Stars on holiday - some stars from the shows we watch enjoying the season: inc Being Human (US), Warehouse 13, Continuum and the upcoming Defiance
Saturday, December 22, 2012
Friday, December 21, 2012
Supernatural: The Official Companion Season 7
I’m not normally a fan of behind the scenes guides and
companions. I’m very fond of my suspension of disbelief and don’t like staring
too hard and seeing the wires and trap doors. I don’t even check out actor
interviews on my DVD extras
But Supernatural is on hiatus for a time and I’m getting withdrawal,
so when I was offered this book I was sorely tempted. And when I realised that
it would have pictures of Castiel inside I made frantic grasping motions and begging sounds.
 |
| I am easily swayed by trench coat wearing angels |
Upon reading it, I enjoyed it because of the amount of
detail there is in there (and not just pictures of Castiel). There was a lot of
detail as to what the writers and directors intended behind the show as well as
what they wanted to portray and the themes they wanted to develop. Like the
whole idea of Leviathans as a faceless, corporate threat that could be anywhere
– how that motivated them to drop the Impala to continue the theme of loss and
even the decision to keep the Leviathan gaping maws to a minimum simply so they
could be presented as a corporate, wealthy, almost humanly powerful threat
rather than a new gribbly monster. These insights into the planning behind the show
actually tempted me to go back and check out the episodes again to see fully
what they meant.
It also covered things that they realised where major barriers to get round in the writing – ensuring that their world setting remained consistent, even down to the colour of light used in souls, and working around having Castel, how hard it is to have an angel in the plotline without him becoming a deus ex machinae
The book also contains an episode by episode examination which
I really loved. We got to see not just the various issues over the series as a
whole, but also specific issues that arose in each episode; which was fun for
finding specific sets and addressing specific fun one off characters or
characters that only appeared in 2 or 3 episodes – like Garth (saved by Sera
Gamble from being killed off!) or little touches like directors and writers
being used as extras or painting of them used in sets. It’s hard not to go
through each episode with the book and compare notes.
And it has some really fun anecdotes from the set giving
a nice insight into how they work and the relationships the actors have – like the
rubber duckies dangling from wires and Jared tweaking Jim Beaver’s toes when
they were trying to have an emotional deathbed scene. Or the planning they had
to fit around Operation Moose Drop (Jared and Genevieve Padelecki had a baby
during this season)
The guide also gets into the nuts and bolts of the show.
How exactly does one make a ripped out throat look realistic? How do you have
one of your characters eat human flesh and make that look real? Where are the
various sets? What exactly is that music? How do you mock up all the food when
Jensen Ackles has to constantly eat as Dean but has a much much healthier diet
than the role he plays? I liked that it talked not just to the actors but also
the makeup artists, stunt co-ordinators, the composers, the graphic designers –
all the people who add a lot to the show.
Of course, it finishes with some excellent interviews with the actors including Misha Collins acting with food poisoning, Jensen Ackles directing and Jared Padelecki’s new baby.
And it was fun to read about what they couldn’t do because of those pesky people in Standards not letting them rip Reaper heads off or boil someone’s head in cheese. Or sometimes simply because it was too expensive – so many dreams cut short by reality
If you’re a Supernatural fan, there’s a lot here you will
love.
If you’re not a Supernatural fan… shouldn’t you be watching Supernatural and catching up?
And it has pictures of Castiel.
 | |
| sold! |
Terra Nova, Season 1, Episode 4: What Remains
We open with a man in Outpost 5, who seems to have
learning difficulties playing with a giant insect. It escapes and he follows it
outside. While there he becomes distracted by the flowers and finds himself
face to face with a Carnotaurus. Which eats him.
Back at Terra Nova, Taylor and Elizabeth are going to
check on the outpost that has gone silent. They don’t anticipate anything
dangerous, they think it’s just a tech issue, though Malcolm wants to come as
well. Lt Washington is in command while Taylor is gone. Why is Taylor going and
not an underling?
Elizabeth, Taylor and the extra, Brady arrive to find
that “Ovisaurs” have chewed the wires. Ovisaurs? Really? It’s not like you
couldn’t have used an actual small dinosaur for the role – Oviraptor, compsognathus,
troodon, coelurus. My dino-geek soul is saddened.
Anyway, the wires have been chewed through and the gate is open and shouldn’t be. Time to investigate, carefully. They find the place is empty and Elizabeth finds notes saying “This is not a dream” and “do not leave the building!” They investigate further and find a room with 2 people strapped to beds and another woman pressed against the window.
The woman talks about running through snow up to her
knees and asks if they’re with the Red Cross. As she settles down Taylor is
confused since there’s no snow in Terra Nova, but Elizabeth says the woman
believes she’s in 2137 Detroit when the city burned, there were food riots and
the coldest October on record. She guesses the two strapped down patients are
suffering from the same dissociative disorder, but more advanced. They find a
computer with a log from the guy we saw at the beginning being eaten by the
Carnotaurus. It records the illness taking over the staff – it starts with
short term memory loss, followed by confusion followed by believing you are in
one of your memories. Since he’s not around – the only one of the 4 staff
members unaccounted for – Taylor orders Brady to search for him.
The log reveals a pathogen and Elizabeth thinks it’s
likely they’ve been exposed. She has his notes on his progress curing it – but
it devolves into a nursery rhyme. Time for Elizabeth to finish it because they
can’t go home with the pathogen until it’s cured.
They find the missing guy’s boots – with his feet still
in them. And call back to Terra Nova telling Jim they’re under quarantine. And
the memory loss is starting, Elizabeth forgets who Zoe is (uh, forgetting your
daughter is not “short term memory loss”).
The next day when Taylor at Outpost 3 doesn’t call in
(which, Lt Washington explains, could be communication problems which they have
a lot in that area) Jim wants to send a team to check up on them, showing his
failure to grasp the term “quarantine”. He insists on going to check on them,
Washington tells him no. So he goes to Malcolm and asks to borrow his rover.
Malcolm is furious that, as head of science, he hasn’t been informed about the
quarantine (which he has a point) and insists on going with Jim (what part of
the word “quarantine” do these people NOT understand?!). Jim refuses to take
him and Malcolm asks what exactly Jim is going to do in a medical emergency?
Shoot them back to health (second great point from Malcolm. Something should
really eat Jim)?
Jim concedes and also gets a temporary cold cure from
Malcolm – a foul tasting root that Malcolm enjoys inflicting on him.
So off they go wearing face masks (not hazmat suits, just
face masks. Elizabeth, in the same episode, said the pathogen could be from an
insect bite or any number of sources). They arrive to find the Ovisaurs (Dino
Geek grumble) chewing on the wires. They go in in time to tell Lt Washington
that they’ve blatantly ignored her orders and trell her he’s looking for the
group then dismiss her.
GBLT Characters on our shows: What do you expect us to Watch?
As I watch many many many programmes and critique them I inevitably get someone saying the same damn thing:
“Just don’t watch it!”
There are many replies to this, but irritation has worn me down until even I, who am not generally given to swearing, have to ask
“What the fuck do you expect me to watch?!”
Seriously. I’m a gay man who likes to watch the fantastic – primarily Urban fantasy, what do I watch? Because we’ve now reviewed 39 television series from start to finish (or current) and we’ve got two – TWO – or three with a GBLT protagonist. Lost Girl, headed by a bisexual woman and her true love/primary love interest is already underscored as being a man. And Sanctuary where Helen Magnus is a bisexual woman – you may have missed it though since it was one reference in one episode of 4 seasons – the rest of the time was focused on men. The third is Switch that has a Lesbian as part of an ensemble cast. And while she’s the only GBLT protagonist I love without complaint, the same programme is grossly homophobic towards gay men.
21 of those shows don’t have even a brief, token GBLT presence. Not for one second, not a bit actor, not a one off, not a thing. Completely and utterly straight from start to finish. Some of them have managed to reach their 5th season without any GBLT people.
4 of them have a GBLT character who appeared for one or two episodes – out of 8 seasons in some cases (yes, Supernatural, that’s you. Though your subtext means the slash fans love you and ignore your erasure) Of course that doesn’t stop these shows have a running commentary of bad gay jokes (Being Human US, Misfits – ye gods Misfits, the very poster child of a hot mess) or used these single episodes to push the horrible tropes (Being Human UK with the gay vampire killing his human lover).
2 of them have a recurring token. But, frankly, that’s generously deciding the Manscaping medieval prince who faints at the sight of blood (the dead Renly) and his lover, the knight of flowers count as tokens rather than one-offs on Game of Thrones. And despite Danny being nothing more than a token who only shows up in one episode in four whenever one of the straight characters needs something, Teen Wolf will always be loved by the slashers (If you want any greater evidence of how this damages us, both Racialicious (“I enjoy what Teen Wolf has done with homosexuality”) and Kiss My Wonder Woman have actually praised Teen Wolf for their handling of sexuality while criticising it for its greater inclusion of other marginalised people. Yay for homophobic double standards and the glory of homoerotic subtext!) And no, they don’t get points for the constant gay jokes.
Thursday, December 20, 2012
A Vampire Walks Into A Bar by Tracey Sinclair A Dark Dates short story The Cassandra Bick Chronicles
We got to learn a little bit more about Cain's background in this short story. Learning that he was once crucified does much to explain exactly how painful his past is. Sinclair also explained why it is that Cain remains so out of touch with modern times unlike Laclos. It makes sense that changing human morality, conventions and names would have little effect on him and it helps to make him an even more fascinating character.
Despite strong references as to why homophobia is wrong, I felt that there was a lot of homophobia in this book. Laclos is bisexual and is well aware that Cain is not in the least bit interested in him, yet he touches him inappropriately and Lacolos' speech is constantly littered with inappropriate sexual innuendos.
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