Dollhouse, Burn Notice
Spent a lazy weekend (those are nice now and then) and mostly just read some books and watched some TV shows. Oh, I did do some light “useful” stuff (mowed the lawn, cleaned kitty litter, washed some clothes, installed a crypto partition on netbook, organized some backup stuff)… but mostly, I took my cues from the cats. That is, eat and laze around.
Some quick notes on a few TV shows. First off, Dollhouse, Joss Whedon’s new series. It’s been getting so-so reviews, and after watching the first four episodes a month or so ago, I wasn’t totally thrilled either. I mean, it was ok, but it didn’t really grab me. Well, now I watched the rest of the series and I’m happy to say it improves, a lot. I’d say episode six (“Man on the Street”) is the turning point, that episode and the stuff after it puts things in gear. It’s still not in the “utterly fantastic” category, but it is very good. I’m looking forward to season two, this first season ends on a very interesting (and somewhat unexpected) note.
I think that the most interesting thing about this series is the intentional shades of gray it plays around with. Sure, what the Dollhouse does is prostitution. However, the “dolls” are (to some extent) volunteers, and they are compensated very well. The Dollhouse is presented as a very ambiguous entity… in some ways, it’s the antagonist here, and in others, well… it’s hard to say. There is also a lot of plot centered about the fact that we really don’t know who is on which side, or even what the “sides” are. To be honest, I suspect many of those issues are a bit too complex and uncomfortable for the large audience (“what? no simple good/evil? me no play!”), but the good thing is that after a very slow start, the series works fine as “just” an action/intrigue series.
Secondly, I have to just remark on how much I’m enjoying Burn Notice this season. The show seems to have found its tone and it’s just a huge amount of fun. It doesn’t take itself too seriously, but neither does it give in to crazy-comedy. The subtitles that appear next to characters during freeze-frame moments are often hilarious… I’m still chuckling over “Michael’s worst nightmare” overlaid on top of a certain police officer.
Good lightweight spy action stuff. Just the thing for lazy summer weekends. […]
Espooification
Good weekend, if a bit strange; I didn’t have anything scheduled, but it still feels like I did a ton of stuff. Most of that was very “mainstream Espoo home owner” stuff… mowing the lawn, doing some garden work, painting some parts of the patio with wood-protection oil stuff, etc. We raided a hardware store and now have 10m of steel netting (meant for mink cages) rolled up and waiting for us to start the cat-proofing of the yard. Halfway intended to start that yesterday, but with one thing and another never got around to it; too many other things to do first. In addition, some people came over last evening and we just sat around on the patio, eating grilled stuff and drinking wine. Life could be worse.
The yard cat-proofing may be a quixotic endeavour, but what the hell… it might just work. We intend to follow a basic algorithm:
1) plug the obvious holes
2) release cats into yard
3) follow cats and find point where yard leaks cats
4) go to step 1
After a while, we hope to have a relatively cat-escape-proof yard. It may resemble Alcatraz at that point and the neighbors might start to complain about the razor wire, guard towers and floodlights. We’ll see.
Other tidbits:
Watched the end of season 6 of “24”. Not bad, a fairly solid “part 2” to season 5. Leaves things open for another series, but not as blatantly as season 5. Good entertainment, though the series is starting to repeat itself a bit – only natural, I guess.
My copy of Reign has now shipped from Lulu.com. Should be here by the end of this week. Greg Stolze now has a Reign supplement up for ransom here. I’m not sure if I’ve commented on how cool Fundable is… but if not: it’s cool. It allows anyone to set up a ransom model publication (or whatever), allowing people to pledge money to various projects in a safe fashion.
Like what happened with Promethean, the more I hear about the new Changeling (from White Wolf) the more excited I am about it. Also like Promethean, initially the whole thing didn’t spark my interest much at all. There are now some teasers about the new game premise on WW’s site; it sounds like the WW guys have now written a game about the darker side of the old fae myths, instead of the “bouncy fluffy fantasy creatures” all too evident in the old Changeling. I’m all for that. Also, I’m told by one of the game designers that this clip captures the ideal intended feel of the new game quite well (while having nothing directly to do with White Wolf or their games): Never Woke Up. (by Katy Towell). Much coolness. […]
