Bethany

Oh, Merlin. I remember why I sometimes love you.

( Goblin's Gold spoilers )

Despite the fact that my life would basically be over if I somehow tragically lost everything on my computer, I'm only just now backing stuff up on my external harddrive for the first time since... err... Christmas. And some folders have been neglected even longer than that WHAT DON'T JUDGE ME -- and, awww, so much fandom nostalgia! My Legend of the Seeker folder didn't even exist back then! And my Lost folder just doubled in size! Look at all this highly fabulous stuff that is now a part of my life! Highlights version:

( Cut for a lot of rather large pictures, and maybe spoilers for things that have happened in TV world for the past six months (or earlier because I'm usually really slow at saving promos/stills/etc.) )

Wow, what a productive evening this has been... off to round it off with some Star Trek novels/cartoons.

BIRTHDAY POST!!!!!

I may have finally reached that age where birthdays are to be dreaded rather than celebrated; but thankfully the internet is an ageless wonder, an anomaly of time and space, and a perfect venue for a "Things That Make Me Happy!" post! AND YOU CAN PLAY ALONG! (Seriously, please do.)

( I'll stick with you baby for a thousand years, nothing's gonna touch you in these golden yeeeeeeeaaaaaars!! )

I'd like to keep this open until I leave on Wednesday, so please! Spam away! Picspams, gifs, fanvids, basically anything in the history of ever that you feel like linking to or flailing over... all expressions of joy and happiness are welcome.

I am never going to finish this recap, am I? I don't know why I'm so demotivated this time around; in years past, it has always been my favorite bit of my year in review. Possibly I am just getting bogged down... um, yes, you can probably see why I needed to implement that "no new shows" rule. So, anyway, TV I Have Seen! Spoilers for: House, Legend of the Seeker, Leverage, Life on Mars, Lost, Mad Men, Merlin, NCIS, Psych, Pushing Daisies.

( TV of 2009 )

WELL WOULD YOU LOOK AT THAT, this post is done for now and it's not even 1:30AM yet. I had to cut myself off at Robin Hood or else... yeah. Hmm. Badness would ensue; I'll save that for a later date.

Merrrrlin, ( spoilers for 2.09 )

OH AND ALSO -- OMG OMG OMG WHY IS MY FLIST NOT EXPLODING OVER ( THE LATEST EPISODE OF SPOOKS? MAJOR MAJOR SPOILERS FOR 8.04 )

Somehow I have been neglecting all of my airing shows in favor of posting about canceled Medieval nonsense and on-a-fifty-million-month-hiatus shows with smoke monsters. Things I Have Been Meaning to Post About (plus spoiler space in case you are caught up on some but not on others)...

( House! )

( Merlin! )

( NCIS! )

And, okay, apparently it is impossible for me to go very long without mentioning Robin Hood. But! For US viewers! "Do You Love Me" is airing this Saturday on BBCA, and I am urging you all to watch it. Could you say no to this face? Or more importantly, would you want to?

Oh, and I also meant to say that I continue to catch up with The Prisoner. I had kind of planned to finish it before the remake began airing, but I'm not quite sure if I'll make that deadline. The last episode I watched was "The Schizoid Man" and owwwwww my brain owwww. But in a good way.

Okay, these are probably new to nobody but me, but -- I was just browsing through the image galleries at Lucy Griffiths Online because, I don't know, I like to torture myself with the fact that SHE NEEDS TO BE IN MORE THINGS and WHY DOES SHE HAVE SUCH DODGY HAIR NOW and UHHHH OH MY GOD WHAT? IS THAT LAV-LAV? and other such nonsense. Um, but anyway, I digress from the true subject of this post -- the quotes page! How have I never heard some of these before?:

[About starting Robin Hood] "Everyone was completely new to me. They all knew that it was in their best interests to be friendly, but I just think these people are pretty damn funky!" Best cast description ever Y/Y?

"Marian is not exactly a weak character; she's physically quite able, as well as verbal, and she actually goes around doing her own fighting and protects other people. She's a strong woman and, although she loves Robin Hood desperately, you get the feeling that she could live without him because she's strong enough on her own." OH. OH. JUST... ♥ ♥ ♥

"I just absolutely love working with Richard [Armitage]. He’s probably the best scene partner I've ever had… He allows me to say what I think about my performance and his performance without getting angry about it, and the other way around. I often will ask him if there’s something he can suggest to help me out, or if he can give me a reason. If I’m finding something difficult, I can ask him why he thinks that might be. We have a very good friendship as well. We laugh a lot together." If they never ever manage to ever do another project together, it will be such a tragedy.

And in related news of lovely ladies who wow me with their awesome interviews, it seems every time there is a new article about Katie McGrath I just fall in love anew: 1 2 I had no idea she used to be a wardrobe assistant! That's awesome! Or that she was set on doing journalism but then changed her mind after, uhh, actually doing it. That I can certainly sympathize with. I don't really know why, but I am so utterly charmed by her career path, haha. ALSO ALSO ALSO I cannot waaaaait for "To Kill the King" to air on NBC on Sunday. I might cry slightly less this time because I'll get my family to watch it with me but, man, she is such a friggen powerhouse in that episode.

Ooh, and somebody at isabella_giz introduced me to this blog which has some gorgeous scans of Lara Pulver that, again, are completely new to me. How have I been missing out on all this stuff for so long?

Meme!

Comment to this entry and I'll pick three of your fandoms. You must then update your journal and answer the following questions:

teh_maskmaid chose for me to post about Star Trek, Psych, and Merlin.

( Fandom thoughts contained within! )

TV update about Things That Are Not Robin Hood:

MERLIN. IS STARTING IN THE US. SUNDAY THE 21ST ON NBC. THIS IS EXCITING. I can finally rope all of my fellow Americans into watching it, ahahaaa VICTORY WILL BE MINE. I was just poking around the NBC site a bit, though, and is it just me or are their promos a bit, uh... lame? And kind of unrepresentative of the show? It seems to come across more as Corny Generic "It's Your Destiny!!" "With Lens Flare, Even!!!" Fantasy (See, We Even Have A Dragon) as opposed to THE MOST AWESOMELY MAGICAL THING THAT HAS MAGICKED ITS WAY INTO YOUR LIVING ROOM. Maybe I'm just watching with a hypersensitive eye because I really really really want the show to do well State-side, but I do worry that the promos fail to capture the gorgeous, sweeping epic elements of the show; so instead I'm just linking all of my friends to the BBC preview. You better do justice to this show, NBC, or you can expect some serious finger-wagging from me in the future! (ETA: I was just watching the news with my dad and, oh, NBC was just waiting to bust out the awesome ads! The preview they aired was all about Merlin/Arthur and their special "destiny"; hopefully it will soon appear on the interwebs so all can share in my glee.)

Speaking of other fare from NBC and its subsidiaries, oh look! Yet another new USA original series! I was remarking to my mom the other day about how clever USA is with its branding -- they have found their target audience and are convinced to make them watch every single thing on USA ever because, hey, if you're enjoying one of their shows chances are you'll like all of them! In the mood for a quirky procedural dramedy? They've got you hooked up 24/7, damn them. As if I didn't already watch enough TV.

So we went ahead and watched the pilot for Royal Pains. I'm not fully sold on it as a new Best Thing Ever show, but I think I enjoyed it enough to check out a few more episodes. General impressions:

- Hank and Hank's Soon-To-Be Love Interest are boring. And then some.
- EVAN AND DIVYA ARE AWESOME. AND THEN SOME. And I think I'm already shipping them (although honestly, I was even just from the promos. "Don't objectify me, sidekick." Ohhh I'm in love).
- ...Okay, I maybe wasn't being completely fair in my first point. I do get where they're setting up Hank and Jill's mission to counterbalance the riiiich people everywhere, which I do appreciate. I think I just had a kneejerk reaction to a description of the character as the "Robin Hood of medicine" and, well, we all know the grand legacy of Robin Hood and My Issues. Ahem. Anyway. Plus I guess he had to play the reluctant hero to establish the tone of the show... I don't know.
- Or, hmm, maybe I do know?: I think what's throwing me is that he's playing the lead of an enterprise that he's not fully invested in yet. Of course I'm going to have to draw parallels to Psych, and Evan is totally this show's Shawn, so it's just weird that the one being motivated to push their business along and introduce all their wacky adventures is the supporting character instead of the star -- who is instead the level-headed, too-cool-for-this-nonsense one. Well, yes, the opposing personalities are a staple of buddy comedies. Again, see Psych! But, in addition to leveling out Shawn, Gus still flows along with his partner's nonsense and has a fair bit of his own; they're the "opposites who complete each other" as opposed to "opposites who, well, are nothing alike and kind of incompatible, really," which is more of what the Hank/Evan dynamic seems.
- Sudden realization: Divya is totally Gus. She's got the car full of pharmaceuticals and everything! Sweet. Further proof that the program should really just be about her and Evan.
- ...And further proof that mostly I just miss Psych. A lot. IS IT JULY YET?
- And back to the show at hand -- good bits were the two teen patients; much of the Hank/Evan banter ("I love you!" "I like you!"); the bar of gold (...I don't even know. It cracked me up); ANDREW MCCARTHY IN THE PROMO FOR NEXT WEEK WHAAAAT. I don't even like him (eternal Pretty in Pink related prejudice, I'm afraid). And yet I'm still excited.
- ETA: I just watched the preview clip for next week on the USA site (I know I've already said this for Psych, but USA has the best sites for their shows, seriously) and I am muuuch more sold on the Hank/Evan relationship after watching that. Well, yay. And yet also boo because now I might be held captive by still more programming, noooo.

In doing my Year in Fiction recap last time, I had the most fun -- and blew the most time! -- doing my TV post; and, as 2008 began drawing to a close, I sincerely looked forward to going through the same process again in putting together a TV of 2008 retrospective. Yet once work actually began... I. Wow. Holy balls, guys. I WATCH SO MUCH FRIGGEN TV. When exactly did that happen? Looking over my post from last year I felt a bit ridiculous about how many new fandoms I had picked up, but between now and then my list has just about tripled. Um. Err. Yeah. Oops? I apologize in advance for the rather epic nature of this post, then. Definitely not dial-up friendly. Spoilers for the most recent seasons of: American Idol, Big Wolf on Campus, Chuck, Crusoe, House M.D., Legend of the Seeker, Life on Mars, Lost, M*A*S*H, Mad Men, Merlin, The Middleman, Psych, Pushing Daisies, Stargate: Atlantis, Stargate: SG-1, Star Trek: DS9, Star Trek: TOS.

( Television of 2008 )