- I have to say, Todd VanDerWerff does make the death throes of ‘Til Death sound much more interesting than it probably was:
This was television made by consummate professionals who were pretty sure no one was ever going to see it, and it was somehow gloriously awful and compellingly watchable all at once.
He does, of course, stop short of saying the sitcom ever got good.
- Susan Orlean’s tale of editorial alphabet soup sounds perfectly believable to me. [via]
- Jon Stewart: “We’ve redefined success…and still failed.“
- It’s not particularly reassuring to realize that BP’s massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is more than rule than the exception: More oil spilled in Nigeria “every year than has been lost in the Gulf of Mexico” [via
- And finally, two Doctor Who links: Oscar the Grouch: Time Lord [via] and wanna buy a TARDIS?
doctor who
Tuesday various
- Keith Phipps revisits Dick Tracy: “Inescapable in 1990, it’s become at best a hazy memory.”
- Doctor Hoo – Doctor Who In Owl Form. Because of course. [via]
- Well here’s something that might make me change my (mostly negative) thinking on 3D movies: Plan 9 from Outer Space in 3D?
- Great Literature Retitled to Boost Web Traffic [via]
- And finally, Winscape, the virtual window. [via]
June 19
More of the same today, mostly, with the most exciting thing being the new episode of Doctor Who that I watched. (And I thought Russell T. Davies threw everything and the kitchen sink into his last season finale.) I’m not 100%, still with the cough, but I am feeling a whole lot better today.
Body shots
I had a pretty decent, if largely uneventful, Saturday. I got a little more caught up on Kaleidotrope slush, finally reading everything submitted earlier than last month. And I watched this week’s episode of Doctor Who, which I quite enjoyed. Next week’s looks like another everything-plus-the-kitchen-sink’s-kid-brother sort of episode, but you certainly can’t accuse Steven Moffat of not having a plan. This evening I also watched Jennifer’s Body, which I can’t pretend to have enjoyed very much at all. Less than halfway through, I switched the lights back on and pulled out my iPad for distraction. Scott Tobias and Kyle Ryan go a long way towards explaining what’s wrong with the movie. It’s like a very badly written version of Ginger Snaps. I wish I could say the movie got better as it went — I genuinely enjoyed Diablo Cody’s previous movie, Juno and the one episode of United States of Tara I’ve seen — but I think it would be wrong to lie. Better to just move on…dot org. (Ugh.)
I did manage to get caught up, ever so briefly, in today’s World Cup match between the United States and England. I like soccer — I played for several years, up until sixth grade, and tried out (very unsuccessfully) for my high school team — but professional matches can appear to be very boring, with only brief spikes in excitement when someone gets close to scoring a goal. Those appearances might be deceptive — the rest of the world can’t be completely wrong, can they? — but I don’t think I’ll be getting up first thing tomorrow to watch the US in their next match, or any of the other matches. If I happen to catch some more, I’ll maybe watch, the same way I watched this year’s Olympics, but that’s probably it.
Beyond that, it was mostly just a quiet Saturday.
Saturday
Not the most eventful day around. I watched this week’s episode of Doctor Who; you certainly can’t fault Steven Moffatt for not thinking big, not with those last few moments, even if the episode itself was mostly just a FX’ed-up version of past Silurian episodes. (Well, of the tiny handful I’ve seen.) I liked it, though I’m much more curious where that ending is taking us, and I just hope that Moffatt already knows.
I also watched Mystery Team on DVD, since my autographed copy came in the mail today. (I’m a fan of Derrick Comedy and think Donald Glover’s been terrific on Community, so I want to support them.) It was pretty silly, all things considered, but also laugh-out-loud funny.
I was happy to discover that the first episode of Star Trek (the original series) wasn’t laugh-out-loud funny. I’ve never actually seen much of the show, despite having seen plenty of the spinoffs and movies, and now that it’s out on Bluray, it seemed like it was time to remedy that. It’s very obviously dated, but there’s still something to it, and I pretty much enjoyed the episode.
Beyond that? Not much. Just hung out, fiddled around with the iPad, tried cleaning up a virus on my laptop — which is now either gone or has gotten better at hiding — and just enjoying the day off.