meddow

Being that my travel plans have been postponed, for the first time in what feels like forever, I've actually had free time.

In recent television, the SJA finale was wonderful. The Brigadier was underutilised I thought, I was expecting something a little more School Reunion-ish. But Mrs. Wormwood was the magic. Heroes managed to shock me and come out with an episode which I would actually describe as 'good'. Meanwhile the latest Sanctuary episode was so god-awful I cringed all the way through. At least it was laughably awful rather than offensively awful. Hopefully, Sanctuary's sudden drop in quality is an anomaly and Heroes's sudden rise is not.

I was given by my wonderful flatmates a copy of The Dark Knight for Christmas and I've been checking out the special features today, of which it's pretty light on. However, I really kind of love those little Gotham Tonight fake news segments. I'm a big fan of fake non-fiction. Instead of watching that universe, it takes you inside it. I always thought back when The West Wing was my major fandom, how wonderful it would be to pick up a news magazine and see Bartlet on the front.

Also watched the 200th episode of Stargate SG-1 again (aptly named 200), which is quite possible one of the greatest episodes of television ever since it's pretty much a fourth wall bending prodigy of itself (and nothing escapes the lampooning), and also Star Trek, Farscape, Thunderbirds, The Wizard of Oz, Ewoks, the recent plethora of zombie movies, 'younger and sexier' television, shipper pandering and batshit paternity revelations. Best bit in my opinion is not one of the skits, but simply the bit where Teal'c calmly says "I do not understand why everything in this script must inevitably explode."

And finally, watched a wonderful little docudrama, The Worst Journey in the World, about Aspley Cherry-Gerrard written by and staring Mark Gatiss. Cherry-Gerrard's another Antarctic explorer, blamed by some at the time for failing to save Scott, Bowers and Wilson. He was eleven miles from where they died, but didn't press on, instead obeying Scott's order not to risk the dogs. Anyway, the winder before the ill-fated pole expedition he went the journey with Bowers and Wilson to retrieve an Emperor Penguin egg. It was horrific, but they all survived, Bowers and Wilson to die later and Gerrard to be psychologically scared for life. More interestingly is that Cherry-Gerrard is a bit more meta about his experience than most if not all other polar explorers, posing the question of whether the suffering was worth anything. I really need to get a hold of and read his book.

I've fallen very much in love with Sanctuary and while usually I'm the last to jump on a bandwagon, not many people are watching Sanctuary, so I'm pimping it out a bit because it a great little show and more people should be watching it.

How I think to describe it is a mixture of Torchwood, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (the graphic novel, not the movie) and Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends with a slight hint of Gilmore Girls and Heroes.



Basically, it's about a monster rescuing and hunting team, consisting of doctor, leader and all round awesome Helen Magnus (who has fast become one of my favourite characters on television) her more trigger-happy field-agent daughter Ashley (it's those two who give the show the its slight Gilmore Girls feel), Henry the snarky tech-guy, the big hairy humanoid butler who is quite possibly Big Foot and the n00b forensic psychiatrist Will Zimmerman. They all run around with guns either saving 'abnormals' from the world or the world from abnormals and doing all this from their base, a gigantic mansion known as 'The Sanctuary' which functions as an abnormal refuge, prison, research centre and medical facility.

( Shall we begin? )