Watching Monday

[brigdh]

Sleepy Hollow
2.08
I actually quite liked Katrina this episode (though why was she still wearing someone else's discarded clothing?): I liked her being helpful in a fight and with research, I liked her actually talking about her perspective with Ichabod and especially Abbie, I liked her dealing with the visions. I just don't like that by the end of the episode she ended up in the exact same place she was two episodes ago. Plots that erase development like that are generally never a good idea.

The lack of Jenny in this episode was very noticeable and annoying. Even if, for some reason, they couldn't have the actress, I wish they had dropped in even a single line of "Oh, we can't call Jenny, she's busy with X". I did ADORE Abbie's "Family isn't biology", and am so looking forward to lots of Mills sister action on tonight's episode.

I also much preferred the Abbie/Hawley dynamic when it seemed like she couldn't be bothered to deal with him. Which, to be fair, also describes most of this episode, but the wound-bandaging at the end seemed to promise more for the future.

Farscape
1.05-1.07 (or, since Netflix continues to be weird, "I, ET", "Thank God It's Friday, Again", and "PK Tech Girl")
I really liked "I, ET", and the parallels between John and the alien woman. That was a great episode, and deserved to be #2, instead of wherever it ended up airing. "Thank God It's Friday, Again" was nice, although I feel like the weird 'hyper rage' thing at the beginning needed far more explanation and resolution, instead of just being a random plot-starter. And "PK Tech Girl" was great; who would have thought a muppet could have poignant torture flashbacks? I wasn't very into John/Tech Girl or Aeryn's random jealousy, but whatever. I suppose every TV show is required to have random love triangles. At least it was for a guest star instead of an ongoing plot.
(Should I spoiler cut these? I feel like everyone's probably either already seen it, or isn't watching it and so doesn't care.)

I also saw Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) which I... liked? I think? I'm still trying to figure out what exactly happened, to be honest. Did the main character mean to commit suicide, and if so, once or twice? What was the point of the magical realism aspect - the only interpretation I've been able to come up with so far is that it represents 'selling out', but I hate that concept and would hope that a movie as otherwise as enjoyable as this one wouldn't stoop to that. I didn't get bored while watching it, at least, even if I don't know entirely what I think of it.

I forgot to mention it here, but last week I saw A Fistful of Dollars, which I'd never seen before. I haven't seen most of the classic Westerns, actually (though I had seen Yojimbo before! Which this is a remake/AU of). Anyway, it was great, far less dated than I'd expected, and both more clever and less nihilistic than I'd been led to believe.

Comments

[ranalore.livejournal.com]

Ack, I have realized the only problem with participating in discussion of your Farscape rewatch is that is has been so long since I have seen it, and without my TV, I can't really have it on in the background while I'm getting coursework done on the computer (which...I am procrastinating doing at this very moment, la ;-). Anyway, I am trying to recall eps based on your descriptions. I do remember "PK Tech Girl," which I never could figure out was the writers being self-congratulatory about Aeryn or making a point to a network exec or what, but was a bit...odd. And yeah, flat in the chemistry department. If I remember right, though, that was one of the many, many eps where Aeryn is very overtly Comes to the Rescue, and I liked when that happened, especially in conjunction with John playing Geek Boy.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Ha, yes, I have that same problem with a lot of TV shows. And book series. And really, everything. I'm terrible at remembering titles.

But it's true, "PK Tech Girl" did have very pleasing Aeryn heroic rescue, which I am generally a fan of.

[ranalore.livejournal.com]

It's really sad, because I like it when TV show episodes have titles, and I like it when those titles are good, and Farscape's generally were, but yeah, I am awful at remembering what an episode was about based on the title anymore.

I seem to recall the main point of "PK Tech Girl" was that, on the surface, Gilina was better-suited to John, but the lack of chemistry was actually deliberate and she lacked the necessary skill of, y'know, being able to rescue him and the rest of the crew like Aeryn could. Even at the time, the meta implications kind of bugged me, because it was the same old assertion that there was room for only one Girl, and only one kind of strong woman, which was so at odds with what was being presented in most of the rest of the show with Aeryn, Zhaan, and Moya.