Meme stolen from likeadeuce.

Your main fandom of the year?

I remain a committed fandom polyamorist without a main fandom.

Your favorite film you watched this year?

The Avengers. Four times watched in the cinema and three times on dvd... yes, it's a pretty safe bet to say it was. :) I just loved it to bits.

Your favorite book read this year?

It's a tie between Her Majesty's Will by David Blixt (when I read the Yuletide prompts asking for Shakespeare/Marlowe adventures & relationship I thought every time "does the prompter know there is now an entire novel like that out there?) and Raphsody in Blood by Roz Kaveney, though I had the chance to read the later in manuscript last year, so I suppose it's a bit cheating to say "this year"? Anyway. Rereading it in printed form only heigtened the love.

Your favorite album or song to listen to this year?

Come Together: Black America Sings Lennon & McCartney. Detailed review explaining why here.

Your favorite tv show of the year?

Breaking Bad. Which I started to marathon early in the year and thus was able to watch in real time when it began its final season.

Your best new fandom discovery of the year?

I would say Breaking Bad as well, except for the part that Breaking Bad fandom aside from fabulous people on lj also includes the people majorly into Skyler and Marie bashing on tumblr and elsewhere, so, no. But I was delighted to see one of my oldest fandoms, Babylon 5, still has an influx of new watchers and writers, and B5 never inflicted shipping wars and character bashings on me either then or now, so I declare the new B5 fans my best new fandom discovery of the year.

Your biggest fandom disappointment of the year?

Fringe's fourth season, after a promising start, cementing the show's decline. Alas.

Your fandom boyfriend of the year?

Jeremy Irons, for a) making Henry IV. for the first time ever the most captivating character in the two plays named after him to me in The Hollow Crown and b) continuing to do a fantastic job with Rodrigo Borgia, aka Pope Alexander VI., in the second season of The Borgias. I've said it before, I'll say it again: the man is a walking, talking illustration that some actors dramatically increase both in acting skill and hotness in their middle age. Young Mr. Irons, playing Charles Ryder in Brideshead Revisited? Eh. Current Jeremy Irons as Henry and Rodrigo both? Gimme gimme gimme!

Your fandom girlfriend of the year?

Skyler White. Followed closely by the ladies from The Borgias, Judi Dench's M, Katniss Everdeen and my darling Guinevere from Merlin, always, but still, no question about it: Skyler. For being complicated and not easily likeable but layered and smart and above all able to accept responsibility for her own deeds as opposed to blaming everyone else. A longer love declaration to Skyler is here.


Your biggest squee moment of the year?

Natasha pwning Loki in The Avengers. That moment when she turns around and says "thank you for your cooperation". (Come to think of it, Katniss Everdeen's "Thank you for your consideration" in The Hunger Games was also a fantastic moment and almost identically phrased, but Natasha's turnaround was when I went from loving The Avengers to SQEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.)

The most missed of your old fandoms?

I go through moments of missing the BTVS and AtS fandom heydays fiercely. Then I check to see what's happening, and people are either obsessed with being upset with the comics (which I have no interest in) or are still fighting the Spike Wars (ditto), and I remember all the reasons not to miss said days. Until, that is, I come across unexpected splendid meta essays like the one about Chosen this year, or anything timetravellingbunny posts, and I'm full of BTVS and AtS fandom love again.

The fandom you haven't tried yet, but want to?

Once Upon A Time and maybe Teen Wolf. Also I really want to watch The Wire, but is there still a fandom?

Your biggest fan anticipations for the coming year?

The second half of Breaking Bad's final season; the SHIELD tv series; X-Men: Days of Future Past; Catching Fire; and The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.

Five canon events that you found unbelievable and wished had not happened.

Actually, dear meme, these are two different categories, which do not always go hand in hand with each other. For example, given that Londo Mollari is my favourite tv character of all time, I did, of course, spend a lot of canon wishing he wouldn't keep making certain decisions, and much later on I went "oh no!" when the ultimate consequences happened, of course I did. But at no point did I find the decisions Londo made unbelievable, and as horrible as certain late canon events were if you're fond of Londo, they were the right events from a storytelling pov. So I had to think about canon events meeting both criteria, and a third one - i.e. that they don't just make me sad because I'm fond of the character(s) concerned but that I wish they had not happened because that would have improved the story story canon was telling instead of lessening it.

( My results are spoilery for Babylon 5, Doctor Who, Angel, Alias (tv), and Fringe )

1.) Haven't seen the latest Fringe yet, and am somewhat dreading to, because of the title and because of bad leftover feelings from later s3.

2.) Did, however, spent the weekend marathoning season 4 of Breaking Bad, since it's now available on dvd in my region. This I just finished doing, and am too worn out emotionally to type a review right now. I will as soon as time permits tomorrow! Now, of course, I am caught up and can't be spoiled anymore, which is good, but will have to watch the next and according to what I've heard final season one episode at a time, which will be torture, if the first four seasons are anything to go by. Before resting my marathoned eyes, I'll leave you with the following cryptic utterances:

1.) Skyler's bookkeeping smarts are like the mirrorverse version of Donna Noble's Supertemp skills. Also, she could probably be a far better evil overlord than most if she wanted, because as opposed to certain menfolk, she wouldn't brag.

2.) Marie, I would totally marry you, kleptomania and all.

3.) Has someone written the Ashes to Ashes crossover yet where Hank during his coma time in season 3 pays a visit to Gene Hunt? Because the clash would be awesome to behold.

4.) Walter and Jesse, your dysfunctional relationship is a wonder to behold and it's impossible for me not to love it to bits even while I marvel at the showwriters ability to make it even more twisted. Also, I want pay off for that Freudian slip by Walter on painkillers to Junior.

In which a possible future of humanity is revealed, and it is bald.

( Read more... )

Very enjoyable episode. I don't have much so say about it - not because it wasn't good, just because it wasn't that kind of episode - but here's a spoiler cut just in case.

( Will Olivia Dunham and Peter Bishop please report to the biology lab? )

In which the show proves again that case of the week/Olivia parallels always make for good episodes.

( Read more... )

Come up with new years resolutions for 5 different characters.

1.) Merlin from Merlin : Agrivaine's admiring words have been getting to him, so his resolution is not to lie to Arthur anymore. Well, no more than strictly necessary. Well, no more than once a day definitely!  

2.) Amberverse Lincoln from Fringe: new glasses for the frame Peter has so thoughtfully given him are due, but more importantly, given that his old spectacles were quite satisfactory, he has to decide whether Peter was actually trying to make a pass and/or suggest a threesome. His new year's resolution is to have the courage to ask Olivia on her opinion about this.

3.) Lucrezia Borgia after s1 of The Borgias: use her father's currently grateful and sentimental mood to ask for more diplomatic missions instead of being married off again. Although she suspects he'll tell her the one could go hand in hand with the other. Still, it's worth a try, isn't it? 

4.) Grace Florrick from The Good Wife: it doesn't seem fair that Zack got a car out of the parental situation while one little screw up, for which she's heartily sorry, got her grounded. However, she has found the perfect solution. Her resolution is to ask her parents to allow her to become Kalinda's detective assistant in her spare time.  That way, she'll be supervised by someone her parents appreciate and trust, she'll get to see plenty of exciting things, and maybe she can copy Kalinda's wardrobe while she's at it, with the additional pocket money she'll earn as a detective assistant paid by Lockhart & Gardner. 

5.) Gwen Cooper from Torchwood: new ear muffins for Anwenn once she gets back to her and finding out why the hell she ended up with an annoying sexist bloke who makes Owen at his worst look enlightened as her new boss, and in bloody London, no less.  She also wishes she'd have asked Tosh more about her time travel experience, because not only is she in London but she's in the shitty late 80s. She doesn't wonder whether she's mad or in a coma because it's obious she's travelled in time. The only two questions are why, and when she'll locate Jack's friend the Doctor so he'll get her back where she's supposed to be. If that takes too long, there's always the Rift in Cardiff, granted, with the downside she could arrive wherever completely mad, but then again she won't have the murder of one Gene Hunt on her conscience, which looks more and more imminent the longer she stays here. So, her immediate resolution is not to kill her boss (despite old habits), and getting away as fast as she can.



....in other news, happy new year, everyone! May we have a good 2012.

....but I've finally managed to watch the last two broadcast Fringe episodes. And I'll try to get the review done tomorrow or Monday. To be sure, the last one left me flailing. What about, you may ask? The cuteness of Olivia and Spoiler, the shocking discovery of other Spoiler being responsible for Olivia's spoilers? The thematic brilliance of case of the week/Olivia parallels? Nah. I mean, I liked all of that, and will praise and analyse in due course. But you know what absolutely slays me?

Walter calling his lab rats (err, the literal ones) John and Yoko.

Together with season 3 having made Walter Bishop/Yoko Ono during the 70s canon, this is it. (I mean, talk about kinkiness. He was petting the John rat, too.) If no one else does it, it seems I just have to write the ballad of Walter and Yoko. Starring Walter as the ( dubious) good guy version of Magic Alex.

Aka the one where the most urgent concern of yours truly was "will the spoilery plot development return us to a later season 3 problem or do the first few great episodes of season 4 mean the writers figured out that s3 thing was a mistake"?

( And the answer as of this episode is... )