Tragic Heroes

Like many other Sherlockian minded fans, I wait with some mixed feelings the première of the eccentric Sherlock Holmes promised by Guy Ritchie with the handsome Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law as Holmes and Watson. After watching the trailer, I felt the only part of the description that fits is the “Is an expert singlestick player, boxer, and swordsman” line.

So I felt like treading new waters. Any fan of Holmes does that with trepidation, because one never quite knows what will one find: the absurd plot? The unfairly bumbling Watson? The let’s go for romance approach?

Anyway, while doing random searches, I read a couple of brief recs of the “Russian Holmes”. My predictable response was, “the what?” I decided to go for the eccentric, but I found barely a footnote in my copy of Starring Sherlock Holmes (yes, I looked in a book, what can I say, I am old fashioned). After a moderately long web quest, I found my prey and proceeded to watch... and be amazed.

If you like Holmes, you *must* try this.

Why? Because the writing is good and the actors are very, very good.

((Because of the pics after the cut))

 

( Because you are worth it...? )

Ok. ok, I am perhaps exaggerating with this.

But in looking in too close proximity at Kröd Mandöon and the Flaming Sword of Fire and Legend of the Seeker, I had to laugh. I actually think the former is a good translation into TV of a sorry-but-not-specially-good book series while the later is a fun but not specially brilliant spoof of fantasy, but as I watched the comedy, I realized there was quite a lot those two nice boys, Richard and Kröd, had in common besides good arms and better stand-ins for male attributes...

And why is it so hard to find HQ pics of pretty Kröd?

So this is Torchwood, the series that, just by watching the promos (for third series, Children of the Earth), you feel nobody will survive.

No really, there's something about this image I cannot seem to define. What is it? Is it, perhaps, that no one looks in the same direction but everyone touches?

Once upon a time (June 2007) I started this journal of People I Like that Do Not Exist talking about Nathan Petrelli. The first season of Heroes had just concluded, and it had been an amazing journey. Well plotted and unique, I had fallen in love with the whole of it, and especially with the character of Nathan Petrelli and his shadows-and-light theme. Of course, that's before he was multiply killed, and if you want to see the chronicle of his virtual murder, click on the line, because it's spoilerish and perhaps not very well reasoned, on account on me being a little angry.

***Spoiler You All You Who Enter Here and Have Not Seen Third Season***



Exhibit One: Genesis
During all that First Season, we meet congressional candidate Nathan Petrelli, decided to win the election at all costs: accepting dirty money from Daniel Linderman and then trying to kill him, and hiding his dirty little secrets, like love daughters, liaisons with blondes and his ability to fly. He was tempted to let fate run his course and let NY blow on exchange for the Presidency, only changing his mind at the last minute and flying away with Peter.
Exhibit Two Generations
Four months later, Nathan had resigned from his post citing personal reasons, those reasons being he had became an alcoholic and was divorced; after having suffered from radiation poisoning in the explosion and believed Peter to be dead. Being healed by Adam's blood, he got involved into Matt Parkman investigation on the deaths of the founders of The Company, finally confronting Peter about the virus, trying to go public and being shot for his efforts.

...until he can see the root of his own downfall...

That wonderful couch analyst site that is tvtropes, that everyone should visit once in a while, actually has a Tragic Heroes entry that had me laughing.





Briefly recapping the classic progression of the drama tragic heroes, as described by Aristotle in easy-to-understand words:

Instead of that, they offer this shorter description “a character with a Fatal Flaw like Pride who is doomed to fail despite his best efforts or good intentions” and this wonderful quote “this trope is rare on television, perhaps because watching someone fail once teaches a lesson, while watching them fail every Tuesday gets boring”. As a result, it seems they tend to be cast as villains.

They propose as heroes some people I agree with, like the entire cast of Heroes or of A Song of Ice and Fire, and actually make a comment that actually makes me want to watch Supernatural (it seems I was watching the wrong brother... and yet, he just does not seem that reflexive...). All in all, lots of laughter.

I've looked, and looked, for what is the proper word that means, in TV fiction, "the exact opposite of a procedural", and I've had to settle for "serial". In this context, "procedural", is the kind of show where a problem/crime is presented, investigated and solved each and every episode, while "serial" refers to shows with continuing storylines.



On principle, if I look at the TV I've watched and loved, I prefer serials. But this season, to my complete surprise, I've found myself watching not one, not two, but *seven* different procedurals: Bones, Castle, Eleventh Hour, House, Lie to Me, Numb3rs and The Mentalist. Of those, I find House and Lie to Me to be slightly more evolved, but the other five are more or less straight criminal ones. So, what's the deal with those shows?

Their one great advantage is that you can watch episodes out of continuity: one in every three, out of order, whatever. But this comes with a disadvantage, which is, unless the writing team has some sense of this, certain shallowness. Why?

Well, in all those shows the need to present and solve the crime takes a lot of time, but nevertheless, there's no time enough to *really* present the situation. As a consequence, every secondary character is a stereotype –one gets the idea that the casting calls read "young mother", "shifty teenager", etc. And because there's not time for anything, the poor victim has just one gruesome moment of glory, and little more. The curious result, by the way, is that dozens of dead people on TV every week whose cruel deaths are absolutely indifferent to the viewer.

Life is cheap in procedurals?

Now, police procedurals the question to answer every episode is whodunit, but they are not an exercise of logic, like some older format crime novels. Because the number of characters presented is limited, you can play Clue to a point, but to guarantee the entertainment value, there's bound to be a red herring and a plot twist, more or less justified, at the end. The crime, by the way, always gets satisfactorily solved and explained.

Crime is simple?

Oh well. To solve a crime, True Blood spent 12 episodes; to find the killer of Laura Palmer, Dale Cooper spend quite a lot more. The number of serial killers, copycats and terrorists roaming TV those days is bewildering... and yet they only last one episode.

Because every incidental character might as well be painted on the wall, the strength of the series comes from the regular cast. Since they appear every episode, they get the chance to get some character development: of course, as time is short even for them, main characters get more attention, and so sometimes the secondary ones get as neglected as the incidental ones. In cases like Eleventh Hour, the premise shot itself in the foot by having just two mains, a situation that only works with lots of chemistry; in cases like Bones, the balanced cast is the reason I submit myself to a program where, for minutes at a time, I am actually incapable of watching what happens on screen. In The Mentalist, there was more balance in the first part of the season than in the last, were the title character lately is the best at everything, from crime scene to interrogation, thus leaving everyone else with little to do.

Anyway, characters should evolve, and in procedurals, from first to last episode there's rarely a great change. No matter how many experiences they live, they seem to change very little, no matter how hurt, they quickly recover: look at Greg House.

Shouldn't characters go somewhere?

The audience's lack of compromise has perhaps made serials impractical, but really, in some of those shows, like Numb3rs, there's not even the sightless trace of a season arc. Even when Mulder & Scully went after the alien of the week, there was always the big picture for those who liked it. House works by planning a series of "plot b" histories in half seasons that gives the characters to do to besides spinal taps. Beyond that, episodes are better or worse resolved in a week-by-week basis: in The Mentalist plot is very short, in Lie to Me there's a very pleasant abundance of plot (there are usually two).

But, shouldn't histories go somewhere?

Of course, in open format TV one does never know when the full stop will come, but anyway... every chapter the same is the premise of a sitcom, and even in sitcoms *something* happens. So finally, procedurals seem to be a little bit like manga TV, all about the characters as they are. If the characters reach you, welcome to the ride, if not, just forget about it.

So what am I doing watching procedurals? Well, there aren't that many serials!

(**Spoiler line**)



BonesCastleEleventh HourHouseLie to MeNumb3rsThe Mentalist

As I was rambling about the Hero of a Thousand Faces the other day I seem to have forgotten an interesting point. Let’s see..., I really tend to think of the fictional world as a sort of continuity away from reality, and this usually serves me well.

But then, due to too much perusing of crack_van  suggested readings, I had developed some curiosity about a particular older-than-I-am series. So I obtained some by the method of randomly downloading some (!) and I started watching, in glorious black and white, an episode of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (*really*). All was going well in the world of spies, as those two are quite charming (not very tragic, tough, at first look).



And then *this* happened. I raised an eyebrow.



And then *this* happened. I was shacken.



And them, inevitably, *that* happened (well, not really; I created this image as I could not find a relevant frame, but *mostly* this happened).



And I was violently thrown out of the make-believe world of nice spies. I didn’t actually think What are William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy doing there?; oh, no, it was mostly What are Kirk and Spock doing there?

Sigh. I usually only have this problem with Tom Cruise or Harrison Ford, that’s to say, actors so recognizable on their own it’s very difficult to see the characters they play, and you are stuck with performer. I usually know this has happened when I cannot recall the *name* of the character. But Richard Dean Anderson playing McGiver and Jack O’Neill? No problem: separate entities. Eliza Dushku? Alan Rickman? Rob Morrow? No problem. I don't see *them*.

But William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy, together, *not* on Star Trek? It has proven impossible to accept. So I have discovered that, even if I have no problem with different actors playing the same role, I have one when strange vintage coincidences bring one universe into another with the presence of familiar faces in an unfamiliar environment. Go tell.

The episode is called The Project Strigas Affair, and I am sorry to say I desisted. I will have to satify my curiosity with any other episode of this classic series.

"Dwarfs don't have to be tactful. Generations of capering fools in motley have won me the right to dress badly and say any damn thing that comes into my head." Tyrion introduces himself to Jon Snow in A Game of Thrones. He concludes this short but relevant interlude with "All dwarfs may be bastards, yet not all bastards need be dwarfs." As it often happens, he is right... The pic comes from where it says on the pic; not quite what I expected. 

Let's hear it for great fantasy sagas! In fact, less hear it for multi-volume, cast-of-hundreds fantasy sagas! When the genre metamorphosed from the canonical trilogies into the multiple trilogies and then into the no-end-in-sight multi book madness, I was surprised, even if, when I now think of it, thousands-of-pages epic fantasy is the, ah, logical heir to hundreds-of-pages epic fantasy.

Anyway, of the modern, English speaking, multi volume sagas, I fell at the time –the late nineties– for three: The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan (1990), The Sword of Truth (1994) by Terry Goodkind and A Song of Ice and Fire (1996) by George R.R. Martin. But I have since fallen out of love with two of those, and I  acknowledge I feel a certain dislike for this format; briefly put, unsolved storylines are more useful in monthly comic books and cliffhangers in weekly TV episodes than in yearlong –with luck! – offerings. The frustration level for the reader is monumental. But despite this, when Mr. Martin goes back to writing *someday*, I will open the damn book again. I don't expect any good to come from A Song of Ice and Fire, and at this point, I would settle for *closure*. But I will read it... just to see how Tyrion Lannister is doing.

( I did not re-read the books for this post... )

• Where to find him? The whole saga will eventually have seven books: A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings and A Storm of Swords came first, and then there was the Great Hiatus and came A Feast for Crows and, hopefully, after the Not so Little Anymore Hiatus will come A Dance with Dragons, The Winds of Winter and A Dream of Spring. The saga has sprung an art book (pretty!), a board game (playable), a CCG (that I am told is good enough) and untold rumors of a TV adaptation that surprisingly, seem to be real, with leaked scripts and all sort of things you can follow here.
• Where to find another side of him? Well, the author keeps a webpage and a Not-a-blog. Offside, The Citadel seems to have all the data and Westeros has all the fans and westeros is a nice place.
•  If you insist... Keep insisting. When the source is books, I don't feel the need to look, and now that I have... It turns out George R. R. Martin is against fanfic in general, but well, you can feast on fanart. Try ASOIAF fanart; is what I did.
• The guy who looks like him... Ahem. Read the above description. It's not easy.

I wonder. I am inevitably a) disapointed or b) confirmed on my worst expectations. And then... then sometimes, like this one, I am absolutely taken aback...

I am a whaaattt!!??

Which creature of the night are you? Your Result: Cthulu Spawn   You are really an alien thing, aren't you? I can't describe you because you are beyond. We say "left field" and you say "Krn Grth Thchrang." You are the wild card of the bunch, the unknown quantity
Sorceror
Vampire
Incubus/Succubus
Ghost
Werewolf
Demon
Which creature of the night are you? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

Very briefly, Merlin is the way BBC has found for entertaining Saturday afternoon watchers before the return of Doctor Who. To quote: “In a land of myth, and a time of magic, the destiny of a great kingdom rests on the shoulders of a young boy. His name... Merlin. ...” And that’s it, actually, at the court of Uther Pendragon magic is forbidden, so Merlin, servant to Arthur, must keep his power secret while trying to fulfil his improbable destiny as part of a legendary partnership. The series is nicely produced (save for CG beasts and, eh, creative anachronism all around), has an impressive list of guest stars (Santiago Cabrera, Alexander Siddig) Now, those reasons...

1. Are you an Arthurian fan?
Then you must definitely watch this. I am..., and I dread the time someone with a name I know is introduced in the story. Like Gwen (Guinevere), maid servant to Morgana, ward of the king, Mordred the druid boy, Lancelot the peasant knight, Excalibur the, eh, sword... really, it should count as shock training or something. Be scandalized, enjoy it, and remember: at least, they are not singing. Or making terrible puns in French. Or whatever else.
Morgana and Morded, casual nudity unintended.


2. Do you like Anthony Head?
Then you must definitely watch this. He plays Uther Pendragon, a very serious king, and is practically the only character that has chosen Greek tragedy over teen comedy. Like everything he does, he does it well, although he should really, *really* avoid red capes and coronets in the future. So *not* his style...
Not born to the crown.

On the other hand...


3. Are you outside the target public?
Don’t worry. Even if you are not a teenager boy trying to make your way into the word, Merlin (Colin Morgan) and Arthur (Bradley Coulby) are... actually, quite charming characters. A little too charming to each other perhaps –the inevitable fan girl response has been quite predictable, but well, that’s modern, jaded audiences for you. As for girls, the four creators of the series seem incapable of writing them. A shame; I found Morgana to have quite the potential.
First one who blinks, must drink the poisoned cup.


4. Do you like heavily plotted, story dense series?
Go watch some. After watching a few of *those*, you’ll feel in the need for a little relaxing series, no complications that cannot be solved in an episode. It’s actually getting better, but well, it’s an adventure series and seriousness is not its way.
Guinevere, Lancelot and Merlin prepare for... not the monster of the week. That came a little later this episode.


5. Do you like Flash games?
Go then to the BBC official Merlin page and play “Camelot Defence”. I’m sort of a Tetris girl, so I like games that take two minutes to be explained and hours to solve. Monsters are attacking Camelot, and to defeat them will take fast conjuring, combo attacks and nice crossfires. I do wish I could download this, or that it had a few more screens.
A nice Ice spell and the evil beast is defeated. Die, you monster! Die! Ha, ha, ha!

Seeing those widely posted images practically begs the question: does the character exist beyond the actor?

An easy answer is, "of course, it does". Every time you go to the theater to see a play, for instance, the faces are new. You certainly go to see the play, more than the players, but performances can be diverse, and lines can acquire new meaning due to the emphasis and emotions with which they are played. The value of the actor's work must not be underestimated: a good tale is enhanced if the raconteur is also good.

The theater case certainly proves there's nothing new in having several players perform a character. But despite being  a scenic art, theater is a little more about the text that modern visual media, such as cinema or television. And yet... are not movies redone for new audiences all the time? Go visit Movie Remakes and do not forget to browse the “Better Than Original” section. I myself prefer the earliest "Thief of Baghdad" and the middle “Dangerous Liaisons”. And none of the “Dracula”!

Of course, not only stories, but characters also recur. In fact, if a character is old enough, you are certain to see many faces playing it. Sherlock Holmes is an outstanding example, but any version of a popular book, legend, myth or, for instance, Jane Austin, works like this.

And yet... and yet... there’s something about this not so easily solved. Have you ever had a pub conversation about Doctor Who? That’s a character in which a change of players is built in, after all, prone to many comparisons. And yet, instead of hearing the question from "Which actor has given the best Who performance ever?" –which is usual about Holmes– I often hear this one: "Which doctor is yours?"

Here is the key, I think, not to whether a change of performer affects –or demeans, or betters– a character. The key fact is whether a change of face affects you, personally: is it changing some perception that was *yours* about that character? And are you dealing with this well?

The larger the original personal investment in a character, the deeper you feel the change. Not because the new performance is better, or worse than the older one. Just because the first one was... well, **real** to you. If everyone is supposed to have seen some form of Doctor Who as a child, that’s probably the one that stuck. I watched the original Galactica, but I was too young to really get into it, so I prefer the new version, and was surprised about the rants for “unimportant facts” like major plot and character changes.

Well, now I am not surprised. Star Trek was not my first fandom... but it was my first TV fandom and the only one, I think, that has ever made me get all publicly fan girlish, even if when I first saw the Original Series it was already more than twenty years old. I have watched almost all of its many continuations –I skipped Voyager–, I have seen all the movies –even the extremely bad ones– and during all this time, I always considered TOS over, done and good. I have never been an actor-worshipper, but I am an absolute character lover, and I have loved the old characters.

The idea of a remake never *occurred* to me until it was introduced to, of all things, a fan film, called Star Trek New Voyages. I was so weirded out on seeing the first images I asked for it to be turned off. When the surprise relented, I came to see that, in fact, it could be done. I figured out, slow me, that it was no different than reading a novel or a fic interpretation of those same characters: as long as they were not desperately out of character, one actually enjoys getting in-deep or different looks at them. But then, it was a fan-something, and not the real thing.

Now the reality of a new Star Trek is just around the corner, I am still debating if I will go to the cinema next year with a sense of dread or with a sense of anticipation. I cannot get rid of the emotional investment I made on those characters, nor can I unlearn, unread, unwatch, what I know, what I have read and watched before. When I saw the Lord of the Rings trilogy for the *ahem* first time, I had sort of a dual perception: a wonderful movie was on the screen, a wonderful book was being read on my head. It took a second viewing for the visual reality to ascertain itself as a separate entity. It’s  truth on that day I lost almost any original vision I had ever had from the written of what those characters looked like, but then, I consider this price well paid.

So on seeing those pictures of Kirk and Spock, I am certainly excited, but I find myself also a little melancholic. I dislike reading comments like “it should be like this” or “like that” or “no way this is Spock” or “the skin is too shinny”, “they are too young”, “they are messing with the timeline”, “it looks like an a combo ad for a costume shop and an adult chat line” (what!?); I’ve read many comments like that already, and I know it’s from the heart, but still... they all seem to translate to "I would do it better" and "They can't possibly love this as much as me". I am a realist: it will be, it will be exactly as others have decided, and it would be good or bad deppending mostly on... karma. I'm sure i'll have some interesting conversations about it, but the ultimate... sorry, the final question is whether **I** will like it.

Well, the jury is out and not expected to return until 2009 and, until that time, I will hope for the best and prepare for the worst. I'm doomed to see it. But I confess that mostly, I envy the younger people, the ones that have never seen even one Star-anything, their fresh look. And I hope they enjoy it, tremendously, and that to them, this film will one day become legend.

This is, of course, very old news to anyone following Galactica, but dear Doctor Gaius Baltar did at one time of his illustrious career run for president of the Colonies. Won or not won, those elections generated... propaganda. As the good folks at Battlestar Galactica Props & Costumes, that are organizing a macro auction of Galactica props kindly informed me (they are kind, as there’s no possibility at all I could afford such things). I laughed on seeing a particular flyer and decided to do something about it.

( Flyer and Button this way... )

Don't bother reading if you have not watched SEASON THREE of BATTLESTAR GALACTICA and SEASON THREE of HEROES! This image is not a spoiler: it's obviously the preface of a rant about politics... is it not?



—Hello, my name is Nathan Petrelli...
—Hello, my name is Gaius Baltar...

( This is a very serious SPOILER WARNING! )

What happens when you acquire a fandom (or the fandom acquires you, whichever way you want to look at it)? When you are yet in that sweet, non-critizing, all-admiring moment? Like any love affair, its flames will lower with time, but in the meantime... what do you *actually* do?

Well, you usually spend many hours in front of the TV, then many more in form of the computer, and then, almost inevitably, you buy a T-shirt. Don't worry: it happens to all of us. But I have been noticing that not everyone buys the same T-Shirt, and not everyone buys it for the same reasons.

So I offer the following typologies... of T-Shirts and of fans. Choose the one that suits best your relationship with the fandom and read the pseudo-explanation below...

And just to be clear: I have several... inexplicable T-shirts in my own closet.







PSEUDO-EXPLANATION:

#01. DENIAL FAN. Don't bother. Just go buy brand shirts, they have a wide selection. Your little fan heart will suffer in silence; your pride will be safe.
#02. CLOSET FAN. An especially usual reaction if their fandom is considered "juvenile". They secretly buy their heart's desire and secretly perform worshipping ceremonies every time their secret closet is opened.
#03-A). STANDARD FAN. Don't worry. Friends and family are ok with it and with you, and you can enjoy your passion without incurring in collateral damages. Those fans will usually choose simple message T-Shirts, stating their likes.
#03-B) ALTERNATIVE FAN. Let's face it: most working environments are not conductive to public displays of obsessions, so you can bet this one is a member of the liberal professions or a graphic designer. The design, by the way, is sold out, as it often happens with older fandoms.
#04. OSTRICH FAN. Your fandom only manifests when the weirdness around you gives you the perfect excuse. Probably started as a CLOSET FAN until the pressure got to heavy, requiring an outlet.
#05. TASTEFUL FAN. Let's face it; most T-shirts are not so elegant... This fan will choose the simplest design available, and probably cover it with a sweater or similar.
#06. I WANT TO BE ORIGINAL FAN. This is an "everything but the T-Shirt" sort of fan, desperately trying to demonstrate he is "not" a mainstream in his tastes as everyone else. A strange form of denial can end with bed sheets with the Millennium Falcon on them. I found this cap on e-bay: FYI, that's a Star Wars Darth Vader Lego exclusive cap.
#07. SECTARIAN FAN. A very recognized practice, and the one that cafe press was founded on. Let us have our own code words, secret handshakes and references and smile with glee over the heads of our less enlightened colleagues. By the way, if you like the one depicted, wait until you see this one. I am in love!
#08. COLOR BLIND FAN. Will choose the most outrageous prints, the Klingon T-shirt or the absurd pun ones. Much as I love J-List, the example (" In Case of Emergency, Commit Seppuku Here") is just silly. Find it here.
#09. OBSESSED FAN. Come on, people, leave something for the rest of us! Subconscious desire to own the fandom, to be the fandom, to represent the fandom. Usually ends up with problems of interior decoration. I do wish, by the way, I had invented the t-shirt shown, but no such luck.
#10. FETISH FAN. (Alternatively, OBSESED & RICH FAN). Obsessed with authenticity, covering the same desire to own an authentic relic of the Holy Fandom. The Hugh Laurie relic is actually authentic: he often signs T-Shirts for charities like this one.

Sorry... I really must be in an Atlantis sort of phase, because right now I can't stop... Oh well... have you noticed that 'crossing the Stargate' is almost never a significant event in any episode? It's sort of taken for granted, something not interesting by itself. And then, in the middle of The Shrine, an episode about another thing altogether, suddenly... this happens.



And that one is the most eye-catching, evocative and bloody wonderful image I've ever seen in the five seasons of Stargate Atlantis, and one of the most interesting. You want to know what's behind the pic. So, of course... I had to do something about it, to spoof it somehow and ended with a very weird, un-tragic caption fest.

Spoof coming, spoilers coming. You have been warned.
Picture heavy. You have been warned.
First captions ever. No good English, worst Czech. You have been warned.
Caption fest this way... (first one free, the rest under the cut) YHBW.




( StarFish Adventure (more this way) )

First time ever. Someone please laugh a little, or last time ever!

"I'm sorry. It's just... I react to certain doom in a certain way. It's a bad habit." Rodney McKay apologizes for babbling madly about the many ways you can die when trapped in a jumper about to be opened to space in the episode Thirty Eight Minutes of Stargate Atlantis The image is from the fifth season, which I've just discovered will sadly be the last.

I could almost write a profile of McKay in his own quotes, as this blue-eyed, round-faced, self-proclaimed genius, chief scientist of Atlantis is as likely to be silent as he is to be still. But then, even if he is not classically attractive, he compensates by being intense to a high point, and so, impossible not to notice. And once you notice him... you hang on for the ride.

**This one ran away from me, so I'm posting in the hopes I can go back to this later with a more orderly frame of mind. Trust the good doctor to be quite contrary.**

( Cross the Stargate... )

• Where to find him? In each and every episode of Stargate Atlantis to date, and in a slightly less developed form, in seven episodes of Stargate SG1 (48 Hours, Redemption 1 & 2, Moebius 1 & 2, The Pegasus Project and The Road Not Taken). There are tie-in novels and the like, but I've failed to find good recs for derivative products.
• Where to find another side of him? Ahem. One general Stargate site one must visit is Gateworld, and one interesting site for visual candy is paintedspires, but the links number in the hundreds.
• If you insist... Welcome to paradise, as this is a large, large fandom for those who see things that are not there. For starters, go visit the very pretty SGA BigBang and the big Wraithbait.
• The guy who looks like him... Is accept-no-substitutes British actor David Ian Hewlett. I actually did not know he was a British playing a Canadian; for someone with a better ear for English, I guess he must have an accent. Or not?

Oh, well, I confess I did take a "let's just choose one that sounds well" method with some of those questions... I have, after all, never studied English Literature... And I don't usually fall prey to online tests, but I saw the pic and I do love Alma-Tadema, so I just had to take a look... I was discouraged to take online test when all of them put me on Ravenclaw when I absolutely wanted to sort into Slytherin. Oh, well, once a nerd... "erudite" sounds so much better!

Your result for The Are You Truly Erudite? Test...

True English Nerd

You scored 82 erudition!

Take The Are You Truly Erudite? Test at HelloQuizzy

And it's not a joke I like Alma-Tadema: see, see!

Please remember I have not been careful with spoilers while writing this... This is your official **spoiler warning**

Lost
The gist of it? The episode –a three parter, one fifth of the season, actually– is called “There’s no place like home”, and it happens to be quite interesting as someone, finally, leaves the island, in the middle of drama, angst, happy reunions, destruction and a disappearing act worthy of a stage magician. You want to change geography? Just turn on the handy winch! It was fascinating, and for one I did not yawn through the flash-forwards. Ah, if Lost could have so much plot every week... it would have lasted two seasons, but it would have been a superb ride.
Will I be back? Yes... even tough my expectations are low, let’s see, much running around with no purpose and an excess of flash-everything, and occasional bouts of brilliancy, with everything interesting plot-wise happening at the end. Oh, well...

Numb3rs
The gist of it? The episode is called “When Worlds Collide” and it’s not about astrophysics: the worlds colliding are those of Charlie and Don Eppes, when dealing with some collateral damage from one of those self-righteous antiterrorist laws that seem to do more bad than good. Im fact, it was just so much like another episode of Numb3rs —they are all quite formulaic— that the ending actually managed to *surprise* me.
Will I be back? I can’t actually believe I am watching this show; I mean, I made no effort to actually watch it, and if I think about it, I dislike its episodic structure, it’s easy moral discourse and most everything about it. But well... once I have stopped looking for excuses, I at last want to know what happens next. *Head desk*

Torchwood
The gist of it? The episode is called “Exit Wounds”, and the wounds must have been mine, because I absolutely dislike that ending, the fates of the characters involved, the sensation that it was just a pretext for a cleansing before turning the series into something “other”. This said, it was certainly a dramatic journey, full of... death scenes, and not Jack’s. Ahem... Jack’s too, but the body count was quite high, and except for some far-fetched ideas ("Captain Jack, tell us, how do you care for your skin?" "Oh, I do take millennial earth baths!"), it certainly kept my attention.
Will I be back? Yes. But I have... little hope of liking “other” it as much as I have liked “current”. Oh well, everything changes.

Well, this Saturday marked the end of Doctor Who, and with it, the end of the television year for me... I have been wondering if I watch too much television, but after consulting the proper statistics for my country, I have discovered you must watch some 19-20 hours per week to be average, or some three hours a day. I watch approximately half of that –unless a new passion is to be had! – and most of it is canned, so no excesses here.

Anyway... as the summer drought begins, I have been filing away the short seasons (literally) and considering the chance of my returning for any of them. So, for the shows I have followed, I got... creative, in retaliation for good and bad moments I’ve had and as a reflection on whether I will be back for more when the leaves start to fall.

Let’s have some order... alphabetical, for instance. Oh, this is a ***spoiler warning*** by the way...


Doctor Who
The gist of it? The episode is called “Journey's End” and I did manage not to spoil myself by not reading any related prattle at all. So I got an excess of cast, happenings of truly heroic proportions (really, let’s lasso Earth and just pull) and an explanation of why the Doctor dances every time he pilots the Tardis: it seems it requires a crew of six! Oh, and being Doctor Who, also plenty of Daleks and plenty of drama, and I am beginning to think with that particular combination, failure is exterminated. There was also sort of a sideways happy ending, but on the whole... the sad outweighed the happy, I think.
Will I be back? Yes. If the Regeneration Rumour is truth, what can I say except I will miss the current incarnation?


Heroes
The gist of it? The episode is called “Powerless” and no one seemed to be so, except suddenly Mr. Bennet was powerless to change his destiny, and Nathan Petrelli was equally powerless to change his, and Peter could do nothing about it. The only one happy, at the end, was our bug friend, Sylar, who was anything but. Despite the irregularities of the season, it is a pleasant show and I do wonder what kind of stories can we expect.
Will I be back? Yes, on the condition they stop killing my favourite character every season end. Once was enough, gentlemen, twice is just silly. Oh: if he survives... please, let us have him with proper hair. And yes, on such silly things does sometimes fannish worship reside.

 

House
The gist of it? The episode is called “Wilson’s Heart” and makes a desolate pair with the previous one, “House’s Heart”, in which the medical mystery of the week gets turned into something so different it’s complicated to summarize. By the nature of the show, drama in House is often confined to the ‘patient of the week’ story. When the stories overflow and become intimate, close and personal with the team... you get everything: disaster, drama, humour and absurd in one wonderful package.
Will I be back? Yes. I sometimes wonder what I am doing watching a medical show, and then those gut-punching episodes happen and I don’t wonder anymore.

((More to come...)

Do you want to read something a little absurd today? Try this surprising article published by NY Times and called “At Sci Fi Channel, the Universe Is Expanding and the Future Is Now”. The title is inoffensive, but the contents are not. Very briefly: “Woman don’t like sci-fi. Sci Fi Channel has managed to reach women. To accomplish this, they have been de-scificing their own sci fi content.”

I just feel, right now, like disliking sci-fi on principle just because someone might think that just by... de-emphasizing "space ships and aliens", anything could be made somehow more palatable for women.

Just what kind of poor mind can confuse those two particular elements with a whole genre? And a little below, am I reading this right? It suddenly dawned on someone that having great characters makes for better stories ? And does someone really think sci-fi must be... denaturalized to reach a wider audience. Wait a minute, watered down how??

Should I be feeling gender confused because I occasionally like Vipers besides liking Baltar? Oh, but he is bad... I can’t like him either? Oh, gods of Kobol, who sould I like now? I know: Starbuck! She’s a strong female character! But wait, I should be watching the guys... uh, but i only like Apollo when half-wrapped in a towel. Now I am really confused. Should I stop watching Galactica?

Not really. The article is not so much patronizing for women –despite the heat generated!–, as it’s patronizing to... sci-fi in general, sci-fi as a genre.

I’ve read and seen a lot of sci-fi. Oh, yeah, the hard, the soft, the homophobic, the patronizing, the demeaning, the idealistic, the militaristisc, the drug induced, the right and left winged, the topic, the classic... all flavors. Like in any other genre I care to think about, if you are a woman or if you have modern sensibilities you better learn to like the work despite its obvious point-of-view flaws, or you’ll have to give a miss to most human artistic endeavors...

So The Times thinks more women are suddenly liking sci-fi. Not so, people: the data shows only that more women are watching Sci Fi Channel. And one thing and the other are not the same. The most meaningful line in the whole Gruyere cheese article is this one: “We can own sci-fi as a category globally.”

Not so, Mr. Howe. Sci-fi lives in my brain, and the capacity to imagine has no gender and no need to be constrained to a single point of view.

You’ve  managed to offend two groups of people with your statements: women and sci fi fans of all genders. Coincidentally... that's your audience, is it not?