Arctic Light

I have watched a TV show! This happens about once every 6 months or so...

Severance is one that I've been wanting to watch for a while, knowing nothing except the basic premise, which is that it's a near-future/alt-reality/retro-futurism world in which people at work have their memories severed from their outside memories, so at work, they only remember what happens at work, and switch to their other set of memories as soon as they leave.

It has a slow start, and Orion was pretty close to noping out after the first episode. The style is Prestige TV meets 1970s filmmaking, with long sequences of following characters through their daily lives, lots of up-close shots and extended single-shot scenes and real-life-adjacent trippy weirdness. But once we got into it, we really enjoyed it a lot. Naturally there was a cliffhanger.

This is one of those twisty shows that's more fun unspoiled if you like that sort of thing.

( Spoilers, mostly discussing the development of the premise )

A couple of days ago, I watched the first episode of Knight Rider on Netflix for nostalgia value/cheesy entertainment, after noticing that it was streaming. If you grew up in the US (or US-adjacent) in the 80s, you almost can't not know about this show, in which David Hasselhoff is consistently upstaged by a talking car; I was head over heels for it when I was about 8.

It is definitely everything I expected based on my hazy childhood memories - "awesome" is not one of these things, but "ridiculous" and "hilarious, although not necessarily in the intended ways" certainly apply.

One thing that has become much funnier with the passage of time and the development of David Hasselhoff into a cornball pop icon is the reactions of everyone in the show to David Hasselhoff's face. So basically, he's played by a different actor at the very beginning, then gets shot in the face and experimental plastic surgery turns him into David Hasselhoff. As it does. This means that you get a "IS THIS ... MY FACE???" scene which is everything you would expect of a BUT MY FACE!!!!! scene played by David Hasselhoff. (I have to say that if experimental plastic surgery turned me into David Hasselhoff, I would also be upset about it.)

The mood whiplash between a guy losing everything and everyone he cares about, getting his face shot off, being presumed dead, and having PTSD about it vs. wacky hijinks with a talking car is certainly a thing. Also, a car that talks and drives itself was highly futuristic in the 80s and is much less so now. However, I was sufficiently entertained that I may watch more of it. I seem to remember a) the first episode is probably as close as the show gets to competently written, and b) there is later h/c with the car and also an episode in which David Hasselhoff plays his evil twin with a mustache.

In further mood whiplash, I continued my intermittent "watch all the Daniel Brühl things" based on the extremely scientific method of observing which movies he appears to be hottest and/or most adorable in, based on Tumblr gifsets, and then watching those. Woman in Gold (2015) appears to score quite highly on the Daniel Brühl Hotness Scale (exhibit A) and he is indeed very hot in this movie, and also very adorable, as his character is extremely sweet, although sadly not in it very much. The actual plot - based on real events - concerns the deeply odd team-up of Helen Mirren and Ryan Reynolds as, respectively, an elderly Jewish woman trying to reclaim art that was stolen by Nazis in WWII, and a family friend who is a lawyer and is helping her. The core friendship between the two of them is very sweet, although it's very weird seeing Ryan Reynolds in a dramatic role, made even weirder because every now and then he slips into campy Ryan Reynolds mode, which is extremely tonally jarring in a movie about the Holocaust. Tatiana Maslany plays a surprisingly convincing young Helen Mirren. It feels Very American in some ways (e.g. everyone speaking English in most of the Austria scenes, though they do have subtitled flashbacks), but I liked it.

I am watching a lot of things right now, by my standards! We're up to ep. 16 on this one. (No spoilers please!!)

( Talking about a few things I like )

So basically on work breaks, this past couple of weeks, I started watching an early-80s superhero comedy on Youtube, Greatest American Hero. All episodes are on Youtube here. I loved this show when I was a kid, but, well ... it was the 80s, and I was a kid. I mainly just decided to check out an episode on my lunch break for nostalgia.

So I've been genuinely very surprised at how much I'm enjoying it. I'm not sure if I'd say it's actually good. It's very, very 80s, with a 2-dollar f/x budget and a whole lot of what you might call period-appropriate nonsense, ranging from silly but fun (amazingly unconvincing flying f/x, stock footage of things like rockets and submarines that they don't have the budget for, random nondenominational terrorists and Russians as baddies) and extremely unfunny (sexism played for laughs; no one finding it WEIRD AND CREEPY that the high-school teacher hero's female student has a crush on him).

But it's also very sweet and sincere at the most unexpected times. Apparently the creator intended the show to be a down-to-earth show about a superhero coping with little life problems, and the network wanted basically 1960s Batman, and what they got was a weird mix of both. In spite of how ridiculous some of it is, it's actually oddly grounded-feeling, almost like the Marvel Netflix shows in its general focus on ordinary people around the superheroes. I think aside from Heroes it's probably the most appealing superhero-ish thing I've seen that wasn't a Marvel or DC tie-in (a bar that's admittedly so low it's on the ground).

It's your basic "ordinary schmoe gets superpowers" kind of show, with, by the way, probably the most bonkers superhero origin story that I have EVER seen in ANYTHING, but I think what's making it work so well is that, for one thing, he's an extremely charming version of that character type, very earnest and sweet, and also, his girlfriend finds out in the first episode - telling her is actually one of the first things he does - so instead of what is basically set up as a buddy comedy/action show (naive hero + jaded, slightly unhinged gun-nut FBI agent sidekick), it turns into a 3-person ensemble comedy/action show. They are all very charming and adorable, and have great chemistry, and argue a lot and worry about each other. There are some uncomfortable scenes early on when the girlfriend, Pam, is getting unfairly jerked around by her boyfriend's new superhero career, but once the show starts settling in, the main couple is really adorable, with very little in the way of artificial obstacles inserted into the relationship; they're supportive and sweet and talk to each other about everything, and there's one episode in which everyone is quarantined for two weeks because of possible exposure to a disease (... relatable) in which it's not merely implied but as clearly stated as you can get away with in an all-ages 1980s show that they spend the entire two weeks more or less banging nonstop.

Anyway, I'm still watching the show - I'm only watching an episode every couple of days; progress is slow and I'm just now a little ways out of season one ... and they aren't long seasons - but I made a vid. As you do. Because I wanted one to exist and there is NOTHING.

Video quality is pretty low because I used the Youtube videos for source footage. I may someday remaster this, but honestly I was just making it for myself for fun, so why not? I've realized that one reason why I haven't actually vidded much lately is because it's gotten so complicated and hard, with an expectation of high-quality footage that can be difficult and expensive to get and slow to render. The most fun I ever had making vids was years ago, when I was just using episodes downloaded from the internet, taking clips was dead easy, and the results were good enough to make me happy and I didn't really care much about it beyond that.

So that's what this is: a fun little vid that I made for myself for play. Someday I might remaster it with nicer-quality clips (if I find a place to get them from; the show isn't available on iTunes and similar) but for now the vid is what it is, flawed and silly and earnest and fun, like the show itself. I don't think you have to worry about spoilers all that much; it's not really that kind of show.

Title: Waking Up in Vegas
Fandom: Greatest American Hero
Clips: Mostly season one, scattered clips from random other episodes
Warnings: None

Streaming: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yatFZgARj6U
Download: Here (28 Mb zipped MP4)

I'm in early season three now, and somehow along the way this show has actually gotten really good (and surprisingly honest about the corrupting effects of spying, even on - or maybe especially on - likable, decent people). So much double and triple dealing, and blackmailing, and moral compromises, and heightened emotions. It's reached the point where the characters on both sides are well-developed and sympathetic, and everything is likely to end badly, and it's all made of AAAAAAAAA.

spook_me is open for signups! I live in eternal optimism that I will actually finish a story for it. Now I just need to pick my monster ...

There's also this fun-looking femslash promptfest.


We finished watching season three of The Good Place tonight! That show is so fun.

( Vague spoilers )

The new prompt at starwarsflashmeme is Escape:

Escaping from a backwards desert planet? From a lifetime's conditioning in the First Order? From a cell, or a repressive social role, or a crashing spaceship?

Fic, art, etc. fills are all welcome. A new prompt will go up each Friday evening. Here are last week's fills (and someone let me know they were working on another one; I'll add it when it's up).

On a different topic, I watched the second episode of Second Chance, the new show with Tim DeKay. (I would've watched the first one, but Fox didn't have it up.) TIM, THE THINGS I DO FOR YOU. Actually, it's not as bad as I was expecting -- it's actually not bad at all, but it's kind of formulaic. I don't think I'd keep watching if not for TDK, but since he is in it and the show isn't half bad, I will probably catch another couple of episodes and see how it develops. I have watched worse things for actors I liked.

( A couple of not-really-spoilery thoughts: )

Spoiler alert! saphirablue warns of uncut Season Five spoiler pictures on whitecollar_tv.

This is probably a good time to mention that I'm in Total Spoiler Lockdown, avoiding spoilery comms, Tumblr and so forth. All my flistees have been great so far about cutting/warning for spoilers; please continue to be awesome. :)

I did watch Agents of SHIELD on Tuesday. ( Somewhat spoilery thoughts )

It was a little disconcerting to watch this right after finishing my superhero story, which is essentially about that universe's version of SHIELD. I'm glad I managed to finish and post it first! (Also, thank you so much for your comments - I love them and I WILL answer them soon, I swear ...)

We watched episodes 1-3 of Continuum tonight and ... I am CONFUSE.

( Spoilers )

... but at least I'll put it under a cut so you can avoid. :D

So the news broke today that the S.H.I.E.L.D. TV show has definitely been picked up for fall. Which is very cool and made of yay!

( And then there's the wet-blanket part. If you are avoiding ALL spoilers, this is mildly spoilery, but only for casting )