Passing Sentences #1

Sort of a new feature I'm trying out: extra-short reviews of stuff I've seen this week.

Rome, These Being The Words of Marcus Tullius Cicero: Quite possibly the best thing currently on TV (narrowly beating out "Heroes" thanks to the copious amounts of male nudity), and this episode was no exception. Awesome blend of the political and the personal. But I miss Max Pirkis already. :(

Heroes, The Fix: I don't get why they insist on calling Peter an empath, or how Hiro got so nuts over the Magic Sword, but those are minor nitpicks and everything else is still running strong. And it's nice to see Sylar's still in the game.

Veronica Mars, Poughkeepsie, Tramps and Thieves: Oh God, please, enough with the melodrama already! How many times are Veronica and Logan going to break up this year? Don't either of them have anything better to do?

Supernatural, Touched: Meh. After last week's exciting developments, Eric Kripke wastes an hour trying to tackle The God Question. Which is pointless, since he hasn't established any concrete mythologies in the Supernaturalverse anyway. Better luck next time, I suppose.

Order of the Stick: It's been a great couple of months for OotS fans - Elan and Haley got together, the threat of Xykon is steadily growing, and this week saw Miko Miyazaki's fall from grace. That, and the subsequent smackdown, has been long overdue, and the payoff was flawless.

Friendly Hostility: In her annotations, Sandra says the point of this week's storyline (Collin had a sex dream about his straight friend Arath) was to underscore Collin's insecurities about Fox and women (because Fox has sex dreams about women all the time). I can't quite connect the dots on that one, as it seems more natural that Collin would angry because Fox doesn't care - not only is he not jealous of Arath, he regales his boyfriend with stories of his Dream Harem. Something's not right there, IMO.

Something Positive: Flashbacks are always interesting, especially the pre-Boston ones when Davan and Aubrey had this whole other group of friends. I like that Milholland doesn't drive home the fact of how doomed Scott and Rose are - we know what happens to them, but it's kind of nice to see them as they were before it all went so wrong.

Book Review: X-Men - Dark Mirror by Marjorie Liu

So here's the thing: I'm not going to be reviewing comics for a while.

Looking back at 2006, what I'm mainly feeling is tremendous apathy. It's not that everything sucked, it's that even the successes are marred by failure. With Marvel, the post-post-Morrison revamp of the X-Men line got me interested in all three core books, but also resulted in Chris Claremont taking over "Exiles". "Planet Hulk" turned out to be a prelude to another crossover event. "Young Avengers" has disappeared. "Spider-Girl" sank into the backwaters of Clone Saga continuity. DC has fared no better: Worldstorm crashed and burned, leaving only "Gen13", "Tranquility" and "Stormwatch: PHD" (all interesting, all too new for me to decide whether I'm sticking around or not). Of all the OYL revamps, only Gail Simone's "Atom" managed to maintain some kind of appeal three months in, and even then we've only had the one arc so far and it falls into the same category as its Worldstorm counterparts.

Then there are the books that have been (and will likely remain) consistent: Brubaker's "Daredevil" and "Captain America", Vaughan's "Y: The Last Man" and "Runaways", "Fables", "Girls", etc. Don't get me wrong, I'm very grateful they're still around, but I don't have anything to say about them. They're excellent reads, but they always were (at least in terms of current runs - I refuse to vouch for pre-Brubaker Cap).

And then you have the failures. The dismal, dismal failures, with "Civil War" topping the list. But "Civil War" is only a symptom of the greater problems: incompetent writers, lazy editors, brain-dead administrators, false advertising bordering on fraud, increasing reliance on shock tactics in lieu of substance and creativity... Frustrating? Absolutely so. But it's been frustrating for just long enough now that I see little need to comment on it anymore. The mainstream is as much a barnyard target now as it was at the end of 2005, but that's not likely to change any time soon. I'm just tired of it, and I'd like to take what few series still please me and let that be that.

Of course, that doesn't mean I can't check out something like "X-Men: Dark Mirror". If Marvel makes the effort to hit the prose market, the least I can do is sample what they're offering.

The agenda behind the novel line, as it stands now, isn't immediately clear to me (aside from cashing in, of course). I'd like to think someone at Marvel recognized that comics regularly dabble in certain themes that don't get the page allocation they might otherwise merit; I can certainly see that being the case with "Dark Mirror". The high concept of body-switching has been done before, but Marjorie Liu makes a conscious decision to focus on the psychology behind that premise, the more horrific take on being trapped in someone else's body, while a stranger wears your face. It's much more nuanced than anything comics could offer, since the generic tropes of superhero fiction require that certain staples be ever-present (ie: The Fight Scene), so I'll concede that there's merit - in theory - for this sort of thing.

Sadly, Marvel makes the same mistake here that they make with their comics: they select writers that simply aren't up for the job.

I can't accuse Liu of phoning it in - it's plainly obvious that she's making every effort to convey the complicated feelings "Dark Mirror" is meant to evoke. Five X-Men wake up in a mental institution, imprisoned in human bodies (and in some cases, in bodies of the opposite gender). They're helpless, at the mercy of doctors and nurses who believe them insane, and they have no idea what happened or who might be using their powers and faces. It's a terrifying situation, but Liu can't seem to tap into that terror, that kind of raw emotion that would make the story work. It's not laziness on her part; I really do feel that she gave it her all, but the results are middling at best. This is a story about people, not powers, but Liu can't seem to access those people at all. She strips her protagonists bare, reduces them to the core of their character, but is unable to proceed from that point. In fact, there's an almost clincal detachment with regards to how Liu depicts her cast, and that's precisely the wrong way to go about it because caring about the X-Men as people, as individuals, is the only thing that would motivate anyone to keep turning the pages.

It doesn't help that the novel suffers from interchangable protagonism - that is to say, any character could have been substituted for the X-Men, and the story would remain the same. There's nothing in the novel that inherently makes it an X-Men story, no real thematic link aside from the Phoenix-ex-machina (but more on that in a moment). Again, that approach runs somewhat at odds with the directive at hand: if you're setting aside the masks and codenames, it'd probably behoove you to make sure the person underneath is defined well enough that it's their story, rather than a story in which they happen to be present.

"Dark Mirror" is also (intentionally?) vague about its chronological setting; Liu claims that she "tried to do something inside X-Men continuity, but that was rejected because the people in charge thought it would be too confusing to new readers." Hmph. Ironically, the plot's conclusion hinges on a twist no new reader could possibly decipher (the aforementioned Phoenix Force, which - let's face it - requires some basic knowledge of X-Men comics lore). Likewise, Liu doesn't do much to flesh the characters out beyond their pre-established parameters, so if you don't know these guys going in, you're not going to emerge any more enlightened by the end of it. I'll willing to shift part of the blame to the powers that be; as much as I'm an advocate of accessibility, the whole Myth of the New Reader has to stop now. Anyone approaching "X-Men" to begin with will have some elementary understanding of what lies ahead. Maybe Liu would have done better had the story been set in present continuity; as I said, there is a kind of dissonance between what she's trying to summon and what actually turns up on the page, which means she's either a very limited writer or she's doing what she can with characters she never wanted to write in the first place.

I suppose we'll never know. Good thing we have "the people in charge" looking out for our interests. Meanwhile, that's another novel down the drain. :(

Quick comment on Supernatural 2.10

If the weather channel mentions any wild gusts sweeping over the Middle East, that's just me exhaling in relief. The most recent episode of "Supernatural" has finally revealed the Big Secret, and I'm delighted to report that no sharks were jumped.

I have to admit, I was nervous; but this is one time I'm glad to admit I was wrong to expect the worst.

Book Review: Star Trek - Dark Passions (Vol. 1)

During my brief introduction to Star Trek (courtesy of Tom, my Trekkie then-boyfriend), one concept that piqued my interest was the Mirror Universe. It's a theme I'm quite partial to in fiction, the notion of characters facing negative images of themselves. It's why "Future Imperfect" is one of my favorite Hulk stories. Even after I lost interest in Star Trek proper (sci-fi, in general, isn't my cup of tea), I'd tune in whenever "Deep Space Nine" aired a Mirror Universe episode. It all went spectacularly off the rails towards the end, but those first few episodes were quite good.

Over a decade later, I've stumbled across a pair of novels by Susan Wright, set in the Mirror Universe and focusing specifically on female characters, politics and intrigue. The tagline promises four powerful women vying for control of the universe; sounds good enough for a casual read, doesn't it?

Wright starts off nicely, going behind the scenes to depict the internal structures and hierarchies of the Alliance. This is something we never got to see before, as the bulk of Mirror Universe episodes tended to focus more on how characters interacted with their counterparts. "Dark Passions", by contrast, isolates the MU from any other context and asks us to interpret these characters on their own merits.

Which would be just fine, except Wright offers little in the way of exploring her cast. It's one thing to skimp on fleshing out Worf and Kira, who'd already been well-established in the TV series, but most of the story revolves around characters we'd never seen, such as Annika Hansen (better known to Voyager fans, if any exist, as Seven of Nine). And without any in-depth characterization, the novel falls flat rather quickly; after all, any novel about political manipulation requires some sort of anchor, a character who serves as the focal point. Wright offers several possibilities, but none of them are especially compelling: Kira is her usual hedonistic (to the point of idiocy, really) self, Deanna Troi's position as consort to the Alliance Regent doesn't seem to grant her much in the way of real power, B'Elanna Torres (Intendant of Sol) is built up as this huge force to be reckoned with only to fizzle out, and so on and so forth. Wright fails to take full advantage of these women, of the fact that she has carte blanche to remake popular Trek characters as she sees fit.

In fact, the novels' tagline is rather misleading: the four primary protagonists of "Dark Passions" aren't fighting each other for control of the Alliance at all. Kira's the only one with tangible ambitions; Troi just wants to build a Club Med on her homeworld, B'Elanna would like everyone to forget she's half-human, and Annika's a pawn taking orders from whichever master she's stuck with. There are so many possibilities, and Wright chooses the least interesting option each time.

Part of the problem lies with the author's tendency to describe key scenes and interactions in retrospective summary, after the events have already taken place. A character will abruptly start an internal monologue and deliver a huge chunk of exposition about events that occurred between the pages of the novel. Not only is it distracting, it shatters the pace. I'd hazard a guess that Wright was under some sort of length constraint, though neither book is much more than 200 pages. Besides, there are ways around that sort of thing, none of which manifest here.

Then there's the innuendo. The DS9 episodes were infamous for its lesbian subtexts (specifically with regards to Kira), but Wright pretty much makes all of her female leads lesbians. It's a bit monotonous by the end of the first book, especially when all these supposedly-powerful women end up using the same techniques of sapphic seduction to get what they want. I get the sense that Wright may have written "Dark Passions" as a female-centric response to that trope of "Star Trek" where the captain has to shag some alien bint in order to save the galaxy; here, women use that same power against other women for the same purpose. But it seems to be the only method of political maneuvering Wright can conceive of, and she wears it out fairly quickly.

Ultimately, the first volume doesn't live up to its potential at all; I didn't even bother with the second book.

The Bitch Is Back!

A bit ahead of schedule, but I give you: Sententia 2.0! New look, new content, new possibilities! Let's hope the Law of Sucky Sequels won't apply. :D

Getting down to business: I tend to find bad porn somewhat amusing, so when one of my very best friends brought Stonewall and Riot to my bachelorette party... well, it was the perfect gift, really. It's more than just porn, you see. It's gay porn. Gay superhero porn. In CGI. The damned Holy Grail for reviewers everywhere, to be certain.

Now, I could take the traditional route of "Jesus bloody Christ, human bodies can't actually do that!", but the thing that got my attention - what makes this movie worth mentioning - is the fact that it's kind of funny. Not in the usual sense where you laugh at awkward sex scenes and atrocious puns and you can't help pitying the poor schmoes who got stuck with the voice-acting; there are moments of deliberate humor in this movie that work.

It's basically a send-up of Batman circa Adam West, the gimmick being that Stonewall and his wiseass partner Riot defeat supervillains by screwing them, rather than beat them into submission. So when the town's resident mad scientist is kidnapped, they "investigate" by sleeping their way through an entire rogues' gallery. Cue twosomes, threesomes, foursomes and a very weird two-man body-job on a giant dressed like Henry VIII.

Now, I'd never accuse a porno of being subtle; the bad guys include Doctor Probe (who obviously drives a giant phallus-shaped robot) and Straight Boy, whose power involves switching sexual orientations when he's really drunk. But, from time to time, creator Joe Philips surprises me by pulling off a successful gag. For example, in one scene, Stonewall and Riot have to suit up and promptly spin in clockwise circles, only to emerge dressed as Wonder Woman and Artemis - at which point they remember they're supposed to spin counter-clockwise. Sure, it's silly, but this is hardly a film to be taken seriously... I mean, it includes a five-minute origin story presented as a musical number by a Joker analog who calls himself the French Tickler. Garth Ennis is probably sitting at a bar somewhere, wishing he'd come up with that one.

I don't think it's particularly erotic, though. Campy as hell, and rather like something Chuck Austen would've written if he had an inkling of comical talent, but I have a hard time imagining anyone would genuinely get off on it. Still, it got quite a few giggles out of me and my girlfriends, so I suppose it's not a complete waste of time. :)

Diana's Adventures In TV Land: Mid-Season Thoughts

Assorted season's greetings, one and all! This is Diana Kingston-Gabai, reporting live from the trenches of Wedded Bliss. Let me tell you, boys and girls - it ain't that different from Non-Wedded Bliss. :)

Now that I have some free time on my hands, and with the upcoming holidays setting all my current TV shows on hiatus, I figured this was a perfect opportunity to look back on "Veronica Mars", "Drawn Together", "Supernatural" and "Heroes". How are these series faring at the halfway mark?

I've gone a bit sour on Veronica Mars; while the post-Season 2 restructuring was a bold move, the first arc of S3 - Veronica vs. the Hearst Rapist - hasn't quite worked out. Leaving aside the somewhat-choppy pace of the big mystery, Veronica's habit of throwing about random accusations rather than engage in any real detective work, and the many many plotholes, there's been remarkably minimal characterization so far - half the cast members featured in the credits sequence were invisible. Nothing came of Dick's breakdown in the premiere; Mac and Weevil disappeared for long stretches of time; Wallace's screen time seems to decrease every season; and while newbies Parker and Piz had their moments, they didn't emerge as fully-rounded characters. That's a pretty big change from prior seasons - and not in the beneficial way Rob Thomas expected. When a recurring guest star like Ed Begley appears more often and garners more sympathy than veteran cast members, you've got a problem.

In a recent interview, Thomas evaluates the first season and states that a big part of its strength came from the fact that everyone was connected to Lilly Kane in some way. Those bonds let to very dramatic and emotionally intense moments, especially when smaller mysteries Veronica worked on led to another puzzle piece being unveiled, but it was a one-time deal - the Bus Mystery of season 2 failed to evoke that power because none of the established characters were really affected (except Meg, who'd become a bit of a bitch anyway). To make things worse, characters were gradually drawn into their own isolated subplots: Logan and Weevil with the Fitzpatricks, Duncan had Baby Lilly, Wallace met his father... and these events had no common link, nothing tying them into the larger storyline. By the third season, there's practically no cohesion left.

With some degree of discomfort, I also have to note that the show's been indulging its WB roots a bit too often lately. I'm referring to the Logan/Veronica relationship, which was subjected to a frankly ludicrous amount of melodramatic stress over the past nine episodes. To be fair, that's mostly due to plot compression, but looking back over past seasons, the writers don't seem to know how to approach Logan and Veronica as a couple. She tends to end up with him by default, and then they start going back and forth on an almost-daily basis. It wasn't so bad the first time around, as the relationship was still new and awkward enough to make instability seem credible; three years in, it's old and tired and I just don't believe it anymore, and I can't get away from it either because Logan's the only other character who has significant screen time.

The resolution of the Hearst Rapist arc was unsatisfactory, and this is actually something that's plagued the series since its inception. The basic contradiction at the heart of the show is this: Veronica is put across as a very intelligent and clever girl, someone with a gift for deductive thinking, but to sustain a season-long or arc-long mystery, she has to be clueless until the very end. What's emerged as a result is a pattern where Veronica makes stupid mistakes (she never thought to ask if Mercer's show was taped?), stumbles across that one crucial fact that comes out of nowhere (like the Aaron/Lilly sex tape of S1), figures it all out and gets victimized for ten or fifteen minutes until someone else bails her out. It's nice to see a vulnerable, fallible protagonist, but having her get kicked around for three seasons by a person no one even thought to suspect is a bit much.

Again, though, the creators are due credit for being open to change: rumor has it that after the next arc-long mystery, Thomas and company may choose to end the third season with a series of standalone tales. It'd make for a nice change of pace, and I'd certainly be glad to see things end on a high note for once.

Stunt Casting Count: There was a lot of that considering we're only nine episodes in. Despite my initial misgivings, Ed Begley turned out to do rather well as Cyrus O'Dell. Bringing in Laura San Giacomo (former co-star of Enrico Colantoni) as Keith's love interest was a very clever way of inducing chemistry between the characters. I don't watch "Gilmore Girls", so I suppose the Meeting of the Logans via Matt Czuchry was wasted on me. Richard Grieco as a washed-up voice actor... okay, that's just plain mean, but it's not like I can fault them for being inaccurate. As for Patty Hearst, well, the less said about that one, the better.

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Supernatural has earned itself a bit of a backhanded compliment: I'm on pins and needles for the next episode, but only because I can't shake my conviction that the show's going to jump the shark by revealing that Sam isn't Dean's brother after all. I'd like to believe TV has learned from its past mistakes, but the cynic in me tends to doubt it.

And it'd be a shame, because while the series isn't breaking any ground or even excelling at what it does, it's still perfectly competent and servicable, despite an unusually high amount of angsty schmaltz - Dean, in particular, has developed an irritating tic of gradually approaching a meltdown only to back off at the last second. I suppose that, were I less charitable towarsd the cute boys, I'd praise the writers for recognizing that Jensen Ackles could never pull off that kind of deep emotion, so it's just as well... but then, you have to wonder why they insist on making the same point over and over again. With Sam repositioned as Dean's impromptu psychotherapist, the show seems to have become All About Dean's Daddy Issues. Good for three episodes, intolerable after nine. Sam's own development has ground to a halt, partly due to Jared Padalecki breaking his wrist in the fourth episode and partly because you can't very well have both protagonists falling apart simultaneously.

The supernatural element remains strong, though I seem to have misread where the show was going with regards to the Winchesters' nemesis. When I first evaluated the show, I was anticipating a "Big Bad" formula similar to the series' esteemed ancestor, which would require the Yellow-Eyed Demon to meet its end sooner rather than later. But it's looking more and more like the Demon is in fact the ultimate antagonist of "Supernatural", and it won't be going down until Eric Kripke's ready to end the show. I'm ambivalent about this: there's a reason that sort of thing went out of style, as - for the sake of drama if nothing else - you'd have to have your protagonists get close to defeating their enemy without actually doing any damage (those poor D&D kids never got the drop on Venger, did they?). On the other hand, this does give Kripke space to position the Demon as a mastermind-type and build up its plans over several seasons. It just might work, provided they don't overextend it.

Stunt Casting Count: Linda Blair as ghost-plagued cop Diana Ballard? Surprisingly cool and un-flinch-worthy (see above, re: Patty Hearst). Amber Benson as vampire queen Lenore? I'd been dying to see her play a villainess since her days as Tara Maclay on "Buffy" ("Conversations With Dead People" is still a sore spot for me), and she didn't disappoint. I don't know if Alona Tal and Samantha Ferris qualify, seeing as how there seems to be more to their roles than the actors attached to them (how much more is anyone's guest), but I'll go ahead and list them for now.

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I'll preface any comment on Heroes by saying, flat-out, that I'm absolutely in love with this show. It's surpassed my every expectation, met every standard I held it to. It's provided a rich tapestry of interesting characters, meticulously structured plots, captivating action, cliffhangers worthy of Brian Vaughan, and - perhaps most importantly - a straight take on the subject matter. Postmodernity tends to bring out what I call Yellow Spandex Syndrome; even respectful adaptations such as Singer's "X-Men" films will occasionally poke fun at comics. I can understand that, considering the inherent silliness comics themselves indulge in far too often, but speaking as a woman who does read comics, and who wants to see them given more legitimacy, it's somewhat gratifying to see the notion of superpowers played at face value. Nobody has time for costumes and codenames, it's the people and the powers that matter. Even a character like Hiro, the consummate fanboy, is treated with respect. Sure, we could laugh at the fact that he salutes people with that Star Trek "V" hand gesture, but the script - and Masi Oka - make it impossible for us to be condescending about it. This is what the superhero genre should be (and never is) in the 21st century.

I find I'm even more enamored with something like "Heroes" or "The Incredibles", as examples of original superhero material, than even the best cinematic adaptation by Marvel or DC. Sure, you could make the argument that neither of the above is really original: the latter is clearly a Fantastic Four pastiche while the former has a close relationship to several Marvel properties, particularly X-Men. But solely in terms of execution, there's a freshness here that I can't seem to find in the mainstream.

The structure of the series bears further commentary: it's a lot neater and more organized than I'd thought possible. I honestly expected "Save The Cheerleader" to last throughout the season, but it's become clear that the series has in fact adopted an arc-like approach, similar perhaps to Grant Morrison's "New X-Men" in that the storylines are clearly defined and separate, yet they interlock to tell one epic story. Who knew having Jeph Loeb as a consultant could actually improve a series?

Pace is also something that's been maintained rather well throughout the eleven episodes aired thus far. What they've done is stagger the rate of progress for each storyline; Niki's arc, and Matt's, took a while to jump-start, but while they were "on hold" (so to speak), Peter was discovering his abilities and Claire was coping with her gift and Hiro was off to save the world, while Sylar lurked in the shadows. And when Niki got her moment in the spotlight, Peter and Isaac spent an entire episode trying to figure out which cheerleader they're meant to save. It's actually a very efficient technique, and this is where "Lost" went wrong: by having the numerous plotlines move at different speeds, they've assured that something is always happening, rather than sticking us in one point in time or with one character (like the second season spending its first three episodes repeating the same chain of events from different perspectives, with everything else put on hold).

The only character/plot who seems to have fallen through the cracks is Mohinder, and my guess would be that plans for him changed midway through because his arc has both slowed to a crawl and he's been disconnected from the rest of the cast. I'd be a little more irate about it were it not for the fact that Peter's a more than adequate substitute, in terms of functioning as protagonist/primary focalizer.

What can I say? If, when I first heard of "Heroes", the spectre of "Lost" loomed over my head, I now feel confident enough to declare this the Anti-Lost. Found, if you will. I suppose there's room still for it to all go horribly wrong, but based on the episodes that have aired so far, I'm going to predict a very strong opening season for this show.

Stunt Casting Count: None, really. The show's got a few recognizable faces like Ali Larter, Milo Ventimiglia and Greg Grunberg, but they're all primary cast members. There haven't been any specific guest stars who earned media attention, though we've got George Takei coming up and that's going to be all kinds of awesome.

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It's funny how quickly humor can turn; at one time, I would've put Drawn Together down as one of the funniest shows I'd ever seen, but the third season hasn't done much for me so far.

It's partly because - for reasons I couldn't begin to fathom - they've dropped the Reality TV angle, opting instead for increasingly random subject matter. The last episode before the break featured a "Home Alone" sketch, of all things. In 2006? Really? I think not. That's kind of a problem, because as I mentioned before, it's the conceit of having all these mismatched characters acting like housemates on "The Real World" that generated so much comedy. It's not as funny when they're not competing in ridiculous contests or parodying certain tropes of reality TV ("the twist", stereotypes coming to light, producers intervening, etc.).

I'll probably be dropping this series after the third season; it depends on whether they'll bounce back after the break. It could just be a case of burn-out on the part of the writers.

Stunt Casting Count: None that I could tell.

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And that wraps up my mid-season review! Hope you enjoyed it. :)

Coming in mid-January: Sententia gets relaunched! I've got some new (and old) TV shows saved up, along with BOOKS (yes, prose novels exist! And I've read some!) and at least one gay porno (because my bachelorette party just wouldn't have been the same without the dubious pleasure of "Stonewall and Riot"). Until then, happy holidays!

A quick word...

Preparations are going well, but I simply must stop the presses and rave about this:

http://www.amazon.com/Television-Without-Pity-Things-About/dp/1594741174

I've always adored "Television Without Pity" as a treasure trove of snark, so imagine my glee to discover that Tara and Sarah - also known as Wing Chun and Sars - have published a book containing 752 articles on television's best, worst and fugliest. These women are brilliant with their weekly recaps, but they hit a previously-inconceivable high with this book, which had me laughing until I was red in the face. From Aames to Ziering, only the worthy receive TWoP's praise - the rest are subjected to the dazzling, venomous and scathing power of snark as only the true masters give it. If you love TV, if you love to hate it, this is a must-read.

Don't believe me? See for yourself: http://book.televisionwithoutpity.com/