This week on (my) TV computer:
(posts containing actual spoilers for any eps of this season are under a cut, the rest is spoilerfree (or at least there are no more spoilers than you'd find in a general show description.)


Heroes
For the moment, I'm watching Heroes. With Smith cancelled, Eureka on Hiatus and Friday Night Lights not working for me, my TV schedule leaves me enough room for Heroes. Problem is, I don't think it's good TV. I enjoy it (parts of) it, I like the cheerleader girl, the comic book hero and the reasonable brother (yes, the politician. I go for men with power and suits, this shouldn't be a surprise to those of you who follow this journal regularly). The show is well filmed, pretty pictures and great effects. Technically, there is nothing wrong with the show. The dialogues, well, it's called Heroes and the script seems to be a comic book, so complaining about the lack of good dialogue would be silly.

And yet, I cannot help but feel that this is all some cheap trick, the creation of a Hero for everyone, to capture us all. The geek who reads comics, the cheerleader who isn't like the others, the woman who can't handle her life, the black sheep in the family, and finally the scientist without superpowers, who will doubtlessly turn out to be a real life hero sooner or later. Probably later, as I see many many seasons of this coming on, seasons in which we will learn more about the lives of our beloved Heroes, without ever getting closer to The Big Secret.
The whole concept of the show reminds me of Lost, and I hate Lost. But it took the frantic viewing of most of the first season of Lost for me to find out that I hate it, so I'll probably need some more time with Heroes, too.

Actually, I take it back, that I said this isn't good TV. This is excellent TV, this is the optimum use of the medium TV as an episodic and returning movie, with ever knew cliffhangers, the stories of many characters that are slowly woven together, shots and cuts that would never be used on the big screen, one big mystery that keeps everyone glued to the screens, while it is at them same time so easy to understand that you can start watching the show at every moment without being lost, and finally, endless possibilities of marketing. This is the stuff that the dreams of the networks are made of, and as such, it is excellent TV.
But I really doubt the network bosses would watch it themselves.


( Studio 60: The West Coast Delay )


NCIS
Review with thinky thoughts and screencaps is here.

The Unit
Not so thinky thoughts are here.

Veronica Mars: My Big Fat Greek Rush Week
I like it. I really like this show. It's exactly the right mix between mystery, teenage drama, soap opera, crime and action that is necessary to make me a devoted fan. Okay, maybe not os devoted, since I am not really interested in fanfic or meta for Veronica Mars, but I'm a devoted viewer. Consequently, I have nothing intelligent to say about this ep except that I liked it.
I know you are all thrilled to know, that's why I'm telling you.


CSI+Supernatural
Haven't watched these two yet. I'm fighting with myself if I will even continue watching Supernatural. I still think it's a bad show, and I won't go near the slash fandom if you paid me a million euro. I've saved some gen fic to my HD, but I can't be bothered to read it. I really am not interested in the fandom at all, slash or no slash, and I don't like the show much, so why, why do i still watch it?
Because it's pretty. Because Jared and Jensen are very pretty and they drive a pretty car, and the lighting and make-up makes them even more pretty, plus, sometimes they are handcuffed and thrown on police cars (not often enough, though). See, I am trying to delete the first season from my HD, but then these images of Jensen and Jared delivering bad lines in dark rooms with weapons in their hands cross my mind, and I just cannot get myself to delete it. I'm ashamed of being so shallow.

CSI, however, which I had already decided not to watch this year, surprises me by being rather good, and I'm looking forward to this week's ep, which should be complete in ten minutes. Yay!


( Men in Trees: The Caribou in the Room )

( Numb3rs: The Mole )

In another futile attempt to make the world a better place, I'd like request the prohibition of what I call explanatory dialogue. Yep, it's one of these days...

Examples:

Numb3rs, episode 2x09 "Toxin":
David (completely out of context): "So we need to find out why a poisoner is trying to find a federal fugitive."
Colby: "The better question is how he intends to find him."
David: "And the best people to answer this question are the ones who've been looking for him the past seven months."

Supernatural, Pilot: (notice how I totally don't watch this show, because I will not succumb to peer pressure and Jensen Ackles alone cannot be reason enough to watch even more TV than I already do and OMG who am I kidding?)
Brothers talking about missing Dad.
Sam: "I swore I was done hunting for good."
Dean: "Come on, it wasn't easy, but it wasn't that bad."
Sam: "Yeah, when I told Dad I was scared of the thing in my closet, he gave me a 45."
Dean: "So what was he supposed to do?"
Sam: "I was nine years old. He was supposed to say 'Don't be afraid of the dark."
Dean: "Don't be afraid of the dark, are you kidding me? Of course you should be afraid of the dark, you know what's out there."
Sam: "I know what's out there, but still, the way we grew up after mom was killed and dad's obsession to find the thing that killed her."
(it goes on and on, with a memorable "We were raised by warriors" somewhere in between.)

CSIs:
Almost everything, especially everything that Grissom or Horatio say, with or without sunglasses.


All these conversations have one thing in common: The characters tell each other things that they already know, but that are new or maybe unclear to the viewer. A normal conversation between Sam and Dean could have gone like this, for example:

"Remember the 45?"
"Yeah, so what. Was he supposed to tell 'Don't be afraid of the dark?'"
"No, of course not, but still, after mom died, dad became obsessed."


This conversation would give the brothers all the clues they need to understand each other. The gun, the scary things, the death of their mother. Problem is, the viewer won't have any idea what's going on (this takes place about ten minutes into the show). Same with Numb3rs. David and Colby are FBI agents hunting for a man who tried to poison food. They know what they are doing. They know why they are going to wherever they are going (and it's not just so Colby can hero-worship Edgerton.) But the viewer could have been a bit confused by the events, unable to make the connection between the poisoner and the federal fugitive, and so it's up to David and Colby to have this useless conversation in the car. CSI, as the self-declared Forensics 101, is pretty much all about explaining to the viewer who is doing what and why, so I shouldn't even complain about all the bad dialogue in these shows.


Explanatory dialogue is annoying for many reasons:

1) It is unnatural. We know these people wouldn't usually have the conversation they are having. In TV and even more in fiction, it throws me right out of the story and makes me realize that I sit in front of the TV, wondering why the writers wrote this the way they did. It seriously lessens my TV watching pleasure, and you know how I get if you touch my TV.

2) It can be derogatory, like the Numb3rs example, because it obviously says "I think that you, viewer, are too slow to understand this show, so let me explain it to you again."

3) It is lazy. Supernatural is a good example for this. I would have loved to learn all these things about the brothers, but the writers were too lazy to show them to me, to explain them with the medium the yare using, which is a movie, albeit a 43:20 minute one on TV. So they put all this information, that would have made a good story, into a few sentences. Things I would have liked to have found out by myself, like the information that they were raised like "warriors". Which, btw, is a rather stranger thing to say about oneself. Apart from that, it wasn't that hard to figure out, with the burning woman and the baby and everything, which leads me back to point 2): how stupid do they think I am?

On TV, 2) is the more common mistake, but it sometimes mixes with 3). If you think your reader/viewer can't follow the actions, then maybe you have done something wrong before. 3) is very common in fanfic. It's okay to have SG-1 talk about their mission if you start your fic already off-world, but it isn't okay if Jack and Daniel tell each other that they have been lovers for only a month, because they wouldn't usually talk about that. Usually, I say, because you can always find a reason, and explaining things in dialogue doesn't have to be all bad. But then you need to give me a reason why these people are having that kind of conversation at that moment. If Sam and Dean had explained this to the stupid looking blond girl with the smurfs, it would have made sense, because she, like the viewer, would need the information to understand what they are talking about. As long as it's just the two of them, it's just annoying.

The Numb3rs writers, as much as I appreciate them in other ways, had no excuse at all to make David and Colby have their conversation and it annoyed me even more when I think they they could have been having sex instead.


Now I'll go back to watching Supernatural, which I don't watch, but won't judge by its first ten minutes either.

Work was very depressing. Everyone is nice, and I do have a lot to do. And yet, I sat in my office all day doing nothing.
Because after one week, they still haven't managed to give me computer access.
And you can only read so much before your head starts to explode and you need to write it down somewhere.

So I (and I'm really ashamed to admit this, but it's the truth, so there), read. Yes, I brought books with me and I sat in my office and read to keep my head from exploding from too much french law.

I read two CSI books, and I thought some of you might be interested in how liked them.

First of all, these books are rather short. 300 resp. 340 pages and very easy to read. It took me about three hours to read each of them, and in my eayes, that doesn't justify the price. But I was smart and bought them at ebay, 6 Euro for three books, which is a fair price.
The writing is okay. Lots of people on my flist write a lot better, but it wasn't bad, and it certainly is compatible with the masses, and they do want to sell these things after all. My one complaint is that the author is under the mistaken impression that Grissom has "boyishly handsome looks". I might see why some people find him handsome (I, despite my at times unhealthy attraction for older men, don't), but I really don't see the "boyish".
Anyway.

Both books are written by Max Allan Collins. The first one I read was ( 'Sin City' )

( The second book was 'Cold Burn' )

I have one other CSI book that I haven't read yet, by the same author. I really hope that I'll be able to work Monday, but just in case I'm taking it with me.
Hey, it's not like I'm getting paid or anything.

I feel a bit better today. Nothing a bit of CSI and some HL slash can't cure, right?

Watched ( CSI 5x01 Viva Las Vegas )

And I watched ( CSI New York )

Now, could someone help me and tell me where I can find schedules for CSI (and maybe NCIS)? I have to know when I have to download the new episodes, and unlike Stargate, I'm not involved in a fandom that's telling me these things.

I watched an insane amount of Stargate in the last few days.
To be exact, I watched Season 6 up to Nightwalkers, Menace, The Lowdown and then of course, New Order.
::does the happy dance of slashiness and general Stargate love::

There is no point to that, I just wanted to let you know. *smiles*

So, I heard that the shippers are wanking about the new ep.
( small spoilers, Enigel and others please skip this )



Anyway, I have no idea why the shippers are pissed, and I wanted to find out. Mainly because I was interested in their perception of the Jack/Danielness of the ep. I sort of want everyone to be happy with my favourite show, especially with this ep. I am kind of naive that way.

( Also, I just don't understand how people can say that Stargate is their favourite show and then complain about it all the time )

Ah yes, kind of lost the point there. Point is (or was), I wanted to see what shippers think about the new ep. And then I realized that I don't know any shippers. Seriously. There don't seem to be shippers anywhere on my friendslist.
Well, there is torificus ( Hi Torificus!), who warned me about her shippy tendencies, but she seemed to be fine with New Order. If there are others hiding, please let me know, I promise I won't bite.

Now, why is it that shippers avoid my LJ? Okay, I have this thing about slash in my user info, but that is rather new. I don't think I openly (or secretly) bash shippers in here. I have read Sam/Jack, and my motto is very much live and let live (I actually wrote "live and let die" first. Ooops. *g*)
I may have complained a few times about too much Sam/Jack on the show, but the show and the fanfic are two different things.
Is my LJ so obviously slashy that shippers flee when they come across it? Apart from the naked men who posed as sheep, I can't remember talking about gay sex that much. Hm. I guess I'm just wondering how people perceive me.
//end of pointless rambling and stupid questions

I'm going to watch "Proving Ground" now, because I am so very much in love with AlphaJack. Plus, I have the DVDs and am addicted to audio commentaries.

Coming up next on this journal:
- Find out what Oceana's favourite Stargate episodes from Season 3 are!

- More Jeremiah Pimpage: How Rape, Rage and Revenge make this show so addictive

-CSI: How Nick finally gets over Gil and Greg still doesn't get laid:We reveal the secrets of the CSIs season 2 relationships!

All this right after Oceana has finally written the essay she was supposed to write last week and has caught up on the sleep she missed last night, so stick around.

I woke up this morning to find that my computer had managed to download not only a new CSI episode, but also two Hornblower movies. Two.
*pets computer*

I wanted to buy the "Official Stargate Calendar 2004". Spend some money on my favourite TV series, get nice pics in return, have fun all year long. And then I found out that they forgot to put Daniel on the pics. Instead there is Jonas. Not that I have anything against Jonas, but - you know - he has left the team recently. When a certain Dr. Daniel Jackson returned. Remember?
Oh, wait! they put a season 1 team pic with Daniel in it! That's gonna make me buy it. Not.
Someone should tell these people a bit about promotion and merchandise. I think I'm going to take a closer look at that CSI calendar. Look! Warrick and Nick! Together! Four weeks slashy thoughts for free!

Amazon UK has the first two CSI box sets for 15.79 pounds. So both of them together plus shipping were less than 50 euro.
I'm just saying. And buying. :-)

Sorry for not posting and almost no commenting, I was feeling a little down this week. If there is such a thing as a post-University depression, I sure have it.
However, spending money on fannish things makes me feel tremendously better! That, and the fact that I successfully downloaded the X-files bloopers and the first ep of Space 2063 via Kazaa. And that I had almost forgotten that BitTorrent won't work on my computer. Damn.
There is - which could be interesting for all those of you who have a functioning BitTorrent, a site which has all the MacGyver episodes for download.
It is right here.
I won't look at it anymore, because BitTorrent and me really don't seem to get along, and it will make me more depressed.
Think happy thoughts, dammit! CSI box sets! All mine!
Ah, this is better! Now I will look at the poor people bidding on the CSI box sets offered on ebay, who already pay more than I do. Heh. Bad luck.
BTW, I know whose fault this CSI thing is. Someone has been spamming my friends list with CSI stuff for weeks...
::looks at angellemyst::
No, just kidding! If you hadn't talked about it, I would never have watched the show, and I already love it after seeing just, what, maybe 3,5 eps! The next step to addiction is searching the web for CSI slash. Recs, anyone?