Sometimes I shouldn't use words

Caprica has been cancelled and the final five episodes delayed until 2011. It’s sad in one way but I do think it’s the kind of show that could work best as a single season story. Like Fawlty Towers or the original, Ricky Gervais version of the The Office. They were both comedies and Caprica really isn’t but something they do have in common (I think) is that the incentive to watch is not to find out what the characters do next or what happens to them. Which is not to say Basil Fawlty or David Brent or Daniel Graystone aren’t compelling but what’s compelling about them is who they are, not who they might become. If anything their inability to change or grow is precisely what makes them funny/tragic (and yes, Basil Fawlty is tragic). But they think they can, they think they are, none of these characters are passive victims of circumstances, they work at creating their own hells. Which is to say I liked this last episode of what is now the current run. It was one of those where all the threads finally came together.

( False consciousness )

It felt like this term would never end (it still hasn’t really). Haven’t had a chance to so much as open FCE in over a month, or finish the SCC re-watch. Or start the Boys from the Black stuff one, although I did get through the original play. I’d forgotten what Hermesetas were and what a jerk Yosser was when it all started (but always tragic). Also more Caprica.

( The Ghost in the Machine )

(  End of Line )

Starting off with some vid recs. First a film noir tribute gakked from laurashapiro, which doesn’t stand back and touch its forelock respectfully but throws you right into the path of the source, so much so you can almost feel the headlights bearing down on you.



The song is Angel by Massive Attack and feels so absolutely right for the subject matter, it’s as if all these movies had just been spending the interim decades waiting for it to be written. The official video for the song is also extremely nifty, the ending in particular kills me.

Caprica isn’t noir but visually it comes very close and, the way the storylines are heading, not just in a pastiche or appropriative way (can you appropriate your own cinematic past)? Another vid with the perfect, perfect song:

Brand new You’re Retro by hollywoodgrrl
Distills the show’s premise and look right down to their essentials and makes them glitter like decadent rhinestones on the cusp of an apocalypse.

( Like father, like daughter  )