shallowness (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
shallowness) wrote2021-10-16 12:29 pm
shallowness) wrote2021-10-16 12:29 pm
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Two shows that met expectations
BSG 4.18 Islanded in a Sea of Stars
I’d planned to watch a double bill, but saw that the next episode’s title contained the words Part 1, and so held back. I now know that I have only three eps remaining of the whole show.
There were stylish, even powerful moments, in this episode, but the same old problems of how this ties into what’s gone before remain, pls I mostly felt they were focusing on the wrong things.
More Kara in this ep, mainly trying to come to terms with what or who she is now after recent events. I’d thought she was thinking of her father when she glomped on to Gaius’s broadcast (regarding which, oh, he’s doing those again now, CONVENIENT) about angels, but it seemed secondary to her navel-gaing, and hey, having encountered your own dead body, you’re entitled. So she asked Gaius be a scientist again for five seconds (remember when they did that straight after finding Earth? Stop playing the same trick again! To be honest, I was wondering how he’d accessed the microscope and lab stuff again.) Anyway, he seemed to confirm that she is human and dead? Of course, he did that very publicly, which is why you don’t trust Baltar with that sort of thing.
Lee, bless his heart, said it didn’t matter, and I went I AM SO OVER YOU TWO, just as much as I thought that the way Kara was talking about ‘my Sam’ to his comatose self was ignoring the terrible, terrible state of their relationship when they were both with it.
So, Sam is a quasi hybrid now with the Galactica, because that eight (I feel for Park and Helfer, having to play a lot of undifferentiated Eights and Sixes. The Six representing the Cylons on the Quorum isn’t Caprica, right?) had decided to try plugging him in without telling anyone, when the ship was already pretty battered and got even more so in the confusing opening scene. I kind of got Tigh’s wrath, even though he was being disingenuous, as Ellen pointed out.
I mean, there was another tiresome scene where Saul and Bill were sad about the Galactica over booze. More pertinent was the dying Eight wanting to talk to her father figure Tigh, reminding us and him, that one of the reasons Ellen was opposed to him and Caprica shacking up was that it was a bit like parent-child incest. Except he didn’t want to face that or the two thousand years because of what Bill, the ship and the uniform meant to him.
There was some fallout for the parents after Hera’s kidnapping, but it mainly concentrated on Helo’s manpain. I didn’t think he could demand a certain reaction from Athena, he was in no position to do anything than accept whatever she dished out. Not that she got a chance to. I could really have done with more of the shared dream, although it doesn’t seem to have been a particularly good prophecy. But I did sympathise with Helo when Adama wouldn’t let him go out looking for Hera, and whether Bill want to admit it or not, she is important.
But she’s also a little kid who’d been abducted by a woman with the same face as her mother. So, I was all for Hera giving Boomer attitude (must hae been quite a task to explain what’s going on and what was required to the child actress.) Boomer was clearly unprepared for the strop a young child would throw in such a traumatic situation, or that she’d have feelings about it. Dude, she’s practically your niece! Which means that Hera’s ability to project houldn’t be a surprise. Boomer should feel bad about handing her over, presumably for ‘investigation’ that I don’t want to think about.
Laura tried to talk mystical sense to Bill, but he’s been falling to bits since they got back together, and I try to be nice and remember that it’s partly because finding Earth stole hope from them.
We got a miniscule glimpse of Six in Baltar’s head, which was irritatingly tantalising, and his interaction with Caprica Six was frustrating. Unlike her, I think he has changed somewhat, but I was reminded how shoddily Caprica has been developed (not least because we haven’t seen the Gaius in her head.) The lack of a guest star CKR was annoying given that Kara was harking back to seeing her dead body, and she and Saul and Ellen were right that the music suggested that more was going on, even if Adama got his way and shut it down for now.
I’ve started watching Miss Scarlet and the Duke. It was sold as being inspired by Sherlock, which is stretching it beyond, perhaps, the opening credits where Miss Scarlet is eleventy times bigger than ‘the Duke’, because otherwise it’s your female private detective in a sexist historical period show. Said period is Victorian, so the show is so less well lit than if it were in the twentieth century.
Feisty Eliza Scarlet (Kate Phillips) just wants to follow her father’s footsteps. He was a police officer before retiring and becoming a private detective. He accidentally encouraged her by teaching her all manner of unsuitable things for a young lady when grieving for her dead mother. We meet her trying to prove herself, then discovering her father is missing…because he’s died of alcohol-induced heartbreak/a heart attack. Facing financial disaster, Eliza lies to get a case, which gets her into trouble with the police – in the form of tall Scotsman Inspector William Duke (Stuart Martin), who has a Victorian-era appropriate beard, which he wouldn’t necessarily have had if this was filmed some other time. Duke was mentored by her father and has a past with Eliza that involved kissing as teenagers, which made me think he was a bit young to be in the position of inspector. She makes a grave error that puts another woman in more than your usual trouble (being shunned, groped, checked for venereal diseases if you go out unchaperoned) and uses her smarts and wiles to undo it.
The biggest anachronism that annoyed me was that Eliza should have stayed in mourning after the funeral (it’s a very teal show). I’d also like it if housekeeper Ivy and the house maid moved from grudging acceptance of their mistress’s foibles to help with future cases. Kevin Doyle plays Mr Scarlet, mainly in flashback, but then in a ghostly visitation to the present-day Miss Scarlet, to validate her. I hope he continues to do both – he was the only actor I really recognised, although I’ve probably seen the others in supporting roles. It’s fun to watch and not too demanding.
The second episode pretty much backed that last sentence up. I first of all should say I see what they did with the names, there, the obvious nod to Cluedo, but also the two leads’ first names screaming out as P&P references post LBD.
Eliza is feeling the pinch financially – the housemaid has left because she wasn’t being paid, because what few clients Eliza has got won’t pay - there were nice recurring callbacks in the episode from the bratty child, to bribery, to Eliza in court. Unlike Eliza, I’d clocked that her friend/investor clocked that he and his doctor friend was gay (actually they seemed rather gay I the archaic sense of the word too.) It had only fltted through my mind as a possibility in the previous episode.
Eliza was hired then fired, but wouldn’t give the case up, and came to the truth, which was that Teddy had really bad taste in his people. I mean, I loved Eliza’s sympathy for the vengeful wife getting arrested – finding out your husband had been secretly betraying you with a man would be ouchy, and lashing out understandable, though not letting said husband be unjustly accused of murder. But the way the dead guy framed his suicide showed him up as emotionally manipulative too. Eliza encountered Just Moses again and hired him as a debt collector now that she’d got funds and wanted to stay solvent.
William was mainly irritated all episode because he was understaffed and can’t handle Eliza. He’s a bit too sexist to see what she’s likely to do next (quite often it’s the opposite of what he’s ordered, so he should get over the chauvinism and spot the pattern.) I’m willing to ship them but I like that there’s an acknowledgement of the problems, his sexism and bad habits, and her admirable lack of interest in being a lady when she needs to survive, body and soul.
Only one visitation from the dead dad. I would like it if they made something of Mrs Scarlet haunting him or her influence on Eliza, but past experience of other shows makes me think I shouldn’t hold my breath.
I’d planned to watch a double bill, but saw that the next episode’s title contained the words Part 1, and so held back. I now know that I have only three eps remaining of the whole show.
There were stylish, even powerful moments, in this episode, but the same old problems of how this ties into what’s gone before remain, pls I mostly felt they were focusing on the wrong things.
More Kara in this ep, mainly trying to come to terms with what or who she is now after recent events. I’d thought she was thinking of her father when she glomped on to Gaius’s broadcast (regarding which, oh, he’s doing those again now, CONVENIENT) about angels, but it seemed secondary to her navel-gaing, and hey, having encountered your own dead body, you’re entitled. So she asked Gaius be a scientist again for five seconds (remember when they did that straight after finding Earth? Stop playing the same trick again! To be honest, I was wondering how he’d accessed the microscope and lab stuff again.) Anyway, he seemed to confirm that she is human and dead? Of course, he did that very publicly, which is why you don’t trust Baltar with that sort of thing.
Lee, bless his heart, said it didn’t matter, and I went I AM SO OVER YOU TWO, just as much as I thought that the way Kara was talking about ‘my Sam’ to his comatose self was ignoring the terrible, terrible state of their relationship when they were both with it.
So, Sam is a quasi hybrid now with the Galactica, because that eight (I feel for Park and Helfer, having to play a lot of undifferentiated Eights and Sixes. The Six representing the Cylons on the Quorum isn’t Caprica, right?) had decided to try plugging him in without telling anyone, when the ship was already pretty battered and got even more so in the confusing opening scene. I kind of got Tigh’s wrath, even though he was being disingenuous, as Ellen pointed out.
I mean, there was another tiresome scene where Saul and Bill were sad about the Galactica over booze. More pertinent was the dying Eight wanting to talk to her father figure Tigh, reminding us and him, that one of the reasons Ellen was opposed to him and Caprica shacking up was that it was a bit like parent-child incest. Except he didn’t want to face that or the two thousand years because of what Bill, the ship and the uniform meant to him.
There was some fallout for the parents after Hera’s kidnapping, but it mainly concentrated on Helo’s manpain. I didn’t think he could demand a certain reaction from Athena, he was in no position to do anything than accept whatever she dished out. Not that she got a chance to. I could really have done with more of the shared dream, although it doesn’t seem to have been a particularly good prophecy. But I did sympathise with Helo when Adama wouldn’t let him go out looking for Hera, and whether Bill want to admit it or not, she is important.
But she’s also a little kid who’d been abducted by a woman with the same face as her mother. So, I was all for Hera giving Boomer attitude (must hae been quite a task to explain what’s going on and what was required to the child actress.) Boomer was clearly unprepared for the strop a young child would throw in such a traumatic situation, or that she’d have feelings about it. Dude, she’s practically your niece! Which means that Hera’s ability to project houldn’t be a surprise. Boomer should feel bad about handing her over, presumably for ‘investigation’ that I don’t want to think about.
Laura tried to talk mystical sense to Bill, but he’s been falling to bits since they got back together, and I try to be nice and remember that it’s partly because finding Earth stole hope from them.
We got a miniscule glimpse of Six in Baltar’s head, which was irritatingly tantalising, and his interaction with Caprica Six was frustrating. Unlike her, I think he has changed somewhat, but I was reminded how shoddily Caprica has been developed (not least because we haven’t seen the Gaius in her head.) The lack of a guest star CKR was annoying given that Kara was harking back to seeing her dead body, and she and Saul and Ellen were right that the music suggested that more was going on, even if Adama got his way and shut it down for now.
I’ve started watching Miss Scarlet and the Duke. It was sold as being inspired by Sherlock, which is stretching it beyond, perhaps, the opening credits where Miss Scarlet is eleventy times bigger than ‘the Duke’, because otherwise it’s your female private detective in a sexist historical period show. Said period is Victorian, so the show is so less well lit than if it were in the twentieth century.
Feisty Eliza Scarlet (Kate Phillips) just wants to follow her father’s footsteps. He was a police officer before retiring and becoming a private detective. He accidentally encouraged her by teaching her all manner of unsuitable things for a young lady when grieving for her dead mother. We meet her trying to prove herself, then discovering her father is missing…because he’s died of alcohol-induced heartbreak/a heart attack. Facing financial disaster, Eliza lies to get a case, which gets her into trouble with the police – in the form of tall Scotsman Inspector William Duke (Stuart Martin), who has a Victorian-era appropriate beard, which he wouldn’t necessarily have had if this was filmed some other time. Duke was mentored by her father and has a past with Eliza that involved kissing as teenagers, which made me think he was a bit young to be in the position of inspector. She makes a grave error that puts another woman in more than your usual trouble (being shunned, groped, checked for venereal diseases if you go out unchaperoned) and uses her smarts and wiles to undo it.
The biggest anachronism that annoyed me was that Eliza should have stayed in mourning after the funeral (it’s a very teal show). I’d also like it if housekeeper Ivy and the house maid moved from grudging acceptance of their mistress’s foibles to help with future cases. Kevin Doyle plays Mr Scarlet, mainly in flashback, but then in a ghostly visitation to the present-day Miss Scarlet, to validate her. I hope he continues to do both – he was the only actor I really recognised, although I’ve probably seen the others in supporting roles. It’s fun to watch and not too demanding.
The second episode pretty much backed that last sentence up. I first of all should say I see what they did with the names, there, the obvious nod to Cluedo, but also the two leads’ first names screaming out as P&P references post LBD.
Eliza is feeling the pinch financially – the housemaid has left because she wasn’t being paid, because what few clients Eliza has got won’t pay - there were nice recurring callbacks in the episode from the bratty child, to bribery, to Eliza in court. Unlike Eliza, I’d clocked that her friend/investor clocked that he and his doctor friend was gay (actually they seemed rather gay I the archaic sense of the word too.) It had only fltted through my mind as a possibility in the previous episode.
Eliza was hired then fired, but wouldn’t give the case up, and came to the truth, which was that Teddy had really bad taste in his people. I mean, I loved Eliza’s sympathy for the vengeful wife getting arrested – finding out your husband had been secretly betraying you with a man would be ouchy, and lashing out understandable, though not letting said husband be unjustly accused of murder. But the way the dead guy framed his suicide showed him up as emotionally manipulative too. Eliza encountered Just Moses again and hired him as a debt collector now that she’d got funds and wanted to stay solvent.
William was mainly irritated all episode because he was understaffed and can’t handle Eliza. He’s a bit too sexist to see what she’s likely to do next (quite often it’s the opposite of what he’s ordered, so he should get over the chauvinism and spot the pattern.) I’m willing to ship them but I like that there’s an acknowledgement of the problems, his sexism and bad habits, and her admirable lack of interest in being a lady when she needs to survive, body and soul.
Only one visitation from the dead dad. I would like it if they made something of Mrs Scarlet haunting him or her influence on Eliza, but past experience of other shows makes me think I shouldn’t hold my breath.