what we're watching

[vaznetti]

When I got home on Tuesday we settled down to watch Spooks on iplayer, and then The Vampire Diaries. Spooks seems to get madder and madder this year; last week BH and I spent a while imagining the crossover with 24, since it looks like MI-5 is nearly as bad about screening its members as CTU was. (Our favorite moment in every series of 24 was the "Oh no! There's a mole in CTU!" revelation.) Because really, after what happened with Connie, you'd think someone would check to make sure that everyone was really who they say they are, including Lucas North.

We also spend each episode guessing who will die next. Unfortunately, I encountered Ruth (and Harry) before I stopped caring about any of the characters, and I fear that one or the other of them is going to be killed this season, given their unresolved romance. I thought Ruth's whole "we'll never be closer than we are now" speech at the end of episode 1 was pretty much a death sentence. I'd happily be proved wrong about that. And by the way, is the internet full of clever Harry/Ruth romance and UST stories? and if not, why not?

And I totally called this week's Anna Cohen storyline, as would anyone who had ever seen an episode of Spooks.

As for the Vampire Diaries, we are a few weeks behind the US, so I've only seen up to episode 3. I am not wholly thrilled with the whole Caroline-as-vampire story, although she manages to be both funny and tragic in it. But it just seems like such an awful thing to do to the character. I suppose it is a useful reminder that being a vampire is not all sparkles and clever witticisms. (On which subject I feel that Elena is perfectly reasonable in not wanting to continue her friendship with Damon, given that he did kill her brother. Even though it didn't stick. I mean, that's pretty hard to come back from, especially after he admitted that he only did it because he was in a pissy mood.)

I am a little tired of the whole thing where vampires and werewolves are sworn enemies. It's become so predictable.

The best thing we're watching is Downton Abbey, which you must all watch when it comes around to your local PBS channel. It's from Julian Fellowes, who wrote Gosford Park, and it's absolutely hysterical. The characters are all just horrid enough to be believable, but (mostly) not so horrid as to be completely unsympathetic. Well, that's a bit unfair: many of them are quite sympathetic, and even the horrid ones aren't completely horrid. I wonder if anyone has suggested it for Yuletide? I have a feeling that there will end up being a lot of stories left to be told when it comes to its end.

What else? Bones is back (hurrah for putting the band back together). I keep missing Merlin, and will need to catch up on that and the Sarah Jane Adventures on iPlayer. We went through a phase fo watching endless episodes of L&O:SUV, but that seems to have passed; just as well because I had pretty much hit my limit.

And now to bed.

Comments

[maidenjedi]

I nominated Downton Abbey for Yuletide, and someone else did as well. Should be fun!

[vaznetti]

Cool!

[dagnylilytable]

Thanks for the tip on Downton Abbey. I watched the Fellowes commentary to Gosford Park over and over when that came out, so he's always on my list of people to check out.

It occurs to me that now that comps are over and I have two fellowship applications done, I really owe the internets an update on what happened with the tenure cases and the rest of last spring...

[vaznetti]

Yes! What did happen? Obviously you are still in grad school!

[dagnylilytable]

The short, terse version in the hopes this will make it easier to write the long one. New advisor Gandalf's wife, Eowyn, was denied tenure by the Provost after making it through Arts and Sciences. Third committee member Faramir, who was supposed to become new advisor once he was promoted, was denied tenure by Arts and Sciences, but thanks to massive student protest he advanced to the Provost, and was then denied tenure. (This got picked up by some of the media, at least, Huffington Post).

So I'm still in the program, but have no dissertation committee and new advisor is retiring faster so that his wife can get a job, we think, but they're both being pretty cagey. To graduate the plan is to have Saruman get guilted into being on the diss committee (which will also make life easier on the job market, since it will be weird to come out of my program with no letter from him). It all makes one need very stiff drinks, not least for Faramir and Eowyn, since the whole process was not settled until May and she has no job and he's in a one year visiting job to have health insurance for his kid, since he was sole breadwinner. It was really not easy to convince myself to do fellowship applications...

[vaznetti]

Oh, yikes. That sounds really dreadful all around. (Junior faculty at major research institutions do not always have happy lives, and this is why: it so often seems that they're looking for reasons to get rid of you at the tenure review, rather than reasons to keep you.) Good luck with the fellowships, and with getting a committee you can work with.

[cschick.livejournal.com]

The best thing we're watching is Downton Abbey, which you must all watch when it comes around to your local PBS channel.

For any Americans reading the thread, Downton Abbey is scheduled to be aired in January to kick off the new season of Masterpiece Classic ;)