Catching up

The new season, and the last for a while, of Doctor Who has started and overall I'm impressed with the show. The Narfer commented that one of the episodes was dire and dark, but it reminded me more of an early episode when William Hartnell was The Doctor. They were in Mexico among the Aztecs and one of his companions (he had three) was upset about the sacrifices and wanted to change them. As the Aztecs queen/leader/oracle, she started changing their culture and the Doctor told her that wasn't acceptable. She had to accept their customs without changing them or making them over in her own image. It was the same sensibility that the current Doctor showed in the second episode of the season when they went to Pompeii the day before it destroyed the city and Herculaneum. The Doctor said some points in history are fixed and others are not and he was willing to let the disaster happen without saving any -- almost. Donna convinced him to save one family and it turns out they were the ones who coined the word "volcanic". Just when you think the Doctor is changing a fixed point in time it turns out he's not, that it was meant for him to save the family all along, which in turns argues for the fixed point in history theory and the theory that everything is predestined even if we don't know it, sort of like Meg Ryan in the present following Hugh Jackman into the past to become the great grandmother of her recently ex-boyfriend. Nothing like sampling the fruit before you're the seed.

Battlestar Galactica is back and is following a strange story arc, although an interesting one. It seems one of the Cylon skin jobs just spaced the last of the five remaining Cylon skin jobs, if that's what they are. The Cylons are fighting among themselves and destroying some of their own by not having the resurrection ships jump with them when they attack some of their group; they are dying and this time they won't be coming back, so there is trouble in toaster paradise. What was most interesting to me is that some of the Cylons think of themselves not as God's instrument but as programmed machines with a softer side, sort of like Sears. Okay, not like Sears, but I couldn't resist. Starbuck is back in a brand new off the showroom floor Viper and she thinks only a little time has passed when it has been two months. The Cylons don't seem to know about her so what happened and where did she come from? Have the current writers delved back into the past to pull the light beings from reruns to help with Starbuck's return? It certainly has all the earmarks, but one never knows what goes on in a writer's mine, even the writer at times.

Desperate Housewives (yes, I watch it) has surprised me, not with its story lines, because it's still just Knotts Landing with a smaller community and smaller incomes, and without the nefarious J. R. Ewing mucking around and injecting venom, but with a budding friendship that does not bode well for the future. Something tells me Bree Hodge and Katherine Mayfair are headed for a hair pulling, eye scratching, leg biting cat fight that even the dark and salty goodness of Adam (Nathan Fillion) can break up, but I'm sure he'd rather watch Katherine get the lemon meringue pie stomped out of her anyway.

At long last, Moonlight returns on Friday, April 25th and I am glad. Talking about dark and salty goodness. Mick St. John is what has been missing from my weekends. The show got off to a rocky start but it has gotten better and it's definitely different than the usual vampire fare and a little closer to Stoker's vampire vision since these vampires can go out in the sun without exploding into a pillar of fire and being reduced to ash. They do suffer but not in the usual comic book way and the only way to kill a vampire is to cut off his head. Stakes through the heart just paralyze them, even if they're made of wood. And to add my take on Spike's Leman's concerns over a newly created vampire not recognizing the vampire who made him and yet being able to recognize Mick as "like" him, I think the vampire who made him was not the same kind of vampire -- a killer -- that Mick is and has had to be. The guys a professor and more of a geek. Add to the confusion of being turned and not knowing what was happening to him, the disorientation and the bombardment of so much coming at him so fast, it's easy to see that by the time he confronted Mick he was a little more in control and less deluged by the flood of sensory input that he was able to recognize one of his own kind. Okay, so actually two possibilities. I may not be right, and I did notice the gaffe when it happened, but I think I'm probably close to what the writers intended, or at least what they'd say once they noticed the gaffe when vampire lovers from all over the world stuffed their email in-box with complaints about it.

The only thing to catch up here is packing for the move, which will happen after May 2. The lease is signed. The deposit is paid. I'll pay the rent at the beginning of May and begin shuttling things from here to there. I'll move something myself, like clothes and sundries, a bit at a time until the movers arrived on May 8th to pack up the rest and shift the heavy stuff from here to there. I've hired someone to steam clean the carpets and someone to do a final cleaning on the place and make everything ship shape and Bristol fashion. The utilities and phone are scheduled for the change and I'll be one day without an Internet connection, unless I can find a local unsecured line to ride along but it will give me time to inaugurate the kitchen, make the bed for the first time in months and sleep in my new place. I might even get some reading and writing done or at least get some of my books unpacked and put on the built in shelves while I luxuriate in the blissful sound of silence and the feeling of privacy. A friend mentioned yesterday that I was spoiled by the seclusion and privacy of the cabin and she's right. Once I get moved and settled in maybe the deep crease between my eyebrows will finally soften and dissipate. Stranger things have been known to happen.