Random, Bones and Hellcats Thoughts
Nov. 16th, 2010 11:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
iariaSo Scalzi wrote a post here about a scheme that James Frey has going on. It’s what Scalzi calls a ‘book packaging scheme’ and sounds like it should be illegal but isn’t. You just have to an absolute asshole to do it. Reading the short summary of the contract left me a bit incredulous at his gall. It’s a seriously ridiculous contract!
I mean it includes things like –
“The writer would not have approval over his or her publicity, pictures, or biographical materials.” and
“Full Fathom Five could use the writer’s name or a pseudonym without his or her permission, even if the writer was no longer involved with the series, and the company could substitute the writer’s full name for a pseudonym at any point in the future.” (!) and
“The writer would be financially responsible for any legal action brought against the book but would not own its copyright.” (!!)
I mean what the freaking hell? Who would sign that? If someone put a contract that read like that in front of me I would walk out. But apparently people are signing it. ... Why?! I don’t understand.
Anyway... the post is pretty much entirely gender neutral, I’m kind of impressed actually, except for this excerpt: “sets up a writer to be dependent on others because she is ignorant of the particulars of her own business. You know how every year you hear about an actor or musician who has been screwed by his accountant or business manager?” I read this and it just really bothered me. I actually had to stop reading the entry and think about it because it was bothering me so much. What it is, is that in a post with no other gendered language like this, we have ‘she’ being ignorant of her own business and ‘his’ manager screwing him over. The woman is the one being ignorant and there’s this undercurrent that it’s her fault, or at least it’s more her fault than the man who was ‘screwed over’ by others with no implied fault on his part. I don’t think this was the intent of Scalzi or the post at all but it came off very problematic to me. I think most people would think I’m being too picky here and it’s silly, and I kind of feel that way myself, and yet still... it bothers me. It’s so subtle and that kind of makes it worse.
I watched the trailer for the new superhero series The Cape (which is up here) and it looks interesting enough that I’ll probably check out the pilot. But at the same time my main reaction is ‘sigh’. TPTB of this show apparently thought about it and decided that what the superhero genre needed was – another white guy fighting crime. Because that’s certainly something we haven’t seen enough of. Summer Glau is in the show, a definite plus towards watching, but is apparently the Cape’s tech support girl. It seems like kind of a waste to have Summer Glau in a non-kicking ass role. You know what would make this all a lot more enjoyable for me? If Summer Glau was the hero or at least was his partner – she grew up in the circus, perhaps is a trapeze artist, maybe she throws knives – and then there could be another female character who was their tech support. From the video it appears that Summer’s character meets The Cape by getting into a fight with him so maybe she’ll be tech support who occasionally kicks ass? That would be nice. On the positive side the wife and son weren’t killed off to give superhero angst so that was nice and we have a Martin Klebba (Verne Troyer) kicking ass. One of the last lines of the trailer pretty much encapsulates my main issue with this show: “I have to show my son that one man can still make a difference.” Yeeeahhh. Changing just one word there – man to person – would have made such a huge difference.
Hellcats 1x09 ‘Finish What We Started’
This episode really hit my embarrassment squick, more than any other episode thus far. All the Savannah/Marti scenes before their makeup probably because they did their entire fight pretty much in front of the entire squad was especially bad. I also found Marti and Dan’s hook up in the car hard to watch.
- I found both Marti and Dan pretty unlikable even as I felt for them. I think I’d be able to get over their betrayals and lying if it weren’t for all the long stares between them in the final scenes. They feel guilty clearly, as they should, but I felt like there was more than guilt there. There was longing and ‘oh we want each other but can’t be together because it’ll hurt out SO’s’ martyring and it’s leaving me kind of disgusted with them. The group hug with Savannah and Lewis grinning and so happy made me want to smack Marti and Dan’s heads together.
- I loved Lewis’s apology to Marti and Savannah’s pretty easy forgiveness. Marti and Dan do not deserve them. If they had just bushed it under the rug and ignored it/moved on I think I’d have less a negative reaction. I just did not like this direction the show has taken at all.
- I also didn’t like Red compromising his ethics in order to help Vanessa simply because I’d much rather Vanessa and the Hellcats had worked together to get out of the situation and done it in such a way that would have taken Bill Marsh out (though it probably would have taken a couple episode). The team working together to save themselves is much more interesting than Red saving them for Vanessa’s sake. Also was there really no way that Vanessa could challenge what Bill did?
Bones 6x06 ‘The Shallow in the Deep’
There was a lot I liked and overall I found it very enjoyable.
- Brennan was perfect and I loved all her scenes. I love her confidence (“Well, I’m prime real estate anywhere.” ♥) and her competence (as usual) and just how she views the world. Her reaction to Daisy/Sweets was so very her. I loved how much she enjoyed the ‘cougar cruise’ (though it’s a term I don’t really like) and her actually flirting with someone (her ‘don’t be hasty’ to Booth declaring her not interested amused me). I liked this line: “The world has changed. These women can take of themselves.”
- Brennan/Booth were pretty great – I loved the opening scene.
- Booth’s “It’s just wrong” disapproval on the older women/younger men made me shake my head. His attitude towards any type of relationship/sexual desire outside a narrow ‘norm’ can be so annoying. I loved Brennan’s response to him:“Why because it’s hard on men like you past their prime?” LOL. I love her.
- It would have been nice if Brennan and Sweets had had more interaction especially since this was a case dealing with foster care tangentially. I found it kind of bizarre that we got Sweets talking about his experience in foster care and nothing from Brennan considering they were both in foster care and it’s always been a big part of who Brennan is. It was even more noticeable when Booth and Sweets went to talk to suspect Hunter Lang and Brennan just disappeared. What was up with that?
- I didn’t like Sweets literally being surrounded/mobbed by women on the cruise.
- I also didn’t like that the last Sweets/Daisy scene went in the direction of ‘we don’t have anything in common/to talk about’ when they’d previously had a long-term relationship and were engaged. Wouldn’t that have been something they’d have figured out a while ago? Why is this only a problem now? I did find Sweets/Daisy very sweet beyond that.
- I also found Hodgins/Angela very sweet and I loved Angela doing the portraits of the dead slaves.
I mean it includes things like –
“The writer would not have approval over his or her publicity, pictures, or biographical materials.” and
“Full Fathom Five could use the writer’s name or a pseudonym without his or her permission, even if the writer was no longer involved with the series, and the company could substitute the writer’s full name for a pseudonym at any point in the future.” (!) and
“The writer would be financially responsible for any legal action brought against the book but would not own its copyright.” (!!)
I mean what the freaking hell? Who would sign that? If someone put a contract that read like that in front of me I would walk out. But apparently people are signing it. ... Why?! I don’t understand.
Anyway... the post is pretty much entirely gender neutral, I’m kind of impressed actually, except for this excerpt: “sets up a writer to be dependent on others because she is ignorant of the particulars of her own business. You know how every year you hear about an actor or musician who has been screwed by his accountant or business manager?” I read this and it just really bothered me. I actually had to stop reading the entry and think about it because it was bothering me so much. What it is, is that in a post with no other gendered language like this, we have ‘she’ being ignorant of her own business and ‘his’ manager screwing him over. The woman is the one being ignorant and there’s this undercurrent that it’s her fault, or at least it’s more her fault than the man who was ‘screwed over’ by others with no implied fault on his part. I don’t think this was the intent of Scalzi or the post at all but it came off very problematic to me. I think most people would think I’m being too picky here and it’s silly, and I kind of feel that way myself, and yet still... it bothers me. It’s so subtle and that kind of makes it worse.
I watched the trailer for the new superhero series The Cape (which is up here) and it looks interesting enough that I’ll probably check out the pilot. But at the same time my main reaction is ‘sigh’. TPTB of this show apparently thought about it and decided that what the superhero genre needed was – another white guy fighting crime. Because that’s certainly something we haven’t seen enough of. Summer Glau is in the show, a definite plus towards watching, but is apparently the Cape’s tech support girl. It seems like kind of a waste to have Summer Glau in a non-kicking ass role. You know what would make this all a lot more enjoyable for me? If Summer Glau was the hero or at least was his partner – she grew up in the circus, perhaps is a trapeze artist, maybe she throws knives – and then there could be another female character who was their tech support. From the video it appears that Summer’s character meets The Cape by getting into a fight with him so maybe she’ll be tech support who occasionally kicks ass? That would be nice. On the positive side the wife and son weren’t killed off to give superhero angst so that was nice and we have a Martin Klebba (Verne Troyer) kicking ass. One of the last lines of the trailer pretty much encapsulates my main issue with this show: “I have to show my son that one man can still make a difference.” Yeeeahhh. Changing just one word there – man to person – would have made such a huge difference.
Hellcats 1x09 ‘Finish What We Started’
This episode really hit my embarrassment squick, more than any other episode thus far. All the Savannah/Marti scenes before their makeup probably because they did their entire fight pretty much in front of the entire squad was especially bad. I also found Marti and Dan’s hook up in the car hard to watch.
- I found both Marti and Dan pretty unlikable even as I felt for them. I think I’d be able to get over their betrayals and lying if it weren’t for all the long stares between them in the final scenes. They feel guilty clearly, as they should, but I felt like there was more than guilt there. There was longing and ‘oh we want each other but can’t be together because it’ll hurt out SO’s’ martyring and it’s leaving me kind of disgusted with them. The group hug with Savannah and Lewis grinning and so happy made me want to smack Marti and Dan’s heads together.
- I loved Lewis’s apology to Marti and Savannah’s pretty easy forgiveness. Marti and Dan do not deserve them. If they had just bushed it under the rug and ignored it/moved on I think I’d have less a negative reaction. I just did not like this direction the show has taken at all.
- I also didn’t like Red compromising his ethics in order to help Vanessa simply because I’d much rather Vanessa and the Hellcats had worked together to get out of the situation and done it in such a way that would have taken Bill Marsh out (though it probably would have taken a couple episode). The team working together to save themselves is much more interesting than Red saving them for Vanessa’s sake. Also was there really no way that Vanessa could challenge what Bill did?
Bones 6x06 ‘The Shallow in the Deep’
There was a lot I liked and overall I found it very enjoyable.
- Brennan was perfect and I loved all her scenes. I love her confidence (“Well, I’m prime real estate anywhere.” ♥) and her competence (as usual) and just how she views the world. Her reaction to Daisy/Sweets was so very her. I loved how much she enjoyed the ‘cougar cruise’ (though it’s a term I don’t really like) and her actually flirting with someone (her ‘don’t be hasty’ to Booth declaring her not interested amused me). I liked this line: “The world has changed. These women can take of themselves.”
- Brennan/Booth were pretty great – I loved the opening scene.
- Booth’s “It’s just wrong” disapproval on the older women/younger men made me shake my head. His attitude towards any type of relationship/sexual desire outside a narrow ‘norm’ can be so annoying. I loved Brennan’s response to him:“Why because it’s hard on men like you past their prime?” LOL. I love her.
- It would have been nice if Brennan and Sweets had had more interaction especially since this was a case dealing with foster care tangentially. I found it kind of bizarre that we got Sweets talking about his experience in foster care and nothing from Brennan considering they were both in foster care and it’s always been a big part of who Brennan is. It was even more noticeable when Booth and Sweets went to talk to suspect Hunter Lang and Brennan just disappeared. What was up with that?
- I didn’t like Sweets literally being surrounded/mobbed by women on the cruise.
- I also didn’t like that the last Sweets/Daisy scene went in the direction of ‘we don’t have anything in common/to talk about’ when they’d previously had a long-term relationship and were engaged. Wouldn’t that have been something they’d have figured out a while ago? Why is this only a problem now? I did find Sweets/Daisy very sweet beyond that.
- I also found Hodgins/Angela very sweet and I loved Angela doing the portraits of the dead slaves.
