half of what i say is meaningless

I finished my angry Lost essay that has been in the works for quite some time.  It's up at Critically Obsessed, but I will post a teaser here.  A very long teaser.  The essay is approximately 2000 words in total.

Disclaimer: If you really like Lost, you might not want to read this essay.

( Lost is fundamentally nonsensical )

Read the full essay at Critically Obsessed.

Continuing with the "30 Days of Awesome Women" list that I began yesterday, here are 11-20.  You can read the first part here.

Fandoms include: Doctor Who, The Simpsons, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Alien, His Dark Materials, The Hunger Games, A Song of Ice and Fire, The Poisonwood Bible, Howl's Moving Castle, Discworld, Pushing Daisies, Arrested Development, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dexter, Terminator: the Sarah Connor Chronicles, Battlestar Galactica, Firefly, Farscape, Lost, Angel, and Bionic Woman.

( 26 awesome women )

Alright folks, I'll see you tomorrow with the third and final part!

Day 26. OMG WTF? Season finale

For this category, we have a tie for first place.  You can't talk about "OMG WTF?" without talking about Lost.  That's kind of their specialty.  Here be spoilers for Lost season 4.
( lost )
The other "OMG WTF?" season finale is the series finale of Terminator: the Sarah Connor Chronicles.  ( t:scc spoilers )Day 27. Favorite series finale

Do we still need spoiler alerts for something that aired seven years ago?  Anyway, look away if you don't want spoilers for the series finale of Buffy.


Honestly, I think "Chosen" is as close to perfection as possible.  Joss has so much love for these characters, and this episode is suffused with that love.  I love it from beginning to end, from Buffy slicing and dicing Caleb to the good old "Welcome to Sunnydale" sign tumbling into the crater.  The episode is chock full of that brilliant combination of funny and heartwarming.  I mean, it's got "Oh my god, are you twelve?" and "I'm drowning in footwear" and the cannon fodder and "What would be the surprise?"  And that's only, like, the first 15 minutes.  I mean, seriously, they play D&D in this episode on the night before stopping ultimate evil.  Not to mention Anya and Andrew being hilarious and awesome, and Willow going all white witch and Spike with the amulet, et cetera et cetera.  

But more than all that, there are two things I really love about this series finale:
1. "The Earth is definitely doomed."  This callback to the very beginning was so perfectly executed.  As soon as Giles opened his mouth, I knew what he was going to say.  I think I cheered.  It just showed so much care, so much respect.  Like this was the perfect bookend to a frakking amazing show.
2. Well, you know.  "Are you ready to be strong?"  Joss has said that he knew where he wanted to go from early on in the series, and it shows.  Instead of just saving the world, they changed it.  Buffy is one of the few shows I've really cared about that ended on its own terms, with no threat of cancellation.  It was such a graceful ending that a part of me almost wishes they'd never resurrected the series in comic book form.  I've been reading season 8, but I might not read season 9.  I just don't think they'll ever be able to top this series finale.  It's the only ending I ever wanted for the show.  And even though I was heartbroken that the show was ending, I felt nothing but complete satisfaction with the way it ended.

Okay, so I've spent awhile now trying to work out exactly what I think about the Lost finale.  ( spoilers )

Goodbye, Lost.  It's been real.

And I've got some of that meme as well.
Day 06. Favorite episode of your favorite TV show

Now, with seven season of Buffy to choose from, I have a lot of favorite episodes of this show. The obvious answer would be Once More, With Feeling.  And I do love it.  But I think I'll have to go with something a little different: Graduation Day.  I frakking love Graduation Day.  It's my favorite of all the season finales (and this show had some damn fine finales).  It's so exciting, and so sad and so sweet and so funny...you get the idea.  I'm pretty sure I cheered when Buffy yelled, "Now!"

Day 07. Least favorite episode of your favorite TV show

Unlike the last question, this one is easy.  Where the Wild Things Are.  Godawful episode.  I have nothing more to say about it. 

As a bonus, since my flist is all about the BSG, I'll tell you my least favorite episode(s) of that show too!  Everyone always complains about Black Market and the Woman King.  Yes, they're stupid episodes.  But I think they are both far superior to Taking A Break From All Your Worries and A Day in the Life.  So it's between those two.  I think I have to go with TAB.  And it's not just because TAB breaks up my OTP.  It's because the episode is poorly written, poorly cobbled together, and makes no sense.  Lee sobbing in the corridor is pretty bad, but what really kills this episode for me is Laura, Adama and Cottle (Cottle of all people!) engaging in horrific torture of a prisoner.  Next to that, Black Market hardly compares, in my mind.

I am taking a food/Lost break in the midst of working on a term paper that currently has "Frak all does this mean?" in the outline.  Just so you know.

( spoilers )

Whatever else you can say about Lost, they do know how to bring it.

ETA: Well, I'm reading the Jezebel recap, as I do after every episode, and I had a few thoughts.  ( still with the spoilers )

Part 2 (out of 3) of the writing meme!

( 11-20 )


Also because it's going around, I wanted to see if I could do the icon meme.  I only have fifteen icons, it was a bit of a challenge to see if I could find one to fit each category.

( icon meme )

Updates on Shah's [fandom] life:

-I've been watching (and enjoying, even) the new Lost episodes, but I can't figure out what to say about them.  I don't have thinky thoughts or theories.  And I'm not particularly flaily about it these days, so my liveblogs would pretty much consist of me going, "Huh."  BUT I will just say that this Hurley line from the latest episode was perfect: "You and me, trekking through the jungle on our way to do something that we don't quite understand.  Good times."  Anyway, I've also been enjoying the Jezebel recaps, which are quite insightful and also fun.  I like reading the comments too sometimes, and seeing how much some people (i.e. not me) know about the show.

-My turn on crack_van  is almost up.  It's been fun!  Somebody's signed up for bsg recs in March (yay!) but April is up for grabs...hint hint.  It's not hard.  You can rec exclusively Lee/Pigeon fic if you want.

-What's that, you say?  Am I still working on my pilotsbigbang  fic?  Why yes, yes I am.  I've surpassed (barely) the point I was at before the computer disaster.  But I'm still waaaaaay behind and it is not exactly going well.  But I think my brain is just refusing to cooperate because I need sleep/a job/release from midterms.  So, you know, I'd better get on that.

-And for Hunger Games readers on my flist, I read Catching Fire last week.  In under 24 hours.  It was glorious.

-I finally watched The End of Time (DW).  It was pretty good.  I'm ready for Eleven.  And in related news, the real reason for this post!( bigger on the inside )

This is just to say...

( finale spoilers )

So anyway Lost, it's been fun.  See you in 2010.

Also I typed this post up shortly after the end of the episode, and then got distracted for a few hours.

Also also, if Kara and Sayid teamed up, there would be badassery of epic proportions.  Just saying.

Lost: The Variable
( semi-live blogging )

Dollhouse: Briar Rose
( hot damn! )

And in case anyone cares, I recently viewed a film version of Othello, directed by Geoffrey Sax and starring Eamonn Walker and none other than Christopher Eccleston.  Christopher Eccleston is, as always, amazing, but in this case so is the entire movie.  It's a modernized version of the play, as in contemporary London with contemporary language.  It's not afraid to depart from Shakespeare's text, but all of its departures are purposeful and clever.  This isn't "O" or "10 Things I Hate About You" or "She's the Man" or any of that nonsense.  My professor (who is usually incredibly critical about all Shakespearean productions) described it as "the Othello Shakespeare might have written if he were alive today."  So yeah, fans of Christopher Eccleston and/or Shakespeare might want to check that out.

Things that would make Lost better:

( some vague/random spoilers from tonight's episode )

I also saw a preview for Castle while I was watching Lost, and I am definitely going to watch it even though it doesn't really look very good.  Nathan Fillion + kinda scruffy = something I will watch.  Dude, I watched Slither for him.  But since I kind of enjoyed that movie, it's not a great example of my fannish sacrifices.  I did, however, sit through White Noise 2.  Somehow the makers of that movie managed to make a movie starring Nathan Fillion and Katee Sackhoff (a combination that should have been awesome) that was phenomenally boring.

In other news, I am currently two minutes into the latest Flight of the Conchords episode and so far it is about a cup.  This is shaping up to be a great episode!  I am completely serious.  No really, I am.