Also, awsome music
May. 8th, 2011 03:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pktechgirlbackupOver here you can see a really interesting discussion between crystalpyramid and I on Windup Girl". In summary: I loved it so much it's the only book I've ever hoped had a sequel. She liked it and recommended it but found it lacked something, namely characterization. In the ensuing discussion, she described my primary reason for liking it ("an excellent portrayal of how human beings behave in times of scarcity") as something she'd expect to be said about nonfiction. That's not how I would have characterized it, but now that I've heard it, I think she's onto something. Arguably, my love for many my favorite television (The Shield, Mad Men, The Sopranos, Battlestar Galactica) comes from the same place. I'm reading a biography on Princess Diana that I prefer to view as fiction, and the description of the courtship is interesting only in its horribleness, but the descriptions of the life of the British upper class are fascinating.
For years, I have said I liked Farscape (it's where the name pktechgirl comes from) but it came from a time when television was getting good but had not yet gotten good*. It's silly. The dialogue is frequently stilted, they suffer from frequent Planets of Hats (Litigara, planet of lawyers? Seriously?), the universe doesn't hold together at all, and I haven't figured out if they're good actors suffering from terrible direction or vice versa.
And yet... Once you get past all the silliness, the characterizations are so marvelous and rich you can't help but fall in love with every character. I was spacing out during a characters death speech because meh, death speech, especially a death speech during a Heroic Sacrifice of a Wisdom Quoting Dying Scion. But when I forced myself to pay attention, I was nearly in tears**, because however cliched it was, the other characters didn't know that, and they were hurting.
*in my defense, I said this before I knew how disappointing BSG's ending was going to be
**Admittedly not that hard to do right now, since Pan is still struggling.
For years, I have said I liked Farscape (it's where the name pktechgirl comes from) but it came from a time when television was getting good but had not yet gotten good*. It's silly. The dialogue is frequently stilted, they suffer from frequent Planets of Hats (Litigara, planet of lawyers? Seriously?), the universe doesn't hold together at all, and I haven't figured out if they're good actors suffering from terrible direction or vice versa.
And yet... Once you get past all the silliness, the characterizations are so marvelous and rich you can't help but fall in love with every character. I was spacing out during a characters death speech because meh, death speech, especially a death speech during a Heroic Sacrifice of a Wisdom Quoting Dying Scion. But when I forced myself to pay attention, I was nearly in tears**, because however cliched it was, the other characters didn't know that, and they were hurting.
*in my defense, I said this before I knew how disappointing BSG's ending was going to be
**Admittedly not that hard to do right now, since Pan is still struggling.
