Still reading and also watching TV
Feb. 10th, 2021 04:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vaznettiI finished the two books I mentioned in the last version of this post. The Alan Furst book was really awful, in the end, so I picked up Dark Star to see whether he really has gone downhill or whether he could never write at all. I'm still re-reading it, which I guess is the answer. I can see the roots of the things that are going to irritate me about him but they're undercut by many of the other characters in the book also being real people.
A and I have started to watch The Expanse. It was a good thing that he wanted to watch it because I might not have stuck with the first season; I'm still not entirely sure of everything that happened in the early episodes because I tended to zone out whenever Miller was on the screen. Maverick cop is one of my least favourite character archtypes. But the show picked up when he met up with the other characters, and the plot started to come together more, and now I am very engaged! We're getting toward the end of S2 -- they're investigating things on Ganymese, and Bobby Draper has just been granted political refuge. I have a very bad feeling about literally everything at the moment.
Amos and Naomi are absolutely my favourite characters. I assume that this surprises no one. I am also very interested in Chrisjen Avasarala, whose interrogation of Bobby Draper was a thing of beauty. (To be fair I would probably listen to Shohreh Aghdashloo read the telephone book, and this is a great role for her.)
I have to respect the extent to which the show is willing to introduce characters, build them up for a few episodes, and kill them off, like Draper's whole team. Miller had pretty much stopped bothering me by the time he died, but now I am concerned that whatever is going on on Venus and on Ganymede means that he might come back, to again distract from characters I am more interested in with his chippy manpain. Why I find James Holden more tolerable -- other than not wearing a stupid hat -- is hard to say, but I guess the way he fails to live up to his own standards so consistently is entertaining.
Oh, I do have one thing that's bothering me about season 2, which is that if you were going to test your new biological weapon (or whatever it is) surely it would be better not to test it on a statin which is vital to the food supply of the entire region? There must have been somewhere other than Ganymede to destroy.
It reminds me of BSG but in a good way; I'm trying not to be too spoiled but it looks like it won't degenerate into nonsense? Despite the whole story having in essence a single large plot and central mystery. I like stories with that kind of arc, it's just that in episodic TV they so often end in incoherence.
A and I have started to watch The Expanse. It was a good thing that he wanted to watch it because I might not have stuck with the first season; I'm still not entirely sure of everything that happened in the early episodes because I tended to zone out whenever Miller was on the screen. Maverick cop is one of my least favourite character archtypes. But the show picked up when he met up with the other characters, and the plot started to come together more, and now I am very engaged! We're getting toward the end of S2 -- they're investigating things on Ganymese, and Bobby Draper has just been granted political refuge. I have a very bad feeling about literally everything at the moment.
Amos and Naomi are absolutely my favourite characters. I assume that this surprises no one. I am also very interested in Chrisjen Avasarala, whose interrogation of Bobby Draper was a thing of beauty. (To be fair I would probably listen to Shohreh Aghdashloo read the telephone book, and this is a great role for her.)
I have to respect the extent to which the show is willing to introduce characters, build them up for a few episodes, and kill them off, like Draper's whole team. Miller had pretty much stopped bothering me by the time he died, but now I am concerned that whatever is going on on Venus and on Ganymede means that he might come back, to again distract from characters I am more interested in with his chippy manpain. Why I find James Holden more tolerable -- other than not wearing a stupid hat -- is hard to say, but I guess the way he fails to live up to his own standards so consistently is entertaining.
Oh, I do have one thing that's bothering me about season 2, which is that if you were going to test your new biological weapon (or whatever it is) surely it would be better not to test it on a statin which is vital to the food supply of the entire region? There must have been somewhere other than Ganymede to destroy.
It reminds me of BSG but in a good way; I'm trying not to be too spoiled but it looks like it won't degenerate into nonsense? Despite the whole story having in essence a single large plot and central mystery. I like stories with that kind of arc, it's just that in episodic TV they so often end in incoherence.
no subject
Date: 2021-02-10 06:36 pm (UTC)Oh, that's a good point about Holden. I still find him annoying but Miller turned me off the show at first as well, though by the time they got to Eros I was interested enough to put up with him.
no subject
Date: 2021-02-10 10:33 pm (UTC)We just finished S2 and watched the first ep of S3. We both shouted "No, not Fred!" when Naomi told Holden she'd sent him the protomolecule. The show is really engaging!
no subject
Date: 2021-02-11 02:51 am (UTC)I struggled with S1 because I was so bored with both Holden and Miller. Avasarala is great, and I also love Amos. I love Naomi when she's with someone other than Holden and not talking about Holden.
If you post more about it I will discuss with you!
no subject
Date: 2021-02-11 08:32 am (UTC)Avasarala and Bobby have just made it out of the station and I could watch a show just of the two of them sniping at each other.