I sort of relaxed and got caught up on things over the long weekend. Does signing ~1000 signature sheets count as relaxing? I did them while watching recorded TV shows, so it wasn’t too taxing. They’re for the revised and expanded second edition of The Illustrated Stephen King Trivia Book. Got ’em all done over the course of about five hours and forwarded to Glenn Chadbourne. I also reviewed the editor’s comments and, subsequently, the page proofs for “Sitting up with the Dead,” my contribution to the Appalachian Undead anthology.
On the reading front, I finished Dark Places by Gillian Flynn (dark novel with a twisty ending) and got back to The Twelve by Justin Cronin. He’ll be appearing in Houston on October 30 for a “block party” event. He reads from the book at two nearby bookstores and then migrates across the street to a pub for a signing. Sounds cool. If I lived in Houston proper, I could probably go to a signing a week at Murder By the Book, but 35 miles is enough of a hurdle to keep me from going often. I’ll make an exception for this, I think.
Cool Lost reference of the week. On Grey’s Anatomy, Bailey says (while in the back of a cargo plane), “I keep thinking that we’re gonna crash on some tropical island and get attacked by a polar bear.” Webber doesn’t get what she means. “You should watch more TV.”
Watch TV I did. Two episodes of Castle. I like the way they’re handling the romance. First, they dealt with the death of the weather girl and everything about the case made some commentary on secret inter-office romances. (Loved the scene where Castle was playing around in front of the green screen.) Glad to see the other “romance” on the show, Ryan and Esposito, got back on track when they reached a detente. Then the development of the secret handshake as a replacement for kissing in public. You just know they’re still going to be laughing about that when they’re 85, assuming they’re still together. I knew the figurine was going to be the key in last night’s episode, but they pulled a fast one by bringing in the twin, too.
They’ve played around a bit with the formula of Major Crimes. When I saw Tao with a mustache in last week’s episode, I thought they were going too far! But re-investigating the old case after the accused was set free was interesting, as was the idea that the team went on a wild goose chase, solving the identity theft case from Las Vegas, only to discover that it had nothing to do with the homicide. Funny how they ditched the “John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt” case on LV and elsewhere so they wouldn’t have to spend time unraveling all the false identities. The angry kid, though—he’s gotta go.
I was wondering whether a motorcycle could actually withstand being struck by a vehicle going in the opposite direction without spilling, the way it happened on Sons of Anarchy last week. Gemma has been the instigator of her fair share of cat fights this season. I actually feel like Wendy’s getting a raw deal. At least the most recent cat fight will help Nero distance himself from Gemma, as agreed. Those guys send each other off like Vikings.
Speaking of cat fights, is there an equivalent term for when two different agencies (CBI and FBI) get into a public squabble? I figured out the lottery angle on last week’s episode early on. There were too many flashes of ads for it. I didn’t know what it meant, but I knew it would have to do with that big jackpot. Did I miss something or did Patrick somehow put that red marble in the FBI agent’s pocket? I liked this week’s episode, too, with the hallucinogenic daughter telling him to get over his obsession with Red John. Hopefully he won’t keep trying more belladonna to try to recreate that experience. It was a little bit like Alice through the looking glass for a while. The bit at the end where they faked out the killer by pretending she was hallucinating was a bit wonky. Lisbon speaking Swedish?
Biggest laugh on Haven recently: the two newspaper guys (Bartles and James, Duke called them) are sitting in their office when a naked guy runs past the window wearing a huge dog cone over his head. “Looks like we have our lead story for tomorrow,” one of them deadpans. The idea of dogs turning into people was funny (usually it’s the other way around), but the logic of how they were converted back to dogs was wonky.
I was wondering how they were going to keep up the intrigue on Once Upon a Time this season but they hit on some clever twists. Sending Emma and “her mother” back to fairy tale land and setting limits on the boundary of Storybrooke. Even Mr. Gold is thwarted by the latter unexpected side effect. Who was the guy in NY who got the carrier pigeon message?
Satisfying finality with the fall season finale of Doctor Who. The weeping angels have become the creepiest of all of the villains on the show, ever, though they sometimes get used so heavily that the internal logic of how they’re supposed to work is overlooked. How did Rory survive in the basement with all those baby angels, for instance? And the idea of having the Statue of Liberty be one of them was clever, but underutilized. (“I always wanted to visit the Statue of Liberty. I guess she got impatient,” Rory says.) Apparently the Melody Malone novel is now available as an eBook, though the story is different from the one in the episode. Liked the idea of ripping out the last page of a book. “That way it doesn’t have to end.” I never expected Amy & Rory would go out that way…twice. Final words of advice from River: Only one psychopath per TARDIS. I’ll be interested to see if they take the opportunity of a cast changeover to move in a new direction next year.
