'Red Menace' -- Grimm 3x09

Warning: Spoiler Alerts

I really dug the effects that were used for Boris in his woge state on this one; it made him look kind of creepy and death-like when he did it (which I'm sure was the point of the whole thing). But I'm wondering why his blood would have looked green instead of red, and if it suggests that the physiology of the Wesen is really that much different than that of humans. I don't think that the writers have thought it through that far, and they were probably only having his blood and eyes turn that neon green cuz they wanted it to look cool on screen; but this is the place that my brain goes with it. I've already figured that there has to be something different about them ... but that they have to be close enough to humans that human doctors wouldn't get tipped off during an autopsy. I WANT MORE INFORMATION DANG IT!!

I also want some real answers as to how the Wesen know that Nick is a grimm. I'm beginning to think that my cousin may be on to something about them having to look at him when they are in their woge states (since that's when they seem to know what he is), but I still think that there may be a little more to it than that. I still like my idea of grimms being a branch of Wesen themselves (one that mutated so that they can't actually woge the way the other Wesen can, but they can still see it when others woge ... and that they may have a sort of woge state that only Wesen can see). And since Nick has two different Wesen (three if we're counting Renard) right there that could give him the answer, I still don't understand why he doesn't ask somebody. It doesn't make sense ... especially since it's a bit of information that he may end up finding out that he needs later on.

One thing that I do really dig about this show is how they take real life historical figures and interweave them into the mythos of the show. Turning Rasputin into one of the Koschie, giving a reason for the story about how hard it was for him to finally be killed (if you look at any of the accounts of what was done to him, it's kind of crazy how hard it was for the assassins that went after him to finally get rid of him). I also found the little bit of information that we found out about Renard to be kind of interesting. I believe that we are supposed to infer that his mother did the spell for Rasputin ... and we found out that he speaks Russian. Both of these things make me wonder why he didn't want to tell Myshkin that he was half-Zauberbiest. I have the feeling that he might have thought that if he had said something about what he was, Myshkin might have known who he was. I may be reaching a bit with this, but with all of the half-hints that they give us about Renard, it's hard not to try to piece together what is given and speculate about what may be going on.

But speaking about Renard: I was thinking that he was going to stay in Europe a little while longer. No, he wasn't going to be able to stay forever, especially when he left on such short notice, but I was thinking that there was going to be a little more done by him while he was there. But I suppose that he did enough (since he managed to stir the pot quite well, not only with freaking out Adalind, but also with rallying the resistance and making it seem as though he had Nick in his pocket).

The whole thing with Juliette's friend coming to stay with them ... I find it kind of hard to believe that she just happens to have this friend that is a Wesen ... who just happens to come stay with them, cuz she needs help getting away from her boyfriend. It just seems a little bit too convenient to me that what she really needs is help getting herself out of the bad situation that she's gotten herself into, and she just happens to be good friends with the girlfriend of the one Grimm around who has a reputation for being cool when it comes to being good to Wesen (especially those who need help). It feels a little too trite to me, but I realize that may just be my own reading of the situation.

Get Out of My Head, Stephen King!!

So, I've pretty much been downing Hearts in Atlantis since I started it a couple of days ago. Downing it like whoa.

And after reading the first novella in it ("Low Men in Yellow Coats" ... which really could be a novel all by itself), I kind of got a hankering to give The Dark Tower another try, cuz of all of the references to stuff that is going on within that series. But this time, I'm not going to check out the audiobook (since part of the reason why I put it down before was the person reading it ... some readers voices just don't "speak" to you). So, I've put the actual book on reserve, and not just cuz someone else already has it checked out. The couple of times that I've been in there and looked for it, I could not find it, no matter how hard I looked. Seriously, I was standing right in the section where it should have been in, the system said it was checked in, but it was nowhere. Besides, that will give me a bit of time to finish Hearts in Atlantis

I also have a couple of others in hold.

The one that I'll probably be able to read first is Something More Than Night. The plot of the story itself seemed rather interesting, but when I looked into the section that Amazon lets you read, it looked like something that might kind of hook me and make me not want to put it down until I'm done (which probably wouldn't be all that long after I started it, seeing as how it's only about 300 pages). I had gone over to the library the other day, after looking on their online catalog to make sure that they had it, and it said that not only did they have it, but it was also checked in. But by the time that I went over ... someone had already nabbed it. ::shakes fist:: Curses!!

And then, there's Nos4a2, by Papa King's son Joe Hill. I had it on hold before, and apparently, the library called me for a week, leaving messages on the land line (which is the number they had in their system). I didn't get told that they had been leaving me messages until two days after the last one ... after they had already moved on to the next person on the hold list (since they only hold it for you for a week before they figure that you changed your mind). So, I ended up going in the next day and changing my number with them so that the next time that my name comes up for something that I've put a hold on, they'll leave me a message directly on my cell (since I'll actually get it that way). But with the amount of holds that are on that one, it's going to be at least a couple of months before I can read it.

I still want to shake my fist over the fact that there's a trace on The Broken Kingdoms. It's not that the first book in the trilogy was as amazing as I was hoping it would be ... it's that I just kind of have this nagging wondering of what happened to the characters in the second and third books, and I don't want to just skip over the second book. Hell, when I was younger, I had only seen ANH and RotJ, but it was years before I saw ESB, and I was always confused as to who Lando was (and his relationship with the others). So, now, I kind of have the feeling that if I skip the middle section in a trilogy, I'm going to have another one of those instances.

Make Sense, Damn You.

Another thing that struck me while I was half-way watching "The Day of the Doctor" ... if 10 used up a regeneration and kept his old face out of vanity (becoming both 10 and 11), wouldn't that have meant that there should have been 2 David Tennants circling Gallifrey when the doctor was doing his bit of timey-whimey? Never mind the fact that the whole idea of 10 being both 10 and 11 wasn't anything that was even suggested until 11 said something about it at the end of "The Time of the Doctor".

And probably a better question is why do I keep trying to make sense of genre television, even when I know that all I'm going to accomplish is giving myself a headache (especially when the show is timey-whimey)? But damn it, I want stuff to make sense.

If, someday, you guys ever hear that my brain got broken ... you'll know why. Stuff like this made it go boom.

Lovecraft + King = Weird dreams.

I've been tearing through The Skeleton Crew lately. After reading Firestarter, I wanted to be able to go through some short stories, and I had been wanting to read The Mist. So, I finished reading The Mist a couple of days ago (which is the first story in the book), and now I'm in the midst of the second to last story of the book. And earlier I dreamt that I was stuck in this supermarket with bags of fertilizer in front of the front doors to keep the monsters out (and at some point, a guy started getting the crap kicked out of him, which I think had something to do with the story "Nona").

::shakes fist at Papa King::

But I suppose that's what happens when you down a bunch of creepy stories in a row. They're bund to give you Lovecraftian dreams ... especially when they're written by Stephen Freaking King.

'The Time of the Doctor' -- DX 2013 Xmas Special

Warning: Spoiler Alert

I just saw the mini-episode "The Night of the Doctor" (which should be watched before the 50th anniversary special "The Day of the Doctor"). I don't know how I didn't hear from someone that it was out there. It's not really necessary to understand what is going on with "The Day of the Doctor," but adds a little bit of filler, and finally lets us see the death of the 8th doctor. And even if I don't count 8 as my doctor (since it was 10 that actually got me into the show), he was still my first doctor, and it was nice at least be able to have a visual to see what had happened to him.

This year's Xmas Special ...

I don't know if I have just gotten so used to the Uncle Rusty years and how 9 and 10 regenerated that I was expecting something long those lines, but ... I thought that this episode was rather disappointing. It felt like there was all kinds of build up and no real pay off. Sure, it was cool to see the Weeping Angels, the Silence, the crack in the wall, and Amy again, but ... it just didn't quite live up to what I thought that it could have been.

Also what didn't live up to what it could have been ... how the doctor got more regenerations. And I kind of wanted to scream at someone that they were counting the creation of Tinkerbell!10 as one of the regenerations (and having 11 say that 10 just kept his face, cuz he was vain). Turning 11 into 13 and having the Time Lords just send him some regeneration energy through the crack so that he could turn into 12 seemed far too much like deus ex machine. I wanted there to actually be something to him getting a new life that we might have bee sure that he wouldn't have been able to have gotten before without it feeling like the writers were cheating (and maybe hadn't really thought the whole thing through, or that they just couldn't figure out an answer for how he would have gotten more lives).

11 sending Clara away every chance that he got, I get that the writers were wanting us to see it as the doctor being selfless and wanting to help people, but also wanting to make sure that his companion didn't get hurt, but that isn't how it came off. It may have a bit to do with the fact that up to this point, we haven't really gotten to know Clara all that well (she's still relatively new to us), but the way that it was written felt much more like a bit of misogyny (making sure to keep the little woman away from the danger, cuz she wouldn't be able to handle it, and the big, strong man needed to protect her from it). I'll fully admit that I have a bit of an issue with Moffat's writing of women and that may be part of why I am completely dissatisfied with Clara in general, but she seemed a bit useless and helpless in this episode (which made me feel even more dissatisfied with her than I normally am).

I'm not sure if the Dalek's turning everybody into Dalek's was supposed to be a nod to the fact that when we first meet Clara, she's been turned into a Dalek (and doesn't realize it), or not, but it didn't quite work for me. It felt like a combination of overkill with the trying to make nods to other things that have happened in 11's tenure, and having something happen within the story that didn't quite make as much sense as it could have (if that particular ship was as powerful as 11 was making it out to be, I want more than an, "Oh, BTW ... psyche! Everyone's a Dalek!"

Also, what is with saying that every companion is the doctor's best friend? Ever since Donna (at least, that's when I first noticed it), the writers have some sort of comment made (whether it's in canon, or in blurbs about the episodes) about how the companion that he's with at the time is his best friend. Not every one is going to be bestie materiel. He might like some of them pretty well, but that doesn't mean that they are BFFs. Rose was BFF for 9 (even if neither of them said it), and she was true love always for 10. Martha was a good friend and someone that 10 could trust, but they weren't besties (partly cuz he was still trying to get over Rose). Donna was BFF. Period. End of sentence. If 10 could have grown old, Donna was the he would have shared a flat with, and the two of them would have grown old together (while driving each other crazy). Can you tell that Donna is my companion? Amy was very special to 11, but I don't know that I would have called them besties. The fact that he came into her life when she was a child changed the dynamic of their relationship, so that there was a paternal vibe there (or at the very least, he was that crazy uncle that she liked to spend time with). Clara is/was the mystery. Yes, 11 was fond of her (and I'm sure that 12 will be, too), but the mystery dominated too much of their relationship in the beginning (and they were together, as far as we have seen, too little for there to be any bestie feelings. They haven't known each other long enough, or have the connection that 10 and Donna had from almost the beginning).

ETA: I have to agree with the timey-whimey of what happens to the other incarnations of Clara that are put forth here, as well as some of the other things that were lacking in this episode.

The Desolation of Smaug

Warning: Spoiler Alert

So, I had the afternoon off after going to an interview earlier, so I went to see The Hobbit (you can't really beat a $5 movie in the theater). I didn't really go into it with high hopes, since I had still managed to get a vibe that it wasn't terribly fantastic, even with my phobia about spoilers.

Plus, there was the fact that Evangeline Lilly was in it, and she had two things going against her from the word jump: I have never cared for her, and I tend to lean toward being a Tolkien purist. But I was kind of surprised by the fact that I not only didn't have a problem with the addition of her character (a character that is nowhere within the legendarium), or the addition of the love triangle between her, Leggy, and Kili (something else that doesn't occur in the legendarium), but I actually kind of liked her. Sure, they changed some stuff with Kili to accommodate the addition of her character and the fact that he is now suddenly in love with her, but it felt almost like they were trying to tie The Hobbit movies to LotR (via Gimli being bonkers over Galadriel). My purist leanings were a bit bothered by the fact that there are four dwarves that are not at the Lonely Mountain (and who are instead in Lake Town) at the end of the film (especially since shit is going down).

I will admit hat I had a bit of a squee over the Easter Eggs that appeared in the film ... like PJ showing up in Bree (a la FotR, complete with carrot), Stephen Colbert in Lake Town (which I might have missed if I hadn't been prepared for it), and Leggy talking crap about Gimili to Glóin. Plus, I did nerd out a little over the fact that Gandy and Radagast visited the grave of the Witch King, and Gandy talked about the fact that Sauron was calling the Nine to him. Yes, complete set up for LotR, and not something that actually happened in The Hobbit, but it still made me happy.

That being said, I am not entirely sure as to why this film was called The Desolation of Smaug, when the fight with Smaug (and the destruction of Lake Town) isn't going to happen until the next film. Keeping the fight with him until the next film makes it feel like there's going to be a rush to get through the next one, since they still have to have Bard kill him with the black arrow, and there's still the Battle of the Five Armies. Bilbo getting back home is still needed as well, but there isn't necessarily a whole lot that is needed to be shown with that. But the death of Smaug and the Battle of Five Armies are two pretty huge things to leave for the end (and that's not even counting the fact that they still need to get all of the dwarves back together again as well ... and get Gandalf back with the gang, who is trapped again at the top of a tower. Can he get through either trilogy without getting trapped? Seriously); it almost feels like having two finales instead of pacing it.

I was also expecting there to be a little bit more with Beorn than there was. There was so little of him in the film that it almost didn't seem necessary to add him, and he almost could have gone the way of Tom Bombadil. As it was, it felt like the only point of adding him was to make sure that the dwarves got ponies for a portion of their journey (so, he really was the Bombadil of this trilogy), but the ponies were only use for all of three seconds.

I kept wanting to shake Thorin, especially when he started talking crap about Bilbo (calling him "The Burglar," instead of Bilbo. This bothered me more out of the fact that at the end of An Unexpected Journey, he had finally seemed to accept (and respect) Bilbo, but the gold fever had wormed it's way into his head far too far by the time that they actually made it to the Lonely Mountain.

'Twelve Days of Krampus' -- Grimm 3x08

Warning: Spoiler Alert

Oh, how I loved this particular episode. It made me all kinds of happy on the inside. I loved the idea of them using Krampus in the Grimm universe, and that he didn't know what or who he really was (once he was no longer Krampus and was back to being a regular schmuck). It brought a new aspect to the mythos in general, and brought an interesting question of what do you do when someone doesn't know what or who s/he is, and can you really blame one aspect of a person's personality if another aspect of themselves is doing something outside of their knowledge or control. I suppose that bringing Krampus to the council's attention (once they knew who he was when he wasn't in his serial killer form) was the best thing that they could do under the circumstances, but it still doesn't mean that Nick won't have blood on his hands if the council decides to hill the guy (which they very well may do, seeing as how they were so willing to kill a child a couple of episodes ago when they didn't understand what was going on with the kid). Still, even if turning the guy over to the council means that they're going to kill him, I'm still glad that Nick didn't have to pull the trigger himself; I didn't like the idea of him having to do it cuz he felt like he had to, when he felt so conflicted about the whole thing.

But the fact that the guy who turns into Kramus ... shouldn't he be a little more worried about the fact that he knows this happens every year? And should he be able to hold down a job, or be able to pay for a mortgage, or remain married (if he is), or look like he is healthy and well-fed without someone stopping and piecing something together? I would have thought that maybe he would have been the first one to have pieced together the fact that there is something seriously wrong with the fact that he blacks out for three weeks every year, or that he ends up in random other parts of the country. If he has only been living in his current home for the past three years, was it cuz he had to move cuz he (or the police) figured out that there was something fishy about the fact that there were all of these murders going on during the time that he was blacked out? And if he had to move, would he have also had to get a new job? If so, what job is going to give him three weeks off every December (especially if he's new)? And if he hasn't been around long enough to get enough sonority to let him get that amount of time off, how is he able to hold down a job? I NEED SOME ANSWERS!!!!!!!

And I suppose that we know now that the writers really are going to continue to give Nick super powers that he will be able to use in later episodes. First, it was the super hearing. Now, it's the zombie abilities (which will stop him from being choked out by the crazies that want to try to kill him with their bare hands). I still want to know if this is something that happens to all Grimms (where they adapt to the things that happen to them so that they are more efficient killers), or if it's just something that happens to the people that are in Nick's famiy (I still like my idea that the Grimms started off being a mutation of a form of Wesen and that's why they are able to see Wesen in Woge form, and I think that I might be able to headcanon Nick going into zombie form (and even his sonic hearing) if I say that he is able to adapt to the things that happen to him that happen cuz of Wesen using their abilities on him).

Was I the only one who went, "::snort:: Of course Bud knows where the tallest tree is. He's a freaking beaver"? Bringing Bud into the episode just for that scene seemed a little bit sloppy to me, but I suppose that they may have needed something to move the plot along a little bit and make sure that the Scoobs were able to get the kids before they were eaten.

I also like the idea that Wu might be a Grimm that was put forth here. Wouldn't that be fantastic if he was? It makes me feel a little bit better that he's just on that side of being told everything that is going on. And who would suspect Wu of being a Grimm, what with him being the comedic sidekick to the Nick and Hank? It would make sure that he was able to help them out much more than they are aware of.