Joshua fought the battle of…
Jericho, you bunch of heathens.
We finally watched Jericho a few months ago, and I’ve kept forgetting to blog about it. Quite simply, I adored it. More specifically, I adored the first season; having looked up wikipedia and read about the issues attending season 2 (ie there wasn’t going to be one, until fans basically militarised, leading to another half-season being filmed to bring the story to a close), I was relieved to discover that yes, it finished way too quickly.
So. Jericho. Post-apocalyptic small town America. Quirky characters, a bit of action, small-town relationships and interactions, not tooo much American gung-ho patriotism (although enough in various bits to have me rolling my eyes), and a rather fascinating look at the possible consequences of targeted nuclear strikes on the US.
Skeet Ulrich, as Jake, carries it for me. He’s the main character: Jericho is his hometown, basically run by his family, but he’s been away for a long time (ooooh sekrits and dubious histories), which allows him to be bewildered by changes and new people, and also form new relationships that would otherwise perhaps not happen. Plus, he’s pretty cute, although the thing with the eyes (if you haven’t seen it, he does this thing where he sort of looks sideways – I can’t describe it very well), which initially was rather charming and quirky, got a bit overdone and tired, much like Mulder’s goofy looks. Brad Beyer, as the fairly goofy Stanley, is also great to watch and a cool character. Most of the women have bit parts; Ashley Scott – Emily – manages occasionally to get in on the action, but is more often cast as the romance; Heather, played by Sprague Grayden, is about the most interesting woman but doesn’t get much of a role really. I enjoyed Mimi (Alicia Coppola), big-city girl stuck in a small town, but there’s only so much mileage to be had out of that.
I was surprised by some of the turn-ups throughout this series. There were a few relationships, for example, which I had thought that an American show couldn’t possibly present in a positive light – a man who leaves his wife for his mistress, in particular. Overall the relationships were a strength of the show. Admittedly, it didn’t break any ground – no homosexual relationships, can’t recall any ‘mixed-race’ couples, etc – but those it did portray had a reality to them that were basically the reason for watching. I liked the tortured family relationships, the new relationships having to overcome suspicion and mistrust, and old relationships having to re-establish themselves.
The plot itself was not the most original in the world – there’s never been a shortage of post-apocalyptic literature, especially in the nuclear age – but it was just convoluted enough to keep me wanting to know more, and also to keep me guessing. The Lennie James character, Robert Hawkins, is the main driver of this. He is so secretive, and has such a complicated background, that I wasn’t entirely sure where it was going to end up for a significant part of the series. I liked him.
Jericho is a great series. It’s also only a season and a half, so if you’re like us and tend to inhale TV series on DVD, it doesn’t consume too much of your time.
This video is full of awesomeness
Of course, you will have to have a passing appreciation of both Star Wars and Star Trek to get the awesomeness… but it’s still remarkably clever editing, even if you don’t!
Rome
I am watching Rome!
That is, I’m into the second episode of the first season.
I still hate Octavian. Sorry. I like James Purefoy and Marc Antony, so that’s a lovely combination. Although I hadn’t expected him to be quite so… brutal… I like my Richard Burton view of him…
I also hadn’t expected the interest in the common people, which is cool. Nor the quantity of sex. (And the full-frontal nudity, too.)
For a TV show, this is a glorious production – as I had heard; it looks like a high-quality film! HBO must be rolling in it.
I love fans
I love the internet, and I love fans.
Because truly, Star Trek as the A-Team? Does it get any better?
Just the titles… but surely this could be the start of something bigger?
He’s so cute!
And he’s Scottish!
That would be David Tennant, aka David MacDonald!
I have indeed seen him once before, not on Dr Who, and he did have a lovely Scotch accent then, but I thought that might have been put on.
Anyway – he was the guest on Top Gear’s last episode of season 10. He’s funny, he’s got a lovely voice, he was hilarious when talking about Billie Piper (he desperately wanted to beat her in the time trial…) – if you’re a Who fan, and you haven’t seen this episode of Top Gear, you’ll have to try and find it; it could well be on YouTube.
Ah, voyeurism
I missed all of the “Who do you think you are?” episodes on SBS – UK and Aussie – and I was a bit sad about that, because although it’s not entirely my thing I do like a bit of this sort of personal history. Fortunately, my darling mother (she of the apricots) taped those of Bill Oddie and Nigella Lawson. I’ve just now got around to watching them, having had the video waiting for me for weeks. Bill Oddie’s was quite sad – his mother in a “sanitorium,” or asylum, for much of his childhood; he has very few memories of her, and basically no good ones. It was quite interesting hearing his reasons for researching his past.
Nigella comes from a tradition of caterers, which I think is hilarious. I didn’t know she was Jewish, so that was fascinating too: her great grandparents came, respectively, from now west Germany and Amsterdam. The history of Jewish migration and experience is one I know little about, and I wonder just how well researched it is; I would guess fairly well. It gives quite a different view on early modern history in Europe (and, I am sure, on medieval too) from what you get if you simply focus on the Christian European experience.
too much Stargate? Never!
I am lucky enough at the moment to have little bit of what I choose to call play money. My natural Scrooge tendencies are too painful to go into here, but suffice to say that splurging – even on thins that I really want and will get a lot of joy out of – is something I struggle with. So I thought long and hard, and eventually decided it would be worth it: I bought the 59 DVD box of Stargate: SG-1. This is a crazy extravagance; I know someone with them already – although theirs are pirated, and of course I don’t have easy access to them. Plus, this comes in a lovely big box, complete with tacky raised circle (aka stargate) on the front.
Anyway, it arrived on Thursday. We watched the entire first season on the weekend – my love didn’t get into show until about season 2 or 3 when we watched it the first time (oh, did I mention that I’ve already seen the whole lot?), so he enjoyed watching that; I also discovered that first time through I missed a disc – three or four episodes, including the wonderful Antarctic episode. We’re now into the second season, and we’re trying to limit ourselves to only two… or so… episodes a night. Hard, though…
Couple of things of note:
* Samantha is cringingly nerdy in the first couple of episodes. I am so glad they sophisticated her.
* Teal’c is fairly painful in these first few seasons; his facial expressions are just ridiculous. And not always convincing.
* Michael Shanks. Daniel Jackson. *sigh* Wonderful!
* Richard Dean Anderson. Jack O’Neill. As above!
I said something to my love as we watched an episode – something about enjoying the interaction between Jack and Samantha – and he turned to me, in ridicule, and asked whether I had bought 59 DVDs just for the sake of a few, frustratingly brief, interactions between the two.
Well, duh.
Productive and critical
Watching four Roman DVDs, for school, and I think I’m going to send all four back. Three are a series – republic, empire, ‘building and empire’; the other is a stand-alone. The stand-alone was definitely for younger kids, which would be fine – since this is for yr7 kids – but the background music was appalling. The others… well, I think they’re just a bit boring. I’m sure I can find docos with more interesting narration, and less bad music. They also feel a bit dated, although I think they’re actually fairly recent; they’re just leaving me cold.
On the plus side, though, since they’re all 30-45 min long – being average, I’ve been skipping through the chapters a bit; has made it a lot faster than I expected! I’ve got a couple of French and Russian Rev (eek! They’ve just shown a clip of a picture from a brothel – one of the awfully explicit ones; really not sure if I can show this to my 7s!) DVDs to preview, too, and a couple of other Roman and ancient Greek ones – hopefully they’ll be better than these.
Star Trek Generations
I think Picard is my favourite. He’s just more… refined. Kirk makes Jon Mclean look like a choir boy. The thing that’s particularly funny about those lists (and there were quite a few that I didn’t get) is that a number of them are the same, word for word – yet on one list it’s bad and on the other, good.
So I’ve watched Star Trek Generations tonight. I don’t think I’d seen it before – although it’s possible that I saw it at my first O’Week party, back in the day (the cinema at uni was showing movies all night; I know I saw a Star Trek at maybe 1am – with the kir part of kirmish, as I recall – but don’t remember it at all; and no I wasn’t drunk, because the Melbourne Uni security team, in their wisdom, wouldn’t accept NT proof of age – only Victorian). What can I say? The effects are definitely better. I don’t like Riker much, Troi is a pain, and while Crusher is good she ain’t no Bones. Geordie (oooh, it jut occurred to me that that’s another UK slang reference, like Scotty… yes, I’m a bit slow) is ok, but no Scotty, and Data is a lesser version of Spock without the interesting reason for being all logical and cold. I think what I’m saying is that I want Picard with the original crew; that would be my ideal Star Trek!
Soren was a worthy adversary, with a very interesting reason for being a prat. It was fun seeing Kirk and Picard together (they’re in one other together, I believe?). Overall, quite a satisfying plot, I thought.
My final question, though: why is such a nice-looking planet as Viridian 3 uninhabited??
Spamalot
I went tonight. It was great, of course. I wasn’t in stitches – having shown Holy Grail to two classes in the last couple of days might have taken the edge off for me – but it was still very, very funny. The bits they’ve added in were magnificent.
Anyway, there was one part I thought I’d share with you. They blow the bunny up with the Holy Hand Grenade, and the scenery falls down to reveal the word BONES in ‘stone.’ There is much confusion, until one of the knights suggests the S might be a 5. So it might actually say B-one-5.
At this point, my stomach dropped.
Then the spotlight landed on B15.
Yup.
The Grail was “under my seat”; after they retrieved it, they decided that the brave peasant needed to be brought on stage, so they could properly say thank you. (They are so LOUD on stage!) So I got to shake their hands, had my name announced to the audience (I checked; there’s about 1700 seats at Her Majesty’s)… and then I won an Arthur for Best Peasant in Melbourne, which means I now have a little statuette of a foot… and a photo with half the cast! Yes, they brought a Polaroid out on to stage.
These sorts of things never happen to me.
I will blog properly about the show itself tomorrow, when I have calmed down a bit. For now… when Patsy retrieved the Grail and went back on stage, part of me was relieved that that might be all, and part of me was just a little disappointed – how dumb is that?? And then they got me on stage, and part of me was embarrassed and really didn’t know where to look (seriously; you can see maybe to the second row); but part of was dead impressed.
Yeh, ok, I’m going to try and sleep it off now. Although given it’s still a million degrees, sleeping might be hard.
