You'll never give up, never give up, never give up that ship

[sovay]

Last night I dreamed I discovered a previously unknown and probably nonexistent biography of Ralph Richardson. I also dreamed my front teeth fell out like popsicle sticks. One of these dreams was better than the other.

This afternoon derspatchel and I met sairaali and M. at the A.R.T. for The Last Two People on Earth: An Apocalyptic Vaudeville, starring Mandy Patinkin and Taylor Mac. It was lovely. It's more or less what it sounds like: a relationship after the end of the world, described and explored strictly through gesture, mime, and music. Songs utilized include a post-apocalyptic update of Eddie Lawrence's "Old Philosopher," the best cover I have ever heard of the Pogues' "Fairytale of New York," and a subversively straight reading of "Another National Anthem" from Assassins. I grew up on Patinkin's singing (and Spanish accent), but I had never seen him in person before; he plays the older, dourer, more damaged of the pair, a tattered hermit who may or may not have been born in a trunk, but is living ferally in one when Mac's impish baggy-pantser rows a junk-cluttered lifeboat up to his shore. Mac turns out to remind me sharply of Donald O'Connor circa Singin' in the Rain, at least with a bowler hat on, a sprightly knack for physical comedy, and a mercurial talent for extracting everything from a picnic supper to a fifth of gin from the remote regions of judy's trousers. I have discovered that I am no longer the target audience for strobe lights—I didn't get a migraine, but I watched the storm sequences with one hand over my eyes. Eighty minutes with no intermission. If you can snag the tickets, it's worth your time.

So I have this relationship with the film of Stargate (1994), where I know it's a total brain-optional chariots-of-the-gods B-picture with almost certainly a white savior problem and in the days when I lived in a house with a television, I watched it every time it came around, because there are very few movies where a dork with a knowledge of dead languages saves the day. (To this day, even after Crash (1996), Secretary (2002), and Age of Ultron (2015), I am always faintly surprised when James Spader is not playing a sweet-natured nerd. Also, Jaye Davidson as Ra is ridiculously beautiful, even if the bass reverb voice processing is kind of unnecessary.) I knew about the television sequel and its multiple spinoffs; I never paid any attention to them because I couldn't see the point. People who watch more genre television than I do: are any of them any good? This question brought to you by vague curiosity upon realizing I lived through an entire sci-fi franchise without interacting with it almost at all. I mean, I've only seen the pilot of Farscape, but I've seen it.

Comments

[sovay]

If we lived closer, I could lend you the entirety of SG-1, which apparently I liked enough to buy a DVD boxed set, tho' I have continued my tradition of never quite watching a series through to the end.

I appreciate the tele-offer!

(Still haven't seen the last episode of B5; it took me forever to watch the end of Buffy. Etc.)

Is it from loss of interest, or because watching the last episode of something finishes it for real? (If the latter, I may be able to sympathize; I have read the last books of neither Lloyd Alexander nor Diana Wynne Jones.)

Once they get down to action/plot or woo-woo/mysticism, I care less.

It's not my reaction to most movies, but that exactly describes my feelings about The Incredible Hulk (2008)—and to some degree Thor (2011), actually. The movie is so good when it's just hanging out observing its characters, why does it have to try to distract its audience with plot?

[desperance.livejournal.com]

It's partly because of structural issues: both B5 and SG-1 had that thing where they thought they would lose their funding, so they wrapped up the Big Bad - and the audience figures were good enough that they got one or two series more, and had to scramble for stories now that the Big Bad was defeated, and neither one of them really hit it off.

But that's not true of Buffy, or Angel, or any of my other uncompleted fandoms. I dunno: maybe I do like to keep them alive, still plunging off that cliff, not landed yet.

[sovay]

It's partly because of structural issues: both B5 and SG-1 had that thing where they thought they would lose their funding, so they wrapped up the Big Bad - and the audience figures were good enough that they got one or two series more, and had to scramble for stories now that the Big Bad was defeated, and neither one of them really hit it off.

Oh, the last season of Babylon 5 is incredibly uneven. I like about a third of it. Mostly the tragic arc of Centauri Prime. The rest I haven't rewatched in seventeen years. But the series finale, as you have almost certainly already been told, was filmed as part of the fourth season when there was no expectation of a fifth-season renewal, so it is actually extremely good (if not quite congruent with the cast of the fifth season. I have never minded, because I care a lot more about Ivanova than about Lochley. I care a lot more about Ivanova than about anyone who wasn't Londo, G'Kar, or Vir). I recommend it, even if it will leave you with a resolution instead of a potential state.

[moon-custafer.livejournal.com]

I never watched it, but I've heard the 1980s police-procedural-spoof Sledge Hammer! didn't expect to be renewed at the end of its first season, so they ended it with a nuclear bomb destroying San Francisco; then they got a second season.

[sovay]

I never watched it, but I've heard the 1980s police-procedural-spoof Sledge Hammer! didn't expect to be renewed at the end of its first season, so they ended it with a nuclear bomb destroying San Francisco; then they got a second season.

Hee. Millennium's second-season finale killed off the world and most of the characters with an apocalyptic plague. I have never watched the third season, because it is obviously either an alternate timeline or wishful thinking.