Spike Vs. Spy – the latest #Buffyrewatch

I’m up to “The Initiative” in my BtVS rewatch.

In related news, I was on a Whedonites Assemble! panel this past weekend at VCon, and one of the Gentlemen showed up. His real name is Doug Jones and he wanted to thank all the fans for keeping him employed.

Tomorrow, as I’ve mentioned a dozen times already, should see the release of my novelette “Wild Things” into the, um, wild. Eeee! I am very excited.

Telewitterings: Sean Bean is not in World Without End (yet)

Two episodes in, World Without End seems to be Game of Thrones, with twice the rape, some okay medieval history, and none of the magic. That doesn’t mean it’s terrible: really, this is just a listing of ingredients.

The story is based on a Ken Follet book, World Without End, and it’s set in England during the reign of Edward the II. There are a few familiar faces within the cast, most notably Miranda Richardson. The story hums along: this is not one of those tales that morsels out plot in tiny teaspoons–we’ve seen three episodes, and already months have passed and there’s been a significant bodycount. And, in fact, one of the characters who’s already died was played by an actor who’s been horribly killed in every single thing we’ve seen them appear in.

No, not Sean Bean, but speaking of which, have you seen this? It’s The Save Sean Bean campaign on Rock, Paper, Cynic!! Comedy genius!

Anyway, similar thing: whenever I see this other actor onscreen, or see their name in a list of credits, it’s ironclad: Okay! We all know what’s going to happen to them! Gruesome death ahoy!

It’s an interesting thing, isn’t it? What qualities would you need, as a performer, to so reliably get you typecast as doomed?

Halloween comes early on the #Buffyrewatch @tordotcom

I’m up to “Fear, Itself” this week on the Buffy Rewatch. Enjoy!

State of the Office:
The first coat of "Durango dust" (aka cream) is on the first two walls. Coat two commencing now.

This weekend I went off for what turned out to be a 7.5 km walk with Barb in Everett Crowley Park and environs while Kelly went to yoga. We then grabbed up a Modo Car and went OMG, everywhere. Lunch at Triluzza, the recycling depot, the paint store, Gourmet Warehouse for hominy, the drug store, the produce market, and some other errandy place I can’t remember.

On Sunday, we had made a reservation to go spoil ourselves at the Urban Tea Merchant. We had a thoroughly decadent tea (which didn’t photograph as well as I’d like but what can you do?) and then returned home in a state of caffeinated bliss and attacked the painting of the first two walls.

Last Import-65

Telewitterings: diamonds and décolletage

First: Squee! Tonight we all get new Doctor Who!! And over the next month, many other good things will head back in our direction: here at Chez Dua, we’re stoked about Revenge (no, really!), Smash, and a new trio of Wallanders.

But in the meantime, we’ve been scraping the sides of Netflix.ca, and what we’ve found most recently is Damages.

Damages, like Revenge, Like Smash, is–as we put it at my house–chickly. Its alpha character is Glenn Close, who is a fierce litigation lawyer with an apparent zest for righting the wrongs of very rich men. The bright-eyed questy character, played by Rose Byrne, is a first-year lawyer named Ellen Parsons. Like Sidney Bristow of Alias, she starts off the pilot with a handsome doctor boyfriend fiancé. Like the would-be Mister Sidney, he’s gonna end up in the same place. Pretty much exactly the same place, now that I think of it.

Alias, I think you’ll agree, isn’t about much beyond “Yay, Jennifer Garner is dangling from a harness in pursuit of an improbable artifact, wearing a skimpy outfit and a new wig and fighting with her father and her love interest on comms! Go Jennifer go!” Believe me when I saw, I was all for that. And Revenge, mostly, is about opera-scale dramatics–rich-people fighting at fancy parties, wearing pretty dresses and threatening to claw each others’ eyeballs. It’s pretty much Kraft Dinner with diamonds and décolletage.

Damages, Smash and Political Animals (a recent mini-series starring Sigorney Weaver as a Hilary Clinton type), on the other hand, are all exploring the idea of women with ambition. Men, naturally, are allowed to have ambition. Nobody much questions it when some fellow wants to grow up to be a billionaire captain of industry or the star of a musical about Marilyn Monroe or a Joint Chief of Staff or leader, as they say, of the free world. It’s barely worthy of note, really, unless he’s MacBeth and ready to kill and kill again just for the throne of Scotland. But the characters in these shows I’m watching now have big dreams. The undercurrent of the story is: go for it, ladies, but do expect to pay. Your relationships will fail, your kids–if you’re silly enough to attempt to nurture life–will hate you, you’ll make enemies and move through a world full of people looking to chop you off at the knees. All for having the temerity to reach.

I’m not saying there’s never been a show that dug into this before, but this seems like a bit of a surge. Are there others on now? Are you watching any of the above? What do you all think of this?

It’s okay if the answer is Mmmm, pasta.

It’s all Prommy on the Buffy Rewatch

The latest Buffy rewatch is up on Tor.com; it’s called “One Last Date with an Angel.” This takes me into season four, and into episodes I’ve only seen a couple times. In terms of story, the second and third seasons of BtVS are my favorites, but the later stuff has a newness that comes of my not having memorized every single frame. And that’s delightful too.

In news that’s barely relevant because it involves Joss Whedon, you may have heard that he’s been cast as a recurring character in the second season of “Husbands.” Here’s the first episode–it’ll only take you half an hour to whip through S1 and get to Joss.