Groves of Villengard and all...

I just shared a post about the banana industry which should show up in the "Stuff I Like" box, but the subject is really more important than that to me, so here's a link to a New York Times Opinion piece (why opinion? who knows?) about the Panama disease that's threatening to wipe out the Cavendish banana in the next 5 to 10 years. I take offense to the reference to the banana as the fruit equivalent of a fast food hamburger. Still, it's at least drawing attention to the situation. Maybe now people won't look at me like I'm a lunatic when I start going on about eating as many bananas as I can now because they won't be around in the future.

And, in closing, to quote the good Doctor: "I like bananas. Bananas are good."

Oh. My. God. No.

4.12 "The Stolen Earth"

No. Nonononononono. No. No. NO!

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog Trailer!

I know this is two video posts in a row, but I can't help myself. Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog looks awesome and I can't wait. Of course, I'm not entirely sure when it's being released (or posted, I guess), but I'm anxious no matter what. And already disappointed that it's not feature length.

Anyway, here's the trailer. Pass it around.


Teaser from Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog on Vimeo.

Tiger cubs!

I'm not sure this is quite as adorable as the Lion cubs from April, but it's still pretty damn cute. And tiger cubs and lion cubs make the same high pitched squeaking noises.

I want one.

Pilot review: Swingtown

1.01 "Pilot"

Okay, I'm about three weeks late in watching this pilot, but I kept reading about it so I figured I ought to catch up and decide whether or not I have any actual interest in the show.

So far, I'm feeling like "No". But that could just be the fact that I am completely creeped out by the whole premise of the show. I don't see how this could possibly work without all of the characters devolving into drug and sex addled lunatics who make their own lives and the lives of those around them completely miserable. And I certainly don't feel like I want to watch a show where the character's lives just get worse and worse. If I did, I'd watch reality shows.

Other strikes against the show include the 70s hair, 70s fashion, 70s slang, 70s music, and the fact that the main neighbor, Tom, is a pilot and has a porn 'stache.

All of that being said, I am vaguely interested in the main characters, Bruce and Susan. I'm also interested in their daughter, Laurie, and her obvious desire to be sleeping with her Philosophy teacher. And I'm weirdly intrigued by the old neighbor husband, Roger (?). I can't tell if he's looking longingly at Susan because he's attracted to her, looking longingly at Bruce because he's attracted to him, or looking longingly at the two of them because he's desirous of the loving and sexually satisfying relationship that they seem to have but that he clearly doesn't have with his crazy shrew of a wife. He seemed to take a bit of a turn at the end of the episode and might "man up" over the course of the show, which would be enjoyable, mainly because he's attractive.

Unrelated to most all of that, there's something unsettling about Jack Davenport with an American accent. Granted, his face is masked enough by the crazy 70s hair that sometimes I can just forget it's him. But other times I'm definitely thinking "You're Steve/Norrington! Be British, like you're supposed to be!".

So, I think I'll at least watch the next episode. But I'd probably prefer a second season of Hidden Palms. Man, I miss that show.

BAD WOLF!

4.11 "Turn Left"

Holy Fucking Awesome! The last seven words of that episode were so awesome I almost had a heart attack. Seriously, a heart attack. For some reason it just didn't occur to me that the two words Rose would tell Donna to say would be "Bad Wolf." I don't know how it didn't occur to me. It makes perfect sense. Also...Rose! Okay, I'm going to calm down for a minute before I continue writing this.

Alrighty. I've recovered slightly. But still not so much that I won't just describe every single bit as "awesome".

The idea of an alternate reality based on Donna making a different choice: Awesome.

Rose's theme music starting to play before we see Rose: Awesome.

Donna's grandad; increasingly throughout the episode: Awesome.

The fact that every character in all of the spin-offs dies remotely over the course of the episode: Awesome.

The WWII feel of England after the destruction of London: Awesome (and really sad and moving).

"A man in a suit. Tall, thin man. Great hair. Some really great hair.": Awesome (also kind of hilarious how turned on Rose seems to be by his hair).

Finally finding out what's on Donna's back: Um, nice, but the beetle was pretty crappy and really reminiscent of "Planet of the Spiders".

A time machine coat that, in TARDIS fashion, doesn't quite deliver Donna to the right location: Awesome.

The Doctor pointing out Donna's unusual penchant for both coincidences and alternate/parallel worlds: Awesome.

David Fucking Tennant (particularly his facial expression when he hears "Bad Wolf"): Always, always Awesome.

And it looks like next week the shitstorm of destruction that is the season finale begins. I'm really pleased to see that absolutely everyone will be in it. I'm still hoping Jack and Donna are going to meet and snark at each other some. I'm feeling vaguely like I need to be caught up on The Sarah Jane Adventures. I don't think I'm going to get around to it though.

Also, as far as I can tell, the season finale should cover the disappearance of all the bees, the stars going out, Rose's sudden ability to jump through worlds, and the reason that Donna is the most important human in all existence. Wait...maybe the entire season has been a universe constructed around her and the real Doctor is elsewhere, doing totally different stuff...or is already dead and regenerated...or maybe not.

The Dichotomy of Good and Evil

Derrick and I watched the first five episodes of Season 1 of Carnivale this past weekend. We'd owned it since Christmas but never got around to starting it until our weekly Battlestar Galactica watching appointment came to an end. It makes sense as a replacement, given that Ron D. Moore executive produced it.

Anyway, who'd have thought we'd be so interested in a mysterious religious war set to the backdrop of a carnival troupe in the Dustbowl? Wait...did I really just ask that? Point is, five episodes in and it's really entertaining, we have no idea whatsoever as to what is going on, and we're completely hooked.

I'll do a full post about it once we've watched the whole season. I just wanted to preface it with this post so I could say "Awesome".

Wait, what did go wrong?

Woohoo! My 200th post! And it only took me like 15 months. Anyway, I finally got around to watching last week's Doctor Who.

4.10 "Midnight"

Well, it's an RTD episode so it certainly wasn't subtle. Also, incredibly awkward to watch. It was very strange having to hear every line of dialog starting from about halfway through the show either repeated or said in stereo by two actors. But disconcerting, I guess, which seems like the effect it was supposed to have. And, the Doctor just standing there unmoving and repeating "the thing" for the whole last part, where all David Tennant could do was emote with his eyes, was pretty damn impressive.

So in general the episode was really creepy and reminded me of that Paranoia Demon thing from the Angel episode "Are You Now or Have You Ever Been?" that dealt in paranoia, obviously, and mob mentality. And it is something to commend that the episode seems to fly by despite the fact that the whole thing is 40 minutes of people in a room yelling at each other. But even though this episode was very clearly shouting that mob mentality is creepy and David Tennant is the most awesome actor ever, I feel like it was kind of light on substance mainly because it was pretty (forgive me for saying it) repetitive.

...Or maybe I just mean it was light on content. Because we never did get any explanation of what was going on. But, as I said, it flew by, so I guess there didn't really need to be any more. I don't know. It was a surprisingly good episode. It was definitely different.

Anyway, the "Next Time On" appears to have a lot of Rose and Donna and the Doctor seems to be dead. I'm guessing this episode was just Donna-lite rather than being Doctor-lite (as has been the case in the previous two seasons) because the Doctor spends the next episode "dead" and David Tennant had free time while Donna does a lot of the leg work next week so Catherine Tate didn't have time to tour the Sapphire Falls of Midnight. And, Hey!, we'll finally get to find out what's on Donna's back. Also, Rose!

Wow. Earth Sucks!

4.10 "Revelations"

This episode was fun. Nice and action packed. Lots of tension and racing about. Very exciting. Despite how stupid a process it was getting him to that point, I enjoyed the fact that Lee was president. Also the variety of ways that the Four of Five gave themselves up/were given up were quite entertaining. I particularly enjoyed the look of amusement on the Chief's face when the marines showed up.

Also, they found Earth. And Earth blows more than they were expecting. It seems like at this point in the lives of the main characters, after everything that's happened, they must be thinking they got the short end of the stick not just dying in the first attack on the colonies. So now what do they do with the rest of the season? Are we back on New Caprica, roughin' it, just with less Cylon-inflicted oppression? I wouldn't necessarily be averse to that. I liked New Caprica. It was very dirty and led to awe inspiring acts of desperation.

Of course it hadn't even occurred to me until I read this io9 post, that maybe it's not Earth. I kind of think it is though. Or maybe I just hope it is because it would be kind of annoying for them to realize they were on the wrong planet and then set out in search of it again. So despite the fact that this season really jerked me around in terms of quality, plausibility and general entertainingness, I'm still desperate for the second half of the season and disappointed that I have to wait until next winter. Dammit!

The Doctor's Wife

4.09 "Forest of the Dead"

So I really liked the whole fake world in the computer. And I enjoyed Donna's existence in it. I felt like that could be a whole series in itself. But maybe it's way too Matrix-y. The jumping around in "time" and "space" based on impulses and directives was really interesting. And I spent time wondering if Donna's "husband" (Lee McAvoy, was it?) was experiencing things in the same way? Did he just jump to work and back and do some things at work as he thought about it? Did Doctor Moon have to spend that much time telling him to forget and remember things? Did Doctor Moon have to do that to all 4000-whatever people in CAL? I guess the key is that it works like a computer rather than like the real world so it's hard to translate it to something I could understand.

Anyway, I liked River Song more in this part. She was less...I don't know...macho, or something, and therefore less annoying. So I guess she's not someone we already know, as I'd been suspecting last week. Just his wife in the future. Also, the degree to which the Doctor was totally freaked out by her saying his name was pretty interesting. We've see the Doctor kind of dumbfounded or surprised by things before, but never on this level. It was kind of a pained shock (Long Live David Tennant!). Also, her story about what they did the last time she saw him, because he knew that she was going to her death because he'd always known it, was pretty damn sad and interesting and goes with that "Non-Linear Love Story" thing I mentioned last week. Now I'm wondering if this means that at some point he can go back and get her out of the computer the way they got all of the other saved people out. I briefly thought that it might end up being an end of the season thing, but then I realized that it at least had to be after the last time he sees her in his time line. Who knows? It was weird and sad no matter what.

And finally, I was really pleased with Donna asking if "Alright" is some kind of Time Lord code for "not alright", because clearly it is. And then not fretting about it and trying to make him or herself feel better but just accepting that they're both "Alright" was nice. I feel like I could go on a long thing about how miserable the Doctor's life is and how it always has been and always will be some degree of miserable with no respite, but I'll save it for some other time because I feel like it'll just make me depressed right now. It's a surprisingly depressing show.

See Ya Next Year

So, I've been putting off watching the finale of Lost because I was concerned that it was going to require a lot of energy for me to get through it. I've probably procrastinated long enough though, so I've got my sandwich and my beer and I'm sitting down to watch it. I'll be back in a virtual two seconds with my thoughts.

Wow, turns out that virtual two seconds lasted an actual day and a half because I got distracted...but it's done now, so here we go:

4.13 & 4.14 "There's No Place Like Home (Parts 2 & 3)"

So. Due to a mishap with an Entertainment Weekly earlier today, I already knew who was in the coffin. But that didn't really bother me too much.

I...don't know what to say really. It was suspenseful and action packed. Now we understand why certain people are where. I'm cool with the fact that Michael's dead. He always got on my nerves a bit. I'm not sure if it's just stupid hope or not, but I still don't believe that Jin is dead. I'm also wondering about those people in the raft with Daniel. Was all of that territory covered by "Island Space"? Did they all move with the island? It seems like they must have, or they would have already been found and brought back to the real world in the years that the 6 have been back. I'm going to hold out hope that Jin is with them.

Other than how the Oceanic 6 and Ben got off the island, this was one of those raising-more-questions-than-it-answers kind of episodes. But I guess I should have expected that. I was starting to suspect that everything that's been going on since the beginning has been the consequences of some big Widmore/Ben cat and mouse game. The end of this, with Ben and Locke trying to get everyone back to the island makes me think, instead, that the Widmore/Ben thing and the Oceanic 815 thing are two separate, but related, things. Not that that means anything when we still don't know what's going on in either respect.

Probably the most intriguing part of the whole episode, to me, was the Charlotte revelation. Of course, it could just be the way that Miles brought it up. I was skeptical at first, but I really like him.

Oh, also, I like the fact that the "island moving apparatus" looked like part of an old ship. I hope the island is some sort of alien pirate ship. That might explain Ol' Four Toes that I'm so fond of. (Maybe it's a TARDIS. Ben seems like he could be The Master, right?) But this reminds me of something related to time travel that I've been discussing with someone else. When Ben moved the island, why did he end up in Tunisia? Does it relate to him having stayed in a certain point in space while traveling in time and the Earth having rotated under him? I guess that wouldn't account for the Earth's rotation around the Sun, though, or any of the other galactic movement that would have caused any point on Earth to have moved away from whatever point in space Ben might have been at.

And a Pixies song! I checked the lyrics to "Gouge Away" to see if it offered any enlightenment about what's going on. It didn't. Not to me at least.

Okay, well, I have to say that I did pretty much enjoy this season, despite the fact that for some weird reason I was reluctant to watch every single episode, so the whole season was weirdly akin to pulling teeth. That being said, I'm not overly anxious for next season. I feel like I can easily wait until next year for more without even having to think much about the show. Maybe I'll take that back in a few days once I've read the various write ups about this finale and have developed a few more thoughts. Whatever.

Romeo & Juliet & Cathy & Heathcliff

New Moon

So I think I liked New Moon even better than Twilight, although I'm not positive. I think, because it was pretty much dealing entirely in raw emotions throughout, I found it more compelling.

I liked the werewolves and I thought Jacob Black's transformation was really interesting. There were points where I felt like Bella should have just given in and hooked up with Jacob, just to make them both feel a little bit better. A sexy distraction, basically. But maybe it could have happened before he turned wolf and got kind of pushy about his feelings for her. And the Volturi were cool and ominous and I feel pretty certain that they'll be the main threat to Bella's safety in Breaking Dawn. Plus, Aro's thoughts about Bella and this new knowledge about her "ability" to keep people out of her head makes me really curious to see what kind of power she'll have once she's turned...if that ever happens. Also, I love Alice even more than I did after the first book. She's just so damn gleeful. It's adorable.

What I most enjoyed about this one, though, was the absolutely gut-wrenching pain that Bella went through when Edward left. I started to feel nauseous when Edward started to get distant and it became clear that the relationship wasn't going to last much longer, and I continued to feel nauseous through him leaving and through most of Bella's numb period. I could completely relate to that kind of emotional pain that's so great it makes your body hurt. And I thought the idea of the gaping hole in her torso that she had to work so hard to keep together was a really beautiful and understandable way to illustrate that pain. There was also something about how repetitive her life seemed to be that was both comical and pathetic. I feel like this whole book hurt and I, for some reason, found that really satisfying.

I do have to say, I think Bella's birthday party at the Cullen house at the very beginning of the book is possibly my favorite scene of the whole series. The fact that she gets a paper cut and the whole household goes absolutely crazy was very entertaining. It's also brilliantly illustrative of how Bella spends the entire story teetering on the precipice of sanity.

Eclipse

Even though I'm not sure how I feel about the actual quality of these books, I manage to like each of them as separate entities for their own specific reasons and I think Stephenie Meyer deserves credit for that.

This book also managed to have a very relatable and painful central emotional struggle in the constant pull on Bella's time, energy, loyalty and love between Edward and Jacob. She literally felt torn and I managed to feel it right along with her. I understood why she felt hopeful at every brief sign of peaceful coexistence between them because I felt hopeful too. But just like her, I was anxious the entire time because I knew that she could never have them both. That eventually something was going to have to give. I found it particularly interesting that she basically shielded herself against her feelings for Jacob the entire time because she always knew that, no matter what, she would have to pick Edward. She had good reason to be in denial. It definitely hurt her more once she knew. But she also had good reason to pick Edward. Her days without Jacob were gloomy. Her days without Edward were a big gaping hole in her torso.

I enjoyed the tentative Cullen family/werewolf alliance against the newborn army. The one night truce between Edward and Jacob the night before the battle was also great. Also, Edward's reading of the "pack mind" was fascinating. This book had a lot of background stories. I liked getting to learn about Sam Uley, Rosalie and Jasper's pasts. Jasper's was particularly interesting and gruesome. The Quileute legends were a little slow for my taste, but I understood having to introduce the "third wife" idea. Bella's nagging about being turned is still a little annoying to me, but at least it was balanced out by Edward's nagging about getting married.

Well, needless to say, I can't wait until Breaking Dawn comes out in August. Will the Volturi attack? Will Edward and Bella get married? Will he turn her? Will they ever have sex? I'm still debating whether I'm going to read The Host, the first in Stephenie Meyer's new series. Invading body-snatcher style aliens just don't hold quite the appeal to me that vampires do.

Oh yeah, it was about half way through New Moon that I started relating the social situation of this series to Veronica Mars. The rich, white, beautiful vampires are the 09ers, the La Push werewolves are the PCHers (with bikes and everything!) and Bella is Veronica Mars (single cop dad, flighty mom...not a stretch), not fitting into either circle but trying to run in both. As soon as I started picturing Kristen Bell as Bella I had to mentally slap myself to snap out of it. Maybe high school drama is all the same.

BSG Two in One

4.08 "Sine Qua Non"

Okay...so...what? What? What? and What?

This episode blew in a way that I was entirely unprepared for. Not only was it on the boring side, but it didn't make a speck of sense either. Adama finds out that Tigh has impregnated Six (I laughed maniacally at that revelation), Tigh doesn't give even a hint of an explanation for his actions, Adama and Tigh have a fist fight, then Adama gives Tigh control of the fleet. That kind of non-logic wouldn't even fly on Heroes where they stick their noses up at reasonable character motivation on a regular basis.

Then they devoted half the episode to Romo Lampkin and his make believe cat essentially reverse-engineering a reason for Lee to be President. (Btw, Lee's name is Leland?!? That pains me.) It's not like we couldn't already tell that that's where they were going with that. I'm feeling more and more this season like they have an end point in mind for each character, but they didn't really know how to get them there with the natural progression of the story so they're going to do a lot of this weird gimmicking to get them into place. Too bad.

Anyway...

4.09 "The Hub"

Now this was better. And by better I mean Awesome. Of course one great episode can never completely make up for sucky episodes that came before, but this season's been shoddy so I guess we should take what we can get.

Roslin and Baltar yelling at the Hybrid was great. Roslin going back and forth about whether or not to let Baltar die was also great (Derrick and I were yelling "Let him die!" at the TV). Helo being sufficiently creeped out by, but also vaguely attracted to the Sharon who's not his wife was great (and it brings up hilarious questions about what really constitutes infidelity). As much as I find Lucy Lawless to be kind of over-the-top campy in everything she does, I enjoyed having D'Anna back. It helped that she killed Cavill quite gleefully. And of course the Roslin/Adama reunion was perfect. They really are lovely and wonderful together. Maybe they won't both be dead by the time the fleet gets to Earth. They just won't be in power and they won't care anymore.

The only thing I found even remotely lacking about this episode was the fact that neither Lee or Kara was around to be involved in the attack on the Hub. Seelix, Redwing and Pike just weren't quite doing it for me. I can't imagine they'll end the series without at least putting one of the two of them back in a cockpit at least once. If fact I wouldn't doubt that Starbuck will die that way.

Oh! I just realized there's one on this week. I'd thought this one had been the last of the "season". Hooray! Hopefully it won't suck.

Twilight

So I just read the three books of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series in four days. About halfway through the first book I realized that the fourth (and final) book would be coming out August 2nd. If I'd known before I started, I would have waited and read them all then so I would only have to go through Twilight-verse withdrawal once. But I didn't know, and once I'd started the first one, there was no way I could stop.

I feel like I should mention that I decided to read the first book because I saw the trailer for the upcoming movie. Honestly, it looks a little "B" and slightly Covenant-ish, but it also seemed kind of sexy and appealed to my sensibilities. Teenage vampires are my drug of choice.

Anyway, I'm just going to talk about Twilight in this one and leave New Moon and Eclipse for another post (possibly the next post).

Twilight

My main issue with the book is this: Why do the Cullen "kids" have to be in high school? None of them look really young. They all seem like they can pass for 18. Why don't they just pose as the Cullen's kids who aren't going to college and work around town? Or just random young people who've moved into town? Or commune hippies? I mean, until they met Bella, they certainly weren't going to school to socialize. I know the goal was to be able to stay in the same place for as long as possible without anyone noticing the lack of aging, but when everyone but Carlisle seemed to be a recluse anyway, it doesn't seem like it mattered much. I guess this wasn't so much of an issue, it didn't decrease my enjoyment of the story any, so much as it was just a plot device that I found humorously unfounded.

I also found it kind of odd how quickly Bella and Edward's relationship progressed. It seemed like they went from her figuring out that he was a vampire to sublimely happy couple really quickly. I kind of expected more angst, although I'm pretty pleased that there wasn't more. I guess it had to be crammed in between the "setup" that took a lot of the beginning of the book and the "conflict" which took up the end.

Speaking of the "conflict", I thought it was a little weak. I never really felt any concern that James was going to kill Bella. Of course this could be due to the fact that I already knew there were sequels, but even so, I never found myself even anxious about her fate. It might be because she was really the only one in danger. In New Moon and particularly in Eclipse there were a number of endearing characters that were in danger and pretty much any of them, with the exception of Bella, could possibly be killed. It made for much more suspense in the climactic scenes.

I don't know why I always start with the criticism. It makes it seem like I don't think too highly of the book when in reality I really, really love it. I thought Bella was a great character. The clumsiness played to the extreme so that it became a joke was entertaining. But mainly I just found her to be so true. She had those aspects that made her mature for her age, but they couldn't keep her from reacting to certain situations in true teenage girl fashion. She was book smart and relatively clever sometimes, but she could also be a complete idiot. And her antisocial behavior was obviously born out of a few extreme anxieties and a general fear of rejection, the way it is for most teenagers...or people in general. Basically, normal. A real teenage girl. A girl that I remember being. And I appreciated that. Towards the very end she became kind of annoying with the constant nagging about wanting to be turned, but I'll give her a pass on that because I know I'd be exactly the same way.

The Cullens! They're brilliant. It was a little odd that there were so many of them, mainly because everyone but Edward, Alice and Carlisle was pretty underdeveloped. It felt like there were a lot of extraneous family members. Of course, that changes in the following books when most of them get fleshed out a lot more. Alice was certainly the shining star from the beginning. She's really enjoyable whenever she's around, but it's also just generally entertaining whenever Edward mentions her and refers to her "sight". Years from now my most prominent memory of this specific book will probably be "Don't bet against Alice."

I found the whole vampire mythology established in the book to be pretty interesting. Mainly because it had a lot of aspects that were quite novel, at least to me. The venom as the...turning agent, I guess you could say...rather than the almost ubiquitous "mutual sucking" method was certainly new. Also the sparkling in the sunlight thing was definitely different. I feel like sunlight as something harmful is possibly the most commonly used vampire trait in fiction. The idea that they can't go out in the sunlight because it makes them so sparklingly, blindingly beautiful that people would instantly realize they aren't human is a fascinating take. This reminds me, the way the Cullens lived, there didn't seem to be a single thing bad about being a vampire.

Okay, I think that's enough. After I write about the other two books I might also post my thoughts on the movie, mainly about the casting.

"I'm a time traveler. I point and laugh at archaeologists."

4.08 "Silence in the Library"

I never posted before I left about the news that Steven Moffat is taking over as showrunner when RTD leaves Doctor Who after the 2009 specials. After some research to find out that Moffat wrote "The Empty Child/Doctor Dances", "Girl in the Fireplace" (these two mean he's completely responsible for the Doctor's banana obsession), and "Blink" (not to mention having created Coupling) I feel pretty confident that I like him and he'll possibly be even better than RTD (who can get a little heavy handed sometimes). Anyway, I say all this because this is a Steven Moffat two parter. Hooray!

This whole "spoilers" idea is interesting. Very meta, much like the DVD Easter Egg clues in "Blink". In thinking about the Steven Moffat episodes I've realized that he only does a finite number of things, but he does them to great effect. For instance, the inocuous phrase made frightening by mindless repetition ("Are you my mummy?", "Hey, who turned out the lights?"). Also, there's the repeated warning of something seemingly normal ("Don't blink", "Stay out of the shadows"), the introduction of characters who are able to impress or best the Doctor (Jack, Reinette, Sally Sparrow, River Song), and serious issues with the timeline. The "team" aspect of the group of archaeologists reminded me of the "Impossible Planet/Satan Pit" crew, but that wasn't Moffat. Just a Who thing, I guess.

This episode had some brilliant dialogue. I particularly enjoyed the post title, as well as "I never land on Sundays. Sundays are boring." and "Oh! I'm Pretty Boy?".

Thoughts about the plot so far: I'm wondering how they're going to deal with this Matrix-style fake world as security system thing. It's very odd. And then the main question is 'Who is River Song?'. I'm guessing she's going to have to be someone we already know, just with a different face. I don't feel like there are many options; Jack (but he's the Face of Boe), Rose, Martha, Jenny, The Master... (Btw, I don't much like Alex Kingston, ever.) I do like the idea of a 'non-linnear love story', as a DW fanfiction I once read was titled. Anyway, I'm desperately trying to figure out if her name is an anagram of something. Although weird names aren't always anagrams. And her name could be related to the Ood warning about the Doctor's song coming to an end.

Speaking of cryptic pseudo prophecy about the events of the season, Donna's totally going to die. Sad! Not only did River Song's reaction about not knowing Donna in the future strongly imply it, but the conversation about Biographies and "death at the end"/"you need a good death" hinted at it before....Wait, I guess she was already dead by the end of this episode. I'm certain that that's not permanent though. We still haven't gotten to that "What's on your back?" issue from "The Fires of Pompeii". Anyway, next week looks dramatic and exciting.

Post Vacation Catch Up

I was out of town and internet range for the last week and a half, so I have some catch-up watching and posting to do. Plus I've got a list of other things to post about that I'm going to try to work through in the next two weeks. I'll get started now.