Links and chatter

The last twelve months have been full of good shows ending, true, but the recent release of Farscape movie pictures and the Firefly movie, Serenity, getting its own website, things are looking up again.

Priceless Alfonso Cuaron interview here.

"For example, with Professor Lupin, we said from the beginning he's like your favourite gay uncle who does smack."

From bimo:

Your Harry Potter Wedding by shimmerbaby
Username:
Soon to be:	Mrs Argus Filch
How he proposed:	It's an arranged marriage.
Maid of honour:	Ginny
Objections:	Voldermort tried to seduce you by running in naked.
The outcome:	On your wedding night the Polyjuice potion wore off! You married Fudge!
Created with the ORIGINAL MemeGen!

Much on their Minds: John Crichton, Buffy Summers and Londo Mollari. Three episodes analyzed.

It's a rare show that can resist the challenge: one episode that takes place mostly in one character's head. Not every show does it well, and sometimes there are even examples of varying quality within the same show; for example, I'd say that DS9's "Distant Voices" isn't bad, but hardly stellar (there are episodes that tell us far more about Bashir, and I like it mainly because of the Garak/Bashir scenes both in and out of his mind), whereas the later Far Beyond The Stars and the Benji sections in Shadows and Symbols are excellent.

The three episodes of this type which impressed me most were most were Normal Again (BTVS), Won't Get Fooled Again (Farscape) and The Very Long Night of Londo Mollari (Babylon 5). In each case, the concept is used to advance the storyline of the character in question; you couldn't place it anywhere else in the show. (Not true for the DS9 ones or Trek's other foray in this this regard, the TNG Riker episode.) In each case, the minds we visit are anything but comfortable places to be, but they're fascinating.

( Read me going on about this at length... )