Due to popular demand:

( Five people Gaius Baltar loved )


For crossedwired:

( The last five people whose phone numbers Agent Brand dialled )

For resolute:

( Five conversations the Doctor should have had, but didn't )

Last night's House episode was fabulous and my favourite in a long, long time. Earlier this year they did a Wilson-centric one which was basically the show if Wilson were the main character, and that was okay. This time, it was Cuddy's turn, and it was fantastic. Why the difference? (Err, in my personal perception.) Because while Wilson (like House) gives me the impression of moving in his personal hamster wheel and has done for years, and thus his episode felt like same old to me, Cuddy last and this season has actually moved on and created something new with her life. And so this most likely only episode of Cuddy: The Show - a day in the life of a beleagered hospital administrator who pawns insurance companies, stealing employees, annoying doctors and boasting boyfriends alike - we're going to get felt fresh. Lisa Edelstein was in very single scene, as we never left Cuddy's pov, and rocked the hell out of them. I'm so filled with love right now.

Since we're talking fabulous women, here are some links from halfamoon:

Marvel Comics:

In the breakdown lane: Maria Hill. I so love the way the last two years have moved Maria Hill from a not too fleshed out plot device to one fantastic and important character, to the point where her scenes are my favourites Matt Fraction's current Iron Man run. This story gives us an excellent look at her.

The Sarah Connor Chronicles:

I will follow: a Savannah Weaver vid, exploring her relationships with John Henry and with Catherine Weaver. Reminding me how much I loved the other dysfunctional family in that 'verse. Damn you, Fox!

Gone With The Wind:

Sisters: a Melanie vignette. The older I get, the more I tend to conclude the relationship between Scarlett and Melanie is my favourite thing about GWTW, and this story delivers Melanie's pov on it.

Multifandom:

Five awesome non English-speaking ladies: because there are stories, shows, movies and books that did not take their origin in an English-speaking country, and a lot of them have great female characters as well. I'm delighted this presentation includes Yagmur of Türkisch für Anfänger.

They who whine at their friends' list long enough shall be rewarded by comics which make them very happy indeed.

( Oh my stars and...no, just stars )

Lots of little reviews here. It's a busy weekend:

( The Sarah Jane Adventures: The Mad Woman in the Attic )

( Invincible Iron Man #19: )

( Astonishing X-Men #31 )

Alas the icon has nothing to do with the content, but kathyh made some great new Doctor Who ones (and BTVS, and Merlin), and I took several, including this one. Because, you know, Aaaaace.

Fanfic recs:

Lost:

Singing you to sleep: a sensitive and beautifully written portrait of Ana Lucia and Sun in later s2 of Lost.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer:

Vigil in Accustomed Places: a fantastic Joyce Summers portrait, all the way through mid-season 5. I'm going to do a big matrithon rec post once it's over, but this story swept me away so much I had to rec it immediately. There isn't much Joyce fic out there anyway, let alone a portrait of such quality.

And now my ethical question of the day, unrelated to either of these fandoms. I hear there's currently much debate about whether or not an incident in a recent Spider-man comic counts as rape. This post draws a fascinating parallel to an actual historical incident, the story of Martin Guerre. Now, basically my own position is that yes, if A has sex with B solely because B believes A to be C, and A not only is aware of this fact but actively using it to have sex with B, then the sex is non-consensual on B's part and thus rape.

...and then I remembered that very popular stallward from Elizabethan theatre, the so-called "bed-trick". Two Shakespeare plays which use it are "All's well that ends well" and "Measure for Measure". Here, you also have a situation where B sleeps with A believing A to be C, and A is aware and counting on that fact; however, in this case B is male, and A and C are female. In the case of "Measure for Measure", B (as in Angelo) is also trying to blackmail C for sex, whereas A is a woman who is in love with him and whom he ditched; in "All's well that ends well", B isn't powerful but a complete jerk whom for some reason the heroine wants to end up with. In both cases, C and A are allies. However, the fact remains that B has sex with A against his will. Is this also rape in your opinions, oh flist, or does gender make a difference, or is it that both Angelo and Bertram are in positions of social power that makes a difference, or is there no difference?

Recently I rewatched some West Wing episodes (from early s3, and the one where the Republicans call a tax for millionaires "the death tax" to lobby against it made me go "zomg, Sorkin and friends really were prescient sometimes!"), and aside from revelling in dialogue, character affection etc., it reminded me of a suspension of disbelief problem of mine. It's there in several fandoms. In The West Wing, it affects the Sam-Toby relationship as presented in fanfiction. Now, Sam isn't the only character to fall unter the WW "out of sight, out of mind" category, i.e. once he's written off the show, he doesn't get mentioned by anyone anymore. In fact, Sam's exit is far more carefully executed then some other examples, in that he stops being a regular mid-season 4, but the fallout of his departure continues to be made an issue of for the rest of s4. (As opposed to Mandy, who simply disappears post s1 and never gets referenced again, Ainsley who does get to come back once or twice post early s3 but otherwise doesn't get mentioned again, either, Danny who in the years of his absence gets referenced once that I recall but no more, while once he's back we go immediately back to where he and CJ left of, etc.) Once season 4 is over, however, Sam is not heard of again until the very end of the show. Now, in s7 Toby's fall from grace is a big, big thing we see everyone react to. We get to see Josh call Toby throughout his campaigning, which makes for gradual reconciliation; we get the big "have it out" scene with him and CJ. What we don't get, neither as a scene or via a reference in dialogue, is any sign Sam was either unaware of what happened with Toby (unlikely, as it made the national headlines) or that he was aware and tried to contact Toby at any point, or that he was aware and deliberately decided not to contact Toby. It would have been easy to slip a reference to Sam into one of Josh's and Toby's phone calls, for example. Or in Sam's and Josh's conversations in the last episodes. (BTW, their scenes did the trick of convincing me Josh and Sam kept in contact off-screen. See, it can be done.) But Wells & Co. chose not to. So fanfic where Sam and Toby post-s4 are still close friends rather breaks my suspension of disbelief.

Now this isn't a WW-only phenomenon. In several shows, a close friendship suddenly basically disappears, either because the characters leave or because the writers for some reason or the other can't be bothered anymore. Cases in point: Spike and Dawn after the opening two parter of s6 of BTVS, Garak and Bashir after "Our Man Bashir" on DS9 (i.e. s4 - OMB was the last episode to feature them in a close relationship, they they do occasionally appear in the same scenes later on) until the very last episode, Cordelia, Wesley and Gunn after Disharmony in s2 (as I once said to likeadeuce, any scene between them post-Disharmony might as well have happened pre-Reunion, with the closer bond that developed during the time they were sans Angel being ignored). There might be Doylist reasons for this - for example, in the Garak/Bashir case persistant rumour in ST fandom has it that TPTB were discomforted by the perception of the two as lovers. It can be completely accidental - I think it was Jane Espenson who said this about Spike and Dawn, that in the writers' minds, their close friendship continued until Seeing Red, the scenes just didn't happen. But honestly, these Doylist reasons do not help on a Watsonian level. Don't help me as a viewer, I mean. Basically I have to decide either to assume a lot of missing scenes which I make up in my head, or to accept these friendships for some reasons dissolved, and then come up with a reason. In the case of Cordelia, Wesley and Gunn it's easiest, because at least they still were portrayed as friends per se until Wesley's mid-s3 arc, so I can tell myself they continued to be close until that point. With Garak and Bashir, however, I couldn't buy later season stories were they were still having daily lunches and were still as close as they were in early seasons anymore; it both jarred with what I saw (plus, you know, in late s5 there is even an episode where Garak sounds openly jealous about all the time Bashir spends with O'Brien, which he does bring up early in Empok Nor, so it's on screen canon), so I had to come up with possible reasons why not. (In my own take on the pairing, I let the enstragement start with Broken Link and Garek's attempt at genocide in this episode.) And with Spike and Dawn, the "they still continued to be close until the AR, we just didn't see it" explanation didn't wash, either, so basically my interpretation was that once Spike started his affair with Buffy, he spent less and less time with Dawn.

What do you do, oh flist? When characters are portrayed as good friends in canon (doesn't matter whether or not you also ship them in a romantic sense or see the relationship as platonic or the family type of bond; there just has to be an on screen closeness that awoke your interest), and then these characters cease to have scenes together, and don't reference each other in dialogue anymore, either. Do you go the denial route - "they're still friends, we just don't see a lot of scenes"/"they're still friends, I reject on screen canon" - or do you accomodate for the changed on screen circumstances in your perception of the relationship(s)?

***

And on another note, to wit, one of yesterday's two big subjects, the Marvel/Disney merger: out of all the responses, I this one best. Because I feel like having a sense of humor this morning.:)

These last few days have been great if you're into the movies based on various Marvel comics, and open for crossovers between them. Check these out:


Black Tie: my favourite of the bunch, an ensemble story which pulls of a - deep breath -
Spider-Man/Daredevil/Iron Man/X-Men/Fantastic Four/Incredible Hulk movieverse crossover, without short-changing any of the characters, or confusing readers who might not be familiar with two or three but not all of these films. It's the charity dinner from hell, with Peter Parker jobbing as a waiter, Tony Stark as a guest, Mystique and Pyro being present undercover (and promptly running into Charles Xavier), Bruce Banner trying really hard not to get excited... you get the idea. Trust me, you'll love it.

Growin' Up: a Fantastic Four/Iron Man crossover, in which Reed Richards is very much not impressed with Tony Stark but can't get away from the man nonetheless.

Tony Stark, not surprisingly, gets around in these crossovers. He's the little black dress of Marvel movieversedom; the only character who shows up in ALL crossovers I've read so far. Two of them have the same premise - Tony meeting Scott Summers - but execute it very differently, both in plausible ways. So, in terms of X-Men/Iron Man crossovers, we get:

Playing Hard To Get: Tony Stark is trying to break into superhero society. Scott Summers can't get away fast enough.

System Restore: the post-traumatic stress disorder version.

One reason why despite the occasional need to get away I still think fandom and all it entails - especially discussions with fellow fen - is a great thing: one comes up with slightly insane cross fandom lightbulb moments and find they work for other people as well. My last two were Laurie being a female Dick Grayson and "if Vir Cotto was a Marvelverse character, he'd be Henry Hellrung". Trust me, it makes sense.

***

Once Battlestar Galactica is over, if I find time inspite of Darth Real Life overwhelming me, I want to to a compare and contrast post with Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Though there is the danger of being too glib and just sum it up with "DS9 did most things BSG did first, and did them better". Which is certainly true for some aspects, but not all. Right now, I find myself nostalgic for two particular aspects. One, oddly enough, is Benjamin Sisko. This is odd because Sisko never was among my DS9 favorites. I mean, I never hated him, or disliked him, but if you had asked me about "what's great about DS9?", there would have been a lot of characters and storylines I'd have named before coming around to good old Benjamin Sisko. Right now, however, the Sisko looks especially good for several reasons. He had strong relationships with both of the two female regular characters on his show. Neither was a romantic relationship, and the female characters, Kira and Dax, had their own storylines; in neither case these were consumed by Sisko's. Also, Sisko managed to be that rarity in any genre show: a man in a good relationship with his son and his father. Said son, Jake, did not want to follow his father's Starfleet footsteps, and did not. Somehow, Sisko did not see this as a personal insult or make it all about him. When Sisko thought everything was falling apart and withdrew to brood about it, it only took two episodes. (This did not mean that the third episode pushed a reset button, it means he got his act together.) Whether or not his overall development from sceptical Starfleet Officer to religious icon was good for him is debatable, but it wasn't at the expense of anyone else's development.

(Why do I still feel just like but not love for Benjamin Sisko? To tell you the truth, it's the baseball obsession. I just don't get baseball. Never did, never will. When in The West Wing Jed Bartlett came out as not liking baseball, either, to Toby, no less, I wanted to hug him.)

The other DS9 aspect I'm nostalgic about right now are, you guessed it, the women. Kira is on a lot of people's list of favourite DS9 characters, and it's easy to see why. She's three dimensional, she's tough but her flaws are genuine flaws, not "oh, that Kira, so stubborn!" nice ones), she has a variety of relationships through the show ("relationship" here meaning friendships, feuds and romances alike), and never is defined through just one of them, and she goes from second most powerful person on the station to most powerful. My own favourite female character is actually Dax, but I've always enjoyed Kira's storylines and knew that if an episode was Kira-centric, we'd be in for a treat. Also, I have to admit that the show knew how to write Kira from day 1, whereas with Dax they floundered a bit in season 1, and didn't hit their stride until season 2. One mistake they always avoided, from the pilot onwards, was to make Dax the soft one just because Kira was the tough one; we never got that kind of annoying set-up with our two female regulars. Jadzia Dax was a scientist, but she enjoyed her martial arts as well. Like Kira, she had a variety of interesting relationships (again in the sense of friendships and romances, not either/or) without being defined by them; she had a great sense of humour, knew how to throw a party, and was never judgmental (which doesn't mean she didn't have lines you did not cross over if you wanted to remain her friend). When I saw Watchmen in the cinema, I saw the newest Star Trek trailer as well. It still looks like a bit like Star Trek: High School to me (and, err: Star Trek: I'd Rather Make Star Wars, but that could be interviews), but it did evoke nostalgia. Not for Kirk & Co., though. For Dax, and Kira - and naturally for my favouritest favourites, Quark and his family, and Garak, and Bashir - and O'Brien, and Kai Winn, and Jake, and yes, for Benjamin Sisko. Oh, I do miss them.

***

A BSG vid reck: Untouchable, a Gaeta portrait. kindkit, one section in it is practically made for you, as it deals with the "why didn't we get this on screen problem" quite neatly.

Doctor Who:

If you've watched Scream of the Shalka, this is not news, but it's still nice that Paul Cornell told the world (i.e. a con) that
the Doctor and the Master were doing it.

Marvelverse:

Fascinating article about Sue Storm and the way female characters were and are written through the decades.


Now, about the two shows with robots and humans.

Battlestar Galactica

( Deadlock )


The Sarah Connor Chronicles

( Desert Cantos )