Xenon's Seventh Circle

So, heartonsnow said that I had to post something. That was more than a week ago actually, but I still haven't thought of anything worth posting. Still, let's see where this goes. I'll start with books, as that's easy.

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A book meme ganked off liadt, and general rambling about life, the universe and everything stuff.

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When I was very young, I'd sometimes hear the others in my family talking about a long departed show called Man From Atlantis. It sounded tailor-made for me - a man who breathes underwater! Undersea adventures! Action, adventure and the ocean. It couldn't very well have been more perfect. And then, some thirty-plus years on, I finally got to see it. And it was awful. Not entertainingly awful - not even amusingly awful. Just awful. Lesson learned.

When I first got on the internet, there was a TV series that I'd sometimes hear America talking about: Counterstrike, a spy drama starring Christopher Plummer and Simon MacCorkindale. Simon MacCorkindale! As a fan of the long defunct Manimal, this seemed like a very good prospect. Didn't seem likely that I'd ever get to see it though. And then, a couple of days ago, I found it on YouTube. And, yes, it's terrible. Not the fault of Christopher Plummer or Simon Mac - they're doing the best they can with it. But everybody else in the cast? And the writers? And the directors? Oh boy. Lesson, once again, learned.

It's not going to go into the long term memory though, let's face it. Somehow these things never do.

In other news, I was given a 1978 Battlestar Galactica annual for Christmas, which I've just got around to reading (I wanted to finish something else first). It's in the finest annual tradition of having an appalling grasp of the premise and characters of the TV show, and the artwork borders on hilarious - but Battlestar Galactica! The annual! It made me smile throughout. I particularly like the fabulously jolly interview with Lorne Greene, that suggests BSG might last as long as Bonanza did, and be his next big hit. Hmm. Bonanza ran for fourteen seasons. Battlestar Galactica... didn't. But it was nice of them to try. The stories in the annual have some of the best titles ever, clearly written by writers who got a bit carried away with the whole SF thing. Presumably they usually had to write stories for Grange Hill or The Waltons or something. Amazons Of Space!; Chess-Players Of Space!; Hijack In Space!. When in doubt, always stick "Of/In Space!" at the end of your title. You'll be amazed at what a difference it makes. It's a bit sad actually, when they talk to the various stars about their hopes for the future. Everybody seems all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and sure that this is their great stepping-stone to wonderful things. Yeah. Don't hold your breath, guys. The only one whose long-term plan turned out the way he'd hoped was Dirk Benedict, who said that he'd like to act for a few years, then slip away into relative anonymity, live in the middle of nowhere, and write. Which is precisely what happened. Lucky sod!

And speaking of actors who write, in other other news, I've just started reading a book called Once A Crooked Man, by David McCallum (mostly because Amazon were selling it for two quid on Kindle. Sorry Illya, but I can't afford costly book experiments!) I wasn't sure about it at first, as it had a slightly rocky beginning, but the Kindle tells me I'm 25% in now, and I'm enjoying it. It relies very much on people doing things that they probably wouldn't in the real world (the whole story is basically the hero doing this), but it's engaging enough, and I like the scene setting. Some of the prose is a bit clumsy here and there (first book-itis - it's largely inescapable), but the descriptive passages are nicely done, the plot seems strong, and the characters are well drawn. I quite recommend it, if you're in the mood for a contemporary thriller. Mind you, I am only 25% in, so it could all go wrong yet.

(Sorry. I think Counterstrike just murdered my optimism).

Interesting one here. A short film (twenty minutes), posted on the net by its creator. Legal films on the internet?! Whatever next! It's about a boy whose father yearns to be an astronaut, and it stars Siobhan Redmond (Between The Lines, The High Life, Bulman) and Emun Elliott (Paradox, The Paradise, Los Malvados (cough)). It's odd, but in a good way.

Mission from Phase VI on Vimeo.

In other news, I watched the pilot of Starsky & Hutch, possibly for the first time. It's strange watching it, as it's basically all the bits from the opening credits, strung together with a bit of plot. And the wrong music. And the wrong Captain Dobie. And Starsky's hair is much too short. Pilots are weird that way. Nothing could be quite so weird as the Bonanza pilot, but it's always odd watching a familiar series testing itself out. Like The A-Team, when Face has the wrong head, or Kojak, which doesn't have Crocker in it, or Babylon 5, where everything looks like it's made out of cardboard, and G'Kar is a completely different shape.

In other other news, it's wet. And cold. Make it stop being wet and cold please. Thank you.

Day twenty-eight, your first TV show obsession. My immediate thought when I read that was Bonanza or The Hardy Boys, which were both very early. If I'm being strictly honest though, I'd have to go back further than that, to when I was horribly small, and used to watch a show called Tarzan, Lord Of The Jungle. That's not the proper Tarzan (ie: black and white and can't talk properly). This was a cartoon series, far more faithful to the books, and based on Edgar Rice Burroughs' preferred illustrations. I have only the vaguest memories of it now, but I do know that I was besotted, mostly because of Tarzan's monkey friend N'Kima. I must have driven everybody nuts going on about monkeys, as my mother eventually bought me one, who I called N'Kima. I still have him (he says hello), and he's in remarkably good nick, despite never once managing to hold on to me during tree-swinging.

So there you go. I don't really remember the show at all, and poor old animated Tarzan got superceded pretty swiftly by Johnny Weissmuller and Lex Barker anyway, but N'Kima could never get superceded by anything. Although he does look a bit dusty right now, I must admit. I know, I'm cruel. In all fairness though, he doesn't seem to mind.

Day eighteen, your favourite title sequence. Oh, brother. So many possibilities. Blake's 7, with that glorious theme music, and the Liberator in all its slightly wobbly glory. Quantum Leap (seasons one to four), with Sam sliding across cars and punching people, all beautifully edited to fit the wonderful theme. Buffy and Angel, both of which have title sequences that I love, and Doctor Who (old, not new), which has several. Wibbly black and white from the earliest days; revamped slightly with the move to colour when Pertwee took over; the slightly jazzed-up Davison era. Anything written by Mike Post and Pete Carpenter (or just Post, after Carpenter died). The second Bonanza theme, which always makes me ridiculously happy, even though Bonanza purists hate it because it changed. But, partly because I can't watch it without a stupid smile, and partly because I'm wearing my A-Team T-shirt today, so can't really go with anything else, I'm choosing this one:



Great music, great pictures, great fun, from the days when TV could still afford to waste a full minute just on a theme. Also, stuff blows up. You can't really go wrong with that.

Day twelve, an episode you've watched more than five times. Well I've never counted, but there's probably quite a few. The entirety of The A-Team seasons one to four springs to mind. Most of The High Chaparral and the later seasons of Bonanza, due to the BBC having them on a loop for much of my childhood. A few Doctor Who adventures, especially when they first started coming out on VHS. I only had a few, and was possibly a bit over-excited by the ability to suddenly watch stuff that had previously only existed as Target novelisations. Look! It moves! Including the bits that probably shouldn't. ;)

But I'm going to go with Buffy The Vampire Slayer, specifically the season one episode "Never Kill A Boy On The First Date". I used to hear so much about Buffy online, back when it first started, but there was no way to see the show in the UK at the time. I'd see little bits here and there; people used to post tiny RealVideo clips of their favourite scenes. Mostly Giles being Giles, as the internet back then was wonderfully skewed in favour of librarians with closets full of weapons. Nowadays everybody's batty about pretty vampires, and Giles would probably be the bad guy. But I digress. Eventually, in January 1999 I think it was, the BBC started airing the show. I used to tape it every week, and keep the best ones. "Never Kill A Boy..." grabbed me from the get go. Buffy falls in love (with a schoolboy who is even more obviously not really a schoolboy than is usual with American TV, but we have to pretend not to notice such things!), and tries to balance going out on dates with slaying vampires. Giles is brilliantly hopeless at understanding her, and all the attempts to keep the boyfriend from finding out about the slaying are wonderful. Arguably season one of Buffy was still finding its feet, but "Never Kill A Boy..." is just about perfect. Great dialogue, great performances and great timing.

There are a bunch of other episodes that I've probably watched enough times to qualify; particularly the ones with Ethan Rayne and Spike and Dru. Those early episodes though, hoarded on crackly VHS tape, have a particular appeal. I think, like with those early Doctor Who videos, it was probably the novelty of finally being able to watch the damn thing. I miss getting that excited about television. Still, that's probably a subject for a different meme altogether.

In your own space, share a favorite piece of original canon (a TV episode, a song, a favourite interview, a book) and explain why you love it so much. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

This was incredibly difficult. My first thought was to choose a really good episode of something; but then the full extent of the prompt got me thinking, because there's movies and books to choose from as well. Also, the mention of "a favourite piece of canon" suggests that the choice shouldn't be a favourite episode, but a favourite thing that happens in a particular episode. Which complicated things even further. Eventually I narrowed it down to a shortlist of about twenty episodes, films and books; but since I had no over all favourite, I decided in the end to go for the one that's arguably the least well known. There's too much good stuff out there to try deciding whether one thing is better than all the rest; and small fandoms need support. Shortlist included at the end, just because.

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From fannish5. What are your five favourite sibling relationships?

In no particular order:

1. Hoss & Little Joe Cartwright (Bonanza). This is probably the ultimate sibling relationship for me. They were perfect as brothers. Hoss was the older brother that everybody wanted, which helped, and the very real brotherly love between actors Dan Blocker and Michael Landon made it even better. By the time they'd been making the show for a few years, their rapport was excellent, and the chemistry was just perfect.

2. Bray and Zoot (The Tribe). A somewhat flawed, low budget teen drama from New Zealand, The Tribe isn't too well known. The ideas in it really grabbed me though, and it's like crack for a writer. A virus has killed off all the adults, and the world has gone Lord Of The Flies. Enter Bray, a loner who has always been better with books than people, estranged from his once beloved, now-turned-psycho-cult-leader, younger brother Zoot. Some of the acting in the show was a little rocky; theirs never was. We rarely saw them together on screen, but their relationship largely defined Bray's character.

3. Rick & AJ Simon (Simon & Simon). Another pair of screen brothers who were close friends in real life. These two gelled perfectly. Chemistry, mannerisms, everything. Rick's protectiveness towards AJ, and the way that AJ naturally looked to Rick in everything, all told with a touch or a look or a gesture. So well done.

4. Victoria & Manolito Montoya (The High Chaparral). I loved these two as a kid, and they're still just as good now. The children of a rich, Mexican landowner, they'd grown up privileged but isolated, and had only ever had each other. Victoria, the eldest, was responsible and respectable; Manolito was anything but. They fought tooth and nail, usually in wild, improvised Spanish, as their chemistry was so good that they didn't need a script. Their shared affection was wonderful, though. Chalk and cheese, but shoulder to shoulder against the rest of the world. They had a shared respect for others, too, banding together to care for wounded Apache when nobody else cared. Always wished that they'd been the focus for that show, rather than the Cannon family.

5. Frank & Joe Hardy (The Hardy Boys). Though I grew up with the books, and loved most of them, I mean the TV series mostly here. In the books they could be a little interchangeable at times, no doubt the result of there being so many writers over the years. In the TV series they had much more distinct personalities, and the actors sparked nicely. Frank was the devil-may-care adventure junkie, hurling himself into danger with a smile, and Joe had a lovely line in dry humour, as he tried to suggest caution. I had a rewatch fairly recently, and really loved that dynamic.

In season two, the makers of The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew decided that it might be a good idea to have the kids get together to solve crimes. They did this partly to boost viewing figures for Nancy's show, which was under-performing quite badly, but mostly just to annoy me. Oh, Nancy. Not only is she even more obviously not a teenager than Frank, she's also just really, really boring. Even her cunning self-defence abilities and lock-picking skills can't save her from that. Still, if she's going to combine forces with the Hardys, there's no escaping her, is there. So, here we go with...

( Thrills! Spills! Horror! Singing! )