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lunasarielMy friend H and I have been working our way through Bones recently (we've re-started our Friday night "hen do"s, and she got first pick of show), and we're now in that nebulous clot of episodes that were obviously intended to air as part of the fourth season, but for some odd reason the DVD people decided to include them in the third season.
I don't think I'll ever be a Bones fanatic (at least, not at H's level of devotion), but it's a worthy show, and I can see how it's made it up to five seasons. I found the titular character's characterization spotty and somewhat cartoonish in earlier seasons, see-sawing wildly between cold, alien scientist and warm, nurturing den mother as the humor of the situation called for, but she's leveled out a great deal. Her counterpart, Seeley Booth, on the other hand, I think is a fascinating character. As most characters do, he started out fairly one-dimensional, and then gained in layers as the series progressed. He and Brennan (the titular "Bones," for the uninitiated) have a wonderful relationship, one I'd almost put on a level with Harry and Murphy from the Dresden Files (my copy of Changes still isn't here, dammit!): they obviously love each other very much, and would die for each other in an instant, but will never sleep together, because, yes, one is an attractive man, and the other is an attractive woman, but their relationship just isn't like that. No UST there beyond the normal levels arising from the aforementioned situation, and that's definitely a good thing. Oh, and as I believe I've said before, David Boreanaz, the actor who plays Booth, would make an excellent Harry Dresden, if only he were a lot taller and a little skinnier. He'd be better than that balding guy they got to play him in the thankfully short-lived TV series of the Dresden Files, anyway.
I was unexpectedly moved by Zach's betrayal in the third season finale. Like I said, I'm not a huge Bones fan, so while I find some of the situations on the show interesting, they rarely evoke any deep emotional reaction in me. And while Zach's departure from the show didn't get nearly the reaction as the ones I had for, say, Wash (Firefly), Oz (Buffy), or Owen and Tosh (Torchwood), I actually found myself getting a bit choked up. I don't think dear Dr. Addy realized how much his team meant to him until he turned on them, at which point it became painfully obvious that he liked and admired each of them immensely. I found it very telling that it wasn't the thought of going to jail that broke him down, but the thought of losing his position at the Jeffersonian.
If Zach is my favorite character, H's favorite, Dr. Lance Sweets, is probably my least favorite. He's warmed up considerably since his introduction, but I still see him as largely an interloper, poking and prodding where he is needed but not wanted, trying to insert himself into the group. For example, at the very end of the third season, they were going through Zach's things, and there was a book that Hodgins had given him, a joke trophy that Cam had given him, a harmonica that Booth had given him, and a picture that Angela drew for him. It's a terribly bittersweet moment, when they all realize that they were the most important people in his life and that he'd probably never had any friends like them before, and then Sweets goes and busts up the moment by saying how "interesting" it was that all his favorite things were presents from his teammates. No freakin' shit, Sherlock! I dunno...it just seems like setting everything out so plainly and prosaically sort of destroyed the mood, switching it from loving remembrance of a lost colleague and friend to clinical analysis of a subject.
Also, H and I noticed some continuity errors in that last episode. First, when Booth went into deep cover, he left a list of people that should be told that he wasn't really dead. They make such a big, screaming deal about how OMGSUPERDUPERSEEKRIT this information is, and how Booth breaking cover, even to tell his best friend and partner of three years, could cost lives, and then who do they give this big important list to? A 22-year-old psychologist, fresh out of grad school, and having only worked for the FBI for nine months. Shouldn't someone a little higher up in the food chain have been responsible for this extremely sensitive information? Second, when it was revealed that Zach was Gormogon's apprentice, I think the writers forgot to check their own facts. They've made such a big deal about each Gormogon being a Widow's Son, i.e. their father having died. But in the first season Christmas episode, don't we see his entire family, including both a mother and a father? Granted, it's not stated outright that the older, balding man, who looks a lot like an older Zach, with his arm around an older woman who also looks a lot like Zach, is his father, but it seems to be a safe assumption to make. Third, H says that the scene where all of Dr. Brennan's grad students are gathered to help find a series of scattered bones is erroneous, because none of the students who appear as candidates for her assistant in the fourth season appear here, and vice-versa. I can't really comment on this, since I haven't seen the fourth season yet, but I trust her Bones knowledge.
In other TV-related news, Supernatural is winding up for the big finish. I saw the penultimate episode today, and I'm on tenterhooks (what are tenterhooks, anyway? They sound painful) waiting for the showstopper that I'm sure the finale will be. The title of the finale, "Swan Song," certainly doesn't inspire confidence. But as things stand, the situation is looking up, for once, although knowing Eric Kripke, this is just him reminding us why we love our boys before he kills half of them off, and screws the other half up beyond repair. But Bobby has his legs (and it seems, his will to live) back, Dean is no longer suicidal (although Sam might be), rumors of Cas' death have been greatly exaggerated (rumors of his loss of angel mojo weren't, though), and Team Free Will has all four Horsemen's rings (although Dean had to promise to off his brother to get the last one). So all in all, a mixed bag. I fear greatly for our Messrs. Singer and Castiel, neé Novak. They (probably) won't kill Sam and Dean, since the show is about them, after all, but I'm afraid Eric Kripke might take the J.K. Rowling route, and remove all substantial authority figures and/or allies who might help our heroes before putting them through the wringer, only letting them save the day after they've angsted more than should be humanely possible. Of course, if Eric takes this course, he'll pretty much have to kill Bobby, the Winchester's father figure, command center, emotional support, voice of reason, and reality check extraordinaire, but now that Cas seems to have lost his angel-ness (so is he just a de-powered/powerless angel? Fallen, a lá Anna? Entirely new species? What?), he might still live.
Honestly, I saw the whole Depowered!Cas, which is more or less synonymous with Human!Cas, coming, although I didn't want to. It's always nice to have a big (if limited) gun handy, and all that teleporting was damn useful. Speaking of teleportation, will Cas still retain his latent or "passive" powers? It's been stated outright that teleportation, "zapping" demons, etc. is right out, but wil he still be able to do things like see Reapers, tell who is possessed and who isn't, and speak Enochian? The answer to the last one is probably yes, since it doesn't stand to reason that knowledge (such as the list of Prophets he mentioned having been "seared into his brain" in "99 Problems") would fade like his ability to fly, but I hope he'll still be able to keep the super-senses, since otherwise Team Free Will will have to find another supernatural ally to be their eyes and ears. On the other hand, I think I'd like to see Cas smile, I mean *really* smile, not just smirk, or maybe even laugh.
In more normal, non-TV-related news, I think I've gotten H&C hooked on the Dresden Files. Go me! H&C read most of the same urban fantasy stuff I do, but H, predictably, has a Charlaine Harris/Kim Harrison-esque bent, where it's pretty much a given that the main character will be a highly attractive, tough-yet-vulnerable woman with some sort of paranormal power(s), and there will be at least one hot vampire boyfriend, while C's tastes, also predictably, runs more towards Patricia Briggs/early Supernatural, in which less emphasis is placed on the main character's attractiveness and/or desirability, the focus shifting to physical and/or magical confrontation between hero and villain, and any hot vampires will almost invariably be as evil as they are sexy. Personally, I tend to share C's tastes in this regard, rather than H's, which is a bit odd, since H is my best friend and all. Be that as it may, I'm glad she's enjoying it. We've worked out kind of a system: she introduces me to good TV shows (Doctor Who, Firefly, and Supernatural, to name just a few), and I introduce her to good books (Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter, Discworld, and now the Dresden Files). When we try to do it the other way around, it usually doesn't turn out so well: she never really warmed up to Torchwood, and I decided that Uglies wasn't my favorite thing ever.
Speaking of good books, particularly the Discworld (see how I did that? I gotz da mad ritur skillz), I'm re-reading Lynn Flewelling's Nightrunner series in preparation for the release of the fifth book in the series, The White Road, on May 24. I've been looking forward to this ever since I inhaled the first four books after meeting Lynn at last summer's Comic-Con. I was impressed, to say the least. To put it a bit more accurately, I had a full-on geekgasm.
This time around, I'm glad to see that my first impression of Nightrunner wasn't just a flash in the pan. I've had that happen before: I enjoyed a book more than I thought possible, left it alone for a while, came back to it later, and couldn't see what I'd found to love the first time through. It's an extremely unpleasant feeling, so I'm glad that my rosy memories of my first read-through are upheld, not cast down. The Nightrunner books have a quality that I can't quite define, a quality that I only find in the absolute *best* of the best. I've seen it in Tolkien, I've seen it in Pratchett, I've even come across hints of it in Butcher once or twice (not to say that Butcher, or even Flewelling, are at Tolkien's level). "Timelessness," I might call it, only it's not. It's the somewhat disquieting sensation that what you're reading in the book is real, and "reality," the world you've been moving through your whole life, isn't. "Hyper-reality," then, perhaps, not "timelessness." All I know is that when I get up from reading Luck in the Shadows, or Stalking Darkness, or any of Lynn's other books, I blink, and look around me, and this world, the chair that I'm sitting in, the people around me, the trees outside my window, all seem like a dream. It's like I'm not really awake, or maybe not even really alive, unless I'm following Seregil, Alec, and the others around on their adventures. Yes, I'm aware that I sound like a dangerously obsessed whacko, but isn't that what LJ is for?
Another thing I like about Nightrunner so much is that, yes, Seregil and Alec do make a wonderful couple, and they are hawt, and all the stuff that I've written about before, but on my second time around, I'm taking more time to savor the little things, to stop and smell the roses, and right now, I'm taking a look (yes, I know I'm mixing metaphors) at the pre-smoochfest Seregil and Alec, and I'm amazed at the camaraderie. They fit together so well; they "click" almost instantly. At the part I'm at right now, they've only known each other for a few weeks, and Seregil has spent at least one of those weeks being crazy and possibly possessed, but they were working together and ribbing each other like old buddies before they'd even left Wolde. Even in the very first chapter, their escape from Lord Asengai's keep has the beginnings of their later style: a perfect blend of chaos and teamwork, combined with crazy amounts of planning, a handy disguise or two, and more than a bit of luck.
Another thing I'm noticing this time around is how clear everything is. This might or might not tie into that hyper-reality thing I mentioned above, but I can see everything in my mind's eye so clearly, the way Bastian said he could see Fantastica in The Neverending Story. In the scene where the Grampus puts in at Cirna, I can imagine the faces of the men unloading the ships, the hunched shoulders of the merchants, the long coats and flamboyant, floppy, feathered hats of the Skalans, Klia's quicksilver smile, all of it. And when Seregil was going mad, I could see the black thing that was following him, the tatters of its robe, hints of its face (it looked something like a Dark Ages plague doctor, with the long, pointed beak and dark eye-holes), the obscene, jerky tilt of its head, the ghoulish surreality of its dance, now here, now there, blinking in and out of reality like a camera blurring...yurgh. My point is, when I read most books, I can see the object or event the author is describing with razor-sharp clarity, and the rest of the scene is a bit blurry, but here, I can almost reach out and feel the sticky residue of too much spilled ale and too few washings on one of the tables in the Three Fishes, almost taste the smoke and sweat (among other things I'd rather not think about) in the air.
On a related note, I've been trying to remember something lately. A friend of mine, J, has a very distinctive laugh. It goes, and I quote, "ah-HA," just once, really loudly, his body bending back on "ah" and snapping forward on "HA." I could swear that I've heard it in a book before (yes, I do actually hear things in books), but I can't seem to find it now. It might have been The Scarlet Pimpernel or one of its sequels, but I don't have time to go through all of them again. I know it's somewhere out there, and it'll probably drive me crazy until I find it.
...And now I'm done making myself sound like a lunatic. *bows*
I don't think I'll ever be a Bones fanatic (at least, not at H's level of devotion), but it's a worthy show, and I can see how it's made it up to five seasons. I found the titular character's characterization spotty and somewhat cartoonish in earlier seasons, see-sawing wildly between cold, alien scientist and warm, nurturing den mother as the humor of the situation called for, but she's leveled out a great deal. Her counterpart, Seeley Booth, on the other hand, I think is a fascinating character. As most characters do, he started out fairly one-dimensional, and then gained in layers as the series progressed. He and Brennan (the titular "Bones," for the uninitiated) have a wonderful relationship, one I'd almost put on a level with Harry and Murphy from the Dresden Files (my copy of Changes still isn't here, dammit!): they obviously love each other very much, and would die for each other in an instant, but will never sleep together, because, yes, one is an attractive man, and the other is an attractive woman, but their relationship just isn't like that. No UST there beyond the normal levels arising from the aforementioned situation, and that's definitely a good thing. Oh, and as I believe I've said before, David Boreanaz, the actor who plays Booth, would make an excellent Harry Dresden, if only he were a lot taller and a little skinnier. He'd be better than that balding guy they got to play him in the thankfully short-lived TV series of the Dresden Files, anyway.
I was unexpectedly moved by Zach's betrayal in the third season finale. Like I said, I'm not a huge Bones fan, so while I find some of the situations on the show interesting, they rarely evoke any deep emotional reaction in me. And while Zach's departure from the show didn't get nearly the reaction as the ones I had for, say, Wash (Firefly), Oz (Buffy), or Owen and Tosh (Torchwood), I actually found myself getting a bit choked up. I don't think dear Dr. Addy realized how much his team meant to him until he turned on them, at which point it became painfully obvious that he liked and admired each of them immensely. I found it very telling that it wasn't the thought of going to jail that broke him down, but the thought of losing his position at the Jeffersonian.
If Zach is my favorite character, H's favorite, Dr. Lance Sweets, is probably my least favorite. He's warmed up considerably since his introduction, but I still see him as largely an interloper, poking and prodding where he is needed but not wanted, trying to insert himself into the group. For example, at the very end of the third season, they were going through Zach's things, and there was a book that Hodgins had given him, a joke trophy that Cam had given him, a harmonica that Booth had given him, and a picture that Angela drew for him. It's a terribly bittersweet moment, when they all realize that they were the most important people in his life and that he'd probably never had any friends like them before, and then Sweets goes and busts up the moment by saying how "interesting" it was that all his favorite things were presents from his teammates. No freakin' shit, Sherlock! I dunno...it just seems like setting everything out so plainly and prosaically sort of destroyed the mood, switching it from loving remembrance of a lost colleague and friend to clinical analysis of a subject.
Also, H and I noticed some continuity errors in that last episode. First, when Booth went into deep cover, he left a list of people that should be told that he wasn't really dead. They make such a big, screaming deal about how OMGSUPERDUPERSEEKRIT this information is, and how Booth breaking cover, even to tell his best friend and partner of three years, could cost lives, and then who do they give this big important list to? A 22-year-old psychologist, fresh out of grad school, and having only worked for the FBI for nine months. Shouldn't someone a little higher up in the food chain have been responsible for this extremely sensitive information? Second, when it was revealed that Zach was Gormogon's apprentice, I think the writers forgot to check their own facts. They've made such a big deal about each Gormogon being a Widow's Son, i.e. their father having died. But in the first season Christmas episode, don't we see his entire family, including both a mother and a father? Granted, it's not stated outright that the older, balding man, who looks a lot like an older Zach, with his arm around an older woman who also looks a lot like Zach, is his father, but it seems to be a safe assumption to make. Third, H says that the scene where all of Dr. Brennan's grad students are gathered to help find a series of scattered bones is erroneous, because none of the students who appear as candidates for her assistant in the fourth season appear here, and vice-versa. I can't really comment on this, since I haven't seen the fourth season yet, but I trust her Bones knowledge.
In other TV-related news, Supernatural is winding up for the big finish. I saw the penultimate episode today, and I'm on tenterhooks (what are tenterhooks, anyway? They sound painful) waiting for the showstopper that I'm sure the finale will be. The title of the finale, "Swan Song," certainly doesn't inspire confidence. But as things stand, the situation is looking up, for once, although knowing Eric Kripke, this is just him reminding us why we love our boys before he kills half of them off, and screws the other half up beyond repair. But Bobby has his legs (and it seems, his will to live) back, Dean is no longer suicidal (although Sam might be), rumors of Cas' death have been greatly exaggerated (rumors of his loss of angel mojo weren't, though), and Team Free Will has all four Horsemen's rings (although Dean had to promise to off his brother to get the last one). So all in all, a mixed bag. I fear greatly for our Messrs. Singer and Castiel, neé Novak. They (probably) won't kill Sam and Dean, since the show is about them, after all, but I'm afraid Eric Kripke might take the J.K. Rowling route, and remove all substantial authority figures and/or allies who might help our heroes before putting them through the wringer, only letting them save the day after they've angsted more than should be humanely possible. Of course, if Eric takes this course, he'll pretty much have to kill Bobby, the Winchester's father figure, command center, emotional support, voice of reason, and reality check extraordinaire, but now that Cas seems to have lost his angel-ness (so is he just a de-powered/powerless angel? Fallen, a lá Anna? Entirely new species? What?), he might still live.
Honestly, I saw the whole Depowered!Cas, which is more or less synonymous with Human!Cas, coming, although I didn't want to. It's always nice to have a big (if limited) gun handy, and all that teleporting was damn useful. Speaking of teleportation, will Cas still retain his latent or "passive" powers? It's been stated outright that teleportation, "zapping" demons, etc. is right out, but wil he still be able to do things like see Reapers, tell who is possessed and who isn't, and speak Enochian? The answer to the last one is probably yes, since it doesn't stand to reason that knowledge (such as the list of Prophets he mentioned having been "seared into his brain" in "99 Problems") would fade like his ability to fly, but I hope he'll still be able to keep the super-senses, since otherwise Team Free Will will have to find another supernatural ally to be their eyes and ears. On the other hand, I think I'd like to see Cas smile, I mean *really* smile, not just smirk, or maybe even laugh.
In more normal, non-TV-related news, I think I've gotten H&C hooked on the Dresden Files. Go me! H&C read most of the same urban fantasy stuff I do, but H, predictably, has a Charlaine Harris/Kim Harrison-esque bent, where it's pretty much a given that the main character will be a highly attractive, tough-yet-vulnerable woman with some sort of paranormal power(s), and there will be at least one hot vampire boyfriend, while C's tastes, also predictably, runs more towards Patricia Briggs/early Supernatural, in which less emphasis is placed on the main character's attractiveness and/or desirability, the focus shifting to physical and/or magical confrontation between hero and villain, and any hot vampires will almost invariably be as evil as they are sexy. Personally, I tend to share C's tastes in this regard, rather than H's, which is a bit odd, since H is my best friend and all. Be that as it may, I'm glad she's enjoying it. We've worked out kind of a system: she introduces me to good TV shows (Doctor Who, Firefly, and Supernatural, to name just a few), and I introduce her to good books (Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter, Discworld, and now the Dresden Files). When we try to do it the other way around, it usually doesn't turn out so well: she never really warmed up to Torchwood, and I decided that Uglies wasn't my favorite thing ever.
Speaking of good books, particularly the Discworld (see how I did that? I gotz da mad ritur skillz), I'm re-reading Lynn Flewelling's Nightrunner series in preparation for the release of the fifth book in the series, The White Road, on May 24. I've been looking forward to this ever since I inhaled the first four books after meeting Lynn at last summer's Comic-Con. I was impressed, to say the least. To put it a bit more accurately, I had a full-on geekgasm.
This time around, I'm glad to see that my first impression of Nightrunner wasn't just a flash in the pan. I've had that happen before: I enjoyed a book more than I thought possible, left it alone for a while, came back to it later, and couldn't see what I'd found to love the first time through. It's an extremely unpleasant feeling, so I'm glad that my rosy memories of my first read-through are upheld, not cast down. The Nightrunner books have a quality that I can't quite define, a quality that I only find in the absolute *best* of the best. I've seen it in Tolkien, I've seen it in Pratchett, I've even come across hints of it in Butcher once or twice (not to say that Butcher, or even Flewelling, are at Tolkien's level). "Timelessness," I might call it, only it's not. It's the somewhat disquieting sensation that what you're reading in the book is real, and "reality," the world you've been moving through your whole life, isn't. "Hyper-reality," then, perhaps, not "timelessness." All I know is that when I get up from reading Luck in the Shadows, or Stalking Darkness, or any of Lynn's other books, I blink, and look around me, and this world, the chair that I'm sitting in, the people around me, the trees outside my window, all seem like a dream. It's like I'm not really awake, or maybe not even really alive, unless I'm following Seregil, Alec, and the others around on their adventures. Yes, I'm aware that I sound like a dangerously obsessed whacko, but isn't that what LJ is for?
Another thing I like about Nightrunner so much is that, yes, Seregil and Alec do make a wonderful couple, and they are hawt, and all the stuff that I've written about before, but on my second time around, I'm taking more time to savor the little things, to stop and smell the roses, and right now, I'm taking a look (yes, I know I'm mixing metaphors) at the pre-smoochfest Seregil and Alec, and I'm amazed at the camaraderie. They fit together so well; they "click" almost instantly. At the part I'm at right now, they've only known each other for a few weeks, and Seregil has spent at least one of those weeks being crazy and possibly possessed, but they were working together and ribbing each other like old buddies before they'd even left Wolde. Even in the very first chapter, their escape from Lord Asengai's keep has the beginnings of their later style: a perfect blend of chaos and teamwork, combined with crazy amounts of planning, a handy disguise or two, and more than a bit of luck.
Another thing I'm noticing this time around is how clear everything is. This might or might not tie into that hyper-reality thing I mentioned above, but I can see everything in my mind's eye so clearly, the way Bastian said he could see Fantastica in The Neverending Story. In the scene where the Grampus puts in at Cirna, I can imagine the faces of the men unloading the ships, the hunched shoulders of the merchants, the long coats and flamboyant, floppy, feathered hats of the Skalans, Klia's quicksilver smile, all of it. And when Seregil was going mad, I could see the black thing that was following him, the tatters of its robe, hints of its face (it looked something like a Dark Ages plague doctor, with the long, pointed beak and dark eye-holes), the obscene, jerky tilt of its head, the ghoulish surreality of its dance, now here, now there, blinking in and out of reality like a camera blurring...yurgh. My point is, when I read most books, I can see the object or event the author is describing with razor-sharp clarity, and the rest of the scene is a bit blurry, but here, I can almost reach out and feel the sticky residue of too much spilled ale and too few washings on one of the tables in the Three Fishes, almost taste the smoke and sweat (among other things I'd rather not think about) in the air.
On a related note, I've been trying to remember something lately. A friend of mine, J, has a very distinctive laugh. It goes, and I quote, "ah-HA," just once, really loudly, his body bending back on "ah" and snapping forward on "HA." I could swear that I've heard it in a book before (yes, I do actually hear things in books), but I can't seem to find it now. It might have been The Scarlet Pimpernel or one of its sequels, but I don't have time to go through all of them again. I know it's somewhere out there, and it'll probably drive me crazy until I find it.
...And now I'm done making myself sound like a lunatic. *bows*
