Thoughts on House and BSG

[vilakins]

I saw the first ep of House last night. Hugh Laurie is wonderful in it; you'd hardly think he was a British actor I mainly think of in the role of Bertie Wooster. I think I'm going to like this series a lot: snark, cynicism, interesting characters, and CGI insides (urk). It was interesting that the female doctor was chosen for being beautiful but working hard anyway. It does however bring me to something I dislike about US programs. Apart from House himself, everyone is impossibly good-looking. Is there some sort of rule over there that you're only allowed one real person per show?

On to BSG. Spoilers for the second ep, Water

Boomer. Wow, they're picking up the pace on this. She must know she planted those explosives in the water tank since she was dripping wet at the start, even if she had no memory of it. I'm not sure what happened when she realised there was a bomb under her console, or why she turned it off and said she'd detected water, but my theory is this: she's fighting her Cylon programming. She wanted to report the water but couldn't override her orders, but when she realised there was a bomb, she also wanted to live and this gave her the strength. I'm not too sure about this last bit as another Boomer is also on Caprica and obviously shares her personality and memories so she'd still survive in that form. A part of her must still be very 'human' and loyal to her crewmates.

Keyboards. Or more specifically, the one Boomer uses. Now I could do another rant about them independently developing English and even the same letters for the elements (H2O) but I won't. I will instead comment on something rather cool. When the camera pans across her keyboard, I said, "Bet it's QWERTY," and went back and freeze-framed it. Guess what: it wasn't. The letters were in alphabetic sequence (which is apparently more efficient than the old QWERTY) but what I loved was the grime. The keys were dirty and in all the right places. I love that attention to detail when no-one but sad people like me would have even seen it.

Handheld Cameras. No sir, I don't like 'em. I hate the wobble, the deliberate lag in focussing, and the off-centre close-ups on parts of people's faces. I find it disconcerting and it also erects a barrier between me and the scene, reminding me that it's not real. I like believing it is, dammit. And why reproduce that effect in the CGI shots of ships in space? That's just self-conscious and rather pretentious.

But hey, I love this show anyway. Can't wait to see the next ep. And they don't have that really annoying fast-then-slow camera crap that plagues Green Room.

All this excellent TV at once, though! I've got no time to watch all the DVDs I bought. I'm still stuck in Farscape S4, no closer to PKW.

Comments

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I don't know about which season you're in, but she looks quite plump to me (mind you, she usually wears really unflattering cardies and flouncy dresses) and her friends are a large black woman with heaps of self-esteem (go, her!), a skinny dork, and a big lumbering bald guy. The two skinny beautiful ones are also not at all likeable. This is rare.

Another show I like is Malcolm in the Middle. They all look fairly real and the family is poor and find it hard to make ends meet. This is also rare.

[mistraltoes.livejournal.com]

I only watched a few episodes at the very beginning, because I almost never watch sitcoms. It's just that I remember reading an article about this when the show first came out. Sara Rue wears 'medium' size (8-10); that's considered a normal, healthy weight. The average US woman wears a 14. The average Hollywood actress wears 0-1 and freaks out if she hits size 2. You accustom the TV audience to skinnies and then drop in a normal person, yes, they're going to look fat.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I read an interview with her in which she said she was a size 14. Naybe they translated to our sizes, in which case a 14 is only one size over what's considered ideal. She looks more, possibly due to the awful and unflattering things she wears.

[mistraltoes.livejournal.com]

Eek. Well, it's always possible I've completely misremembered. But if she wore one of our 14s, I'd expect her to look a lot bigger then she does.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't mind being a 14 here. 10 is skinny and beyond my reach, 12 is thought to be ideal, but 14 is fine. She's got a definite tummy though, which is unusual on US TV shows.

I do like that her size is never mentioned.