Of Swords and Parasols

144 x Pan Am



icons @ my LJ

Bomb Girls: Season 1: Bomb Girls is a Canadian series about women who work in a munitions factory in WW2. Despite some developments I'm not sure about in the last episode (I guess they had to create some future Drama for the second season?), it is fairly awesome? If you like "what life was like in this time and place" period dramas, this is a pretty good one, and it feels a lot like some of the good BBC and ITV period dramas, in terms of story and characterization, if not production quality. (Which reminds me that I haven't watched Land Girls yet.) I suspect a lot of the actresses are inexperienced, but they still did a good job. It's kind of irritatingly white in many ways, with a couple exceptions, and the plotline with the lesbian character plays out a bit painfully, if realistically (but with plenty of hope for the future) and I don't know what I think of the romantic plotlines (I want to like them but am a bit iffy, though Gladys's fiance is winning me over against my will) but I like almost all the characters and don't think there are any I actually dislike, and it passes the Bechdel test in about 6 out of 7 scenes, and I think there are maybe 10 minutes of the series without one woman or another around. Warning for a rather gruesome (though less graphic than many shows would make it) factory accident in the first episode, that gets flashed back to in the last.

Lost Girl 2.14-2.16:

( spoilers )

Nikita 2.10-2.15: 2.14 and 2.15 are a good example of why it's sometimes good to be the sort of person who tends to hoard TV until you have a few more episodes to watch together. You don't have to wait for the resolution to a cliffhanger that way.

( spoilers )

Once Upon A Time 1.8-1.12: Emma, stop having chemistry with your bio!mom. Even if she is magically enchanted to remain your age forever and you aren't convinced she's your mother. Anyway, it's a tad awkward.

Most of fandom seems to think this show is getting better and better, but I'm having the opposite reaction? Despite problems, I really loved the first 4 episodes but since then, it...hasn't been the show I thought it was going to be? It's still fun and I largely enjoy the plot twists that don't involve cheating, rape, or portraying slavery/imprisonment as romantic, but it's not the show I wanted and the narrative's approach blocks my investment, particularly when it's going out of its way to woobify Rumples (who I enjoy as a villain, but am increasingly losing interest in the more they make me want to forget his treatment and manipulation of women and just feel BAD for him and his PAIN-I'm starting to make narrative connections between him and TV!Damon Salvatore, and that's a very bad path for me, even if Rumples entertains me way more than Damon ever did, actually has redeeming value for me as a character, and, uhm, Robert Carlyle actually possesses the ability to act) and increasingly make Regina more and more one-note evil (FUN one-note evil, but still one-note).

TBH, right now I mostly pay attention to the Emma, Ruby/Red and Snow White/Mary Margaret stuff (I'm apparently in the minority that didn't care for the Beauty & the Beast part of the latest episode but love the Galentines day subplot), and the Snow White retelling parts.

Pan Am 1.9-1.12: Show, please don't be cancelled! If anyone had told me at the start of the fall season that Pan Am and Revenge were going to be my favorite new shows (I was expecting it to be Secret Circle and Once Upon Time) I wouldn't have believed you because I initially only checked Revenge out because of the concept and Pan Am because it was a period drama with a predominantly female cast.

( spoilers )

Show! Get renewed!

Revenge 1.14-1.15: Emanda x White Gloves = OTP? Seriously, wardrobe was on a roll in ep 14.

( spoilers )Ringer 1.11-1.13:

( spoilers )

Sense and Sensibility (2008): I can't quite remember what the feedback on this one was, but aside from the opening bit (which I can see the logic of, but I don't think it should have been the very first thing in the series) and the soundtrack (were those electric guitars I heard?) I liked it. I think liking but not being overly attached to the book helps me not care as much about the changes. I really liked the cast, especially the Dashwood women, and Dan Stevens tried really hard to get me to like Edward Ferrars, but didn't succeed. (That said, on a shallow note, the longish dark hair is much better for him than the short light hair he has in Downton Abbey.)

White Collar 2.11-2.14:

( spoilers )

75 x Once Upon A Time (pilot)
133 x Pan Am (eps 1-4)

 
 

the rest @ my LJ

There was no Revenge this week! I was not emotionally prepared for that and felt rather bereft and lost. I should find a community to help me keep up with these things. (What am I going to do if it gets cancelled? If it gets cancelled before confirming that Emanda and Charlotte are half-sisters, I may be devastated! I refuse to consider that they may not be!)

Also, I find it very tragic that Pan Am and Covert Affairs are not on the same channel. If they were, I feel positive that Danielle and Annie would suddenly have a second cousin or godmother or great-aunt-by-marriage with red hair who used to tell them about her adventures back when she was a flight stewardess who moonlighted as a spy during the cold war, and that that's what really triggered annie's interest in languages and the CIA. (Sadly, the years just can't work for Kate to be their mother or grandmother...)

( Lost Girl 2.7 )


( Nikita 2.7 )
I haven't watched this week's episode yet.

( Once Upon A Time 1.3 )

Homeland 1.1

This is going to be very awkward show for me. See, regardless of whether or not Damien Lewis's character is a traitor, I sympathize with him because if he did turn, he was obviously relentlessly physically and mentally tortured.

However, I have a deep need for Claire Dane's analyst character to be RIGHT and for Morena Baccarin's character (she plays Lewis's wife) to be HAPPY, which basically means that I want the male lead to be a traitor. (I am also a bit iffy on how very easy it would be for the show to go into the realm of complete Fail with both their arcs.)

But it's...interesting? And has a lot of excellent actors. Not something I'll be able to watch in large doses, but I'm curious to see where it goes.

That said, there are exceptionally awkward sex scenes (and by "awkward" I mean "WTF?" and "Whoa what? Uncomfortable much?" in chronological order) and I feel the writers may be slightly too devoted to Life and possibly think they're writing an AU.

( Covert Affairs 2.12 )

( Ringer 1.8 )

( Pan Am 1.7 )

Or at least,onces I've checked out/plan to check out.

Ones I'm watching:

Revenge:  Blonde leading lady.  (Character is bottle blonde, unless she was dying itdark as a teen.  No idea about the actress.)  All but 1 supporting female character is brunette. Other is blonde.

Ringer: Blonde leading lady in dual role.   All but 1 supporting female character is brunette. Other is a redhead.

Once Upon A Time:  Blonde leading lady.  All supporting female characters in pilot were brunette, except the grey haired granny.

Pan Am:  So far, the screen time is fairly evenly divided between the four leading ladies: 1 blonde, 2 brunette, 1 redhead.  However between being the new girl + the fairly central sister relationship + being 1/2 of the 2 romances the show is building up to = heavier narrative and POV focus the blonde, though not, so far, to the point of actua putting her forward as a corelead as opposed to part of an ensemble.

Shows I checked out but will not be watching more of unless people whose judgement I trust start consistently saying things about them that make me think I'll likethem more than what I hav seen would lead me to believe:

Grimm:  I think the main cast list onl has 1 female character, but I'm not sure if it's the aunt (bald) fiancee (I think light brown?) or the blonde monster lady.

Secret Circle:  Blonde female lead, other female characters in her age group brunette, I think both female characters in the older generation were blonde?

Show I intend to check out:

Homeland:  As I haven't watched it yet, I obviously don't know the full cast, but the female lead is blonde.

(The problem with Homeland is that I've heard a variety of things good and bad, but from all of them I get the feeling that I will desperately want Claire Danes's character to be right, but then that means I'll be wanting the male lead to be a traitor...)

Now, I quite like all the blondes I mentioned and a while back there were a bunch of ladies in various fandoms who were all blonde that I was seeing hated on all at once so I went and added "little blonde heroines" to my now-woefully-out-of-date interests in a fit of pique so I don't exactly have an issue with blondes, and I knowthere are other new shows where the female lead isn't blonde, but that's some trend there, at least in my viewing.  (Is this a trend that just mostly showed up in the shows more likely to interest me?  I remember last fall's new shows being more skewed towards brunettes, at least in the ones I checked out.  Though, were there any new shows beside Nikita and Undercovers last fall that I watched?  I actually can't remember now.)

TBH, I actually have no idea what I think of it beyond the normal going on about standards of beauty and such, I just notice these things...

Pan Am:

The second episode aired today, but I've been catching up with almost-everything airing US tv for the last week and need a switch. Probably to Warrior Baek Dong Soo and Strange Hero Yi Zhi Mei, as I'm behind on both.

Anyway:

Downside: To all appearances, by the people who think Mad Men is about the aesthetics and nostalgia.

Upside: To all appearances, not by the people who think Mad Men is about how 60s ad men were cool and charming and that Don Draper is a brilliant and awesome and amazing man who's lucky enough to get laid whenever he wants by whoever he wants.

Pretty, a bit lighter than I really like my period dramas, but not so much that it's a turn off. Lots of girls and Bechdel passing and the women all appear to have positive relationships, and I don't hate the men. It's also a nice counterweight to both Revenge and Ringer.

Returning shows.
 

Haven: I'm current. Based on the end of the latest episode, I assume it's time for a midseason break? Aside from the show's general inability to keep any woman but Audrey around for more than a few episodes, I remain very fond of the show, and contrinue to like the metaplot a lot. However, what they did in episode 2.9 pissed me off so much that I watched the next 3 episodes ready to drop it forever if it did a singlething to annoy me. (The tail end of 2.10 did help a bit with the RAGE though.)

Nikita: Also current. Apparently, I disliked certain things in the tail end of season 1 that I now just watch for Maggie Q's fight scenes. Honestly, I do still enjoy the show a lot when it isn't reminding me of the things that annoy me, but it doesn't inspire the passion or "OMG EEE!" that the first season did until about the midteens.

The Vampire Diaries: Let me know when Bonnie comes back. 

The Secret Circle:  Ok, not returning, but I read the books?  I watched part of the second episode and decided that life was too short to watch Kevin Williamson take another woman-positive text with inoffensive men and turn the men into assholes who treat women like crap and focus on how INTERESTING and FASCINATING the men are and eventually quit giving the women any scenes together, and this has the same earmarkings of that that early TVD did, if with less rape.  I may come back if I hear it it beats my expectations, or check out the DVDs just in case.  (Yes, I too am sad that my bitterness over what TVD has spilled over into what might turn out to be a perfectly decent show if I could separate Kevin Williamson projects in my head.)

Basically, I want Once Upon A Time to start, and The Borgias and Covert Affairs to come back.  And White Collar, but not quite as much as the other two.

Spoilers for all shows welcome in comments.