Switch: Season 1, Episode 6

It’s time for the solstice party – which means lots of packing, lots of preparing and Stella driving everyone up the wall with her checklist. And Gloria, Grace’s mother, ringing every 5 seconds. And Gerry is going to miss Grace and is angling to come with her. Grace realises she has to tell the truth and builds up to the big reveal – of being a witch. Which Gerry shrugs and takes. When she reveals she’s going home for solstice, he’s even more eager to go.

She runs to the others and begs for help, she’s not ready for Gerry to see all the weird and whacky stuff around solstice. Jude says to tell him not to come, but Grace doesn’t want to hurt his feelings. Hannah proposes a switch, but Grace says they’ve already done it a lot in the month she’s known him, it’s exploitative and wrong. Stella giggles and wonders what Gerry will say to Grace’s mum’s naked solstice dance – Grace changes her mind about the switch.

All Switched they set off for Lower Sooth where the solstice is being held and, car trouble aside they arrive. Only to find that Alexa’s family owns the land and is now charging £50 a person to attend and a further £75 to park – miles from the actual event. And extra corporate sponsorship.

Grace’s mum Gloria is also unhappy with the corporate everywhere and is dressing as a red squirrel in protest (it makes sense to her).  To Gloria’s house where we find Grace’s dad is silent and radiates dullness and Gloria acts like she’s not had Grace home for decades when it’s actually been a week. And she’s trying to set Grace up with someone – which is when she sees Gerry through the window.

Grace talks to Gerry about how important solstice is for her and how narrow her mother’s expectations are for her boyfriend (beard, sandals, bad breath). She wants to go slowly and be careful. And he has to hide – she takes him to see Hannah and Jude in Hannah’s mum’s caravan

And in Hannah’s mum’s caravan, Hannah and Jude are shivering and it’s looks kind of bleak, Hannah’s mum is missing and not answering the phone. Hannah reflects on her childhood and how unloved the caravan is now.

They gather up outside the caravan and Gerry begs to be let out long enough to go to the bathroom, she relents and he goes against a sacred rock – which is when Gloria arrives. Outraged, of course, she demands to know who he is and Grace panics and says he’s Stella’s boyfriend. Gloria is confused since Stella is a lesbian and she stutters that she’s not any more, it was a phase, a 15 year phase (and she gives Grace a brief death-glare).

OH COME ON! Ok, Grace is spineless enough not to claim Gerry as a boyfriend but she has 2 fellow coven mates who are right there and are straight. Jude has even not-quite-dated Gerry in the past. But Grace chooses Stella? She decides that the lesbian is the one to cast as Gerry’s girlfriend?

Gloria insists that Gerry stay with her as Stella is – only they’ll have to share a single bed. (Grace complains to Jude and Hannah that she doesn’t like that – Stella’s a lesbian but he’s not gay. Yeah I think grace is not the one who gets to complain here). And to add to the fun, Gloria brings them both back dressed as fertility idols to lead the solstice.

More bonding, friendship and blessings – and Alex arrives and to finish off her awfulness, her mother has joined the coven to bring them up to full power again.

Grace is introduced to Geoffrey – who her mother is trying to set her up with. He grows plums. This concludes the one interesting fact about him.

And Jude goes to see Jack, a guy she’s been texting who she had a fling with when she was 18 and is worried that he wants far more than a fling now. Turns out she needn’t have worried – he already has a partner, Summer. And their daughter, Willow and they want Jude to be her guide-parents. She worries she’s no good with kids but Jack remembers Jude letting his little sister tag along all the time – she still talks about Jude. Jude agrees to become a guide-parent.

Time to gather up again and Gloria has an… interesting motivational speech to get them psyched up and ready should they be chosen to open the ceremony.  Grace apologises to Gerry but he’s having a wonderful time. And spend a minute making out in the bushes, which is when Gloria and Geoffrey come past.

Gloria begins to lecture Grace for betraying Stella and Grace reiterates that Stella is a lesbian – and confirms she loves Gerry. But it’s Gerry who sells it by being willing to come back to Lower Sooth and make a life there with Grace, having quickly fallen in love with the place. Gloria unleashes the group hugs.

As they move off, Gerry tells Grace he meant it, he’d love to get a cottage there, live with Grace and have lots of kids (they’ve been together 1 month. Uh-huh)

Stella and Jude look for the absent Hannah and find her in the caravan, upset that her mother has abandoned her again. She tearfully realises she has to let her go.

Time for the big solstice meet with Lord Piedpoint (Alexa’s father) and La Bamba lager providing sponsorship. And in a moment of pure shock, the witches of Camden are invited to open the solstice.  But as Grace begins to read the scroll aloud, it’s clear she has been hexed and says lots of offensive things about the community being hippies with no grip on reality. Jude starts eating the sacred scroll. Alexa’s mother speaks up for their banishment – and in walks Hannah’s mother demanding they stop this “betrayal of sisterhood.”

Hannah’s mother, Gloria and 2 others join together in a circle to lift the curse and confront Alexa’s mother, Corina. There’s clearly bad blood between them and big secrets that Corina wants kept secret – Hannah’s mother had an affair with Lord Piedpoint – who is Hannah’s father. Hannah’s mum leaves and Hannah chases her.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

 I feel a desperate urge to sing the praises of this film to the hills and back, so I’m going to try and take a restrained view and hit on a your mileage may vary moment. This is an action film. The characters set off on  their quest and in that they bounce from battle to battle, from giant stone monsters, to rabbit chariots (yes, really), to more battles and action. This film a series of action scenes loosely linked together. And I loved it, so there.

It is beautiful – it uses it’s brilliant picture and 3D-ness to great effect both during the action scenes but also showcasing the amazing scenery and detailed sets they use. It’s visually stunning and rich and glorious. It’s also restrained – I think we’re finally past the whole “WE HAVE 3D! LOOKIT COMING AT YOUR FACE AUDIENCE MUAHAHAHAHA!” phase and are finally incorporating 3D into films without feeling the need to ram an orc into your eyes every 5 seconds. It was used to enhance the movie rather than having the movie be a tool to show off the pretty technology.

The pacing is fast and exciting – but what do you expect for a series of closely linked action sequences? But I also think a lot of flesh has been added to the bare bones the book provided.

There was a lot about this film that fixed so many of the problems I had with the Hobbit. Part of that is the format – it’s much quicker to show beautiful, fantastic scenario, to show events, to show feelings than it is to describe them in extreme detail. And with songs. Just changing to a film greatly speeded up the slow pace of the book.

Similarly, while the dwarfs weren’t much more developed than in the book – merely being there, present during the scenes than being a name that is randomly brought up gives them much more presence than just the name they were in the book. They were all part of the fights, all part of the journey, all part of the story. Yes, there was still a lot of “oh shit Gandalf save us!” quite a lot, but at least they seemed to be there trying while Gandalf saved the day rather than flailing around incompetently and letting the wizard get on with it.

The film also did a great job of making Thorin a hero, a leader, a king people would want. In the book, again, he was something of a name and little else. Thorin in the film is epic, truly, awesome and a force to be reckoned with. Ok a lot of it takes part in the past – but he is still amazingly cool. And surprises everyone that you can have a hairy dwarf be the sexy male lead.

There were a few elements added to the film that were missing from the book and, I dare say, Tolkein purists are chuntering away. But I think they all added something important. The council with Galadriel, Elrond, Gandalf and Saruman helped tie in the film more with the Lord of the Rings and tie events together. There was a greater sense of events being lifted to a higher level than in the book. Gandalf is meddling not because he wants several random dwarfs to be rich, but because he fears the Necromancer (Sauron) coming back. This, along with Radagast the Brown’s inclusion (and his awesome rabbit chariot. Yes it was a rabbit chariot, yes it should have been ridiculous, yes, it was shockingly awesome) changes the Hobbit from a tale of several dwarfs out to fill their pockets who happen to trip over the One Ring on the way to being a story about the opening gambits in the war against Sauron: denying Sauron the help and power of Smaug. In the overall mythos it makes the film and the events of it far more significant and I hope it continues.

Fangs for the Fantasy Episode 98

It’s our last show before the Holidays! So while we discuss our usual shows: American Horror Story, The Vampire Diaries and Fringe as well as our book of the week, The Turning, by Jennifer Armintrout, we also looked back on the year

Which books did we like? Which surprised us? Which series plummeted? Which shows we want to see again, which shows managed to continue strongly and which shows have held on far too long and really need to be cancelled?

Our next books of the week are:

17/12-7/1: Touch of the Demon by Diana Rowland
7/1-14/1: The Awakening by LJ Smith
14/1-21/1: Grave Memory by Kalayna Price

Happy Holidays everyone and the podcast will be back on the 7th January 2013

Review: The Turning by Jennifer Armintrout, Book 1 of the Blood Ties Series

Dr. Carrie Ames is a new doctor, overworked but driven, skilled and determined. Right until a John Doe arrives in her emergency room who simply shouldn’t be alive. He doesn’t last long but he shakes her to the core – enough for her to go check on his body in the morgue. Only to find that body healed, up, moving around and with great big fangs.

Convalescing from the attack takes weeks – but in those weeks she notices some major changes and is eventually faced with the impossible: she’s a vampire. Blood drinking, sunlight dodging, the whole thing. And Nathan, a member of the Voluntary Vampire Extinction Movement, is her best and only source for information on her new condition.

Unless she goes to her sire. Her brutal, abusive, violent sire who preys on children, slaughters humans and rapes any under his control. A sire who is desperate for a companion – and a sire she is bound to by blood.

Looking at the cover, I was very pleasantly surprised by a lot in this book. There was relatively little focus on sex, even relatively little on lust. There’s instant attraction but that’s not allowed to overwhelm everything else nor does it force two people into instant love and undying declarations of affection and love. It’s clear Nathan and Carrie are heading that way – but it’s not going to be quick, it’s not going to be easy, and no amount of super-horny fumblings are going to replace the misgivings both have about the other nor is it going to drop them on the happy-ever-after train.

In fact, I would say their interaction with each other is less “romantic” and more “exploratory”. There is definite physical attraction that builds into more – but the focus is far more on Carrie trying to live with her new state, trying to deal with the feelings of the sire bond and just trying to decide what to do with her life. And yes, part of it is deciding where Nathan fits in – is he a friend to trust? A love interest? A threat bringing ultimatums from the Voluntary Vampire Extinction Movement? Is he trying to control her? Manipulate her? Finding a ground-state for co-existence with Nathan as well as escaping her sire’s attentions feature much much higher than getting into Nathan’s pants.

The same applies on Nathan’s side – we have far more of his worry over what to do with Carrie, his trying to get her into the VVEM, his targeting of Cyrus, his past with his wife, whether Carrie is under Cyrus’s control – all of these take greater precedence than having sex with Carrie. Yes, he’s attracted to her, yes they’re heading that way but he even outright says he doesn’t love her and works more towards fitting her into her new existence and his life.

In short, we don’t cross eyes over a crowded room then take the express train to humpa-ville. We actually have a story.

And it’s a great story with a lot of unique elements. Sure, “good” vampires and “bad” vampires are things we’ve seen before – but a vampire society driven towards their own kind’s extinction? Making feeding on unwilling humans and creating new vampires a crime? These are novel concepts in a genre where already so much is clichéd and done a hundred times over – these elements make for an excellent addition to the genre and the two clashing sides make for some wonderful epic potential. Then we throw in witches to be a very nice wild card as well to really mix it up.

Misfits Season Three, Episode Four

We are still behind on the older season and that is why season three is appearing today.  As usual, an up to date post on season four will appear on Wednesday.

This episode begins with an introduction to Friedrich Hirsch, a man who was born in Berlin in 1935.  He managed to escape the holocaust by being adopted by a German family, when his parents were sent to a labour camp.  Hirsch never saw his family again. Hirsch survived by doing nothing, as everyone he knew was murdered and now he feels compelled to travel through time and kill Adolf Hitler.  Hirsch writes a letter detailing all of this and then uses Curtis' old power to travel through time. Hirsch's attept to stab Hitler to death fails and is instead stabbed. Unfortunately, Hirsch drops his cellphone and Hitler picks it up.  This forces Hirsch back to the present, where he discovers that the allies lost the war and England is now a Nazi state.

Kelly is in the community center and she is wearing her jump suit and it has a big swastika on the back.  Alisha is working in the office for Shaun, who is now a Nazi officer, who has no problem sexually harassing her. Simon comes to the door and salutes and lets Shaun know that the prisoner has arrived, along with Hirsch and his letter.

Seth is in a cell and Shaun is interrogating him.  Shaun wants him to test people to see if they have powers, then remove said powers and give them to the people of Shaun's choosing.  The first man Shaun checks has no powers, but when he moves onto a woman, she has a power.  Shaun is forced to take it from her. As she is being escorted out of the room, she begs to be released but is shot for her trouble. Kelly who is standing outside of the cell, witnesses the whole incident through a window.

Kelly goes to see Curtis at a bar and he escorts her upstairs. Kelly tells Curtis about Seth and how he is being used to take people's powers. Hirsch is in a jail cell and Simon goes to check on him.  Seth asks if he can take Hirsch to the hospital but Simon says that the Nazis aren't big on compassion.  When Seth points out that Simon is also a Nazi, Simon says that he was conscripted and promises to do what he can for Hirsch before walking away.

That night, the two Rudy's are hiding and arguing about what to do. What they don't realise is that Nazis are in the hallway preparing to break into the apartment.  Rudy opens the door before the battering ram can be used and promptly closes the door and sneaks out the window.

At the bar, Curtis asks Kelly if she is still delivering food to the cells and then instructs her to poison Seth's food.  Kelly says that she is not willing to kill Seth because he is a prisoner like the rest but Curtis adds that it's not personal.  Curtis reminds Kelly that the powers Seth gives to the Nazis will be used against them.

Simon is back at the community center and he takes Shaun's keys to get his hands on antibiotics for Hirsch.  Alisha walks into the room catching Simon in the act.  Simon tells Alisha that there is an old man in the cells who has an infected wound. Alisha closes the door and asks Simon if he knows what they will do if they find him here.  They see Shaun and so they pretend that Simon was helping Alisha with the computer.  Alisha tells Shaun that she missed him and kisses him to distract him from Simon and Simon leaves the room.

Back at the bar, Curtis pours a drink for Rudy who asks, "what about them Nazis."  Rudy looks around the room and asks Curtis if he is part of the resistance.  Curtis takes Rudy upstairs and then puts a gun to his head.  Rudy says that he has a power and the Nazis are after him. Curtis demands that Rudy show him his power.

Switch: Season 1, Episode 5

Grace and Gerry are all over each other on the kitchen table – which is so unhygienic. Jude just turns around and walks away. Hannah tries to rescue her toast but abandons it – until Stella comes in with a strong “excuse me” and Grace collapses in embarrassment.  Lots of friendly poking of each other’s love life, led by Hannah (and Jude puts whipped cream on cereals. I am torn between envy and horror) AND she picks up on the need to clean up after the chopping board make out.

Stella asks Jude if she can give her the numbers of all the girls she was trying to set Stella up with who she turned down, Hannah wants to borrow £20 off Stella (and needs a job) – it’s these constant little friend interactions between the characters that really works. Grace wants Jude to teach her how to be cool around Gerry, but Jude is getting irritated by Grace and Gerry (and Gerry’s lovely half-nakedness) everywhere.

Jude gets a tweet from the Cricklewood coven – one of her friends wants a tutor for their daughter to make sure she gets into a good coven - Stella laughs at how pretentious this is but Hannah leaps at the chance.  Using a quick switch to boost Hannah’s reputation, she easily gets a job tutoring witches.

The pupil arrives with her mother – who’s working 3 jobs to pay for a massive amount of extra tuition for her daughter – and not just in witchcraft. And the daughter turns out to be demanding and treats Hannah like a servant. And becomes increasingly more condescending and shirty to Hannah when she thinks she’s not getting her money’s worth. Hannah realises that the girl, Tuppence, is really educated, but has never been in a coven before, which is so odd at age 15.

And she’s never had a coven because she’s never had friends and she’s never had friends because she’s so spoiled.

Grace tries to be cool around Gerry and… fails dismally. Finding out that Gerry is making posters all days she bothers Jude for some pens so she can show him how nice she is. Jude, again, tells her to relax and not be so obsessed with him. Poor Jude. 

Well Jude has had enough of this frustration and calls up a booty call, Mike. He arrives and they, noisily, get down to business. It’s no strings attached and he can’t even remember her name. As Mike leaves, Jude sees Gerry and Grace playing and having fun – not having sex – and feels dissatisfied with just the sex call and asks Mike to stay. And they have sex again – and Jude and he finally talk and learn what they both do. And, at the end of a meal, Jude asks Mike to go out with her.

They have nothing in common and, as they hang out with Grace and Gerry in the kitchen, it’s clear they know nothing about each other and the awkwardness abounds. But Gerry leaves and Grace has a crash of confidence.

Which is when Hannah brings Tuppence out to practice having friends. After failing with Jude and Mike, Hannah brings Tuppence to the insecure and worried Grace – which doesn’t help Grace at all.

Stella is efficiently organising her speed dating. She’s harsh, efficient and really funny (and beautifully shoots down the man who interrupts her lesbian speed dating). Still she returns home disappointed. Just as Grace convinces Jude to ring Gerry (Jude doesn’t understand why she wants Gerry there all the time). Which is when Mike gets call from his colleague saying they haven’t got funding – and he completely loses his shit and destroys his phone causing much concern through the house.

Fringe Season Five, Episode Nine: Black Blotter

At Harvard university, Astrid is sleeping when she awakes suddenly after hearing a noise.  She calls out for Walter and when he does not answer, she reaches under the bed and grabs a gun.  Astrid walks around holding her gun but when she sees that the radio which they picked up in the pocket universe is making a sound, she tucks the gun in the back of her pants.  When Astrid turns, she sees Walter who tells her that she is beautiful.  Astrid thanks Walter and asks him if he fixed the radio because it is picking up a signal but all Walter says is that Astrid's hair is beautiful. It's telling that Walter had to be completely out of it to actually compliment Astrid.

It's two in the morning and Olivia and Peter are in separate beds.  Peter is restless and cannot sleep because he "had another one of those headaches."  Astrid knocks on the door and says that there is something they both need to see.  Peter and Olivia follow Astrid into the lab and she tells them that the radio is releasing a code that is like morse code.  Olivia wonders if it is Donald and Peter asks how does Donald know that they are still alive. Olivia believes the only way to know for sure what is going on is to find out what the message means. Olivia asks Walter if he recognizes this and when he does not answer, Astrid tells them that Walter can't answer because he dropped acid.  Peter approaches Walter, but Walter is having visions of a green fairy and a blonde woman.

Peter asks Walter to concentrate for a moment and Walter whisper back that Carla, is old dead lab assistant is there to haunt him. Apparently, Carla burned in a fire.  Peter asks about the sound that the radio is picking up but Walter is too focused on the green fairy. Walter finally says that the message is in his mind and then apologises for being high, saying that he didn't know they were going to get a message and would not have taken the acid. It seems that Walter dropped the acid in a desperate bid to remember the plan.  Walter then tells Peter of Nina's promise to once again remove pieces of his brain and his bid not to lose any of them.  When Peter tries to reassure him, Walter says that it's not enough and that he is afraid that they are running out of time.  Apparently, Walter got dressed and was at the tunnel door  and no idea who he got there or what his plan is, so now Walter worries that the next time he won't be able to stop.  Walter believes that there must be something left in tact in his brain that he can use.  Peter then escorts Walter from the room.

When Peter walks back into the room alone, Olivia asks if they can track where the signal is coming from.  She believes that if they can track the source of the signal that breaking the code will be irrelevant.  In his room, Walter is still tripping pretty heavily and engaging with the green fairy who hands him a match.  Walter lights the match and then lights a candle.  He is caught up in the colors of the flame but uses the candle to guide his journey back into the lab, where he sees a frozen image of two men.  Walter turns on a tape and sees Astrid, Olivia, Peter and Anya talking about tracing the signal.  What Walter does not realise, is that they are all actually talking behind him. Carla then appears again and tells Walter that there is something hidden in the lab.

Review: Mabon and Pomegranate by Kimberly Richardson

 

This is a book of 2 short stories. In Mabon we are introduced to Monica, corporate worker who dreams of more. In ever increasing despair she throws it all away – her job, the pay packet, even her mother’s approval, to find something more. And that more is the town of Mabon, a place where she can embrace her creativity without being stifled, a place where she can experience her own dreams among eccentric people who love and embrace their own path.

But Mabon is far more than it seems, it’s not just a place for people to dream, but a place where those dreams, all the beings of history and myth, are very much alive and vibrant – leading Monica far deeper than she imagined

In Pomegranate, Alexandra has cast aside her mundane life to pursue her ambitions and now has a wonderful life as a book store owner, married to a wonderful husband and with great friends. She has the perfect life. Until it all starts to fall apart and loss compounds loss while she struggles onwards in the face of grief and betrayal, all the while lead on by Duke, a strangely compelling and mysterious stranger who she can’t help but be drawn to.

I quite like how both of these stories take a protagonist who is, in many ways, the same person, or a very similar person – and then uses them in quite different stories. Both Monica and Alexandra are women who fought free of the expectations pushing at them. They are artistic, creative women who not only crave expression and creativity, but utterly need it for them to be themselves as people. Without it they are hollow and have no true happiness. Both of them turn down lives that they “should” want, lives of corporate success, lives of high income, lives using their extensive education. Both of them face down their family trying to force them down the path, standing up to angry parents who demand they be the child they envisage they assert their own individuality and autonomy over their own lives. Both embrace what is supposed to be a societally “lesser” role of working in a book shop which, instead, brings them real joy and happiness.

It’s a nice foundation of pursuing what you truly want and need as opposed to what you are told you should want and need.

And both of them find the fantastic – but through very different paths. Monica arrives in Mabon and is introduced to the supernatural through a lens of wonder – she sees beautiful and amazing thing and sees more and more elements of the fantastic, the mystical and the wondrous. Some elements are frightening, but she enters the world in joy and exploration.

Contrast that with Alexandra’s slow, dark seduction. She reaches this world through a dark place, through the loss of loved ones, through terrible temptation, through betrayal and pain. It’s fascinating and wonderful - but a whole lot darker and more dangerous.

Both stories do a good job of really setting the scene with some beautiful and evocative language. I can see and feel the worlds and their fantastic people. There’s a real sense of the mystical and a very strong through the looking glass feel to Mabon and well as a creeping foreboding to Pomegranate. The setting, the build up, the scale and power of the world is really well presented with some truly fleshed out characters whose history is fully developed, helping make these characters truly tangible.

My main issues with both short stories is that of pacing. I’ve described how elaborate and beautiful the language in both books is – especially Mabon – well this is the downside. The stories are slow, we get such a wonderful description of the setting that it takes a terribly long time to actually move the story forwards. The settings are wonderful, the description beautiful but at times I feel like I’m sightseeing more than I’m actually going somewhere – which isn’t necessarily a bad thing but isn’t to my taste