Category: TV

The Shrine

Killing time this morning waiting for coffee to brew and the dog to poo, I hit the Pluto TV app and the Stargate channel. The first thing I heard was Sheppard saying something about beer on the pier, and Rodney saying (in a very confused tone), “I drink beer?” and I shut that down so fast because there’s not much that absolutely upsets/terrifies/creeps me out, but that one thing is “genius loses their faculties” and the Stargate Atlantis episode “The Shrine” (streaming) is all about that.

It’s an amazing episode. It’s proof that David Hewlett is seriously underrated as an actor. But I’ve only been able to watch it twice because this really is the one thing that upsets me like nothing else.

I quit seeing a therapist when I tried to explain how terrifying the idea of losing your faculties was to me and she refused to get it. I don’t know if she thought she was leading me to some great breakthrough or she really couldn’t understand why losing my ability to think and forgetting who I am would be terrible, but if “If I can’t think or remember then who am I even?” didn’t explain it, I’m not really sure what else I could have said.

I’m also a little scared of “Locked-In” syndrome (that thing where your almost kinda in a coma, only just physically and your brain is still kicking around like normal) but not as scared as the losing thing, because most of my life has been spent not real sure how to interact in the physical world, and thinking things I couldn’t figure out how to communicate. Not being able to explain if/how I was in pain would be an issue, but again… I can’t really do that now.

Which is to say… my back really friggin hurts. It’s almost the same pain that sent me to the ER in September, but also not. It’s like a large chunk of my right abdomen was bitten by something and pulled off at the exact same time something kicked that same spot really hard and caved it in. It’s also simultaneously my ribs and not there at all. It’s nerves at the skin level and also somewhere floating inside.

Painkillers work, and I’m pretty sure a lot of it is just poor muscle tone and the fact that I did the recovery at a speed run because a) I am an idiot, b) they were never real clear about how long I shouldn’t do things, and c) I’m actually really just that much of an idiot (I wanted to drive myself home the day they discharged me). So like I’m not WORRIED about the pain, because it does get better and worse depending on how sensible I am, but it still HURTS and makes me cranky and distracted and tired and what I probably need is a few days off and someone else to deal with the dog, but what ya gonna do, right?

By the way, I’m aware of the irony of writing a blog about how I feel to complain about not being able to accurately explain how I feel. To quote Radiohead: This machine will not communicate / These thoughts and the strain I am under.

So look… I’ve been mentioning this blog more often to actual people, but I don’t know if you’re out there reading this. Mostly I don’t care, but today I’m using Edge on my backup computer to write this post and the site looks like absolute GARBAGE. If you ARE out there, drop a comment and let me know how things look for you. You can do it anonymously if you don’t want me to know who you are (because that would probably make me nervous if I knew who out there was actually reading (especially if you’re someone I might avoid eye contact with on a regular basis) — Take it up with my former therapist if you have a problem with that).

More Emo than Phillips

I don’t really care how else the fic made you feel. I want to know if the jokes landed

Starting off with a reference in the title that so many people will get.

I’ve been gloomy lately. Melancholy. a sad, Victorian orph-

But seriously? I think I’m lonely.

Autumn makes me lonely in general. Probably because it’s when I really enjoy the weather and I want to go places and do things, but that’s only fun with other people and I’m such a shit friend who never goes anywhere and never does things that people have stopped asking. Sure I can go places alone. I can and do. But my fun is being aware of the other person/people I’m with having fun.

I am such a good sidekick! I’d be a great wingman! If it’s a group of friends, I can be the comedy relief! Or the grouchy one! Or the obviously unmedicated ADHD (or possibly just stoned) one that needs looking after! I can wait in the van and honk if I see the cops coming, too. I’m multifaceted!

(I spelled multifaceted right the first time and I needed to call that out because it’ll probably never happen again)

I don’t know if my current state of “would like a human live-in nap buddy” has anything to do with the fact that I’m suddenly inspired to write fanfic for a show that’s been over for ten, maybe closer to fifteen years, or if the urge to write fanfic for my favorite characters in my favorite type of relationship is some sort of substitute for actually having that relationship.

It’s the standard “Odd Couple” duo with a lot of “will they won’t they” without the sex. I mean at all, not even in a “fade to black” way. Nap buddies. Total “I love you and am in love with you and you are my best friend and I hate you because you’re so stupid and so smart and I really like sleeping next to you but not in a sexytimes way” (Except maybe once in a while I’ll read the explicit ones. But not often. But like if the plot is really compelling, or the writing’s exceptionally good… ).

This is the part where I really hope my mom doesn’t know I’m updating this because … I don’t know why really, because it’s weird to be “Hey! Here’s the two action figures I’ve been smashing together in my head!” to my mother, but totally not weird at all to tell strangers. Maybe it’s because I wouldn’t have to sit across the table at the diner with any of the rest of you. Unless, of course… in which case… sorry about the TMI? I mean obviously sorry everyone about the TMI to everyone, but especially to the people I avoid eye contact with on the few times I do go to a place and do a thing.

Although she does know I write fanfic (and what name it would be under, because obvs), and she’s well acquainted with shipping and slash and I tend to hyperfocus on one show at a time, and I talk to her a lot so she probably unwillingly knows more than she wants to about the shows at whatever time I’m into them (there’s a cycle). Like I’m sure she’d like me to shut up about The Wild Wild West” which has been The Thing of the Week for a few weeks running. She’s smart. She knows which action figures I’m smashing together.

And “The Wild Wild West” is what triggered the loneliness and/or the fic, because Jim West and Artemus Gordon came out of the same template as John Sheppard and Rodney McKay on Stargate Atlantis. And then I was thinking “John and Rodney probably love The Wild Wild West and totally see themselves in Jim and Artie and would not notice how gay the show was coded.” And that’s how the fanfic drive kicked in, only once I got out onto the streets I accidentally got onto the highway and now I have to go the long way back. And THAT (a fic that was supposed to be about them getting high and watching The Wild Wild West) is how I started writing again for a show that was over before most teenagers were even born, while dealing with feeling the need for my own Nap Buddy (Human).

While I was writing dialogue, I thought about how I missed writing dialogue. Then I thought about how I missed having dialogue like the stuff I was writing.

What came first: the feeling or the fic?

Doesn’t matter. Hopefully I can keep writing. Maybe even try watching something made after 1980 and find a new Odd Couple to smash together in my head, and deploy the witty banter that rambles through my brain to a place someone else might see it and appreciate it and tell me it’s funny (I don’t really care how else the fic made you feel. I want to know if the jokes landed) because aside from a Nap Buddy I also miss having a Banana to be Second to. The High Energy to my Low Energy. Maybe I can avoid having to get the dopamine from a human if I can get it through clicks. I also have a pillow nest that’s honestly probably a lot safer for everyone involved.

The Worst Episode of Columbo

A frequent topic of conversation on the Columbo subreddit is “what’s the worst episode of Columbo.” It almost always ends the same way:

  • The people who don’t acknowledge the revival: Last Salute of the Commodore
  • The people who acknowledge the revival: No Time to Die and/or Undercover
  • Me: Sex and the Married Detective, with It’s All in the Game a close second

The people who think No Time and Undercover are the worst Columbo episodes are correct. That’s because they’re not Columbo episodes. I think everybody knows by now that those two episodes were based on Ed McBain’s 87th Precinct novels. That had a TV show in the really early 60s, so I’m willing to bet that someone dug out an old script and updated it for the 90s. That said, they’re great episodes of a cop drama that’s not Columbo.

I file them under “Stories other people tell about Columbo” so they’re going to get stuff about the Lieutenant wrong, which explains his out of character behavior. Like they’re the stories younger generations tell about the Legend of Lieutenant Columbo.

“So my uncle’s dad, my mother’s sister’s husband’s dad, used to work with Columbo. Did you know that? Yeah there was this one case ….”

Several of the 1990s episodes are tainted with the weird trend of softer than softcore porn that was everywhere. I mean none of that was new at the time, but it was new to prime-time television. Cable had been at it for a while and it was getting everywhere. Sexy drama. Sexy mystery. Sexy spies who are also lingerie models. Sexy murder. Suggestions of kinky sex or swinging or whatever would make Middle America blush right there on one of the big three networks.

And unfortunately it got on Columbo. Columbo was different from the other crime shows in its original run. It was softer. It wasn’t guns and grit, or action and chases. It was steady, quiet, slyly sarcastically funny. I’m pretty sure that’s what people still love about it.

So when they brought it back they didn’t really understand what it was about Columbo that made it Columbo. And because they were network-produced TV movies they probably had executives yelling at them to add sex to Columbo, and it ends up looking completely gratuitous (because it was) and very out of place with all the other episodes. Even the much hated episode Undercover feels a lot more like a Columbo episode.

Columbo going undercover several times seems like something he’d do (maybe he picked up the habit in the time between the original and revival). It’s a lighter tone, the story doesn’t really drag, and Ed Begley Jr is a returning guest.

Anyhow. That’s just me.