Still on an emotional high from the Being Human finale, and the entire third season, which grew a beard so long it can call itself Barbarossa. *obscure German legend is obscure but was good enough for Heinrich Heine, so it's good enough for me* Meaning: rarely did I see such a satisfying and right conclusion to an arc that looked at its characters unflinchingly.

Not unrelatedly, this put me in mind of previous examples of morally ambiguous characters, how their respective canons dealt with them and how fandom responded. Also of my own reactions. I like to think this wasn't/isn't always about how much I like the character in question. I mean, Londo Mollari is my favourite tv character of all time, I love him with the passion of a thousand burning suns and all other corny clichés, and yet one of several reasons why I insist the fifth season of Babylon 5 was a must is that had the show ended with season 4 (plus Sleeping in Light), the way we'd have left Londo in s4 (i.e. happy) would have felt wrong and like a cop-out compared with what had gone on before, and the choices Londo had made. On the other hand, if Battlestar Galactica's Gaius Baltar would have gotten ( a spoilery ending for BSG ), that would have felt like an easy cop-out, too, because of Baltar's own arc and nature. (As it is, the ending he did get felt perfect, simultanously both the best and the worst thing that could have happened from Baltar's own pov. And I like Gaius very much indeed as well (though not as much as I love Londo, but he is one of my BSG favourites).

Now, neither Londo nor Gaius Baltar were - for the majority of their fandoms at least - the woobies. And all too often, that's what the morally grey and darker grey to black crowd ends up as, with the result that the ambiguity which made them interesting originally gets airbrushed away and excused, sometimes by the fandom, sometimes by canon, sometimes by both. And woe to the characters who do not embrace those woobies and instead dare to hold them accountable to their actions. Especially when they're female. The comments I've seen during the last three or four weeks first re: Nina and then re: Annie in Being Human were but the latest example; nothing new, really (though it still disturbs me to read them), when I think back to my first online fandom, which was Highlander. The other day I came across some interesting meta regarding Methos and the question of forgiveness (on the audience's part) (and I'm not just calling it interesting because the author recommended Death and the Maiden in it, my old Cassandra (and Methos) story which I still regard as one of my writing breakthroughs in and out of fandom). It is a highly subjective question, which characters a viewer forgives (or maybe not forgives but never stops embracing?), and which overplay their hand in this regard.

In the case of Methos, I'd say about 99% of all Highlander watchers responded to the entire Horsemen arc by not just continuing to embrace but love even more fervently (and hating both female guest star and to a degree male main character for having different responses). The conditions for this are pretty much ideal - Methos was introduced as a witty, very attractive trickster type of guest character; he only shows up rarely which means he never has the chance to get "bad" episodes for the viewers to get used to him; at the time when the darkest chapter of his past is revealed, he's already saved the main character once or twice and gotten a touching girl of the week romance. (I've seen a lot of fans wistfully wish for the Methos show, but I never did, despite loving the character back then, because being elusive and unpredictable was part of his charm, which would have been lost had be become a regular series hero.) BUT, and that's probably a real reason why all those years and many a fannish experience later I still like Methos, I never felt the show itself downplayed the enormity of what he did. Or expected us to condemm Cassandra for not forgiving Methos, never mind what fandom did; HL the show could have done better by Cassandra in that they could have allowed her to demonstrate more competence with a sword (the woman is 3000 years old, for God's sake), and cut the Melvin Koren flashback down to two minutes instead, but one thing the show never did was presenting her as wrong to hate her rapist/torturer/brainwasher/all-around-bastard from the Bronze Age. And as opposed to a lot of fanfic which had her going insane so that Methos and/or Duncan could feel justified in killing her, the show let her walk away alive and unbowed. If the show had gone like so many, many fan-written stories featuring Cassandra did back then (and still do for all I know), I would have lost whatever fondness I had for Methos by now and would have wistfully looked for fanfic decapitating him instead.

Which brings me full circle with Being Human. I don't I could have continued watching - and there will be a fourth season, yay! - if ( a lot of spoilery things would happened that didn't. ) As it is, I will buy this season on dvd as soon as it's available - which I did for none of the previous seasons - will rewatch often, and will be glued on my tv screen once the fourth season starts. This despite the fact that the ending of this one actually would serve as a great show finale as well, but: I love the set-up we're left with. And I love the characters. As they are now, and with all the potential they have for stories yet to come.

Firstly, Judi Dench and Daniel Craig doing a spot about equality. As M and Bond. Sometimes it's hard not to conclude British actors are just cooler. (Must be something in the tea, and all that.)




Secondly, re: Being Human, meta on the whole Annie and Nina versus Mitchell matter which does not make me want to scream in frustration but points out vampire privilege and concepts of justice. (I also liked this review of the last episode broadcast in the UK.)

Thirdly, remember a while back when I quoted from some teen magazine questionairs the Beatles had to reply to in the 60s, with hilarity ensuing? Well, the Stones had to do that, too. Behold young Keith Richards replying. He's both funny ("Favourite Clothes: Mine, Hobbies: Biting my nails") and aw-inducing - "Favourite Composers: Lennon/McCartney, J.S. Bach". Aside from the mutual admiration society (as he calls it in Life) they had going with the other band, I find the Bach naming intriguing, not least because Paul McCartney has been raving about Bach through the ages as well; the piccolo trumpet on Penny Lane was the result of him having watched a broadcast of Bach's 2nd Brandenburg Concerto on tv (he even got the same musician to play the piccolo trumpet). And he said re: the melodic origins of Blackbird: The original inspiration was from a well-known piece by Bach, which I never know the title of, which George and I had learned to play at early age; he better than me actually. Part of its structure is a particular harmonic thing between the melody and the bass line which intrigued me. Bach was always one of our favourite composers; we felt we had a lot in common with him. For some reason we thought his music was very similar to ours and we latched on to him amazingly quickly. We also liked the stories of him being the church organist and wopping this stuff out weekly, which was rather similar to what we were doing. We were very pleased to hear that.

In conclusion, Bach = soulmate of 60s British rock musicians? And here you'd think it would have been Händel. :)

Before I start babbling about the episode, help me out, flist, where could I know Nicola Walker from, who played Wendy the social worker? Because I'm sure I've seen and heard her before. The voice especially rang a bell, but I can't place it, and that frustrates me to no end because I feel I should know.

ETA: and altariel came through! It's Ruth! Ruth from Spooks! I can't believe my memory withheld this bit from me!

( On to the episode! )

In which Being Human does zombies after a week of rozk writing zombie poetry. Coincidence?

( This was oddly touching )

Nina and Annie love won out, plus I didn't want to end my watching with the s2 cliffhanger. As it turned out, this was the right decision because the s3 opener dealt with one of my major, major s2 issues very satisfyingly.

( Twelve is the number, and the number is twelve )

Still on a bloody note, something for Shakespeareans: much like the poster I'm linking, I love MacBeth, and hold it not mutually exclusive with making fun of it. The Scottish Play, Short Version . Enjoy.:)

Back in Germany, with several comics read on the plane. I really liked Paul Cornell's Vampire State, a storyarc from his Captain Britain and MI-13 run. (Complete with Doctor Who gag.) Since halfmoon has started, does anyone do an entry for Faiza Hussein? (Cornell's Muslima doctor-turned-superhero.) Love her, love that she's the one who ( does spoilery stuff ) Also, any story where you demonstrate love by ( spoilery stuff )is fine by me, given my fondness for screwed-up family relationships.

In other news, Dollhouse ended like it was for the most part, to wit, massively flawed yet fascinating in everything not involving the main character. The irony is that the whole doll concept is a real showcase for acting skills, as Enver Gjokai as Victor/Tony and Dichen Lachman as Sierra/Priya amply demonstrate in the course of two seasons, and I hope they'll get good jobs after this. (Not a guarantee when you've shown what you can do in a Joss show; see also, Alexis Denisof's non-career post Joss despite his stellar turn as Wesley.) But what got showcased about Eliza Dushku were her painfully limited acting abilities. (Though to be fair her outburst after a ( spoilery event in the finale ) was really well done. But generally speaking I don't think it's a coincidence or just to the cancellation rush that ( spoilery stuff did not demand much of an acting stretch ) Mind you, the writing didn't make either Caroline or Echo more interesting, either. Otoh, cancellation rush fast forwarding developments or not, I do love the storylines for Adelle DeWitt and Topher through said two seasons, and their relationship with each other, which is pretty much unprecedented in Joss Whedon's previous ouevre, which made it so refreshing. (Which isn't to say some of the twists on previous patters didn't work for me as well. For example, I'm torn as to whether ( a spoilery twist was planned from the beginning, but it is ) a good meta self comment. And to use a character from another fandom and another writer, one of these days, if I ever find the time, I might write an Adelle DeWitt/Arvin Sloane compare and contrast, and why they hit my soft spot for smart, competent, manipulative folk who indulge in massive self delusion at the same time. Which I suppose makes Topher darkside!Marshal Flinkman. Either of them would probably fanboy the other and go for that comparison. Though actually in relation to Adelle Topher is Nadia. ( Down to the spoilery element ) Affection for Adelle, Claire Saunders, Topher, Priya/Sierra and Tony/Victor notwithstanding, though, I'm not mourning for the show's cancellation; as an overall narrative, it could never quite decide what it wanted to be, and there are other shows who do not have that problem.

Being Human continues to be eminently watchable. This week's ep really had an OT3 vibe, and was the best Annie episode ever, which I really dig.

Before I get to the review part of this entry, some other things:

1.) I listened to the audio commentary for ST XI by J.J. Abrams, Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci and Damon Lindelof. Highlights:

( Spoilers are still giggling )

2.) Apparantly John Simm went all fanboy about David Tennant in DWM 416, swearing, among other things, eternal masterly fidelity ("David is my Doctor"). Quite right, too; I think if and when they bring the Master back for future incarnations, whether for Eleven or subsequent Doctors, he should mirror/contrast that particular Doctor and be played by a different actor. IMO John Nathan-Turner did Anthony Ainley no favours by giving his Master Roger Delgado's look. Different incarnations of the Master should be as different as different incarnations of the Doctor are. One of the reasons why Simm!Master works so well for me is how he specifically mirrors the Tenth Doctor.

3.) Fanfic recs:

Being Human: Everything arrives at the light is a lovely, lovely OT3 friendship story about George, Annie and Mitchell. No spoilers.

Astonishing X-Men: Gravity. Covering the transition period between Joss Whedon's run and Warren Ellis' for my favourite couple, Hank McCoy and Abigail Brand, from Hank's pov. I love this story quite a lot.

Which brings me to:

4.) Review!

( S.W.O.R.D. #2 )