I walk in on Maribou watching Season 2 of the Game of Thrones right at the minute where, spoiler, Joffrey gets slapped. I’m thinking that they need to start calling him “Joffrey The Red Faced”. Last night at gaming, I made a joke about Tywin showing up and slapping him and it was pointed out that Tywin does not slap. “Tyrion! Slap him!”
Meanwhile, in Good Omens, the angel found a book and read it. Have you guys seen Matt and Trey give their speech about plot development? The gist is this: if you have two scenes that are connected by “and then this happened”, it’s bad. It should always be something like “X happened, therefore Y happened” or “X happened, but Y happened, therefore Z happened.”
Good Omens does a very good job of following these rules. This happens… therefore *THAT* happens. If something happens outside of this set of “therefores”, it’s a complication that leads to a therefore. They’re doing a *VERY* good job plotting this book.
So… what are you reading and/or watching?
Jay’s covered the watching. I’m reading Margaret Atwood and a memoir of studying orcas in the aftermath of the Exxon Valdez spill…
What a cheery set of things, huh?
I totally thought you were going in another direction with that first sentence.
I’m still watching Breaking Baf because I only watch 3 or 4 episodes a week, but Junior has discovered a new show that doesn’t make me want to fork myself. It’s a version of Transformers called Rescue Bots. Maybe it’s only new to me. Either way it’s a step up from Bo on the Go, which is a good idea in theory (a show focused on getting kids up and moving), but is sooooo repetitive.
I have heard from more than one parent that Rescue Bots is less stab-oneself-in-the-eye than most shows for that age group.
Now, there’s a recommendation.
So now I’m picturing a cross between Game of Thrones and How I Met Your Mother where Joffrey keeps losing bets to Tyrion.
“If The Mountain defeats Ser Loras, I’ll exile you to the far side of the Wall.”
“Very well, nephew, but if Ser Loras wins, I get 20 slaps.”
They found out the *REAL* reason people tune in.
The Next Generation could have kept Wesley indefinitely if he got slapped every other show.
If we cast Joffrey as the blue guy and Wesley as suspender guy in a remake of this, and run it on a loop, we could make millions.
I went to a play called Belleville that got a rave review in the NY Times and is at the generally good New York Theatre Workshop.
I was bored by it. It was the same dysfunctional marriage unraveling from too many secrets and mental illness story that we have seen for decades. I suspect we are in a strange place culture wise on this front, dysfunctional relationship stories are becoming shopworn and dull but I think a successful relationship story would get you accusations of being a naive throwback to the land of sexless Hollywood movies from the 1950s.
For a marriage that’s good but not boring (or sexless), watch Friday Night Lights. Seriously.
This weekend was Series 2 of Blackadder, and the first couple episodes of Series 3. These are definitely more like I remembered.
I also finished reading The Eye of the World, which will be followed by something light before moving on to The Great Hunt.
Apparently a reread of GRRM’s work was good for a hilarious review…
… and more pranks. GRRM needs his ego popped, badly.
“Where do whores go?”
ought to be changed to
“Where does plot go?”
I just watched the 17th episode of Arrow. It probably says something negative about me that my infatuation with Helena Bertinelli (which predates the TV show) is not deterred in the slightest by the fact that she basically a bloodthirsty villain in the TV series.
How is Arrow in general? Has it been CWed to the point of being unwatchable? Or is it actually an interesting take on Oliver?
Sometimes it feels like it’s not really aimed at my demographic.
But seriously it’s not so bad you can’t enjoy the story. And there’s usually an enjoyable fight and some fun dialogue. There’s just enough of the interesting supporting characters that you want more.
I’m more interested in the origin story — how Oliver gets his ninja skills and what he did for the five years he was missing — than the present-day crime fighting. Very little CW Effect going on there other than some clunky plot devices.
The big plot arc is moving very slowly. But when one of the interesting female characters (Huntress or Felicity) is involved, then I like it better.
I’m enjoying it muchly. I am outside the demographic age-wise, and I feel it sometimes, but they do a good job of keeping things going along and avoid some obvious traps. I’m going to stick what is a very minor spoiler here to provide an example:
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I also agree with what Burt says about the island. Easily the most interesting part.
As far as Ollie goes… it’s not the same Oliver Queen that we know. It’s a different character. Like Ollie, except younger, and with some Bruce Wayne thrown in there. But it’s not an uninteresting character.