beccaelizabeth's dreamwidth journal

Today I watched the first two episodes of the David Tennant Around the World in 80 days, on the iplayer, with mum.

We were looking for something to watch which we wouldnt watch if my brother was here, since he likes superheroes and action movies, so we looked at the iplayer.
There's a lot of stuff on there I'd never pick at all.
We picked this one only because we know DT, we had no expectations of it.

Turns out it is Very Tense with many big feelings, politics and violence and death of family members and accidents where children get hurt, and who knows what will be in the next episodes?
... people who know the story probably.

It was good to watch but I think I will save further episodes for another day and today go back to rereading things and knowing what happens. It turns out to take a lot of Feelings to watch new things.

It was a good day :-)
🖖
🌞

Yesterday I finished watching Picard season 2.
(trigger warnings: suicide, murder, death of characters we know)

... I dont know quite what I thought of it, but I know I felt ever so many things, probably as per their plan, including getting very big feelings about the whole age and mortality thing.
( Read more... )

So I dont know what I think of Picard, because it makes me feel.

Also the biggest feels were about the bits I saw on tumblr already.
I like the no surprises version fine, which is good, because tumblr be like that.


I do feel that Picard makes more sense as its own thing than it does if I think (or feel) too much about fitting it in with every other Trek. It tells a strong emotional arc that seems self contained.

But it did keep my whole attention, to the point that I put it on in theory while I did my exercise for the day, but in practice I only got the exercise done in the last hour of the day, because watching.

... I did get the second Perfect Month this year, and my 500 move goals since I got this watch, so, feeling pretty good about exercise. 🖖



When I finished with Picard I ate dinner and started watching Discovery seson 3.
Only the first episode so far.
That's feels heavy but in kind of an opposite direction?
Time travel, and heavy losses, but, hope.
Hope that Starfleet and the Federation is worth building, as many times as it takes.

So I stopped after that one episode, partly because it is one in the morning, but mostly because that is a much better set of feels to try and fall asleep on.

I watched the first three episodes of Wheel of Time
which I only know from tumblr gifs of ladies kissing.

... it is a lot more violent than what I've been watching. A lot more gore. Internal organs.
Also it did the whole dead woman kicks off a plot bit, which gets boring.

I dont think I like the setup. There appear to be evil races. I never like that.

I know big battles of good vs evil are the done thing, but I'm increasingly tired of battles that dont want you to think about people vs people. They're dangerous.

It has a lot of characters to set up so three episodes is just a beginning, but they're okay so far, potentially interesting.

But this gender stuff so far is dumb.

I dont know. I've got the DVDs so I'll watch the season, but it hasnt won me so far.

Shall see.

have seen the end of Flash season 8.

... I dont know what story they think they're telling or what value they think there is in the story they told, but what they showed us makes me very tired. Sad if I wanted to care about current canon, but mostly tired.

Also I watched this before Legends and that turns out to be a bad call cause it tells you bits of Legends, but I wanted to finish with the show I consistently like, so.

oh well.

Am watching Flash season 8.
Flash makes me very angry and the feelings they're trying to ladle on are all syrup.
This is not a good mix.

Yet I am watching the Flash.

I found Fort Salem has a season 3 on the iplayer now so I started watching
and realised I remembered precisely none of the 'previously'
so I backed up and started watching from the beginning.

It doesn't live in my head between viewings much and it has some aspects that are really epically not what I'd put in a story
but it's frustrating because so much of it is in fact pretty awesome
and there are just the most women

the
most
women.



So it's like I'd like to be fannish about it
but it mostly makes me want to start over and do something completely different instead
but specifically different From it, you know?

So.

Been watching a lot, haven't quite got to new episodes yet, not much to say about it but it has a lot going for it.

I said at the beginning of watching this season that they'd kind of lost me and I didn't connect with the characters any more so I was watching it on fast forward.

By the end I hadn't hit fast foward for probably two whole discs.
So when it started being very social justice campaigny it started to hold my attention again,
and by the end I was fully on board and I liked all these people again.

I liked how it ended. Not subtle, but, empowerment for all, very excellent ending.

... TV needs to stop using that particular clip of Vivaldi even in the backgrounds of things though. Used to be the hold music for the DWP, hasn't got the right connotations at all any more for whole swathes of British people.

Good how everyone was there for the victory lap though and plenty of happy stuff all round.



I liked the season and I should give the first half another chance some day.

The arrowverse is really freaking casual about
imposing the death of personality
on basically everyone who looks familiar.

It isn't 'waking people up' or 'restoring their memory'.
Earth Prime people are exactly as real and valid as Earth 1, Earth 38, any other Earth.
Installing memories of earth 1 on earth prime is murder to the person who grew up there and owns that body.

It's like installing Harry or HR in Nash, which oh, hey, they also did. But it's also like installing Eobard, which the show at least noticed was a bad thing. None of those alternate universe people own that body! And those 'memories' are just made up stuff, compared to the universe as it actually stands.

It's like when Angel erased Connor. They've got Mia of earth prime right there, but they don't like who she chooses to be, so they just... overwrite her.

The characters are just going around casually murdering people in a way that doesn't leave a body.



The writers on the other hand are just working at cross purposes between shows and episodes. Multiple seasons of Flash demonstrating that different universes are different people? Oh oops, new story, secretly what they have in common is all that matters now!

But over on Legends there's whole arcs about the difference between Zari and Zari, or Ava and Ava and Ava, and Behrad almost getting his timeline changed is a major personal emergency, because who we are matters and we are not interchangeable. They never try and 'fix' Zari by 'restoring' memories of Zari! Nor should they, it would be awful.

So when all the other shows do so casually and repeatedly?

It's really freaking creepy

and does not engage with the world they have set up at ALL.



It's a major part of why I can't be having with a lot of what went on post crisis.

They wrecked their toys and tried to keep them too, and wanted us to care but only in the right way for the right length of time.


It ends up being really cruel and making decisions about who matters that I can't be having with at all.

This morning I had a dream that made me realise I was avoiding watching Legends of Tomorrow in case I don't like the endings and it ceases to be my happy place.
(It wasn't about that, it was about a timeline change which resulted in alien plants taking root all over the world so by the present day all churches were ruined, the alien plants were in every graveyard and playground, and you went to the Good Neighbours to get your brain chemistry sucked so you only had happy thoughts and felt shiny and beautiful. But, because Legends were in it, it also made me think.)

So I have started watching Legends of Tomorrow season six.

Everything I read about the choice they made with Gary is still a valid point. ( Read more... ) Don't reckon it was done maliciously, just... *waves generally at Legends*. This is the show where everything is true at once, so, stuff happens a lot.
Still, could do better.

The way the characters keep changing around does leave me with less to obsess about. I have no deep thoughts about Behrad, for instance, and tend not to dream about him. Still dreaming Mick on the regular though.

But, good things: so far I have watched most of the first disc, and I had fun watching each episode. There are bits that are just giggles and there are bits of high stakes save the world and there are times they mix those together. It is fun.

... I think maybe I liked earlier seasons better, but, fun is good.

I watched a couple of episodes of Leverage, including The Tap Out Job.
I love how you can see Eliot fighting in character. He already told you the phases of the fight so you can see him doing them in the 'gauntlet'. And then in the fight with Tank you can see how that works too cause he already explained it with Parker and Hardison. So CK is in character as Eliot in character and they explained enough we can see the moving parts AND that means we can see how fights have a story other times.
It's fun.

... but I do not like watching him get hurt, nope nuh uh no way. I know he's fine in the end but that part is stressful.

I still love Leverage.

I have been watching the Flash
(yes I know I attempted to rage quit. I'm never any good at that. i watched more.)

Snow and Frost became two people in two bodies, and now Frost turned herself in and pled guilty to the crimes Frost actually committed back when.

... except that's not the story I've seen in what they've shown us? ( Read more... )

Also I keep thinking about other 'verses and the similar but not quite same things happened there. Jack O'Neill, for instance. Are he and his clone equally legally liable for things he did before he was cloned? Or is the clone an entirely new legal entity?

Or the two Rikers. Or that time he got cloned and killed his other self. Or... lots of SF scenarios that all play different when you throw in 'but what if a crime before they were copied' (or, but what if murdering his clone is still murder, like on DS9)

In our world it isn't going to come up... except as a specific reading on corporate malfeasance I guess... but cloning isn't here yet and memory duplication certainly isn't.

But in the SF worlds it's just... it seems like a dangerous precedent. Like, you could do this on purpose. Make a copy, have the copy plead guilty, go about your merry.


... make the copy, plead guilty on the copy's behalf, do a quick switch and go about your merry...

there just seem like a lot of angles where either outcome. both or neither guilty, has huge and unfortunate repercussions.



I have to say, aside from the legal fascinations of the setup, I was very surprised that the story arrived at 'but she actually did the crimes so the law says she should go to prison'. I mean, every other character was on team 'but you've changed', and one of them was straight up saying prison is hell that doesnt make you a better person, so the story seemed very... well honestly it seemed as it has since season one, where Joe asked what's the difference between us and them, and Barry said we're the good guys. Being a good guy has been their reason for doing any and everything, and it being somehow secretly okay. And that was frustrating! I spent the whole episode in my head being all 'but she did it' and was wildly surpised when Frost and the story apparently agreed with me.

... I expect the story will depict keeping her in prison as Wrong somehow, and get her out again, but at least they said it once?



So this bit of the story was interesting, but I am not hopeful for the show retaining my interest.

I visited my mum's house where my brother has Disney tv, so I saw episode one of What If.

( Read more... ) I just feel like that wasnt so much the seed idea as it was the entire story, which fits on a splash page.

Cool, but, not hitting me in the feels.



Actually that's maybe how the MCU has felt for me lately.
:-/



We also had gluten free vegan pizzas and I liked mine and so did mum, so that part was a success.




I just realised my tag 'television' feels weird when I havent watched broadcast tv for years. It's all the iplayer or other streaming at other houses or DVDs. But I kept the tag television.

... it is still on the television, but since it could also be on the computer or possibly the phone, that still is not a complete identifier.

time moves.