My Brilliant Friend - The HBO Series

I recently finished watching the last episode in the 4-season series of My Brilliant Friend.

Based on four books by Elena Ferrante, the series covered the special friendship of two young women from childhood into old age.

The series was filmed in Italian and thus we used subtitles to read the dialogue.

The first year of the series was 2018, I think, and then we had a season of the series drop every other year. It is unfortunate that it was such a long time between seasons because it was easy to forget minor yet important details. 

Additionally, in the last season, the two lead characters, as well as important minor characters, were played by completely different actresses to portray the aging of the girls. They are in the 40s through their 60s in the last season.

The young girls live in rather desolate circumstances in Naples, Italy in the 1950s. Their community is run by a type of mafia, and everyone is wary of these "bosses" and careful not to step on toes. The two young women are intelligent, more so than the other students in their class, and the teacher sees this. Elena is slightly better off financially than her friend Lila, and it is Elena who goes on to university to continue her studies, while Lila does not fare so well.

The series kept me captivated largely because it was an exploration of what it means to be a woman in a man's world. The story is told not through the obvious male gaze but from an objective point of view, which was refreshing. While the women were often viewed as sex objects, it was not the camera viewing them that way (think of a zoom-in on Wonder Woman's breast as a definition of the male gaze) but the men in the show. It was refreshing to see women portrayed as people who are objectified, not as not-quite-people who are always objectified, as women often are in many movies and series.

Elena and Lila have a rather unconventional friendship, one based upon their mutual respect for one another as well as their intelligence. They begin to believe in the power of the written word when one of them acquires a copy of Little Women, translated into Italian. The story buoys them throughout their childhood, with each attempting to overcome circumstances much like Jo March does in that particular book.

I found the series hard to watch at time as the young women were exploited and used by others, and occasionally by one another. I identified strongly with both characters; each seemed at times to be a part of myself - the one who wanted education and to be a writer, the other who ended up in a world she didn't necessarily want but managed to navigate.

The first book in this series did not set well with me when I read it. Perhaps something was lost in the translation, but I found the TV series much more enticing than the book. I did not read the rest of the book series after finding the first one not to my liking. I found the language stilted and pedantic, but it is not that way in the show. Or if it is, it is not as noticeable as it was in the book.

If you have an interest in the relationships of women, then I recommend this series. But it is not a happy series. This is serious drama covering a serious topic that receives little attention as it is.

Ugly People Doing Ugly Things

House of the Dragon - SPOILER ALERT

If you're not caught up on the House of the Dragon series, you may not want to read further. Or if you have never watched Game of Thrones but plan to one day, you may want to skip this.

My husband dislikes this show, House of the Dragon on HBO. It's a spinoff from Game of Thrones, set 100+ years earlier than Game of Thrones.

I don't much care for the show, either. As my husband said, it is a show full of ugly people doing ugly things.

We seem to be watching it out of habit, and because there isn't anything else on to watch right now.

Initially I thought I would like to see two women vying for the throne, but it turns out, that isn't a draw.

I need somebody to root for in a story, and there isn't anyone. None of these characters are especially likeable. In Game of Thrones, the very first person we like is Ned Stark, and we rooted for Ned Stark. His death, then, was a gut punch.

People die on House of the Dragon and there is nothing. I do not feel anything.

When Princess Rhaenys Targaryen died after Aemond Targaryen's dragon killed her dragon, nearly killing the young King Aegon Targaryen in the process, I didn't feel anything. Her character had not been well developed. And the young king came across as a spoiled brat, sort of an early version of Joffrey from Game of Thrones. I'm sorry he is badly wounded and the portrayal of that is striking, but aside from not liking to see anyone suffer, I don't feel for him.

Actually, there are so many characters, and so many with similar names, that I have a hard time keeping them apart.  And I think that is part of what is wrong with this show. It is moving slowly to try to develop so many characters with so many similar names that it becomes a bit wearying trying to keep up with them all.

It's also a little boring. I think it needs more dragons and less people.

I can recall the names of characters from Game of Thrones even though it has been years since I saw that, and I have no desire to watch that series again. I have to go to the HBO House of the Dragon page to look up the names of all of these ugly people doing ugly things. I can tell you the name of the two women who are vying for the throne - Alicent and Rhaenyra - and a crazy guy named Daemon who is Rhaenyra's uncle and husband, and a guy named Cole who is Alicent's lover, and that's about it. But there are oodles of other characters, and I cannot keep them all straight.

Fantasy has long been a favorite genre, and I am not ill-equipped to deal with a show on this scale. But I have to be interested in the characters if I want to take the time to track them.

And these characters do not interest me. I keep waiting for that to change, but we're about done with this season. I think it'll be at least a year before the next season shows.

By then I won't remember a thing about this show.

Reviews & Complaints

Reviews

We started watching Hacks on Max over the weekend. Highly recommended! Jean Smart is terrific. Wish I'd been watching this all along, but it's a good binge in the nights when nothing else is on but Big Bang reruns.

Also saw the first episode of Maryland on PBS. It stars Suranne Jones, Eve Best, and Stockard Channing. Didn't hate it, it's only 3 episodes, will probably watch it all. I first encountered Surrane Jones in Gentleman Jack on HBO. I liked that series. In Maryland, she's a bit of a sobby thing while her sister is quite stoic. I guess I related a bit more to the stoic one. And who doesn't love Stockard Channing when she shows up in something? The plot is the mother, who passes away, has a secret life on the Isle of Man and the sisters are unraveling it.

***

Friday night, we checked out a new restaurant in Daleville. It's a steak and seafood restaurant, and since I'm giving it C- I won't name it. It was expensive ($70 for the two of us), and LOUD. At first it wasn't too bad when we arrived before 5 p.m. but as the place filled up, it grew so noisy in there that I had a headache when we left (which was as quickly as we could). I don't think we will be going back.

***

While I'm "reviewing," I prefer Food Lion to Kroger in Daleville. Food Lion is bright, it has actual people running the checkout lines, and the prices are lower (on some things). Kroger is dark, the shelves are too tall for me to reach many things up high and they are also too close together, and it looks like an outdated warehouse that someone thought would make a grocery store. It used to not look like that, it used to be bright and had flooring (not the cement floor), and the walls weren't painted black. I don't know who thought this make-over (several years old now) was a good idea but I only go in there for my prescriptions now. Brighten that store up, make it more user friendly! Please, I beg you. (Also, the parking is better at Food Lion.)

***

Complaints

Facebook makes me feel stupid just for looking at it, because there is so much stupid on it. There are some things that aren't stupid, but you have to weed out a lot of stupid to find something that isn't. And sometimes I stupidly go and look at the stupid just to see how stupid it is! Doesn't that make me stupid?

***

I would very much like to see adults act like adults. When did that become too much to expect?

***

People who say the climate isn't changing do not raise cattle and need hay to feed them.

***

Why can't I upload only my contacts to the Apple cloud? It wants to upload everything, and I don't want to upload everything. Just the one thing. My contacts. The rest of it doesn't matter. If I lose the notes or the reminders or the pictures, I don't care, but I do need the phone numbers. If I could just upload the contacts I wouldn't have to pay for any extra storage space, the space that comes with the phone would be plenty. But no, it has to tell me every time I think about uploading to the cloud that I need to buy more storage space. I have it all backed up to my computer but it's in iTunes and who knows if that's even accessible to a newer phone. My phone is an iPhone 5(SE). I have had it since 2017. No, it's not worth anything apparently, so I just keep using it. Why not?

Movies, TV, & Books

Last night we watched part of the Oscar Awards, mostly because we couldn't find anything else we wanted to watch.

The only movie I have seen of all the movies mentioned was Barbie. I don't go to the theater often and some of these movies simply haven't made it to HBO/MAX yet.

Most of them I'd barely heard of. I am not a connoisseur of pop culture, apparently.

As for the Oscar Awards show, I neither liked it nor disliked it. It was just something to watch.

Movies

Now, on to the most recent movie I have watched: Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, starring Jason Momoa.

Apparently, this movie was in theaters in December. We watched it when it came on HBO last weekend.

It is not a great movie. It's not even a good movie. When I spend more time trying to see what references to other movies and books I can find in a picture than actually watching the picture itself, then it's definitely not holding my interest.

This movie had references to Star Wars, H.G. Wells books, Batman and Robin, 48 Hours, Castaway, Thor, Harry Potter, and loads of other DC Comic lore. I am sure I missed other references, too.

Frankly, I'm about comic-book charactered out with movies, and hope that Hollywood moves on to better films, preferably not remakes of old ones as that seems to be the pattern of the moment. I would like to see something original occasionally.

I'm not going into the Aquaman plot; anyone can find a rehash of it on Wikipedia and all I wanted to note was I saw it, Momoa was fun to look at, and it was definitely a "B" rated flick.

TV

This brings me to the most recent binge of TV. I watched all six episodes of HBO's True Detectives: Night Country, staring Jody Foster. Mostly I watched it because I have always liked Jody Foster.

This show was weird and creepy. My husband said it gave me nightmares, although if it did, I don't remember them. But it was a different sort of show and I'm not sure I would have watched it had it not been for Foster.

Foster's character was a true hard-assed bitch named Liz Danvers. (The name made me think of Super Girl, whose last name was Danvers when she wasn't saving the world, so I wish they'd used another name, unless the inference was intentional.) Danvers was trying to solve two murders along with another police officer, Evangaline Navarro, played by Kali Reis.

Actually, it was more than two murders, as the initial murder was of six different men, all found naked out in the frozen Alaska tundra, their faces contorted in fear and their bodies molded together with ice. The officers called it a "corpsicle," which should tell you a lot about the humor of this show. It was very dark humor. Somehow this murder tied in with an older unsolved murder case. 

Most everything that seemed supernatural in the show could be explained, but it was one seriously delusional piece of work. Masterfully done, well-acted, and a bit crazy. I am glad I watched it, but like Game of Thrones, it's not something I intend to ever watch again.

Books

I've mentioned recently that I finished Heather Cox Richardson's book, Democracy Awakening. It's a very important book for these times and one that I encourage everyone, regardless of political persuasion, to read. The historical aspect that leads us to today is incredible and I guarantee that there are things in this book that one did not learn in the public schools, and maybe not even in college.

Another book I recently finished that was quite eye-opening was Educated, by Tara Westover. This memoir of a young woman who was "homeschooled" and a member of the Mormon faith is incredibly eye-opening and concerning. The story opens with an admonishment that the book is not meant to deny or endorse any religion, but it doesn't make religion of any kind look good. I think it reflects the evangelical religiosity that has taken hold of some folks and made them a bit crazy, regardless of brand of faith. I have never been one to live my life on emotion and have tried to be rational in my thought processes, although being human I am sure I've failed. But people who are living only on faith and belief are people I cannot understand. They do not step back and self-examine themselves or their actions and cannot or do not see reality in a way that I understand.

It is difficult to be the person who is different in any family; I imagine it must be nearly impossible in an evangelical one. Westover's memoir showed how difficult it was, and how hard it can be to overcome backwards thinking. 

It's definitely a book to read (or listen to, as I did), and think about.

La Brea (The TV Show)

Natalie Zea in La Brea

Last night was the final episode of La Brea, a science fiction family affair that ran for thirty episodes. The last six of those episodes just finished up.

Spoilers ahead, if you care.

The show features the Harris family, and in the beginning centered on Eve Harris, played by Natalie Zea. She is a tough mom who drops herself into a big hole that opens up near the La Brea Tar Pits in California because it swallowed her son, Josh. She left behind her husband, Gavin, and daughter, Izzy.

It was a big hole, so Eve finds her son and she and at least 30 other people set up a camp of sorts using automobiles and parts of buildings that the hole also swallowed up. 

They have landed in 10,000 BC.

The early shows indicated some kind of weird time warp overlap, as one of the survivors found a cache of coins from the War Between the States. In later episodes, there were tribes of ancient people who looked more like modern-day Native Americans, and strange men who kidnapped people who fell from the sky to work in mines.

This was never fully explored, and frankly the show lost the entire plot of the time travel thing somewhere along the way. The audience was supposed to accept that there was weird time travel stuff going on even though in theory it shouldn't have worked that way.

The show focused mostly on relationships that grew out of the survivors. Along the way, we learned about Eve's relationship with her husband and a lover, Levi, who was also her husband's closest friend.

I watched the show because I initially liked the premise, but as it progressed, I liked it less. I didn't mind the focus on emotions and character growth - that's necessary - but the plot around the time travel switched around from unbelievable to simply outlandish and back again.

Initially the time holes were being made by Gavin's father, who was from the future where time travel was developed. He brought Gavin and his family down with him to this upside-down earth and built a dome where he could work on his time experiments. His wife, though, left to live in another time (1988 or something), taking Gavin with her, and she gave him away to a foster family so she could focus on stopping her husband.

Gavin and family eventually found their way to his mother's time, and Levi chose to stay there instead of going back to 10,000 BC to try to stop the father from making more time portals or holes. Then Levi turned back up in 10,000 BC, older now, having lost his wife and a child to something to do with the Army.

Then suddenly, in these last few episodes, we learn that Gavin has been secretly flying in time ships for over a year before the hole opened up and took his wife, and a rogue army/government/something woman was working to sell time travel to the highest bidder. This also had something to do with 1965, although that was never explained to my satisfaction.

None of the last six episodes have Eve in them, as she'd been taken to a different time at the end of Season 2 and no one knew where she'd gone. So we only saw her in the final episode when there was a family reunion in 2021 (which was the present day) as she found her way back to them. Since she was the character I was most interested in, the last "season" didn't do much for me.

Because I have read so much science fiction and have a vague and tortured understanding of time travel, the inconsistencies in the time anomalies in this show frustrated me. The whole Gavin-is-from-the-future and his-dad-invented-time-travel thing that zig-zagged into it being a secret government plot that he was involved in before the hole opened up was completely chaotic as far as plotting goes. 

While some of the effects were cool and the idea of falling into a hole to end up in another world is certainly not new, I liked the initial premise of this show. I liked the characters, mostly. I just wish it hadn't gone so far off the rails in its efforts to contort the plot to meet someone's agenda, or whatever it was.

Here's a director's response to questions about the show. He seems happy with it.

Playing Catch-Up

January is a horrid month, and I'm glad it's over. February isn't much better, but at least by now I have finished getting the paperwork together for the taxes and have that pain out of the way.

I have been remiss in my blog, though. I don't generally go two days and not write something. I couldn't think of anything to write yesterday that didn't make me tired when I thought about it, so I wrote nothing.

But today I'm not creatively tired, I am ready to write something.

So here goes.

Books

So far this year, I've read A Trick of the Light, by Louise Penny, which was one of the books in her series I skipped by accident, The Recovery Agent, by Janet Evanovich, which is a reworked version of a more competent Stephanie Plum with her ex-husband in Lula's role, Unf#ck Your Brain, by Dr. Faith Harper, a self-help book, Into the Glades, by Laura Sebastian, which is a young adult fantasy, and The Jasmine Throne, by Tasha Suri. 

The last book is an adult fantasy book, and like many of the fantasies I read, it takes on a political tone and examines the role of the feminine in power. The magic in the book was intriguing in that is a feminine magic - control of the Earth's soil and plants, along with another type of magic that involves telling the future. No fire wizards or things like that, although fire plays a big role in this story, wielded as a manly power. Swords and not guns. My only complaint was multiple points of views; I occasionally forgot who was talking and had to flip back to the beginning of the chapter to see whose name was on it. I recommend it if you prefer your books to have strong female characters and can imagine bucking the patriarchy one day.

The book I am currently reading is called Born with Teeth, by Kate Mulgrew. It is an autobiography (not a memoir), and I decided to read it because I try to read nonfiction and fiction alike. The last autobiography I read was Sally Field's. I prefer to read autobiographies or memoir of women, but dang if every woman who writes a memoir hasn't been raped at some point. I know that statistically something like 1 in every 3 women has been raped or a victim of incest or something, but I am not so sure that every single female in this world hasn't been manhandled at the crotch by some guy at some point. Mulgrew was robbed and raped not on a casting couch, but as she tried to fumble her way into her New York apartment with her hands full of grocery bags.

We do a poor job of raising men, if every woman is considered fair game. And apparently, we are.

The State of the Union

I did not watch The State of the Union address last night. I consider that political theater on the part of both sides. I have read varying synopses of is, and as best I can tell, some of the crazier Republicans acted like children and Dark Brandon handed them their ass on an environmentally friendly clay platter.

Since I read about the political scene almost every day, I know the state of the union without the drama and theater. I also buy groceries and gas, and listen to people, and read stuff from both sides of the aisle. The truth and the facts are in the middle. Sorting them out is a yeoman's task.

Contrary to popular belief, neither side represents me. I suspect a lot of people feel like that.

And that's all I have to say about that.

TV

I don't watch much TV, but I started a show on ABC called Alaska Daily that I want to recommend. It stars Hillary Swank and is about a newsroom in Anchorage. Very realistic and good acting. There are only six episodes available so far, but the show returns February 23. You can watch it on the ABC app.

Whose Line Is It Anyway? taped its last show last week. Since my husband and I are probably the only people left who watch the show, this is not unforeseen, but we enjoyed the interplay between the comedians. Also, it was on the CW, and I understand that channel is undergoing a revamp. The only other show I watched on that channel was Stargirl, and it's been cancelled. It had a good ending, though.

We've been watching the new version of Night Court with Melissa Rauch, but I can't decide if I like it or not. La Brae also returned on Tuesday nights. I like this show but have a feeling it's veering off into a direction that I may not like. 

On Thursdays, my husband watches Swamp People and tapes BattleBots. I read during Swamp People; once you've seen a few alligators killed, I don't need to see anymore. I like BattleBots because no one is getting hurt, you're just seeing robots fly to pieces. Too bad real-world problems can't be solved like that.

Life in General

We have re-rented the little house my mother left me, and I have high hopes for my new tenant. My husband on Saturday, on his way over there to finish some projects - every time someone leaves the house, we must spend money and time trying to fix things, replacing light bulbs, unstopping sinks, etc. - and swerved to miss a deer. He took out the mirror on his truck.

My leg is still swollen and tender, but it is no longer throbbing and purple, so it is getting better. I am unclear as to what I have - varicose veins, I think - or how to deal with it, other than stay off of my leg for a long while until things settle down. It is not my back, it's not a Charlie Horse, it's something in my veins. The fact that I am fat doesn't help, even if I did lose 15 pounds back in 2020. I need to lose a lot more.

The bird feeder is a great source of fun. We have lots of cardinals, blue jays, chickadees, etc. there, especially in the mornings. I like watching the birds. I haven't been taking pictures of them because it has been wet and damp, and like the Wicked Witch of the West, I melt in the rain.

I also still haven't found the green comet. The moon has been full, so there's a lot of light, and it may be that even though this is a rural area, there's simply too much light pollution around me now to see it. Or I just can't find it. I found Mars. I found Polaris. I found all the markers I was supposed to find, but no green comet.

The weather has warmed, and the rain has stopped. I may have to go sit outside a spell. I suspect an early spring.

Review: House of the Dragon

House of the Dragon, on HBO, is a spin-off from Game of Thrones.

I enjoyed Game of Thrones, even the somewhat messy ending.

House of the Dragon is no Game of Thrones.

Sunday night as I watched the latest episode, I thought about 40 minutes into that I really did not care if I watched any more of this show.

I do not care about the characters. There isn't a likeable one among them.

Nor do I care who keeps the throne, gets the throne, eats the throne, or does whatever on the throne. I already know who ends up on the throne in 172 years after this prequel, so what does it matter?

I have read reviews calling this masterful, etc., but I find it incredibly boring and boorish. I can find better things to do at 9 p.m. on Sundays.

For a show that premiered as the highest rated show on HBO ever, it has been the quite the letdown for me.

I like fantasy, but this isn't fantasy. This is just Dark Age overkill with a few dragons thrown in.

Entertainment Weekly has called it Epic Fantasy for Dummies, but I would go even further and call it Useless Fantasy for People with No Attention Span. It is so boring you can look away and miss five minutes of it and still know it will continue to be boring when you return your attention to it.

People riding dragons does not make good fantasy. It's just fantasy if the characters are insufferable and the world they're in is untenable.

We will likely tape the remaining episodes and watch them at some point, but this certainly is not must-see TV.

For that, check out Amazon's Rings of Power. Now that's decent fantasy. I'll review that when I've seen the whole season. I don't see myself giving up on that one half-way through.

TV and Movie Thoughts

The HBO series My Brilliant Friend upsets me with every episode. Yet, I can't not watch it. I am breathless in my vigil to see what happens next, even though we're talking fairly routine life stuff here - marriage, having children, almost having an affair. And at the heart of it, a childhood friendship between two similar yet very different young women.

Today I am quite grumpy, as I didn't sleep well. We watched My Brilliant Friend last night and I think it carried over into my night and this day. The show reminds me, quite vividly and pointedly, of the relatively small shelf women and women's rights stand upon. Actually, it's more like we and those rights stand upon the head of pin, much like thousands of invisible and unreal angels.

Because the truth of the matter is, women are, every day, thrown around, mistreated, and married to be a man's sex partner, maid, cook, and baby carrier. All over the world. Even here. 

In the current climate, and with the Republicans doing their best to make the vetting of Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson look like a roadside circus while she, being a woman, can't burst into tears and sobs like her predecessor in the process, Bret Kavanaugh. That's because if she did, she'd be called out for it in multiple ways and a single tear would disqualify her, while Kavanaugh's whiny ass histrionics were simply a reflection of a poor man who'd been unfairly raked over the coals because of his purported abuse of women.

And My Brilliant Friend shows how poorly women have been and continue to be mistreated. It also shows how to kill a spirit in someone who needs only a wee bit of support to become outstanding. Elena wants to be a writer, but no one supports her efforts.

It makes me sad.

The Gilded Age ended its season Monday night. That show is no Downton Abby, in spite of being written by Julian Fellowes, who also wrote the latter. The Gilded Age is American greed and capitalism in full display, complete with backstabbing, bitterness, lies, deceit, and merciless racism and again, gender inequality. It was a train wreck from the get-go, but again, one I watched because looking away didn't seem to be an option.

I don't know if I was waiting for Mrs. Russell to find her place amongst the old guard in high society, a position she coveted to the point of insanity, or if I was waiting for the old guard in high society to fall on its face, or for the servants and lower-class labor workers to rise up and proclaim the world belonged to them.

The characters were not likeable, except for Marian, the poor relative who came to live with the rich aunts in New York, and Ms. Scott, the Black woman who went to work for Marian's aunt and who wanted badly to be a writer. She also has a much more complicated life than one may have thought from the first few episodes.

(I note both of these TV shows have women who want to write in them. Perhaps that is the draw for me . . . watching these women who love what I love try to overcome.)

And then there's Spielberg's West Side Story. I may have seen the original at some point, but if I have, I don't remember it.

I disliked this version. I disliked it a lot. There wasn't a character to feel anything for, or time to feel anything for one, anyway. The dancing was fun to watch, some of the songs familiar, and it was certainly well done and spiffy, but I did not like it.

The character I most liked was the girlfriend of the Bernado. Anita (yep, that is her name) is all common sense and she understands the world. She also was a great dancer. I liked her best of all and not simply because she had my name.

This has been nominated for 7 Oscars and a bunch of other awards. I follow a few screenwriters on Facebook and they loved it, although from the comments I could see that not all of their followers liked it. I thought it was an incredibly shallow movie, however skillful the dancing. I felt nothing for the lead characters.

I knew the movie was based on Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, so I had an idea of how it would end. It seemed more like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, if you ask me.

Even though this version did nothing for me, I would like to see the original in order to make a comparison. There must be something there I am missing, yes?

Talkin' TV

I do not, as a general rule, watch much television. I don't have it on during the day. I turn it on to watch the 6 p.m. news sometimes, but not every night. I usually have it on by 8 and then I read while whatever my husband is watching is on.

He watches a lot of television. He has it blaring constantly when he is home, playing movies with lots of explosions, or car shows where they are banging on metal, or deer hunting shows where they're killing poor little Bambi.

This fall, the only new show I have picked up is La Brae. This is a fantasy about a group of people who fell through time via a time portal created during a sink hole at the La Brae tarpits. I have enjoyed it so far. It's well done and while there are some time travel anomalies that the writers appear to be overlooking, it's easy to follow and the characters are interesting.

Another show I watch is The Voice, which is about mid-season. It's about singers who are competing for one another. I don't do the "America votes" part. I simply watch.

I also watch Survivor, although I'm not sure why. I can't even tell you the people's name on the season this year. I think it's simply habit. I started watching it in season one and never stopped. It's simply what we do on Wednesday night.

Other shows I watch are Stargirl, which just finished its rather short season but has been renewed for a third (it's on the CW), and Supergirl, which also ended completely this week.

Supergirl's last season disappointed me. The writing was slow, the videography cut and paste, and even the two-hour finale was more disjointed than I would have liked. The things that interested me about the show - the relationships between Supergirl (Kara Danvers) and her sister and friends, were set aside in favor of other relationships (her sister and her lover, for example). I would have preferred less of the rest of the cast and more of Supergirl in her last season. Some of this was, I suspect, due to the star, Melissa Benoist, and her pregnancy, as well as the pandemic and ensuing interruptions in filming.

I always liked this show for its message of hope. Even when alien creatures were roaming the streets of National City, Supergirl made me feel like in the end, all would be well, and it generally was. While there were many things about the show I didn't care for, the overall message of hope, peace, and love were welcome during trying times. I don't know of another show that offers those messages. If you, dear reader, are watching something that offers similar messages, please let me know so I can tune in.

Stargirl is a bit like a junior Supergirl, but this season also felt wrong compared to the first season, and I didn't especially care for it. I attempted to watch Batwoman but could not make it through more than six episodes of Season 2 and simply gave up on it. It was depressing and I found it bothered me a great deal and made me feel mentally off.

I do not watch the news channels much, especially at night, as they upset me. I obtain my news via newspapers, both in print and online, and from the local evening news. Sometimes I watch the opinion heads online the next day but I do that infrequently. I also listen to NPR, the Associated Press, and Reuters on Alexa every morning.

We have attempted to watch Yellowstone but have found it very violent and brutal. I am not into violence and brutality, so I don't know if we will continue to try to watch that. We've watched the first three episodes of the series and neither of us have been overly interested in returning to it.

Some people have the TV on constantly. I can't stand the racket. I would rather listen to music or nothing, depending on what I'm doing. Also, we only have DirecTV and don't do much streaming except for Amazon Prime or HBO Max occasionally. Our internet connection is not that great and I am not a fan of buffering.

There are many other things to do with one's time, anyway.

The click of the keyboard is always a pleasant sound when I'm writing.

What do you watch on TV, dear reader? Tell me what I'm missing.

Batwoman Review

Batwoman, Season 2, is playing on the CW. I'm recording it and am a few episodes behind. Season 1 was so bad I wasn't going to inflict more of it upon my husband.

Season 2 is slightly better than season 1, so far. That isn't saying much, because the writing in Season 1 was absolutely awful. The acting was fine but the writing was among the worst I have ever seen.

Season 2 had a rough start. The show had to replace character Kate Kane, who was Batwoman, with a new person, Ryan, as Batwoman. The actor who played Kate Kane bowed out after the first season (I could hardly blame her, as bad as the writing was). 

The first few episodes have been establishing this new Batwoman. It goes beyond credibility more than once, and sometimes I feel like the show has simply leapt over significant plot holes, but it is an improvement over season 1, to a point.

The writing is still bad, but the introduction of a new villain shows promise. We'll see.

When this show was first announced, I had high hopes for it. I like Supergirl, which is in its final season this spring. I like shows with strong heroines. 

But I also like shows with good writing, and Batwoman suffers from a serious lack of imagination.

Flu Shot Day

Today was flu shot day. It was also "husband is home and doesn't know what to do with himself day," which means I was a little out of sorts myself.

Tomorrow, hopefully, we will be both be back on our schedules.

I found out early this morning that my name is going to be in a book called Xena: Their Courage Changed the World, which is about the Xena fandom of the late 1990s and early 2000s. I am mentioned because of my involvement in WHOOSH.org, a website devoted to all things Xena: Warrior Princess. I wrote many show synopses for the show, a few articles for the website, and also did some editing for the website owner.

That was exciting news.

I meant to blog earlier but things were simply out of my hands today.

So here's a new song by Sheryl Crow that I really like.

Happy I Have Morals

Last night, my husband and I caught the first part of a new Discovery series called "Undercover Billionaire."

I think this was the second episode. I missed the first one.

The premise is that Billionaire Man will go into some city and in 90 days create a $1 million company. This is to prove, I think, that people who are poor are poor because they aren't smart or can't figure out how to beat the system or something. It's obviously slanted in that direction.

It's propaganda.

To my absolute horror and dismay, in the first minutes of the episode last night, Mr. Billionaire went onto private property (some vacant industry), then drove around back and waded through a pile of tires until he found several good ones. He then STOLE those tires and sold them for $1500 to get his "seed" money for his business. (Actually it was to get him a room because he'd been sleeping in his truck.) I don't know what happened after that because I turned the TV off.

The moral here I guess is that if you're willing to (a) trespass and (b) steal, then you can move forward in life. (Can you see my eyes rolling?)

He is nothing but a crook. If he thinks this is ok, then I doubt he's a billionaire because he did something legal to earn his millions.

This morning I am happy that I am not a crook. I am happy that I know right from wrong, and that I do not believe that just because your bicycle is out next to your house, I have the right to take it. Basically that is what Mr. Billionaire did. Even if the property had been reposed by the city, that land and its contents belongs to the taxpayers and the stuff wasn't Mr. Billionaire's to take.

So I am content to be mediocre and not of great wealth, because at least I have my principles.

I am happy that I have good morals.

Each day in August you are to post about something that makes *you* happy. Pretty simple. And, it doesn't even have to be every day if you don't want it to be. It's a great way to remind ourselves that there are positive things going on in our lives, our communities, and the world. Check out the gal that initiated this here.

Game of Thrones Fatigue

After watching the 87-minute Game of Thrones Season 8 episode last night, I told my friend on the phone that today I have Game of Thrones fatigue.

Don't worry, I won't give away anything in case you've yet to see it.

I stayed up until 10:30 p.m. to watch the show, and then stayed up another half-hour waiting on my sweetie. So I went to bed a little later than normal.

Us older folks need our shut-eye time, you know. Can't be out prowlin' around like them young kids. Or the young kids we used to be.

I am enjoy Game of Thrones but I do not rewatch the episodes all the time. I find them gruesome and they have many bad things happen to women. But I like the story line and some of the characters, although everyone knows by now not to like characters in this show because they generally die.

I was thinking back though to my very first "fandom," which wasn't Star Trek or anything like that. No, it was Xena: Warrior Princess, which started in 1995 and came along about the time the Internet was becoming a thing. We were tied into our desktops then and half of us could only access through dial-up with America Online, but it was the first place and first time I ever found myself involved with other people who liked the same TV show to an extreme that others found, well, nerdy or weird, I suppose.

The fandom gave me many friends, a number of whom I am still friends with today, mostly on Facebook. But these are some of the people that I have known the longest now, people who have been on my radar for almost 25 years.

That's a very long time.

Fandoms are interesting. I found myself with trading cards, dolls, comic books - anything Xena-related suddenly became a prized possession. I think most of my collection is now rotting away in the storage shed, with the exception perhaps of the trading cards and one Xena doll that sits on a bookcase.

Now I have a few Wonder Woman dolls on my shelves, but nothing like with Xena. It can be exciting to throw yourself into a TV or movie show, into its world, to visit with other folks who enjoy the nuances and weird eccentrics of a show.

But not to the point of fatigue.

Part of that fatigue comes from GoT not being on for a year and a half. I'm straining my brain trying to remember the characters and why they matter. Or if they matter. Or what they did to bring them to where they are now. But after seven years, those fine details have fled my brain.

Like I said, I didn't rewatch GoT because of the gore and nudity. I can see it once but I have no desire to revisit it. I've not read the books, either, and have no plan to do so. The TV show is all the gore and gruesome I care to deal with.

That said, if you like fantasy, then Game of Thrones is an interesting watch. If you like intrigue and character assassination, it's interesting to watch. There are many elements to it. People who automatically dismiss it because it's fantasy are missing the point.

Fantasy is dream come to life. It also harbors a lot of truth buried beneath the dragon hordes. Fantasy makes you think, makes you feel, makes you empathize with others. Besides, mysteries are fantasies, really. There's no Dick Tracy wandering around out there. Most fiction is fantasy of a sort. I'd argue that the Bible is the most fantastical of all books, really. The Lord of the Rings has nothing on that piece of work.

I suspect people who say they dislike fantasy have never seen a good fantasy. Their loss.

It Was 20 Years Ago Today

It wasn't Sergeant Pepper that happened 20 years ago today. No, it was the first episode of a Hercules: The Legendary Journey spin-off show.

This was the day that Xena: Warrior Princess, debuted. I was already a Hercules fan and had fallen for the character of the Warrior Princess on the three episodes featured in the fantasy series about the legendary Greek God.

Xena was no goddess. She was a sometimes deranged and damaged woman who decided she had to "do good" to circumvent her dubious and dreadful past. It took viewers six seasons to learn what that past was, and it wasn't pretty.

The first episode was called Sins of the Past and it set up the premise of redemption that ran throughout the entire show. It also introduced us to Gabrielle, Xena's sidekick. Gabrielle was a feisty non-warrior who saw something in our heroine that intrigued her enough to cause her to leave her home to travel with her. The relationship between these two became something of a tease - were they or weren't they lovers? - at a time when such things still weren't overly accepted on television. (It was the late 1990s, remember.)

The show was a campy fantasy, and while Greek gods and goddesses popped in and out, XWP was irreverent with history. The writers didn't care if the Trojan Horse took place when Caesar was alive or not. It had a weird timelessness about it, as if Xena and Gabrielle were constantly popping through some dimensional porthole that the viewers never saw.

I loved it. I loved the characters, the dialogue, the fanciful play with the notion of redemption, the idea of gods and goddesses interfering with lives. I loved the fact that these two women were roaming about ancient Greece all by themselves. I loved that Xena was strong, powerful and quick to fight while Gabrielle was a writer and poet who preferred peace to the sword.  

The show had a different tone from Hercules, which grew darker as the seasons progressed. Xena had some dark moments and a few story lines that were, well, horrifying, but the show eventually always came back around to finding itself (except for the last two episodes, which set up a hue and cry from every Xenite on the planet).

XWP gave me something to look forward to, and it was also the first big fandom to develop courtesy of the Internet. Star Trek fandoms were already in place, but Xena fans took things to a different level. Xena fans had online arguments over shows. They developed the term "shipper" with regards to fandoms. 

By its second season, Xena was the top-rated syndicated show in the United States, and it remained in the top five throughout its run. The show ended in June 2001. It's always had a cult following, which continues to this day.

Okay, yes, I am among those followers. I became a weekly contributor to Whoosh!, an online magazine devoted to all things Xena.

Around the Xenaverse, I was Bluesong: Spoiler Princess. I had a C-Band satellite back then, and on Sundays the show would "feed" to the various shows that would then play the episode at some point during the week. I watched the feeds, making me among the first folks in the U.S. to see the episodes, and I wrote a synopsis for nearly each and every show. At first they appeared in a newsgroup, and then after Whoosh! became established, they showed up there beginning with episode 19 in the first season. After that, I did most of the synopsis updates. Folks waited anxiously for those things to go up.

Eventually I was given the title of Associate Editor at Whoosh!. You can find me listed on the "Staff Emeritus" page.

More importantly, I made friends. I can't believe I have known some of these folks online now for 20 years. They're on my Facebook feed. One of those Xenites is my email pal, writing to me nearly every day for 15 years. We've talked about everything from the show to the state of the world. We even exchange Christmas and birthday presents.

No TV show has captured my imagination as much as this one. There are others I've enjoyed (Buffy, the Vampire Slayer), but this is the show I would watch multiple times. It's been about six years, though, since I last pulled out the DVDs. Maybe its time for a reunion of me and Xena?

"You are what you do. You can recreate yourself every second of your life." - Xena in Forgiven.

Opening lines of the show:

"In a time of ancient gods, warlords and kings, a land in turmoil cried out for a hero. She was Xena, a mighty princess forged in the heat of battle.

The power.
The passion.
The danger.

Her courage would change the world."

Where Did Mayberry Go?

Last night we were watching The Andy Griffith Show at 5:30 whilst eating dinner, which is pretty much a daily habit.

For those who may not know, The Andy Griffith Show starred Andy Griffith as Andy Taylor, a sheriff in a small town in North Carolina. The town was based on Mount Airy, NC, Griffith's hometown. The town was populated with interesting, homey characters. Andy played a widower with a small son and his Aunt Bee lived with them to help raise the boy. He went through a few girlfriends before settling on one around the third season.

The show ran for eight seasons, from 1960 to 1968. The shows I am most familiar with are the early seasons in black and white (seasons 1-5), which our local TV stations has rerun at 5:30 p.m. for about 30 years. They seldom run the later episodes. I understand it is the highest rated show in that time slot in our area. Still.

The episodes have names but I don't know them. Last night's episode involved the choir. Barney, Andy's bumbling deputy, was singing in the choir and well, Barney can't sing. He thinks he can, but he can't.

Instead of pitching Barney out on his ear, the choir members first tried to convince Barney he was sick, so he wouldn't show up at a concert. Then they tried to change the work-up of the songs so that Barney would do a recitation in each piece, but he wanted no part of that because he wanted to sing.

Andy then came up with the idea of using a microphone, and having Barney whisper his singing solo, while in reality another voice was coming over the real microphone in the back. All of the choir members were in on the idea.

This was not a joke. This was an effort to keep someone that everyone genuinely liked from having hurt feelings. As we were watching, I turned to my husband.

"I would like to think people thought enough of me to try to keep me from being embarrassed and hurting my feelings like that," I said.

We both agreed that would be a fine thing. However, given the current state of hatred and lack of empathy that seems to be the normal attitude of most folks these days, neither of us felt that such a thing would even be possible. Somebody's always ready to point out when you hit the wrong note, even if a majority keep quiet.

Part of my dismay at this state of the world comes from watching people gang up on one another on the Internet, seeing anyone who slips up in the least come under such intense scrutiny that I am amazed that we don't have half of a nation out slashing its wrists in despair at any given time. We have become a bitter, brutal, backstabbing society, full of hate and spitefulness. Like gathers with like and we attack, striking like hungry alligators who fear there will never be another meal.

I know that love is still out there, that people still care for one another. I have good friends that I would swim through a flood to help, if I had to. But I think those days of perpetual niceness, that time when manners mattered and people didn't feel so free to speak opinions that would be better left unsaid, are over and long gone, if they ever existed at all.

One thing about old TV and its fictional worlds. They can surely make you wonder what has happened in the intervening years.

TV: Masters of Sex

My husband and I have been watching Masters of Sex, a TV series playing on Showtime.

The story is about Masters and Johnson, the team that studied sex back in the 1950s.

The show is very well acted with Michael Sheen playing the role of William Masters and Lizzy Caplan portraying Virginia Johnson. The storyline does a terrific job of depicting gender disparity prevalent at the time (women are inferior) and portrays these attitudes in a most believable way.

There is nudity in the series but not enough to be distracting. The show is really about the two main characters and the lives of those around them. The viewer is invited to learn about people who participated in the study, the wife of William Masters, the provost of the college and his family, and others who were involved with Masters and Johnson in some fashion.

It presents a very nicely rounded view of the whole process of the study as well as what life was like back then.

The most recent episode presented a Civil Defense drill and how the entire country was being urged to hide under desks in the event of a nuclear attack. It was very well done.

There are few shows that I actually want to own on DVD, but this is one of them. I would watch this whole series again. I do not know if this will be a continuing series or if these 10 episodes are all of the show, but if you have missed it I suggest watching it when you can.

It has also given me an interest in Masters and Johnson, particularly Virginia Johnson, who is portrayed as a very strong and capable woman who knows her own mind (and body) in an admirable way. I wouldn't mind finding a biography of her if there is one.

All Hail Liz

My husband watches a show on the History Channel called Swamp People. This means that I watch the show, too, because our nightly routine is that I sit beside him and read while he flips channels. I generally read through the episodes but I still know what is going on.

Swamp People is about alligator hunting. But as with all of these reality shows, it is the personalities that give the show any semblance of interest.

One of the characters is Liz Cavalier. She turned up in the second season to help King-of-the-Swamp Troy Landry when his other hired hand had something else to do. Landry's "Choot 'em Elitabeth" became one of those lines that you say around the house sometimes, just for a laugh.

In Season 3, Liz went out on her own, and she's the Queen of the Swamp. Last year she took on a young woman named Kristi as a helper, but this year when the show started, Liz, who is in her early 40s, was working with her daughter, Jessica. This was because Kristi was busy taking care of her farm and daughter Jessica didn't want her mom out on the bayou alone.

The reason Mom shouldn't have been alone? Liz had just had her gallbladder removed but she was out there wrestling 800-pound alligators even though the doctor said she shouldn't do that.

Since I just had my gallbladder removed, I know how Liz might have been feeling, and I simply have to salute a woman who could have her belly cut open and then go out and wrestle an alligator.

I'm much too wimpy to do something like that. Heck, I haven't even picked up a full bag of groceries yet.

There were a few times on the show when Liz grabbed her side and howled in pain. I have to wonder if she ripped a stitch or two. I mean, damn, woman.

So anyway, 50-year-old me is no alligator queen. I ain't even a queen of the grocery.

Watching "Makers"

Last night I watched a documentary on PBS called Makers: Women Who Make America. You can watch it online here and I heartily recommend it.

This is particularly true if you believe in women's rights, as I do, and think that women are people, too. It is good to be reminded that it had only been 40 years since things were really, really bad for women.

The documentary outlined the women's movement, from the inception of NOW to radical feminists (they are not one and the same), to what the film called "the conservative push-back" and resulting decimation of the women's movement and the stalling of the female climb to her rights as a person.

While the women you might expect were in the documentary - Friedan, Steinem, Clinton - the thing was loaded with women you may not have heard of. It was empowering to hear these stories, from the first woman to run in the Boston Marathon to the Southern Bell switchboard clerk who took the phone company all the way to the Supreme Court.

I really admire women who can stand up for what they know is right, who can see that laws and attitudes in place are wrong. They made a powerful stand against injustice and inequality and fought not just for themselves but their daughters and granddaughters. They fought for me!

The patriarchy and the glass ceiling have always been very real to me, and I have experienced harassment in many forms, both in the workplace and outside of it. Some of it - most of it - has been simply because I am a woman. In the early 1980s Oprah Winfrey was told she didn't deserve the same pay as a man - because she was a woman. That was just 30 years ago for her - but I heard the same line only 10 years ago!

It is easy to be harassed because you're a little different - a woman in a man's workplace. It's easy to become the target when you're a little more ambitious or a little more conscious of what is going on (it doesn't take much to be different). As a woman, I have been harassed for having an opinion, (because women aren't supposed to have them), for having different ideas (because women aren't supposed to have those, either), and for wanting to do things that were not considered "womanly" (like the time I worked in a machine shop). It certainly makes you feel like you are less than human when you are treated as such.

I have hoped for the last several years that we are on the cusp of a new women's movement. Eventually there will be one too many transvaginal ultrasounds legislated, and things will erupt, I think. Or maybe I am just foolishly hoping that legislated rape with a probe will eventually outrage enough women that it takes them to the street. Perhaps it will have to go a little further, to the point of The Handmaid's Tale, before complacency is no longer a viable alternative to what is happening.

Homemaking certainly is a valid career or life path. But I am opposed to having that forced on every woman, and that is where certain political paths and ideas lead. It was the lack of choice and the lack of opportunity that drove the women's movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s. I certainly don't want to go back to that era. I like to work and I like being able to own property and have credit in my name. These things have only been allotted to women in the last 40 years. Just 40! No wonder it remains tenuous and slippery.

So I applaud these trailblazing women who have broken the glass ceiling, who have changed laws, who have taken their lives and made them their own, and not remained trapped in a life someone else molded for them. Thank you to the filmmakers for this marvelous film.

In Love with The Newsroom

When I was growing up, the saying, "There but for the grace of God go I," was a humbling phrase. My mother said it to me as a reminder that good fortune can come and go in a heartbeat. It was a motto indicating that we are, as a people, one and the same. Clothes and glitter do not make humanity.

Today, "There but for the grace of God go I" is a statement of hubris, a phrase of arrogance. It is used to make poor people feel bad, to indicate that they have done something wrong - that they are inherently "less than" because they do not have that grace of God.

Poor people do not glitter when they walk. But rich people do, and in today's world of emotional, gut-wrenching vileness, that glitter is all that matters.

This difference in thinking is but one of the many themes of The Newsroom, a show on HBO.

This is a show that has left me crying at the end of 9 out of the 10 episodes in its first season.

My husband says I cry because I am, after all, a news woman at heart. The show depicts that adrenaline that occurs when a story hits, the heat of the chase for information, the action that takes place behind the scenes as news unfolds. I miss that and it is worthy of tears.

But he is not entirely right. That is not the only reason this show makes me cry. The truths of this show, even though these truths are set in a fictional narrative, are what make me cry.

A friend on Facebook noted that she liked the show, and one of her friends called it "a commie show." That is, of course, the worst insult one can hurl in the United States, to call something "communist" or "socialist."

It is telling that truth is now labeled communist in the United States - lies, I guess, are the American way. Truth has become a bad thing, something to eschew, something bad. But this show is pointing out the true evils that have assailed this nation.

The Newsroom takes aim at the Tea Party, and rightly so, but there are also jabs at the other parties (Republicans and Democrats),the political process in general, and corporate rule. The show points out that this is a nation that is so self-involved and gorged on its own emotional bloat that intelligence has shoved itself into high gear and maneuvered clear off of this planet.

This is what makes me cry, this acknowledgement that as a nation we are now running on fetid emotions and not using the rational, logical selves that once gave us hope of a great country.

It is hard to watch what you love be destroyed, to see evil take over. Evil has usurped the airwaves in the form of 24-hour disingenuous Meet the Press set-ups, corrupted our political process, eaten our discourse and turned us all into partisan ninnies who can barely think our way past tomorrow's breakfast. God forbid we actually set up and solve problems.

The Newsroom works for me because it shows me what could be. It shows what could happen if the media once again became The Fourth Estate, the watchdog of the nation, instead of its lapdog. In a recent episode, The Newroom explains what a real presidential debate should look like, and it cuts deeply because it acknowledges that what we see today is not news.

What we see today is not news. I'm repeating that because it is important. What we see today is entertainment. And there is a huge difference. News tells us what a presidential candidate actually believes and points out stupid when it sees it. Entertainment makes light of real concerns and turns our attention to that kitty cat over at the side of the political forum.

Today we see nothing but kitty cats on all of the news channels.

The fictional show about real news points out that we are seeing kitty cats, and then turns its attention to the real news. You know, the stories of voter disenfranchisement and oil spills. Stuff that really matters.

The Newsroom is also human, and it shows the dichotomy that exists for all journalists - we are human and part of the story even as we try to sift facts and tell it right. That the latter part of the job has been lost (the telling it right) is the tragedy.

Will McAvoy is the news anchor for a show produced by Atlantis Cable News (ACN). His executive producer is MacKinzie McHale. She is also his former girlfriend.

The female characters on the show have been bashed by critics as being hysterical and flat, among other things, but I like them. I consider myself a feminist but I do not see these female characters as derisive or downplaying women or their roles in either the lives of the men or in the media.

Romance is a big thing on this show, too. We have the Will/Mac (and will they or won't they get back together) and we have a Jim/Maggie/Don/Lisa story, along with a new one with Sloan tossed in there for good measure.

The romance is important because it humanizes these people. News people are not little automatons who run around reporting the news. They have lives, feelings, and concerns.

There is a lot in this show to watch. I know some will find it partisan, that it is attacking one side over the other, but I think it it attacking a process, not a side. It is attacking a process that has taken over and destroyed this country. I'm afraid we're too far gone to be saved.

I have watched many of the episodes more than once, and it is quite nuanced. There is much to think about.

Since it is a show that makes you think, I suppose that is why the ratings are not as high as they should be. God forbid we actually think about something here.

And it is *not* a commie show.


Here are some articles about the show:

From The Christian Science Monitor: The Newsroom: Looking Back on Season One

From The Daily Kos: The Newsroom Airs the News Program We've Been Waiting For

A last show discussion: The Newroom finale sets up Season 2 with new stakes and all the greatest fools

The Newsroom Concludes Season with More Tea Party Bashing: Calls Them ‘American Taliban’

The Newsroom finale, Will rises from the ashes


If you're interested, do a search. There are many others. Here's the Wikipedia link if you want that kind of information.

Thanks for reading.