find the love you've missed
Jul. 28th, 2021 07:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pensnestI fought with brambles to get the gate to the fruit cage open today, and was then faced with a wall of raspberry jungle. I don't think the raspberries are going to be picked this summer. That fruit cage is gonna have to go.
The promise of thunder, long delayed, is actually being fulfilled. I conveyed Beast to his rehearsal in the car, because it's coming down in stair-rods, and there are many ominous thunderings and flashes. Good thing Beast cleared the gutters a couple of days ago. As I can't see how we could be flooded here, I am hoping this downpour will replenish my water butts. I have been watering-canning it for a while now, and a bit of water falling from the sky is both welcome and overdue. Noisy, though. Ooh, and now the hail is battering on my skylight window in the most menacing way. I hope Sable is inside! Hell's teef, it's like being inside a cement mixer in here.
Anyway.... I found a post that I wrote a while back and do not seem to have put up on my journal, so here it is. We acquired Disney+, and have been catching up on some fannish stuff, and also looking at things on Apple TV, which is better than you might think. Cutting in case of spoilers, though I'm pretty much late with everything.
For instance, For All Mankind had a cracking second series. I was a bit disappointed in the first because I thought they were going to do a rewritten social history, showing America as a bit less gung-ho and rather better in the feminism department, but we didn't really get that. However, there was a lot going on with the characters in season two that I really enjoyed, and the finale was amazing. And wow. Lots of wow.
The Mandalorian- liked it. The pace was glacially slow, each episode could be summed up in a sentence (usually the same sentence, ie Mandalorian does someone a favour and gets told to go somewhere else, but it's a beautifully realised world, and I found that even though one of the main characters has no visible face (most of the time) and another one is a puppet, I am really engaged by these characters. Also, Cara is an awesome character—so good to see a female fighter who actually looks as though she could slug someone.
WandaVision- well, okay. I liked the way the sitcoms were done, and their gradual breakdown. Was very disappointed that the only way these people seem to be able to end something is with ever-increasing violence. The exploration of Wanda's past and psyche was good, why let that deteriorate into a lot of red flashing? Sigh. I am *so* bored with Action Sequences.
The Falcon and the Winter Soldier I think what is annoying me most about this show is the complete lack of intelligent thought that seems to have gone into the world-building. My Beast put it well—they have gone for Drama and not Story. To my mind, to be good Drama, the Story needs to stand up. It doesn't. They seem to be saying that when half the world's population disappeared, all the nations started... welcoming refugees? I mean, what?
I've probably ranted before about the decision to put five years between Snappening and Undusting, and the decision to kill off Tony Stark and give Steve Rogers a happy life. Tony's insistence on keeping those five years so that he could keep his adorable moppet, and Steve's disappearance into an obscure and uninvolved past*, are both WRONG. We the audience need our emotions wrung, not salved. We also need writers not to be lazy. We needed Tony to make the real sacrifice, ie his adorable moppet. We needed Steve to be the one who died. Because—oh, come on, Steve Rogers lives a happy and obscure past with Peggy Carter? Knowing that Hydra is out there and Bucky is out there and—Are you *kidding* me?
Yeah, so anyway, the background to FatWS makes me cross. And considering I liked both characters very much in the films, I was irritated to be so disengaged from them both in the series.
Oh, BUT. Then we watched 'Truth', which I loved. It had so much to think about and okay, there was some violence—guess we can't escape that with Marvel—but so much thought. Really liked it.
And I very much enjoyed the final episode. Sam as Captain America—not Black Falcon, Captain America. The 'terrorists' storyline was very much a mcguffin, just an excuse for Sam and Bucky to trot about being heroic. All the interesting stuff happens in the characters. But I do prefer characters without much plot to plot without much character, so okay.
And now, we have just (today) started watching , Ted Lasso and I had no idea what it would be about but I am so very pleasantly surprised at how much I love it. Ted is just so *likeable*, and the various characters are much more interesting than I'd have thought, and there's depth, and surprises, and it works. And no violence, or at least, nothing that requires vast arrays of CGI, which makes a very welcome change. You should all watch it. Well, it's on Apple TV so that may not be possible, but it is delightful.
I ought to do something useful, but eh. I'm gonna knit and watch something mindless.
The promise of thunder, long delayed, is actually being fulfilled. I conveyed Beast to his rehearsal in the car, because it's coming down in stair-rods, and there are many ominous thunderings and flashes. Good thing Beast cleared the gutters a couple of days ago. As I can't see how we could be flooded here, I am hoping this downpour will replenish my water butts. I have been watering-canning it for a while now, and a bit of water falling from the sky is both welcome and overdue. Noisy, though. Ooh, and now the hail is battering on my skylight window in the most menacing way. I hope Sable is inside! Hell's teef, it's like being inside a cement mixer in here.
Anyway.... I found a post that I wrote a while back and do not seem to have put up on my journal, so here it is. We acquired Disney+, and have been catching up on some fannish stuff, and also looking at things on Apple TV, which is better than you might think. Cutting in case of spoilers, though I'm pretty much late with everything.
For instance, For All Mankind had a cracking second series. I was a bit disappointed in the first because I thought they were going to do a rewritten social history, showing America as a bit less gung-ho and rather better in the feminism department, but we didn't really get that. However, there was a lot going on with the characters in season two that I really enjoyed, and the finale was amazing. And wow. Lots of wow.
The Mandalorian- liked it. The pace was glacially slow, each episode could be summed up in a sentence (usually the same sentence, ie Mandalorian does someone a favour and gets told to go somewhere else, but it's a beautifully realised world, and I found that even though one of the main characters has no visible face (most of the time) and another one is a puppet, I am really engaged by these characters. Also, Cara is an awesome character—so good to see a female fighter who actually looks as though she could slug someone.
WandaVision- well, okay. I liked the way the sitcoms were done, and their gradual breakdown. Was very disappointed that the only way these people seem to be able to end something is with ever-increasing violence. The exploration of Wanda's past and psyche was good, why let that deteriorate into a lot of red flashing? Sigh. I am *so* bored with Action Sequences.
The Falcon and the Winter Soldier I think what is annoying me most about this show is the complete lack of intelligent thought that seems to have gone into the world-building. My Beast put it well—they have gone for Drama and not Story. To my mind, to be good Drama, the Story needs to stand up. It doesn't. They seem to be saying that when half the world's population disappeared, all the nations started... welcoming refugees? I mean, what?
I've probably ranted before about the decision to put five years between Snappening and Undusting, and the decision to kill off Tony Stark and give Steve Rogers a happy life. Tony's insistence on keeping those five years so that he could keep his adorable moppet, and Steve's disappearance into an obscure and uninvolved past*, are both WRONG. We the audience need our emotions wrung, not salved. We also need writers not to be lazy. We needed Tony to make the real sacrifice, ie his adorable moppet. We needed Steve to be the one who died. Because—oh, come on, Steve Rogers lives a happy and obscure past with Peggy Carter? Knowing that Hydra is out there and Bucky is out there and—Are you *kidding* me?
Yeah, so anyway, the background to FatWS makes me cross. And considering I liked both characters very much in the films, I was irritated to be so disengaged from them both in the series.
Oh, BUT. Then we watched 'Truth', which I loved. It had so much to think about and okay, there was some violence—guess we can't escape that with Marvel—but so much thought. Really liked it.
And I very much enjoyed the final episode. Sam as Captain America—not Black Falcon, Captain America. The 'terrorists' storyline was very much a mcguffin, just an excuse for Sam and Bucky to trot about being heroic. All the interesting stuff happens in the characters. But I do prefer characters without much plot to plot without much character, so okay.
And now, we have just (today) started watching , Ted Lasso and I had no idea what it would be about but I am so very pleasantly surprised at how much I love it. Ted is just so *likeable*, and the various characters are much more interesting than I'd have thought, and there's depth, and surprises, and it works. And no violence, or at least, nothing that requires vast arrays of CGI, which makes a very welcome change. You should all watch it. Well, it's on Apple TV so that may not be possible, but it is delightful.
I ought to do something useful, but eh. I'm gonna knit and watch something mindless.
no subject
Date: 2021-07-28 08:28 pm (UTC)If had to choose between the world and Oswin. I might not be able to choose the world, enough though it would be the correct decision.
(BTW, when you expand the text, you can no longer tell which text is for which show...)
no subject
Date: 2021-07-28 09:12 pm (UTC)Drat. I'll see if I can fix the formatting. Thanks for letting me know.
no subject
Date: 2021-07-29 10:23 am (UTC)He may have taken the easier choice, but it wasn't easy to do that.
We're none of us perfect. And his was not the only child born in that time.
no subject
Date: 2021-07-29 10:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-07-28 08:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-07-28 09:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-07-29 10:25 am (UTC)I insisted on a proper fruit cage for Xmas last year, and it all assembled properly and didn't lean, and had metal poles and has no nails at all.
Worth every penny!
no subject
Date: 2021-07-29 10:12 pm (UTC)It's so irritating, really!
no subject
Date: 2021-07-29 06:28 am (UTC)Jealous of your rain. Hope the skylight holds up!
no subject
Date: 2021-07-29 10:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-07-30 12:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-07-31 02:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-08-02 06:52 pm (UTC)