Yammerings about Stargate Atlantis

Two episodes with Richard Woolsey in charge and already I like him better than Sam Carter. In "The Seed," the second ep of the season, he learned a lesson about how dirty and decidedly not by-the-book life is in Atlantis. And I'm so glad he's coming in with a reasonable balance between being The Man and following IOA rules, and the recognition that being in command of a base in another galaxy does, in fact, mean some of those rules just don't apply. And in Friday's "Broken Ties," I was happy with the way he reminded the team that he's the new guy in charge, but still clearly respected the experience and commitment of the Pegasus veterans. For someone who seemed like such an odd choice to be in command, it looks as though Woolsey is going to work out well (assuming doors start opening for him, that is).

While being a monster-of-the-week episode (not usually my favourites), "The Seed" had some interesting things in it, particularly the very cool sentient not-a-plant-thing. If nothing else, it was nice to get a little more info on how Wraith ships are made... er, grown. Also, it was nice to see Carson and I look forward to seeing him again later in the season, but that doesn't change my eyeroll at dead not meaning dead. I wonder if they've told Carson's mother a clone of her son is back on Earth.

I'm afraid the only thing I have to say about Ronon's adventure in "Broken Ties" has to do with that awful mop on his head. It's a damn shame that when Jason Momoa decided to cut off his dreads, the powers that be didn't just go ahead and let his character make the same decision. It must be terribly difficult for the costume department to come up with a head full of dreads that doesn't look like a bad wig. Terribly difficult. Nigh impossible, in fact.

Other than that, the Ronon-gets-kidnapped story wasn't especially engaging. I didn't care either way about seeing his Satedan pal Tyre again, and I expected a nice clean wrap-up by the end of the episode, so that was pretty anticlimactic.

So, Teyla's back on the team, Kanaan is human again, and Woolsey makes babies cry. It seemed unecessary to drag out Teyla's decision through the entire episode, as if we didn't already know she'd be rejoining her team. Anything for "dramatic tension," I guess. Now I wonder just how much we'll see of her being a mom, and of baby Torren. Michael had big plans for the kid, but do the writers?

Because I just wouldn't be a proper fangirl if I let it pass without comment, I want to see McKay in a bubble bath in every episode. Maybe with fewer bubbles next time.

Finally, Stargate: Continuum is released on DVD tomorrow. I'll watch it and probably enjoy it well enough, but I haven't heard anything that makes me think it's going to be great. At least Jack O'Neill is back.

New season of Eureka starts tomorrow

SciFi Channel's original series Eureka returns tomorrow, ushering in its third season with an all day marathon of season 2, starting at 8am EDT. The word (if you believe what "they" say) is that the new season will see a return to the light & fluffy of season 1. Given that the second season only hinted at anything dark without ever actually going there, I'm not expecting the new season to be much of a change over the last. Not that that's a bad thing, mind you - I like this show a lot, fluffy or not.

So, new Eureka tomorrow night, Tuesday, July 29, 9pm EDT, on SciFi.

Watchmen trailer

Go here right now and watch this.

Go! Now!!

Man, does it look good. It's going to take an effort to keep my expectations (what's that you say, Disappointment?) in check, because I am ready for this movie to be fucking incredible.

Diseases of the World

Want to know where the latest instances of Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever have shown up? Yeah, I thought you did. How about typhoid, or encephalitis, or even the plague (eek!)? Conveniently, that information is now available online. HealthMap offers all this and more.

So, before you travel to Indiana, be aware of the recent outbreak of syphilis.

The return of Stargate Atlantis

Be careful touching this post – it's got squee all over it.

I love my team, I love this show. I love John & Rodney's concern for each other. I love Teyla and her baby. I love Michael (I know, I disgust myself sometimes). Even Carter was good in this episode.

So, when last we saw our intrepid heroes, they were attempting to rescue Teyla, but instead ended up at the bottom of a crumbling building. Turned out, some redshirts bit the dust, while our heroes (Sheppard, Ronon, McKay and Lorne) were a little worse for wear, but survived. And, of course, the nick-of-time rescue of Sheppard and Ronon was awesome, mostly for the few moments before said rescue.

About Sheppard's dream at the beginning, Ford was never one of my favourite characters (a little too gung-ho marine for me, even before the enzyme turned him into a nutjob). Nonetheless, it was so nice to see him again. Each and every one of the two-thousand milliseconds he was on-screen was a pleasure.

Did Rodney call Michael's database a wiki? I'm not sure if that hurts my brain, or if I think it's cool.

I loved John's stoicism, but I loved Ronon's stubbornness even more. Also, John's not a very good liar. I don't believe he'd leave Ronon if their positions were reversed.

I love Rodney McKay with a fangirlishness that knows no bounds, but I'm pretty damn sure I wouldn't want him helping to deliver my baby. And afterwards, John told Rodney he did good? Uh, how about Teyla? You know, the one who actually had the baby. This ep kind of made me wonder if the writers aren't trying to brace us for the entirely unexpected reveal that McKay and Sheppard are, in fact, a couple.

Hey, a girl can hope.

Michael's ship was destroyed, but this is science fiction television and there's no reason to think that means Michael's dead. Our heroes got off his ship with five adults and a newborn, so it's not much of a stretch to think Michael managed to make it off as well. That's probably just wishful thinking, though.

So, while the end was no surprise, I liked the way the news was delivered. Call me crazy, but I actually like Woolsey and I'm kind of excited about him taking Carter's place.

Yay! Stargate Atlantis is back!! All right, now I can't wait 'til next week.

Fifty-six days and counting!

DragonCon is once again on the horizon (August 29-Sept 1) and I'm starting to get a bit psyched. The guest list is looking good, though subject to change, of course. There are lots of folks I'm eager to see, but the highlights today include Aaron Douglas (Galen Tyrol, Battlestar Galactica), Katee Sackhoff (Starbuck, Battlestar Galactica), Adam Baldwin (Jayne, Firefly), Cliff Simon (Ba'al, Stargate SG-1), David Nykl (Radek Zelenka, Stargate Atlantis), George Takei (if you need a reference for this guy, for shame!), and a bunch of others I don't feel like listing. The upshot is, this oughta be a good year.

I haven't thought much about costumes and I'm not really sure I'll be doing anything special this year. I do know I have neither the time nor the motivation to bust out anything really fancy, so I might just be sticking with clever t-shirts, and maybe a pirate get-up. Everyone loves pirates!

Hammond of Texas has fallen

Actor Don S. Davis was taken out by a heart attack a few days ago. In geekdom, his biggest role was as Maj. General George Hammond on Stargate SG-1, but he's got a long list of TV and movie credits spanning more than 25 years. Among his numerous guest appearances on TV shows, one of his most notable was as Dana Scully's father, William Scully, on The X-Files.

Fans will get to see him one last time as Hammond at the end of this month when Stargate: Continuum is released.

On a much more up note, I've been squeeing at commercials for season 5 of Stargate Atlantis. Squeeing, I tell you! It would be undignified, had I any dignity to begin with. The season kicks off next Friday, July 11, at 10pm on the SciFi Channel. As excited as I am, I couldn't laugh harder at the promo pictures released by MGM. They're simply awful. So, in the spirit of mocking, I've changed the Show & Tell picture to a macro made by SGA and slash fan Fia Reynne. It's SGA meets Captain Morgan meets Astroglide. Awww yeah.

I think so, Brain, but burlap chafes me so

This week I saw Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. I'll start my nitpicking by saying that title is too damn long. The gist of my impressions are that George Lucas had his hacky little fingers all over the dialogue, and it would make a great Animaniacs* episode. The music was mostly enjoyable (unmistakably John Williams), but there were a few scenes where it was so comical that I half expected Yakko, Wakko & Dot to show up.

While I'm not inclined to lump this movie in with Temple of Doom (appropriately number two in the series), it doesn't hold a candle to Raiders or Last Crusade.

Surprisingly, I did not find Shia LaBeouf to be especially offensive, nor his character, Mutt, especially annoying. I wasn't sure; I'd only seen him in one other movie and I was underwhelmed. Anyway, I actually liked him in this. Of course, it was such a huge pleasure to see Karen Allen again. Unfortunately, there was about one twenty-third of a second wherein Marion and Indy had any chemistry at all, and then the moment passed and I was left feeling just kind of blah about their reunion. Their romance did nothing for me and the wedding at the end felt soulless. Damn.

I enjoyed seeing John Hurt, though I felt like he was wasted considering the amount of time he spent onscreen. But, it was nice to see him, and in a very wonderful way, he reminded me of my friend Todd (hey Todd!).

On a scale of one to ten, I give it an "almost could have waited for DVD." And, that seems to be all I have to say about it.


*for those not hip to Animaniacs, it's a 1990s Steven Spielberg exec produced cartoon, and it's very funny. The title for this post is a quote from the show; Yakko, Wakko & Dot are characters.

BSG storyline striking parallel to Days of Our Lives

Yes, that's hyperbole, and it's been awhile since I've known wtf is up on Days, so I don't know if it's true. However, I cannot deny that Battlestar Galactica continues to be painfully soap opera. If the way the show is going is any indication, I am so not going to watch Caprica when it kicks off. The joke has been that the spin-off will be Dynasty-in-space, but now I'm not so sure it's a joke.

I came away from last week's ep thinking that the show is asking me to suspend my disbelief regarding some pretty hefty issues of human character and human interaction, and this week's ep didn't make me feel a lot better. Adama found out his XO impregnated the Six in the brig (more on that in a moment), but then he gave him the keys to the whole fucking fleet when he decided he had to go on a quest to find his lost girlfriend? Wtf? Romo (who it was so great to see and so frustrating to see misused) showed Lee Adama a dead cat and Lee suddenly "realized" he should be the president? And unbelievably, the colonies' twisted little senate agreed? I repeat, wtf?

And then Baltar was on a Baseship trying (succeeding?) to sell dogma to the centurions, which just kinda bugged the fuck out of me. Also, how heavy-handed was the wound in his side? Very; yes, it was very heavy-handed.

There have been good things, though. I like the hybrid and I hope we don't come to understand her much better than we do now. The greatest amount of awesome to be found in the last two eps was in the scene at the end of last week's "Sine Qua Non," when the hybrid awoke with "jump!" Ooo! that gave me some shivers!

Other cool things included D'Anna snapping Cavil's neck. It's nice to have D'Anna back and it's nice to see Lucy Lawless again. Then there's Tigh's aforementioned cylon nookie, coming to Adama's attention with one of the most intriguing twists yet – a cylon managed to knock up another cylon, something they had not been able to achieve. That would have been a perfect opportunity for Tigh to tell Adama he's a toaster, but that would have made too much sense and meant Adama couldn't leave Tigh in charge of the fleet. Oddly, the fact that he's fucking a toaster, who is being held in the brig because they don't know if they can trust her, does not seem to interfere with Adama's desire to go get some nookie for himself. Really??

Further, I'm jarred by the utterly mangled love story that is Roslin and Adama. I was so pulling for those two to get together, but the past several episodes have left me bored, annoyed or stupidly surprised by some of their actions. I'm having trouble swallowing the idea that Admiral William Adama, military leader of the Colonial fleet, protector of the last of the dwindling human population, hopped in a viper to chase down the Basestar that stole (oh gag!) his fucking soulmate. Okay, I take back what I said earlier – this show is in fact a high-budget version of Days, and Bill & Laura are John & Marlene in space. Ouch.

Bah! First post on my blog after a little break and I bitch bitch bitch. Today's entry has been brought to you by the meme "lodge a complaint on the internet" and by the mood "critical." See you again soon, kids!

*knock*knock* Is this thing on?

On the off chance that it isn't abundantly obvious, I've been taking a break from the blog. I just wanted a little time away.

During my break, I've been watching Battlestar Galactica (holy shit!), getting excited for the return of Eureka and Stargate Atlantis in July (yay!), reading some really excellent books (no wonder Rendezvous with Rama is a classic!), and enjoying some summer movie releases (Iron Man was awesome!). I'm following scifi news, having geeky conversations with my friends, and I expect I'll be back to blogging with some regularity in the not-too-distant future. I've also given up double spaces between sentences (in your face Chicago Manual of Style!).

So, if you haven't completely wandered off during my hiatus, I sincerely thank you and I hope that when I come back it will be with something that interests you.

Finally, because I totally illegally swiped the current Show and Tell picture from (SGA show runner) Joe Mallozzi's blog, I want to share a funny tidbit from said blog. A commenter writes: "Are they ever going to stop with these ridiculous hybrid names for crossbreeds? When I first got my mutt he was just a little mongrel but now apparently he’s called a Springador (Springer Spaniel/Labrador cross)…" And Mallozzi's fuckin' brilliant response is: "I want my next dog to be a Bulldog Shitzu mix just because of the crossbreed name potential it provides." I think I pulled something, I laughed so hard.

That's it for now, thanks!