Ruth Sadelle Alderson

My yoga class is off for three weeks, so I went to dance last night instead of watching How I Met Your Mother and Summer Glau's episode of The Big Bang Theory, so I caught up on those and the premiere of Nathan Fillion's Castle today.

The Big Bang Theory

I know several people who've told me how funny this show is, and I've never been able to get into it. Since with_a_kay wrote Tractorbeam, a J2 Big Bang AU, I've thought it was the only good thing to come of the show. However, the lure of Summer Glau as herself was too much to resist, and I found myself pleasantly surprised by the show. It was actually funny. I don't think it speaks well of the show, however, that what made it so funny was that it didn't have anything to do with the Leonard and Penny relationship.

How I Met Your Mother

I've been thinking that this show has lost its way recently. It got popular fast, so they don't have to stick to the how Ted met the kids' mother story as closely for fear they'll get cancelled soon. This means that they just keep going on and on with miscellaneous plotlines. They also decided Barney should be in love with Robin, which totally ruins Barney's character.

This episode was much better. They still haven't gotten back to the how Ted met their mother part of the story, but they let go of the Barney/Robin plotline, and it was a great return to the all five of them sitting around their booth at the bar telling stories structure.

Castle

There are things I really liked about Castle:

• The premise of a famous author helping out the cops and treating the case like a story that needs to be plotted.


• Stana Katic does a lovely job as Detective Beckett.


• I loved Castle laying out why Beckett is a detective.


• ( Spoilery )


• Rick's family - Molly Quinn as his daughter and Susan Sullivan (Greg's mom from Dharma & Greg) as his mother - is wonderful, and I really like his relationships with them.


• I love it that Rick has a poker game with other famous writers, two of whom were played by themselves, and one of whom was a woman who perhaps was only supposed to be the dealer since she didn't get a name, and that they help him solve the crime.


• The other two detectives are also hilarious.


• The color palette is fantastic. You've never seen a squad room that looks like this.

For all the good things, and the way I laughed out loud several times, the show has two issues. First of all, it feels a little flat in the crime solving parts, which have really predictable dialogue, where the scenes with his family pop. But the bigger problem is that they're underusing Nathan Fillion. He's a stronger actor than the material and what they're having him do.

Before I send it off to tesla321, I thought I would say something about Serenity Found: More Unauthorized Essays on Joss Whedon's Firefly Universe.

I read Finding Serenity: Anti-Heroes, Lost Shepherds and Space Hookers in Joss Whedon's Firefly in March, and loved it so much that I was excited for Serenity Found.

Somewhere in Serenity Found (although, of course, I can't find it in a quick flip-through of the book), someone makes the point that Firefly was made before Iraq, Serenity was made after, and the difference tone reflects that. The tone of the two books reflects something of the same cultural shift.

I remember Finding Serenity as much more fannish, much more about the love of the show, and much more about the characters and their relationships. Serenity Found is much more political, much more academic, and much more commercial. I think of Finding Serenity as closer and Serenity Found as more distant.

And now, bits from three essays that stand out.

Actors
I already mentioned that I loved Nathan Fillion's "I, Malcolm." Let me share with you his biography paragraph:

Nathan Fillion has permission to participate in your book, and is allowed to go on any field trips that may be included with promoting it. We are so happy that his university education was not for naught. He has had so much fun with that show and we can't believe how it just keeps popping up again and again! Let us know if there is anything else you need, and please make sure Nathan eats the apple we put in his lunch and don't let him lose his mittens.

--Cookie Fillion

It reminds me of the article where the interviewer just started calling Fillions in the phone book to try to get to Nathan and ended up talking to Cookie.

Libertarians
In "Freedom in an Unfree World," P. Gardner Goldsmith reads the whole Firefly universe as a libertarian allegory, which reminded me of what Anais Nin said: "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." (Goldsmith's bio paragraph tells us that he was "2006 NH Libertarian of the Year.") I can see how you could read it that way, and I'm sure it appeals to free market capitalists, but to my hippie liberal, we are all one sensibilities, the lack of any collective responsibility for the well-being of all reads as morally irresponsible if not downright reprehensible.

While I could go along with most of his points for the thought experiment, there was one thing that didn't fit at all with my reading of the Firefly/Serenity story arc: "We discover that River's great mental acuity was manipulated by the Alliance in terrible experiments, conducted at what was supposed to be a school for gifted students off her home world (a remarkable indictment of government education)." My reading of the academy has always been that it wasn't a legitimate school, but rather a respectable looking front for the experiments. This isn't about government education, but about government abuse of power and covert ops.

Romance Novelists
In addition to Nathan's essay, the other one I absolutely loved was Lani Diane Rich's "Curse Your Sudden but Inevitable Betrayal: Things My Husband and I Have Argued About While Watching Firefly." It's so good that I put in a hold request for one of her books at the library. I was surprised, though, that she says, "'Our Mrs. Reynolds' is easily our favorite episode of the entire season, and the most quoted." Because I'm enjoying the book, I thought I would watch my way through the series (in order) again, which I've started doing. I think I intended to do this when I read Finding Serenity, too, and got caught at the same sticking point: I hated "Our Mrs. Reynolds" the first time I saw it, and I haven't been able to watch it again. But the writers in both of these essay books love to talk about it. So this weekend, I'm going to watch it. I only have one more episode of Joan of Arcadia on this week's disc from Netflix, so there isn't really anything else for me to procrastinate with.

Is anyone else watching Drive? Nathan Fillion, Melanie Lynskey, and Taryn Manning, all in one show! Plus occasional Amy Acker, a Lindsay Lohan wannabe (Emma Stone, who I thought really was Lindsay Lohan when she first appeared), and a coulda-been Jeri Ryan (Kristin Lehman, who I actually recognize from Judging Amy). All from Tim Minear and some other people.