And Then Came the New Year, and I'm Gonna Get Better About This Blog Things, I Swear...

[thedeadlyhook]

Big hairball of busy on this end for the last week or so. Work-related, which is good, and fic-related, also good, but I've missed another slew of birthdays - _jems_ back in December and more recently, molly_may and annapurna_2. I won't do the big scrolling text thing, because at this late date, it seems kind of sad, but please accept my heartfelt best wishes and hopes that you all have a fantastic year ahead.

Lots of backlog to cover yet from the holidays, which I'm still hoping to get to, including ruminations on TV shows I don't typically watch, books received for Xmas, and the upcoming format and storage wars in CD/DVD media - wow, the entertainment industry's in for some serious change in the next few years, no joke, but first...

Sci-Fi Friday. Didn't watch Battlestar Galactica. Honestly didn't miss it. No insult to anyone on my flist still enjoying the series, but whoo-boy - amazing to realize how much different an evening it is when you stop after Stargate. Nowhere near as depressing. Eventually, I'll look at everyone else's entries on the episode and find out how the story went, but that's probably as far as my curiosity goes anymore. They lost me.

My Stargate observations are mostly shallow: glad to see new opening credits, oh no, there goes Louis Gossett Jr., that was sure sudden, and damn if Cameron Mitchell (see, I'm working hard to remember Browder's character's name) and Daniel Jackson don't make a great comedy team. I'm also warming to Beau Bridges, who was kind of leaving me cold there for awhile, and Lexa Doig's presence along with Ben Browder's, William B. Davis's, and also Mitch Pileggi's on Atlantis just reinforces my impression of the Stargate-verse as being a sort of warm, fuzzy afterlife for genre actors. Like reincarnation. Aw.

And General Hammond. Double awww.

Atlantis - what's so weird about this show is that I actually enjoy it a lot, despite not being at all interested in most of the team. I can't even remember their names most of the time, other than Ronon Dex!, whose name is so such the sort of thing one might come up with for a role-playing game, and thusly I find kind of endearing. But the Wraith are - let's face it - campy and funny to watch, and Aiden Ford (who I had to look up - in my mind, he's always "the guy with the big eye") is entertaining me a lot right now with his drug-related super-alien-steroids story, because it's going to a place these sorts of stories usually don't go, that being the fact that the alien elixir really does get him pumped up, and then it's just a discussion of acceptable risks. I like that Rodney shot up to take out the guards. That was nice, even with the big withdrawal thang that came after. Still subtle, for this kind of story.

The main character still bores me. Ditto all the women, especially the base commander - does she ever do anything but stride around stiffly in her lycra T-shirt? Every time I see her, in her slimline headset, I think she's drawn a mascara line down her cheek by mistake.

Comments

[asta77.livejournal.com]

and damn if Cameron Mitchell (see, I'm working hard to remember Browder's character's name) and Daniel Jackson don't make a great comedy team.

Ben and Michael are developing some great chemistry. My favorite moment of the night was when Daniel was talking about the Ori plan as Cameron was doing air quotes. :)

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

For some reason, I was also inexplicably charmed to see the Smoking Man as the befuddled straight man in that scene. He really did have that look, of someone really, really lost trying to follow an Abbot and Costello skit.

[danceswithwords.livejournal.com]

I loved loved loved the Cameron/Daniel team of snark. One of the things I think was so great about it was that it was utterly different from Jack and Daniel's snark, that they're carving out a new dynamic for Mitchell. It's taken a while to build--I've noticed that the character stuff on Stargate tends to be a pretty slow accumulation--but it's really starting to kick into gear.

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I had that reaction too - like, "yay, they're finally getting around to deciding how Mitchell interacts with the rest of the team!" And while Jack seemed to be paired up with Teal'c most of the time for comedy purposes, the decision seems to have been that now Daniel is the default straight man, which is kind of interesting. Not sure yet what's going on with Sam. I can only hope we'll get more on her secret off-base relationship (I have hopes there, not that I'm, er, shipping Jack/Samantha. Sort of. Well, maybe.)

And I so hearted the new opening. So, so much.

[annapurna-2.livejournal.com]

but please accept my heartfelt best wishes and hopes that you all have a fantastic year ahead.

Thank you! And don't fret the lateness. Birthday wishes are welcome any time!

Besides, with my sporadic posting I'm probably the queen of belated birthday wishes, so I'm large with the understanding.

As for BSG, I'm definitely still a fan, but no...it's not even remotely cheery. Heh.

I watched a few episodes of "Atlantis" when it first started but got bored very quickly. And none of the bits and pieces I've caught since then have tempted me to give it another go.

With SG-1, I never saw the movie and only checked out the series last year. I caught a couple of repeats then watched a few new episodes with Claudia Black. Loved her character and found the eps I saw pretty entertaining, but I was hesitant to take on yet another show, so...

But did I hear correctly that she's returning to the show as a regular, or was that my overactive imagination at work? If she is, I might just be tempted to tune in again.

Ditto all the women, especially the base commander - does she ever do anything but stride around stiffly in her lycra T-shirt? Every time I see her, in her slimline headset, I think she's drawn a mascara line down her cheek by mistake.

::snerk::

I do so ::heart:: you.

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

Hee! (smooch)

Claudia Black was definitely the funnest part of the season - without her, the chemisry just wasn't working the same. In fact, I'd argue that it'd be hard for someone to get into Stargate now, as a new show, even though that's how I first started watching, to see more Ben and Claudia, without going back to the beginning of the series and taking in some of that great team chemistry they original had, with Richard Dean Anderson as Jack. Nobody, not even Browder, has really filled that empty space in the team yet that used to be Jack (although in some ways, Claudia almost did), so the show's still finding its legs, I think.

Atlantis... yeah. I can't really recommend it on its own merits. It's kinda/sorta just there, but I'm mildly entertained enough to keep watching for the sci-fi aspects. Most of the characters really do leave me totally cold. It's only the saga of Ford and his hybrid alien wackiness that I've really been enjoying so far.

[annapurna-2.livejournal.com]

I should probably check out SG-1 from the start and work my way up to the current episodes. Don't know exactly when I'll find the time since that's a whole lot of catching up to do. Does Sci-Fi repeat earlier eps in order the way FX and TNT do Buffy and Angel?

It's only the saga of Ford and his hybrid alien wackiness that I've really been enjoying so far.

Well, as long as there's at least one thing to enjoy. Heh.

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

They do seem to play the first few episodes fairly frequently - after the first five or so, you can get a pretty good idea. I wouldn't recommend catching up to all nine years unless it really lit your fire, though - that's a hell of a lot of continuity. But if there's a "best-of" marathon in the offing, I'd go for it - Sci-Fi played one awhile back that was deeply entertaining, some really good science-fiction and fun character stuff. When it's on, SG-1 can be like classic Star Trek - all loveable for the character stuff, and wow-that's-cool for the alien science.

[annapurna-2.livejournal.com]

But if there's a "best-of" marathon
in the offing, I'd go for it -

I'll be sure to keep an eye out for one!

[kitmarlowescot2.livejournal.com]

Here is something you might like,

For anyone who might be interested in ghosts and spooky things.
This car commercial was created in New Zealand when the producers
played it back they noticed a ghostly apparition and an eerie sound.

Turn the sound up, watch closely. Play it and see what you think.

Follow this link you need macromedia installed to view it.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1011738692175276484