On a friday
Busy isn’t even an apt description for my life anymore, and I’m tired of saying it, and so I’m going to stop from this point forward, and you all can just assume that it is a constant. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but saying I miss the leisurely pace of college, et al prior to this point, is also starting to annoy me, because it’s becoming some sort of denial chant, tinged with the unspoken, but plainly obvious desire that I’d like to go back in time. Which I shouldn’t because it’s not all that bad, rather just an inconvience on getting things done at my own pace. I’m lazy and I have a huge budget of fun activity time that getting eaten too quickly. Time to adapt and no more whining. About my amount of free time in any case. Television however, that’s a different matter. Season finale time has been rough this year, Deaths and opt outs and annoying, unpredictable changes that I hadn’t pondered ahead of time. And then I wonder why Networks don’t take chances on shows.
QT’s CSI Season Finale: A little unfocused a little out of character, made it clear that the genres didn’t mix. Exploding dude good. 2nd hour much better than the first, but on the whole Average. Which has been status quo lately. C+
LOST Season Finale: Okay I will say it again here. I like Dan Roebuck, I liked his character, I think Lost defintely needs a ‘Professor’ component and Artzt could have done that well. What was his sin, huh? The neckerchief? Bah! So fine, go ahead and kill all the characters I like. See if I care! *pout* That really distracted me from the rest of the episode. I like some of the inky black effects, everyone levels out and Michael better start realizing his kid is being set up to be the antichrist in this Survival Island Supernatural Jumanji game of backgammon. Survivors = white pieces, untainted, naive, virgins to the island that they are, and The Others = black pieces, sullied, warped and Joseph Conrad-ed into villians. But Locke, yes, Locke being that great contridiction that he is, well I figure Locke for a referee, you know those striped shirts. Good stuff all around. A
NCIS Season Finale: I’m not happy. And it’s not because of the show or the writing or the acting, all of which continue to gel every week- but Don Bellasario needs to stop killing people. First Mac w/ Magnum PI, and then almost Bud on JAG, and I won’t talk about the ‘death’ of Quantum Leap; but that dude messes with my head. I liked Kate, a lot. But overall it was a great final for the season. Bringing back Ari who is a great villian, and the torture with DiNozzo last week. And it was great even if I didn’t like it. A+ *grumble*
House Season Finale:Another unsatisfactory end for me. The show’s been a bit shaky lately, I was distracted with the Cameron/House thing, and didn’t notice that I think it’s undermining House as the magnificant bastard we all know and love. So happily they put the brakes on that it seems, complicate things more with the addition of Sela Ward, who I don’t really dislike, because she’s doing a good job at being House’s weak spot. Getting him to do things I honestly believe he does not want to do. Great conflict with the Husband in that “See what I did there?” scene… I’d like to see more 1-on-1 with House and Wilson/Chase/Foreman, because I do love Foreman, but this ep copped out something big, and it was the fact that they backed away from tearing House down completely. In an early draft the final scene took place at a bar (http://www.nicollecjones.com/House_1×21_final_scene.pdf), and House was as close to the bottom of the barrel as we have ever seen him. Detox? Yeah not even close. I loved the scene, I was looking forward to it, and what do I get, but a vague, ooo look he’s taking stolen amphetamines now. Ehhhn. I mean, okay, but I didn’t even get the fact that wasn’t his normal vicodin until someone pointed it out. We’ve seen him pop pills, we know he’s an addict, it’s old ground, I like the inferrence it may be out of control- because the bottle was empty and we can’t really assume he didn’t already take all of them, but still. It really comes down to degrees of self destruction: Is putting yourself in physical danger, drinking and abusing prescription drugs and alcohol worse than abusing stolen drugs? If they’re saving it for next season, great, but if it’s just gone to random drug use, you know cocaine and heroin are visually distinct and they come with a social mythology all their own. So yeah I would have gone with the bar. And look, surprise my longest recap goes to House, B+
And because I don’t just watch TV, I have been doing some reading, and some writing, and playing some videogames, and some guitar. The reading is getting out of hand, because I am currently reading House of Leaves, Brave New World, and Order of the Phoenix between the Bob McGee theory book trying to spit polish the emotional story component of Nickle and Dime. John Rogers actually blogged something (http://kfmonkey.blogspot.com/2005/05/writing-plot-and-story.html) that really helped me because I was having a hard time getting my head around what wasn’t working, and why I was mired all up; that is specifically, I was a little preoccupied with plot and taking story for granted. Bad writer, Nicolle= bad writing. It’s just so intangible sometimes that no matter what you read in all the books and how much you do all the damn note cards or the frakking arc diagrams, it never sets in your mind. It’s just floating around, like my brain is a giant snowglobe with the pieces falling slowly downward. The obvious difference between rookie scribes like me, and well, everyone else I suppose. But anyway Rogers is damn helpful.