Of This and Other Worlds

Having now binge-watched all seven seasons of The Great British Bake-Off, S2 and S3 of the Australian, 1x01 and 02 of the Irish, most of the Great Holiday / American Baking Show and half of S1 of the South African, I feel somewhat qualified to rank the various English-speaking versions and make some observations about which ones are definitely worth watching, which are just OK, and which ones you might as well give a miss.

Actually, somewhat more than three, apparently. I haven't done this in ages, but I do find working in Photoshop curiously soothing, so after figuring out the new first line of Arrow this morning I celebrated by... um, making a lot of Sherlock icons. That makes sense, right?

Anyway, if you're a fan and you like text icons, you can find the pretties over in this post.

And now that I've figured out my method I can make them fairly quickly, so I will take requests if you don't see the quote you were looking for...

A deceptively simple, character-driven episode that at times strains credulity to the limit -- but there's a very good reason for that, as we find out at the end.

And I loved it LIKE PIE.

( Details, spoilers and Peruvian folk bands under the cut )

Okay, I think I'm done now. Thoughts, people! I know you have them! Tell them to me!


--
* No, this is not an invitation for you to tell me why you dislike Amy in comments. If you don't like her, or Eleven, or Rory, or Steven Moffat, or this season in general, you have every right to feel that way, but please go and talk about it somewhere else. Thank you.

BOOKISH SHINY

If you like your secondary-world fantasy with a healthy dollop of intrigue, wit, danger, and understated but powerful romance, you should all go read Leah Cypess's Mistwood (HarperTeen, April 2010), which I just finished and enjoyed enormously. Steph Su has a very good review of the book here, though I'd disagree with Steph's comment about the secondary characters -- I had no trouble telling them apart, myself.

And Leah tells me she is working on revisions to the companion novel as we speak! Yay, companion novel!

***

TV SHINY

In the DO WANT category: J.J. Abrams' new show Undercover, about a married couple who are spies. From the guy who wrote Jack and Irina? This HAS to be good. Seriously, look at this picture. I am gleeful and optimistic.

Also, check out this lovely, exuberant, heart-warming Doctor Who S5 vid from humansrsuperior: Brand New Day. Thanks to infiniteviking for the tip.

***

WRITING SHINY

I'm mostly preaching to the choir here, I'm sure, but still -- taraljc has reposted a terrific essay about the effort that goes into writing quality fan fiction, and how it isn't always easy -- or even desirable -- to just file off the serial numbers.

***

And that will be all, because I'm feeling curiously dizzy all of a sudden. *blinks*

Okay, I shamelessly admit to skipping the entire S4 finale and I doubt I'll change my mind on that point, but this preview has me all pumped for S5, despite* the ( spoilers )



So do we have an actual date for the beginning of S5, or just this vague promise of "Spring"?

Note to self: Need Matt Smith icon.

--
* Oh, all right, maybe BECAUSE of that part. What can I say, I'm an Old Skool Whofan, I still haven't got over the novelty of it.

watchmebe a.k.a. Jackson Pearce (author of the forthcoming As You Wish, which I am dying to read) has posted a hilarious video from her recent trip to Savannah with the Gothic Girls, in which they all retell their stories using zombies.

But although this post was inspired by watching that video, it is not zombies I wish to speak of, dear readers. Rather, I was moved by the closing music of the video to talk about the Smurfs.

As a cynical child, I totally hated the Smurfs. All these smarmy little blue people being cute and singing their little la-la-la song, and the only hint of conflict or danger was that evil wizard Gargamel (whose motivations for persecuting the Smurfs were obscure to me, to say the least). When I sat down to watch Saturday morning cartoons, I resented the Smurfs for taking up time that could otherwise be spent watching shows that were really awesome, like Drak Pack and Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends.

But then one day I was browsing through my local bookstore, feeling frustrated that I already owned every Tintin comic in existence and that there weren't any new Asterix to be had, and I came upon -- what's this? -- an actual comic book of the Smurfs, as created by their original author, and translated into English by the same clever folk (Anthea Bell and Derek Hockridge) who did Tintin and Asterix?

Hmmm.

I picked it up. I flipped through it. I laughed in surprise.

And then I bought it.

You see, Peyo's Smurfs were not the nauseatingly perfect little darlings of the cartoon. They were not reduced to a convenient set of stereotypes endowed with different costumes so you could tell them apart (well, apart from the obvious differences of Papa Smurf and Smurfette, that is). They had actual attitude and personality, and what amused me most was that they used the word "smurf" in totally different ways than the cartoon did.

On TV, "smurf" was a cute little substitute for random nouns and verbs -- "Oh, that's absolutely smurfly! What a smurfy day for a picnic!" Whereas in the comic, "smurf" frequently ended up being a euphemism for things that could not be said in print. "I'll smurf you in the smurf, you smurfing smurf!" *cue tornado with flailing blue fists here*

And then of course Papa Smurf had to come break it up, but even he wasn't nearly so smug and condescending as in the TV series. He could be cranky and impatient and, well, more like a real person would be if they were saddled with being the father figure to a village full of little blue savages.

Okay, maybe I am exaggerating the Smurf aggression factor a little. But there was definitely enough wit (including sarcasm) and conflict that the Smurfs could actually have plots all their own, instead of having to rely on some outside baddie (i.e. Gargamel) to come and persecute them. In fact, Gargamel was hardly in the Smurf comics I read at all.

In short: TV Smurfs = meh. Comic Smurfs = kind of awesome.

You would think I would turn this into some deep authorial musing on the importance of writing three-dimensional characters with flaws as well as virtues, wouldn't you? Nah, you can probably figure that part out yourself.

However, I fear I have sad news. The Smurfs did not fade gently away when their TV show was cancelled, nor enjoy an eternally cozy existence between the pages of Peyo's comics.

No, I am afraid that with the full approval of their creator, they were bombed to death by UNICEF.

You think I'm kidding, don't you?



Which just goes to show, sometimes you can take that whole conflict thing a bit too far.

Previously posted on Twitter, but reproduced and edited here because I'm lazy that way:

( Somewhat more than 140 characters, with some spoilers )

Final Rating for "Planet of the Dead": 3.5 out of 5 stars.

Well, what do you know. I actually liked that. I kept expecting the whole thing to go down the drain at any moment, but though it started to spiral once or twice, it never completely sank.

( Spoilers )

Bring on the Christmas special!

Okay, so I have learned my lesson about using fresh pineapple rings on my cooked ham, because if you leave the rings on overnight to let the juices soak in and then warm the whole thing up again, the ham tastes like it's been partially pre-digested.

EWWWWWW.

In other news, I cannot get this week's House out of my head. I mean, I could have DEFINITELY done without certain parts of it (those of you who've seen the episode will probably have no difficulty guessing what those parts are, and most of them, alas, belong to Lisa Edelstein), and there were the inevitable bits of plot that were far-fetched to the point of absurdity. But Hugh Laurie was brilliant as always, there were some Good Chase Bits, and the foreshadowing was a thing of beauty. ( Spoilers )

On the other hand, my edits on Knife are going well, the pain in my arms is much better today, and I found some great pictures and made a new Paul icon out of one of them. (And no, I didn't use the mouse. This is what my pen and tablet are for, even though the pen is going wonky and doesn't always behave as it should, thanks to my toddler DROOLING IN IT.)

I have nothing in particular to say about this episode -- ( except these two things ). Everything else worth noting has already been said by other people like lizbee and calapine.

I do, however, desperately want a little Adipose of my very own. An icon will suffice. An animated one with the Adipose either skipping down the street or waving and smiling would be best of all: if anybody finds one in their travels, please let me know.

Oh, one more thing: did someone run over David Tennant with a bus between seasons? Seriously, he's looking kind of... worn out these days. Unless it is Plot, which it might be considering that Donna even remarked on it. In which case, well done BBC Makeup Dept., I guess.

Wait, two more things. ( minor spoiler )