charloween: (goaty grin)
Thing one:
I do love me some Numb3rs. Its plots are generally good, its characters are interesting, complex and lovable and if it descends into pro-FBI propaganda every now and again, well... I can forgive that.

They way they explain the math with pretty pictures (and through a pretty man) makes me feel smart. The way the villains are all ev0l mothaflippers who get their just desserts (at the hands of pretty people) makes me feel morally superior to said ev0l mothaflippers. The life-affirming tags at the ends of the episodes (wherein pretty people reflect upon the events of the episode and give each other moral support) make all the ev0l seem manageable. Win-win-win.

This is, of course, in contrast to shows which show the same ol'investigation plots with no imagination and/or make no attempt to deal with an ensemble cast with any kind of credibility. What I love so much about Numb3rs is how it can maintain character arcs across multiple seasons, finding time in the Baddie Of The Week plots to let personal lives of the characters become part of the threads of the show. They're never out of context, either. The character moments always come as a result of the plot. Sure, it may seem a bit forced at times, but they're developing the characters on purpose and to a plan, not just by accident.

What's particularly interesting is how very few of the plots deal with mentally ill characters. Most of them are just stupid people doing stupid things - sometimes particulary clever stupid people, but they they're mostly in control of their faculties. This is in contrast to a show like Criminal Minds which had an interesting and rather strong first season, but dramatically devolved in its second season to, uh, a show with a pretty young genius as a supporting character. Sure, their BTP are pretty decent when it comes to character arcs, but the individual weekly plots, ye gods!

Every week it's a woman-in-peril (a sexy young woman, at that) and the villain is always a serial killer with debilitating personality disorders which drives him to kill. Now, I understand on a show about catching serial killers there've got to be a goodly number of serial killers on the show. What is troubling is how frequently the killers are casually demonized because of something which is out of their control. With nearly every killer, the point is made that their murders aren't a choice, they're a compulsion. The episode where the boy seeks out Reid is the perfect example. The kid knows enough about himself to recognize that something isn't right. Every week we're told the killer is an evil demon incarnate who can only be stopped by the masterful minds of the FBI, but we're also told to hate and fear the killer even though the killer - by definition as a certifiable crazy person - can't entirely be held accountable for their actions. If you believe raging psychopaths with urges to slaughter aren't rational and stable individuals, that is.

On Numb3rs, however, the bad guys are usually just cocky asshats who are rotten to the core, full stop. They're therefore a bit less complex villains (see: the episode where the dude on death row just wants to see his daughter one time before he dies omg), which also makes them easier to denegrate and it's easier for me to feel awesome about looking down on their nastiness. Part of it is that the math is a huge part of the show, and the process of discovering, explaining and deploying the math is given preference over the need to craft a subtle villain.

The point? I'm downloading Numb3rs this season and I'm leaving Criminal Minds to itself. I'll probably sit down and inhale large amounts of CM to absorb the character arcs, but as always, Numb3rs has my love.

Thing two:
I've forgotten. I filled in 1, 3 & 4, leaving 2 blank because I was coming back to it. Then [livejournal.com profile] amyisyellow stuck her head in and asked if I wanted to come out for a bit. Ah well. I'm sure it was profound and would have revolutionized the internets.

Thing three:
This weekend's Musical Love List (aka songs I'm digging):
1. Mountain Goats, "Color in Your Cheeks" ("colour" is spelled with a u, but I'll let it pass)
2. Young Galaxy, "Embers" (a song which, if/when it gets into fandom, will be vidded within an inch of its life)
3. Bryan Ferry, "Positively 4th Street" (Bob Dylan cover)
4. Sufjan Stevens, "That Dress Looks Good On You" (aka that dress looks good on your body)
5. Death Cab For Cutie, "Title and Registration" (the extra-boppy alternate version)
...and if Firefox was working properly, I could post these. I also pounced on bittorrent and demanded it surrender to me at least on version of "Houseguest". I think I've ended up with about seven. :D

Thing four:
Tomorrow morning before class I'm going to be rushing around gathering the final pieces of my Commonwealth "Send Char to Glasgow" Scholarship application. It's more or less an exercise in futility, one that's cost me $55 so far, plus however much it'll be to Xpresspost the mess up to Ottawa. I don't mean the application isn't strong: it's that there isn't a hope in heck of all the parts arriving on the desk of whoever they need to arrive on by the deadline. The online parts are in, but the supporting documents? Probably won't make it. It's almost worth it in the long run for the possibility of getting all the tuition, plane fare and monthly stipend required to do a Master's in Glasgow.
charloween: (Default)
I spent yesterday watching Criminal Minds. It's cute, if fairly (excuse the pun) mindless.

Today, [livejournal.com profile] philthe25th brought over Life on Mars and it ate my brain completely. We'd also watched the pilot of Pushing Daisies and made a few "don't touch her, don't touch her!" jokes at Sam and Annie when we went back to watching Life of Mars. Sam Tyler has more than a little of the John Crichton about him, the man trapped in an alien world who finds that world to be far crueler and harsher than the one he's used to. Sam also makes anachronistic references with the same clutching-at-sanity deadpan manner.

Sam's more able to make changes in this new world than Crichton ever was; while both are pushed into behaviour that they find morally unattractive, Sam is finding it far easier to push back and make things better. That's probably because Sam has the benefit of being closer to figures of authority in order to affect change. Crichton is an outlaw: if he'd been mysteriously tranferred onto Crais's ship rather than being on the run with outlaws, it would be different. He'd be able to use his cunning to change the system from within. But the PKs are, you know, evil and stuff, so maybe it wouldn't have worked out either way.

I also quite enjoyed how the lights would flicker at dramatically convenient moments. I giggled, but Phil hasn't yet seen Jekyll. He would have giggled, too. I mean. He would have chuckled manfully. It would have been hilarious if John Simm turned into ev0l James Nesbitt at the end of the episode. That would have be excellent.

The point: Life on Mars is excellent and I ran out of episodes (only had the first five...ooops).

And since Life on Mars is a cop show laced with supernatural/paranormal elements (is it a dream? is the Test Pattern Girl really Satan incarnate?), it's the kind of show I'm going to be writing about for my thesis. Therefore, it's research. HA.


...and I'm craving chocolate cupcakes with coffee icing. *mmmmmmm*
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