What Shows Are You Watching?

Tuesday, February 9th, 2010

The idea is that we all watch different shows, even when we all watch the same ones. BtVS and Joss fan penny_lane_42 posted about the shows she’s watching, and got me thinking about the ones I watch.

When it looked like I was watching Gargoyles I was actually watching Blond, Bland Gentlemen Have More Fun Serving Amoral Megalomaniacs, and The Magnificent Seven was absolutely The Con Man with a Soft, Mushy Centre he Resents.

What appeared to be a book about a boy named Harry Potter was in fact The Baggage of Severus Snape and A Werewolf Tries Very Hard Not To Be Happy, For Everyone Else’s Sake. The last couple of books were also Dumbledore Plays Wizard Chess and You Are All His Pieces.

From the beginning, The West Wing was Lemon Lyman and his Quirkily Brilliant and Impervious Assistant Fall In Love with the occasional CJ Is Awesomer Than Pretty Much Everybody; Bitter, Angry, Sad Toby Tries to Save the World with Words; and Jed and Leo: It’s Good Friends Who Keep Us Sane spinoffs. The first two seasons are definitely Dialogue That Plays Like Music, and that show was the first one that made me realize dialogue can be just as flexible and brilliant and god-damn evocative as narration.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer was primarily I Love Allegory and Metaphor Like You Cannot Even Believe and Important Stories in Dark Places. Season Two became A Librarian Was Not How I Thought I’d End Up, But Somewhere I Was Always Headed, while Season Three was The Mayor and Faith Need Each Other, and Are Good People Gone Astray, Really. Season Four was, to my surprise, mostly When Did Xander Become So God Damn Brilliant, and Why Didn’t I Notice Until Now?. Season Five was definitely My Sister is More Important than the World Entire, and That Is Just Fact so Live With It, and Season Six I watched Buffy Learns to Feel Again after getting Really Good at Not. In the end, it turned out I was also watching A Girl Who Forgets How To Be a Girl Because she Has To Be a Man the whole time.

When I watched Doctor Who with David Tennant I was watching The Loneliest Man in the Universe Searches for Distraction That Usually Makes it Worse. When Season Four started it absolutely became Donna is Awesome and the Doctor Needs Her More Than Anyone Else in the Universe. I also admit to watching the Unashamed Sci Fi Crack is Cracktastic Win show on a regular basis and loving it the most.

Torchwood was mostly Torchwood Makes Everything Worse, But In a Good and Often Hilarious Way but also sometimes Sex and Love and All the Awkward, Strange, Niggly Spaces In Between Make Us Human. CoE was, by and large, Gwen Finds Her Awesome.

I watch Criminal Minds for Garcia Is My Hero In All Ways, but also for Women, Even When They’re Victims, Are Not Just Victims and Playing With Gender Roles and Identities in Smart Ways.

Dollhouse started out as Victor and Sierra and Nothing Else Matters, but then suddenly and wonderfully became Topher Doesn’t Want to Hurt Anyone Else But Can’t Help It Because That’s Who He Is.

There are others, of course. I could go on forever, but these are the ones that leap immediately to mind. What shows within shows have you watched? What tinted glasses do you wear when you watch or listen or read the stories you do? I’m intrigued by this discussion and by discovering other people’s points of view.

Transphobia on Facebook

Thursday, January 14th, 2010

Last week Facebook banned Calgary transman Dominic Scaia from Facebook for posting a post-op photo of his bare chest. The photo did not break any of Facebook’s Terms of Service that I can tell. It was neither excessively gory nor sexual in any way.

It’s unclear what bothered Facebook about Dominic’s photos. Section 3.7 of its Terms of Service regulates that content not be “hateful, threatening, pornographic” or contain “nudity or graphic or gratuitous violence.” It’s clear a male chest falls into none of these categories. Scaia says, “They were from two-and-a-half weeks post-op and included my face. I was holding the camera from above, my chest was bare and I was wearing jeans. None of the photos were in the least bit gory.”

Facebook does not moderate photographs individually. They rely on users to report offensive content. The only people who could view Scaia’s pictures were friends that he’d added to his account. He’d had the photos up for a week without a problem. The evening before he was banned, Dominic accepted a friend request from a young, flirtatious girl. He thinks she looked through his photos and discovered that the cute boy she’d added was not born physically male, choosing then to report his account.

It’s there where things become confusing. It’s Facebook’s policy to remove photos that are deemed offensive and to send a warning. It is not the company’s policy to disable accounts over photos. This does not mean that Facebook has a rule of banning transgender people, it means that one staff moderator made the grossly misinformed choice to ban his account.

Over 6,000 people have joined a Facebook group in an attempt to raise awareness about this. Today, Scaia finally received a reply back from Facebook, saying his photos were in violation of the Terms of Service. His account has been reinstated, but all his post-surgery photos have been removed, and he has been sternly told not to upload photos of “that sort” again, saying: “photos containing nudity or other graphic or sexually suggestive content are not allowed”. Local radio show Gaywire has published an open letter to Facebook. Xtra.ca has an article with one of the photos in question here.

Any signal boosting would be appreciated. Facebook is a major social networking site and a major photo-sharing site that many trans people — including Scaia — use for advocacy and sharing personal stories and experiences with other transmen and women, and sharing post-op photos is part of that sharing. This was a transphobic knee-jerk reaction by a company after one transphobic user reported the image. There was no warning; the account was immediately frozen. It took Facebook over a week to respond to questions and un-freeze the account. This is not cool on many levels.

Doctor Who, End of Time, Part Two

Friday, January 1st, 2010

I have just finished watching David Tennant’s very last Doctor Who episode. Spoilers for both parts of End of Time below.

End of Time was clearly the wrong name for this. It should have been called The Long Goodbye for obvious JUST DIE ALREADY reasons. This will likely be a highly unpopular opinion but the drawing out of the death was a little too much for me. Yes it was nice to get a LOOK WHAT THEY’RE DOING NOW sequence with all of Ten’s companions but on the whole I would have preferred the regeneration to take place right away.

BUT OH THE ANGST! I will miss you most of all. And “I don’t want to go”? Completely fitting. Ten seemed to be the one that was too attached to himself, too fond of his own cleverness, and I think that line was great, especially combined with the crazy moment where he had to choose to save Wilf or not and Wilf was all “shrug, okay, it’s fine if I die, I’m an old dog and all that, jolly good ride”. Thematically, it was a lovely bittersweet moment, and character-wise I think it was spot on.

More awesome Wilf-Doctor conversations, and lovely moments with the Master. I loled so hard when Ten was all strapped in and gagged, and then he called the Master beautiful and I was all JUST SNOG ALREADY. Lol.

Wilf, we did not see nearly enough of you, but you did get to be bad ass and shoot missiles with lasers like Chewy from Star Wars, so we’ll always have that. And Donna, you are still un-Donna and were terribly underused and WHY did we get the firey-brain bit if nothing came of it and it wasn’t important to the plot at all? UM WHUT? At least her fiance wasn’t aiding and abetting a space spider this time.

Also:

• Martha/Mickey lolz. Somewhere a man named Tom is plotting the Doctor’s demise for introducing his fiancee to Mickey Smith, and I’m looking forward to that adventure. SMITH AND JONES INDEED. I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE, RTD. Their short clip of badassness together was pretty awesome, though.
• JACK/ALONSO LULZ OMG. Jack is all “MY IANTO WHEREFOR ART THOU?” hardcore angsting, but the Doctor clearly cannot stand to be out-angsted. I hope this means we’ll see Alonso in the next season of Torchwood, ’cause that kid was kinda cool.
• It was kind of awesome to see Joan in there. Obviously she meant more to him than he let on, and that’s the awesome fic-worthy part. Please note that he did not visit Renette during his montage.
• Rose, in passing, and the bit about 2005 being a great year. Somewhere in Pete’s world Rose is figuring it out and smacking Handy around. FIC ME THIS PLZTHX.
• Apparently that woman in the white suit haunting Wilf was supposed to be the Doctor’s mother? Who was the other woman? Romana maybe? Or something?
• Douchey Time Lords FTW! On purpose genocide is way cooler, though it makes all his guilt a little stranger. As soon as he figured out they were coming back he was all ZOMG NOT ON and didn’t really hesitate. I struggle to understand how killing one person is easier than genocide for this character, but it is and that’s part of why he’s so interesting.
• So far Eleven seems very Tenish but with bad hair (and even he thinks so, lol). And “geronimo” is light years less awesome than “allons-y”. Catchphrase fail, Moffat.

The plot overall was pretty lame, the Master Race and the pointless cactus people and Gallifrey rolling down upon Earth like the boulder in that Indiana Jones movie. And the goodbye was long and really broke the story for me. I would have preferred Ten regenerated in the plastic booth; I’m sure there are many ways These Are The Days of Your Life could have been inserted that didn’t involve all that time between being killed and actually dying. Almost everyone is bound to disagree with me on that, but BRING IT I WILL FIGHT YOU! :D

So begins the Moffat era. *crosses fingers*

Doctor Who End of Time Reaction Post!

Friday, December 25th, 2009

I have only fifteen minutes so this is going to probably be a whirlwind of bullet points based on notes I took while watching. I have very little thoughtful commentary at this point because I have to let the whole thing steep a bit.

• Seriously, I ♥ Wilf. I did before he became an official companion and I will continue to. The dynamic of the Doctor and an older male companion is complete win.
• I did not know whether to roll my eyes or lol heartily at the image of the TARDIS in the church stain glass window. It is possible I did both simultaneously. Also, LOL @ “the sainted physician”.
• “The king is in his counting house…” Why/how do nursery rhymes always manage to give things +10 creepy points? Because they do.
• Obviously the Secret Book of Saxon is a hilarious plot device and should be mocked at every opportunity.
• I thought for a minute they were going to actually use Lucy’s body and morph him out of her, which would explain the blond hair. I’m pretty glad they went elsewhere, though Lifeforce Sucking Master is probably equally as ridiculous as LucyMaster. Lucy continues to be badass I guess, but I kinda miss her crazy. Her crazy was part of her win.
• OMG DANCING WILF! AND HIS DOCTOR-FINDING ARMY! GO GO SILVER CLOAK! I love this show so, so much. “Modern sort of hair, all sticky upy.” I WILL MISS THAT HAIR SO  MUCH. D:
• So we have a super-jumpy-lighting-spraying-skeletor-super Master. THIS SHOW, IT IS SO MUCH WONDERFUL CRACK.
• OMG THEY CAN SMELL EACH OTHER. THEY SNIFFED. AND SMELLED EACH OTHER. I AM DYING FROM LULZ RIGHT NOW, BOTH PRESENT LULZ AND FUTURE LULZ ABOUT FIC THAT WILL BE WRITTEN ABOUT EAU DE TIME LORD.
• The conversation in the cafe just… wow. I love this show. Did I say that already? I love it. “Even if I change it feels like dying. Everything I am dies. Some new man goes sauntering away. And I’m dead.”  Also: “Like she’s so sad and can’t remember why.” DONNNNNNNA! Be your awesome badass self forever and ever. OMG DOCTOR TEARS! D: D: YES, YOU DO NEED DONNA YOU STUPID DOCTOR! GOOD OLD DONNA! LISTEN TO WILF YOU CRAZY STUPID TIME LORD!! I could probably provide you with a full transcript of the cafe scene, but that seems like overkill. Suffice it to say I will be watching that bit several times more.
• This narrator is driving me a bit batshit, and while I was watching it I correctly predicted what was up there.
• “I had estates.”  With red pastures.  and   are you both listening and taking notes on this because this is like a gift from the crack gods. “We used to run across those fields all day”. Oh RTD, you ship Doctor/Master SO HARD and you don’t even try to hide it. :D
• OMG DOCTORDONNA MOMENT WIN! YEAH THAT’S RIGHT SHE’S STILL FIGHTING FOR IT! BECAUSE SHE’S DONNA AND AWESOME AND HURRAH!
• “I thought it’d be cleaner.” LOL. Have I mentioned how much I ♥ Wilf yet? I think I have. I should say it again. I ♥ Wilf.
• Intrigued and overly helpful Master is probably not a good sign, people. DON’T YOU KNOW THIS?
• What is the point of the cactus aliens other than an excuse to have the Doctor use the word “shimmer” as many times as possible in one minute? I believe that might have been the only point.
• OMG THE DOCTOR CALLED THE MASTER SKELETOR! MY LIFE IT IS COMPLETE. It’s like a Christmas present from RTD just for me.
• The not!Obama cameo was kind of strange.
• A planet of Masters. Many of them wearing dresses. Oh. My. God. The entire planet is laughing. The other planets are like WHUT IS SO FUNNY SHUT UP EARTH.
• Aaaaaand no one is surprised to see the Time Lords and Gallifrey will be back/are back. This is my not-shocked face. I’m actually kind of okay with it, mostly because I think there’s only so much I AM THE LAST angst one show can do before it’s all old hat, and I don’t think Moffatt will do it as well as RTD. But I guess we’ll see how it goes.

That was a lot of caps.

In general, I think there was probably too much going on, but I don’t have time to talk more about that because Christmas Continues and I have dinner to eat and family to hang with, so I must leave you with just lots of all caps and leave thoughtfulness for later.

Dexter S04E12

Monday, December 14th, 2009

Many major spoilers for the end of Dexter Season 4 (the one with the Trinity Killer) below.

Given this show has a twisty history unlike most others, I’m laying bets there’s a good chance it wasn’t Trinity who killed Rita. If it was, fine, but I’ll probably be a little disappointed, since typically nothing on this show is what it seems. I won’t be surprised if next year sometime we find out it was someone else, and they staged it to look like Trinity.

Rita was definitely stuffed in a fridge, and while I’ve never been really wild about Rita, her being fridged is a pretty good illustration of why I feel "meh" about her: the character has always been about the writers needing to put Dexter somewhere or make Dexter do something or complicate Dexter’s life. Rita’s pretty much always been a backboard to bounce Dexter off of and never a real character in her own right. I was honestly not at all surprised. As much as I like this show and as much as I like some of the female characters — especially Deb — the writing of Rita has always been full of fail.

I do wonder what kind of aftermath we’ll see, because ,while that’s not typically how fridging goes, the aftermath and Dexter dealing with suddenly being a single father of three might be the point in this particular case. And how is Dexter’s going to explain all this at work, because he has to report it and, whether Trinity killed her or not, it looks like he did; everyone’s going to be asking why, especially ’cause she doesn’t fit the pattern. Also, at some point won’t the Miller family talk about that Kyle Butler fellow that kept showing up and seemed to know something was up with Arthur? Talk yourself out of THAT one, Dexter Morgan. I double-dog dare you.

I hope the writers are setting up Deb to figure Dexter out next season, because I think that would be an interesting story to tell, and ’cause Deb is awesomecakes and I want lots more of her. Also it seems like they’re setting up the dominos in just that way, what with Deb figuring out about Dexter’s mom and all that.

Anyway. Good season finale. Looking forward to next year. I am already grumbly about having to wait so long.