Star Trek: The Tour -- something I found out about in my periodic newsletter from Creation.  The first stop is in Long Beach, somewhere I could drive to.  If I really really wanted to.  I'm very tempted to go on Monday, a holiday, but driving back home afterwards with all the insane people on the highway just doesn't appeal.  I may have to ponder longer....

Also, I've watched the two-part premiere of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.  Hmm....not sure.  I like Summer Glau, but I don't know if I like her enough to want to keep watching.  It's okay.  Not hugely great.  A little violent for my tastes.  And thus far, not a huge amount of depth.  I might give it another episode or two.  With most series running out of eps due to the strike, it's not like there's much else on.

Fortunately, SGA is already filmed for the year since it's an off-season series.  I'm not sure when the fourth season of Doctor Who will make an appearance but I know it won't be until after SGA is finished for the season.  Jericho will start up its limited second season (8 eps) in February and I assume it's all written and filmed or it wouldn't be on.  Avatar...don't know when it'll show up again, though I'm waiting rather impatiently.  Everything else I watch regularly is on strike-induced hiatus, I believe.  ~sigh~  Not that I don't support the writers, I do.  I just despair at all the horrid reality tv that's going to appear in the mean time.  Reality tv is bad enough already -- I'm probably one of the very, very few people who doesn't watch *any* reality tv.  It's all just...  ~shudder~

Recently I started hearing bits and pieces about a special DW Children in Need segment guest-starring Peter Davison (ie, the Fifth Doctor, probably my favorite "classic" one).  This evening, I was idly hunting for Ten/Rose pics to make a button (yes, another ship...after it's sorta over, of course) and visited the BBC site and found pics and wallpaper for the segment (Time Crash) which apparently has already aired in the UK.  So I did a Google search and found it.  ~grin~ 

Link

Ah...so much joy.  And squee.

There's a Stargate convention in Burbank this weekend. On Sunday, Jay Acovone, Corin Nemec, and Joe Flanigan will all be speaking and doing autographs.  And I am *SOOOOOOOO* tempted to go.  I haven't been to a convention in several years and every time I think about going to one, there's never anyone I want to see on Sunday (the only day I can go).  This time there is.  The question is do I want to drive and shell out the money for gas plus all the money required to get into the convention, plus whatever I spend on top of that for autographs and merchandise.  Hmmm..... 

I just came across the wonderful bit of news that a company by the name of Dabel Brothers is going to be producing graphic novels for Jim Butcher's The Dresden Files!  Yummy!  When I discovered his books, I rapidly devoured all the ones in print and that series has become one of the few that I'll buy hardbacks for since I'm not patient enough to wait a year for the paperback release.  ~grin~  I loved the sadly short-lived tv series and will definitely be looking forward to seeing the series in another format.  And I do so love comics and graphics novels.  The concept art released on the Dabel Brothers site is so very pretty as well.  Summer/fall 2008 is *so* far away....

Heroes 2x07: Out of Time



Also, currently, I reading the latest Trek novel, Before Dishonor by Peter David.  The focus, unfortunately, is the Borg again, as it pertains to Janeway and Seven.  ~sigh~  Talk about beating a dead horse.  I'm *hoping* I'll enjoy it since it's Peter David.  Thus far the highlight has been the appearance of "Lady Q" (as Janeway names her) who was portrayed by Suzie Plakson in the series and is one of my very favorite actresses (she also was K'Ehleyr on TNG).  I'm about 3 or 4 chapters in and am a bit confused already which doesn't bode well. 

Related to that, I did have to cringe a bit and at the same time nod knowingly at some of Lady Q's comments to Janeway in the opening prologue.  Something about Janeway not even realizing it if she ever lost her soul.  Yowch.  But considering who she became by the end of the series...can't say I disagree.  And I did so like her for the first half of the series.  Until Borg-land and 38ofD took over and Janeway morphed into Rambette, and the lovely chemistry developing between her and Chakotay sorta fizzled and burned as did Chakotay's character.  Of course, as one would expect, I do lay most of the blame at Braga's feet since he's also the one who ruined Enterprise and got the series cancelled due to inept handling.

Me?  Have issues?  Nah.....

I finally decided to buy Stargate: SG1 season 9 (still don't have season 10) today, mostly because my local Target is having an odd sale of seasons 8 & 9, both being sold for $20/each.  Sadly no season 10.  ~pout~  In any case, I had myself a mini-Stargate-a-thon this afternoon and watched the first, uh, 7 episodes.  And either season 9 is better than I remember -- or I'm just really missing good scifi and possibly just missing Stargate in general.  It is very lovely to see Ben Browder again.  I hope he shows up on a series again soon.  He's one of my favorite actors.  Hopefully it will be something I can actually enjoy.  So many times, the actors I get to like on various scifi series end up appearing on all sorts of series that I don't watch because to me they're just not entertaining.  Richard Burgi (from The Sentinel) is a prime example of that.  He's been guesting on a bunch of series, but I don't watch any of them.  ~sigh~

What I should do is go back and rewatch all the previous SG seasons in a row, catching, of course, all the lovely SJ moments.  ~grin~   I've done that already with a few other of my tv series because there's so little on nowadays that I want to watch much less buy on dvd.  Doesn't help that the series I want to buy tend to be *very* expensive.  Even the second season of Avatar was being listed at $90!  Fortunately, I found it at Target the first week it came out for $60-some.  And the BBC series (like the new Doctor Who) which are only 13 episodes long tend to go for anywhere from $70-$90 as well.  I don't have that kind of excess income laying about.   I'd like to get the new BBC Robin Hood series since I've only seen half the episodes, courtesy of a friend whose boyfriend gets BBC America (I don't) but again, $$$$.  ~sigh~  Of course, Christimas *is* making an appearance soon....

Avatar, the Last Airbender 3x06: The Avatar and the Firelord



Right now, among the few series that I watch regularly, Avatar is the one I most enjoy and find most fulfilling.  I'm not sure if that says something about the quality of "grown-up" tv -- which it probably does considering all the reality tv series crap (*sorry*) out there -- or the fact that I like my tv to be about characters and growth and not about quick thrills.  Since Farscape, there really hasn't been a series that builds its own mythology and complex characters with quite this much excellence.  Heroes tries...but it moves slow and IMO has too many characters to make all of them intriguing and entertaining and wholly three-dimensional.

I find it amusing that creators (aside of Farscape, though SciFi itself said this) of shows I've watched in the past have said that viewers don't want arc stories -- Avatar is a kid's show and is one long three-part arc and from what I've heard, is Nick's highest rated series.   Perhaps most grown-ups (since I guess being past 30, I qualify) don't have the attention span to watch and remember and pick apart stuff like kids.  Or perhaps it's a quality belonging to scifi/fantasy fans in general since the scifi/fantasy fandoms I lurk in tend to have fans that watch and pay attention and discuss and occasionally obsess. ~grin~

I got the Alien Nation movie collection this week (from Best Buy's early release) and have been enjoying the movies and remembering how much I adored this series and all its characters.  AN was one of the few shows that had all the great elements I love in a series: the wonderful buddy-buddy interaction (George and Matt), family intricacies (the Franciscos), tentative and sometimes angsty romance (Matt and Cathy), and very well-written plots that weren't all about explosions and people being killed in gory ways.  Nowadays most shows don't deal a lot with character development (unless it involves lots and lots of terribly depressing things happening) and everything is written to be flashy and mostly shallow IMO.  Which is probably why I may watch some things on tv but I so rarely buy current shows on dvd because they're just not worth re-watching.

I just wish there were more fanfic for this series.  There's so little out there since it was on way before the 'net.  While I know there are a few zines, I've never got one because I'm not sure it actually deals with character rather than sardonac, sour milk, and humming...if you don't understand, I don't think I could explain...

~sigh~  Ah, for the good old days of real tv series...  And by that I definitely do NOT mean reality tv....  ~shudder~

The new fall tv season is nearly here.  Not that I haven't been watching new things already.  Ah, the advantage of being a fan of "off-season" series like Doctor Who (though I miss Rose) and a few animated series that I like which play whenever the appropriate channel decides to air them!  I'm looking forward to more Heroes and the two CSI series I enjoy, plus SG: Atlantis. 

I'm tentatively hoping that The Bionic Woman won't .... well, suck.  When I heard some months ago that it was being  "re-imagined," simliar to Battlestar Galactica (which, oddly, I don't watch even though I'm a scifi fan), I immediately said "Jaime will be cast as a broody, dark-haired, gothic teenager with interesting piercings."  Obviously somewhat off-the-mark, but still...I so much enjoyed the original as a kid, I'm hoping this version won't be horrid.  At least they're not making the good characters from the original series bad or anything (i.e., what the first Mission: Impossible movie did to Jim....just so wrong...and why I refused to watch the others). 

In other news...for my birthday, my parents got me a Target gift card which could pay for part of an ipod (no, I don't have one!).  I put off looking and now the new ones have arrived.  I looked at the ones Target has in their store now and pondered....for awhile....they had 4GB nano and the 80GB classic, both in silver.  I'd prefer black, but it wasn't there.  So I put it off again.  Maybe I'm just stingy with my money, but they still seem awfully expensive to me.  Or it could be that being on a secretary's salary just makes it seem that way.

~sigh~  I'll have to ponder some more.  Maybe I'll come to a decision by time the next payday rolls around.