favorite David Tennant does with it.
• The Revolution was Televised  - This non-fiction book by Alan Sepinwall covers the shows that changed television into the amazing landscape that we now know it to be.  Sepinwall discusses in detail the following shows, which include several of my all-time favorites:  Oz (which I now have to watch), The Sopranos, The Wire (which I definitely have to watch), Deadwood (love love love), The Shield, LOST, Buffy the Vampire Slayers (!!!!!!!!!), 24, Battlestar Galactica (love love love), Friday Night Lights (love), Mad Men (it's on my list) and Breaking Bad (love love love).  Those are some seriously excellent shows right there.  The Revolution was Televised is easy to read, packed with information and interview tidbits and just fascinating to any of us who love good television.  Highly recommended.
• Mr. Robot - I also watched USA's Mr. Robot which is just great.  Rami Malek, as main guy Elliott Alderson, is phenomenal as the brilliant, damaged untrustworthy narrator.  The plot moves along quickly - a hacker group, fSociety, is looking to take down the largest corporation (Evil Corp) in the world, thus fomenting chaos - but it's the character beats that are the most compelling.  Great stuff and a wonderful change of pace from USA's usual blue sky programming.

Bidding a fond adieu to the X-Files

I pounced upon my Blockbuster-by-mail DVD envelopes with a squeal of glee last week. This caused Mr. Mouse to ask what had been delivered. The first two disks of the final season, a/k/a S9, of the X-Files, of course. Mr. Mouse then asked why I was so squealy - hadn't I already watched all the seasons when they originally aired (not to mention every SciFi SyFy re-run I can find)? Yes, I have seen all the episodes already, but no, that's not why I was excited. The excitement comes from nearing the end of my quest to re-watch all nine seasons.

About this here series end, then. I wrote about this not too long ago, musing that Agent Doggett (Robert Patrick) did a pretty good job picking up the pieces after David Duchovny bailed. Now, after watching S9E1-8, I'd like to say that Agent Monica Reyes (Annabeth Gish) is no Robert Patrick. Good grief, she SUCKS. She can't act for shit, standing around all cow-eyed and dim, and her line readings are, like, try to keep up, Gish! Ugh.

And while I'm complaining about the final X-Files season, Scully is driving me nuts too. Gone is the tough, no-nonsense, trigger-happy agent we knew and loved for eight seasons. All she's done to date in S9 is mope about her lost love and baby-daddy Mulder, even calling herself "Dana" in her weepy emails to him. Since when did they ever call each other by their first names? Ugh again. And, to rub salt in the wound, she even handed off her gun to stoopid Agent Reyes in one episode. The old Scully would never give her gun to anyone.

Anyway, I'm glad the X-Files didn't go any further than this ninth season since it was, by that time, a pale imitation of its former self. I'm also glad to be watching the final episodes again, though, because I do love serialized television and this show had enough good in it to compensate for this weak sauce. It's like saying good-bye to a very old friend.

Wherefore art thou Warehouse 13?

I'm not exactly sure that the paraphrase in the post title works, but then again I'm not exactly sure that Warehouse 13 actually works either. I've seen the two hour pilot and I liked it more at the end than I did at the beginning, so I guess that's something.

Warehouse 13 is one of the SciFi *grrrrrrr* SyFy Channel's new series. It focuses on two Secret Service agents, Pete Lattimer and Myka Barry (?), who have been reassigned from President-protecting duty to a ginormous warehouse in the middle of Nowhere, South Dakota. In this warehouse are oodles of artifacts that have some sort of power, mostly un-understood by modern man. So the Warehouse folks roam the planet, tracking, neutralizing and collecting these artifacts, and then bringing them back to SD for safekeeping/storage.

Warehouse 13 is being marketed as a much "lighter" show, more Eureka than BSG. Reviewers are comparing it to a blend of The X-Files with Indiana Jones as the two leads are male/believer and female/skeptic, plus all powerful and mysterious artifacts. W13 seems to have a little difficulty with pacing (the pilot's climatic scene took waaaaaaaaaaay too long) and getting the comedy/drama blend just right, something I expect will get better as the series progresses. There was a self-immolation that was definitely not funny, but the bit with an Aladdin's lamp that gives you a ferret when you wish for something impossible - that was good.

I'm going to keep it on my DVR list for now as (1) the previews for upcoming episodes look good (Six makes an appearance!) and (2) there just really isn't much else decent to watch right now. Did any of you give ol' Warehouse 13 a try too? What did you think of it?

Agent Doggett got a raw deal

In the past few months I have undertaken a daunting task: to finish watching all nine seasons of The X-Files. (I know - too much television!) I just finished the sixteenth episode of Season 8 and felt compelled to write down some random musings. I'm what you would call a casual fan (not a conspiracy-lovin' mad-devoted X-phile), only truly loving the show after the episode "Home" - you know, the balls-to-the-wall one about the incestuous mutants that Fox banned from all reruns. I remember watching that on television and thinking, "Damn ..."

Anyway, Season 8 is when Duchovny was on his way out (betraying the show that made him a star) and Robert Patrick was introduced as his erstwhile successor, John Doggett. When I saw this season live, if you will, I recall being offended that Mulder was leaving and that this, this Terminator was replacing him. But now, rewatching the episodes, I am impressed with what Chris Carter et. al were able to do.

Robert Patrick was given the impossible task of replacing the beloved Duchovny and he did a great job. The character of Doggett is an honest, moral, hard-working man. From the moment he was assigned to the X-Files, he did his job as best he could, following the evidence and supporting his new partner, even when he thought she was nuts. When Mulder came back from the dead, he was - in the character's own words - "cold and ungrateful" for what Doggett and Scully had done for him. Chris Carter was easing the fans into letting Mulder go by making him less likeable, and by making Doggett such a good guy. (The same thing did not work with the insipid Agent Monica Reyes - lightning doesn't strike twice.)

Anyway, the show was clearly on its way out, but kudos to the cast and crew for doing their best with what that defector Duchovny left them behind. Thoughts? Comments?