Wednesday, January 24, 2007

In which I am resurrected

Pathetic! First post of 2007 and January's practically over. This is what happens when, tired of living for the idea of some unspecified future time when everything will be sorted and nice, you suddenly decide that you just can't stand the unfinished nature of your hallway any longer and you set about redecorating the damn thing like you should have done ages ago. A long, lonely but ultimately rewarding process involving the nigh-endless scraping of woodchip (surely the devil's wallpaper), the liberal application of poly-filla, the slapping on of much cheerfully yellow matt emulsion and the accidental inhalation of vast quantities of old paint dust. Also constant vacuuming.

I still have the skirting boards to do, but that's just the icing, even now it's a pleasant, warmly-lit, neutral corridor instead of the depressingly dingy passage it used to be. If I do nothing else in 2007 at least I can say I accomplished that.

Despite such exertions I also seem to have managed, naturally, to pack in plenty of TV-watching over the last few weeks:

Torchwood
Last three episodes of this weren't too bad, the stand-out being Catherine Tregenna's "Captain Jack Harkness", and not just because Jack (finally!) gets some action. The last episode was good in parts - I thought Eve Myles did a cracking job in the scene where she finds Rhys's body for instance - but was let down by some slightly unclear plotting and a bit too much melodrama. I do hope we see Bilis Manger again - there seems to be much more to him than we've seen so far. Other than that, my one wish for series 2 is that we get more episodes from Catherine Tregenna and fewer from Chris Chibnall, who writes nice ensemble scenes but horrible plots.

Supernatural
I avoided this for ages but the steady livejournal buzz convinced me to give it a go. I've caught up on the first season and am now working my way through the second. It's good. Angst, pop culture references and demon hunting all held together by a nicely-played sibling relationship. Plus, I find Jensen Ackles pretty to the point of distraction in this, which is weird because he did nothing for me in Dark Angel, but, I mean, look at him, for god's sake:

Jensen Ackles: prettier than you

How on earth did I miss it before? Look at him there with his eyelashes and his lovely hands and his great big long lens... Hum... What was I going to say? Oh yes! Supernatural, despite being firmly horror rather than science fiction, has some interesting similarities to Torchwood; in fact one episode - "The Benders" - is almost identical to "Countrycide", and I think I'll discuss this in more detail in a later post.

The Office US
I think I love this program. It's really, really delightful. A comparison with the original British version is again a subject for a more in depth post, but for now I'll just say that Jim/Pam pings my One True Pairing meter just as much as Tim/Dawn ever did. And they pinged it hard.

Heroes
Starts on the Sci-Fi channel here soon, which is good 'cause then I can watch it legitimately. I'm enjoying it a lot. Bit like X-Men but with a fate/destiny interconnectedness thing going on. Ensemble shows can get a bit tiring at times but they've kept the pace up well in this so far. I've had a huge soft spot for Greg Grunberg since Alias so I'd probably watch him in this even if it was rubbish, but it's not, plus it's nice to see Clea DuVall in something again.

Ugly Betty
I'd heard really good things about this so I was a bit disappointed when I finally got round to watching it. It does have some positive things going for it but I have a very low tolerance for big, over-the-top sitcom-ish characters and situations (the main reason I gave up watching Desperate Housewives) and I thought the first couple of episodes were a morass of very tired cliches. Not sure about whether I'll continue watching yet.

And since this post has taken me most of the evening to write I'm going to sign off here and watch the most recent episode of Heroes. With any luck it won't be another month before I post again!

[ mood | geeky ]