Cancelling Stargate this week

I've been feeling so crap recently I don't think I'm up to having people over. Hows next wednesday?

Moonlight

Brain is ded, but before I forget:

Cam and I just finished watching "Moonlight". I'd heard it was a cheesy "vampire P.I. in L.A." story with Jason Dohring (Logan from "Veronica Mars") with obsessed fans who got all distraught when it was cancelled, so when Cam said he had the first (and only) season I was expecting a trainwreck but we actually really liked it. I mean, it is pretty cheesy (especially the pilot), and there are some SERIOUS issues (the whole vampires=male, victims=female thing gets pretty old) but at heart it's got just the right mix of romance, fighting bad-guys and angsty soap opera drama for our tastes. There's a Twilight-esque element of sparkliness (ie the sun just makes them a bit sick, and stakes just paralyse them) and old-fashioned values mixed with sleazy objectification but it's not too bad, the leads have a nice chemistry, and as always Jason Dohring is not the world's best actor but he makes a good slashy vampire (sure, he goes on about all his girlfriends, but the way he looks at Mick...) Also the series finishes on a fairly satisfying end, it's not like Firefly.

Also, it's funny to compare to Angel (the other vampire P.I. in L.A. tv show I've seen) On the one hand, it actually has a regular (if minor) latino charcater and the odd latino extra omg(*) but on the other hand apart from that one guy afaict the only other speaking latino parts are in the "Lets beat up stereotyped latino mobsters" episode. It really made me aware of how little reference Angel has to any actual locations in LA: in Moonlight there's episodes in particular historical suburbs, well known parks etc, much more of a sense of place. Possibly the creators have actually been there, is all I'm saying(**). Some of Moonlight's plots are a bit reminiscent of Angel, also ;)

EDIT: since I'm not sure this is clear: This show is, objectively, in a lot of ways, pretty crap. But I liked it anyway. So only watch it if it sounds like your sort of crap too.

(*)The lack of latino actors in Angel, like the lack of chinese people in Firefly, is one of those elephant-in-the-room casting decisions
(**)Of course, I've never been there, so that sense of place could be totally bogus. But it fooled this aussie :)

Thoughts after Heroes S3 Premiere

NOTE: contains vague-ish spoilers for Season 2/Season 3 premiere

With a lot of shows, you have a fairly small cast of main characters, who get fleshed out and have their own subplots, and then a bunch of minor characters who are fairly shallow and never the main focus, and the audience isn't expected to care about them so the writers can mess them about (kill them off etc) without anyone really minding.

I've decided that the problem with Heroes is that superficially it has a large cast of main characters, but actually it's just that it fleshes out it's minor characters more. They appear to be main characters, having fairly complex characterisations and their own subplots...until they get utterly screwed by the storyline because the writers assume noone cares about them(*). The Petrelli/Bennets are main characters (well, not so much Mrs Bennet or Lyle) so when one of them dies, or is even just a bit sad, there's huge long introspective scenes and angsty music and they tend not to stay dead for long, etc. But characters like the twins or the Sanders family are not real main characters, even though they get a fair amount of screentime, and so the writers are happy to kill them off/hurt them etc as a plot device without much thought or fanfare because, well, it's not like anyone cares, they're just minor characters!
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