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Friends of mine watch and have spoken highly of "Black Sails", but true to my usual form, I'm only just now catching up. And I really like it!

I admit, I tried the pilot when it was first out, but it didn't grab me. And I didn't make the time to watch the next few, even though I know that of course every pilot has some degree of pilotitis and is not the best example of a show.

Though I'm not sure if even watching the next few would have helped me back then. It took me most of season 1 to actually get to know the characters, get emotionally attached, etc.--up to then, I was kind of making myself watch. Luckily I have friends way ahead of me who served as my bellwethers, watching & enjoying in real time, which implied good things down the road. (I often depend on my friends like this, for fic as well as canon, and I'd like to take this opportunity to thank them for doing the hard work so that I may so often slide in late. :D ♥ )

( cut for some specific spoilers, up through season 2, just in case )

So... sorry I'm so late, but if anybody wants to talk about Black Sails, I'm here for you! I mean, I'm still in season 2, but I'm proceeding, and I don't mind spoilers. And as I guess you can tell from my meanderings above, I'm pretty up for talking. :D

I've been having a big-time craving recently to watch a particular kind of cooking show. An older kind, without the same focus on specific measurements and modern standards of what's considered healthy/moral (sad how those two concepts are intertwined today). Not something from which I intend to learn to cook, and not one I'd really model my own cooking after.

The biggest contender that hits my needs right on the button is that British show Two Fat Ladies, with two middle-aged no-effing-nonsense British women mixing things with their hands and guessing at measurements and using Aga cookers and making dry jokes. There is something so satisfying about the tactile, sensory nature of it, the lack of worry or adherence to a view of food as medicine/moral statement.

I watched their show where they cooked a Christmas goose (that episode is in its entirety on YouTube for some reason), and it was sooooo goood. Just what I wanted. Rich stuffed goose, egg mousse, ice cream with brandy butter, red cabbage cooked for ever, served to a bunch of little British choirboys. That's the stuff!

Anyone interested in watching, or rewatching, the complete season of Almost Human in the correct order (instead of Fox's initial ridiculous scrambled order),

killabeez has a post laying them out in order right here!

The correct production order is (the numbers afterward are their scrambled airing order):

"Pilot" [1.01]
"You Are Here" [1.08]
"Arrhythmia" [1.06]
"Perception" [1.10]
"Skin" [1.02]
"Are You Receiving" [1.03]
"The Bends" [1.04]
"Blood Brothers" [1.05]
"Unbound" [1.09]
"Simon Says" [1.07]
"Disrupt" [1.11]
"Beholder" [1.12]
"Straw Man" [1.13]

With some of the scrambled episodes, it doesn't make too big a difference...but with others, it really does.

Everybody's getting revved up for the Fall TV season! It's inspiring.

Me, I am moving into a new place, and when I moved out of my old place, my old (giant, elderly, be-tubed) TV went to the happy recycling ground. You know what that means? I need me a TV! I am going to buy my first flatscreen, very exciting, I feel vaguely modern. \o/

So--any of you who may be modern TV owners--do you have any tips? I am interested in any thoughts, hints, or preferences you may have about this delightful newfangled gadget, the teleovisor.

(I do know that it apparently will ruin my eyes and rot out my brain. CAN'T WAIT.)

Good heavens. POI obviously wants to send me on a trip to the moon on gossamer wings. Or maybe just kill me, same diff.

( And what a way to go! Spoilers for 2x02 & 2x03, and also a hint of 1x10 & 1x11. )

I should just make sure to have an oxygen mask on call when I watch this show. For safety's sake.

As a reward for finishing some stuff, I actually got to watch some more TV! So I caught up on Haven...

( Longwinded positive thoughts about Haven 3x04 and general Haven season 3 behind ye cutte )

Oh, the poor people suffering for my enjoyment. *pets them* :D

Things have been a little tough around here lately, a lot of drop-dead-deadline-based stress and distress.

So, what does the doctor order?

( ERMAHGERD PERSON ERV ERNTRERST! )

Definitely good for what ails me.

I finally had a chance to watch the season premiere of Person of Interest!

( Longwinded positive reactions below the cut! )

Did anybody catch the series premiere of Longmire (new TV series on the US cable channel A&E) last night? Any thoughts on the characters/writing/location shooting etc.? I'm curious about it, but it'll take me extra time to watch, since I don't have A&E myself at the moment.

I did see that the AV Club gave the pilot a good review and will be doing regular recaps, so that seems like a hopeful sign. Fingers crossed.

Good gravy was there a POI season finale last night.

( Read more... )

This season will be a terrific rewatch. ♥

Just heard this from

cereta: the pilot of Justified is free right now on Amazon Instant Video. It's for a limited time only, though I don't know when the deadline is. (I also don't know the region issues for Amazon's streaming, so my apologies if you try it but are regioned-out. Bleh, regions.).

Cereta's post gives some reasons why you might want to try Justified. I give a hearty thumbs up to all of them, and more. It's well-written, well-plotted, atmospheric, complex, sexy, funny, dramatic, as well as being violent in a way I don't often get to see on TV.

By which I don't mean it's, like, uber violent all the time. I was talking to some friends of mine about the use of guns on Justified, and how they so often serve a startlingly different purpose to guns in a lot of other TV (and movies). On other shows, guns are often used as a rhetorical prop, something to wave and make threats with, and they come out of holsters/pockets a lot without necessarily meaning anything specific. They can be an accoutrement, a piece of wardrobe, a penis extension, part of an argument, a warning to hold somebody still or make them do something, etc. But in Justified, much more often, when a gun comes out, someone is going to get shot. Period.

...I know, it might sound obvious or silly. But it's kind of amazing how different that can make things, and I noticed the difference. When I was originally watching the first season, I noticed after a while that when a gun came out, I got a lot more tense than I did watching other shows. Because now the guns meant something, or at least, something very unrelenting and specific.

Justified also ends up having some really nice slash possibilities (subtype: intense-frenemies, and/or subtype: frictiony-colleagues), great female characters of various ages and races and classes, great male characters ditto, sky-high levels of competence (as well as believable incompetence), interesting relationships, plots that go someplace. And I find it damn entertaining.

The show eventually ends up being very arcy. But season 1 I think has a nice learning curve--it starts out planting some important seeds for arcs, but then also has some standalone episodes early on to give you time to settle in.

Anyway, if you're curious, give it a look!

No spoilers here for the moment. But I had to drag myself upright just in order to communicate the following, translated from the supersonic squeaking:

OMG you guys. YOU GUYS. THE END OF THE LATEST EPISODE YOU GUYS.

*falls down*
*gets up again, just in order to fall down some more*

Spoilers another time. Once the flailing eases down a bit.

(...you guiiiiiiiiiiise)

Whoah, you guys. I just saw today that Lifetime TV is doing a remake of Steel Magnolias, with a top-notch African-American female cast TO. DIE. FOR.

I mean, check this out:

Queen Latifah as M’Lynn (Sally Field's character in the first one)
Phylicia Rashad as Clairee (Olympia Dukakis)
Alfre Woodard as Ouiser (Shirley MacLaine)
Jill Scott as Truvy (Dolly Parton)
Adepero Oduye (a newcomer, making waves in the fantastic independent film "Pariah") as Annelle (Daryl Hannah)
Shelby, the part formerly played by Julia Roberts, is now being played by Condola Rashad, whose work I haven't seen, but who's currently on Smash.

I hope it's good. I hope it gets ALL THE RATINGS.

Two tiny observations, about last week's Justified and Person of Interest:

( Spoilery for Justified, only mildly spoilery for Person of Interest... )

In short: thanks, TV! Dorinda Is Pleased.

I just read in the AV Club that Justified has been renewed for season 4.

*\o/* *\o/* *\o/*

FX, you are too good to me.

ETA: And come to think of it, AV Club is too good to me as well, considering the photo they ran with their announcement...

I keep saying to my friends, "Friends," I say, "I should post a couple of thoughts I was having about Justified." And they say "Yeah, you should!". But for some reason I keep letting talking get in the way of doing.

BUT NOT TODAY.

1. General thought about Justified, and Raylan and Boyd (with one lightly spoilery comment under the cut about 3x03 "Harlan Roulette"): courtesy of

mollyamory, who was talking over here about how "underneath all the other things it's about, it is MOSTLY about the burden of being smart while surrounded by stupid." I thought that was well-observed... ( Read more... )

2. A few specific thoughts about Art, spoilery for 3x02 "Cut Ties"... ( Read more... )

Soooo, those are some of my thoughts on Justified. I have many, but I don't always remember to write them down.

(The short version:

1. RAYLAN AND BOYD.
2. OH, ART.)

1. Justified season 3 starts up tonight! I, as the kids say, Am Excite.

2. On a visit to several individuals of my acquaintance, I watched all of the episodes (so far) of Person Of Interest. And I HAVE FEELINGS ABOUT THIS SHOW AND THESE CHARACTERS, YOU GUYS. FEELINGS. ♥______♥

3. We also got through an enormous amount of Haven, which I will be finishing up now that I am home again. Perhaps Nathan should officially be renamed "OhPoorNathan!", given how often that phrase comes out of my mouth.

4. And given that all this takes place in and around me having watched the Sherlock Finale Of Agita And Woe, do you think my workplace would let me call in Televisually Wrung-Out for a couple days?