Tuesday, March 8, 2016

I'm Watching

Last week wasn't great on several levels. With my attention in too many directions and brain dealing with a couple different craptastic situations - mostly work related - I didn't get a whole lot of writing done. Nor did I get any reading in, though I did try to start one book, my head just wasn't up for it. And sleep, not so much either.

Clearly I needed to step back and recharge and that usually calls for some vegetating in front of the tv. Sleep has yet to settle back into a restful event, but I did enjoy not falling asleep to:

Ascension: An odd little scif-fi miniseries about a space ship launched in the 60's heading off on a three generation mission to a new world to colonize. If you enjoyed Tricia Helfer in BSG, she has a similar, though non-imaginary (those were some of my favorite scenes), role here. And the ending was an enjoyable "ah-ha, I see where you were actually going with that" moment. Too bad it never made it to a full series.

The Man in the High Castle: Now eagerly awaiting season 2, this series takes place also in the 60's. It wasn't my choice of themes for this binge viewing period, really. It just happened that way. In an alternate history where the Nazi's didn't lose the war and the US is divided between the Japanese and Germany. Hitler is still alive and is seemingly obsessed with even more alternate history that shows up on mysterious films. Confused as to what is real? Yeah, most of the characters are too. I have not read the book so I'm with them and will have to wait to see where this is going next season.

Dollhouse: In our quest for the next thing to watch, we gave an episode a try. My husband gave this a meh vote. I almost did to. The first episode had a Quantum Leap vibe, where the same actor is going to play a new character every week. I expected more from Joss Whedon, and as much as I enjoy Angel and Buffy snark entertainment, that wasn't what I was looking for. However, I gave the series a couple more episodes on my own to rope me in because: actors. Want to get a dose of actors from BSG, Firefly, and Buffy? Many of them turn up throughout the two seasons of this generally well written show.

After two chaotic weekends (which likely also played into my burned out feeling), I gave myself two days of utter downtime and camped out in my comfy chair, earbuds in, watching two entire seasons in two days. Get your own food, people. I'm on vacation right here. And really, what better show to take a mental vacation with, than a show about people taking a (albeit mostly non-voluntary) vacation from themselves? Okay, so my downtime turned out a lot better than theirs did, but still.

The part I appreciated most about this series was that the first season could have ended without coming back. We got a glimpse into where the show was going. I loved that. So many (specifically sci-fi) shows just drop off the air and you never know where they were headed. Here, I would have been satisfied. I'm glad there was a second season, which also had a terrific ending, but I did truly appreciate that season one finale. More shows should do this rather than leaving disgruntled sci-fi fans in their wake. I'd start a list, but there are so many that annoyed me when they got cancelled with no resolution that I'd just get angry all over again.

And now I suppose I should get back to writing.

2 comments:

  1. I find it hard to get into a TV show properly these days, too much else to do. The last time I tried was with the new X-Files, but felt a bit let down. I normally fall asleep reading - need to work on that!

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  2. I thought Dollhouse became more interesting as it went on. But no, not my fav show of all time. I recently binged on Scorpion, Awkward, and started The Americans.

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