Look at me having a life!

[sabotabby]

Despite the fact that I'm pretty much exhausted all the time, I managed to do stuff:

Thursday, I went with some friends to see Us. Which I loved. A lot more opaque than Get Out, Peele's first film, but that just means that I get to methodically go through all of the thinkpieces in an attempt to figure out the symbolism. Lupita Nyong'o' is so incredible. Go see it if you haven't and then come back here and talk to me about it. I probably need to watch it again b/c I'm not much of a horror movie person, so there were parts where I was just busy being scared and probably missed things.

Friday I got invited to a thing but ended up crashing out and watching telly. I have Opinions about the latest episodes of Disco and The Magicians.

Saturday, I went to see Orville Peck. On the subway on the way to meet my friend, there was a group of teenage girls sitting beside me. One of them asked if they were getting off at Christie Station, "as in the Christie Pits Riot" and another one said "I know all about that!" and they fistbumped. The kids are all right.

Orville Peck is amazing, though the sound at the show did him no favours, at least from where we were standing. (Ran into another friend after and she said that the vocals were more distinct from the opposite side.) Less of a problem for me because I've been listening to the album non-stop since it came out and thus know how the songs are supposed to sound, but my friend hadn't so that bothered her more. Great performance, though. If you haven't heard him, picture Chris Isaak and Roy Orbison giving each other handjobs in a truck stop, only in musical form, and sung by a sexy lamp.


Oh, you think I'm kidding about the lamp thing? I am not.

This is what I'm talking about:

"Orville Peck - Turn To Hate [OFFICIAL VIDEO]" (Watch on YouTube)

This is my favourite song off the album, which sadly doesn't have a weird music video to go with it:

"Hope To Die" (Watch on YouTube)

Truly we live in a blessed time for WTF music.

Comments

[minoanmiss]

Awesome!

[sabotabby]

It was fun! Now I'm tired and it's gross outside, so I'm glad I had my fun earlier.

[smhwpf]

What opinions do you have regarding recent Disco and Magicians?

[sabotabby]

Disco (copypasta from what I wrote in spacefungusparty):

I had more feels last week than this week (because I agree [with one of the other folks who commented] that they won't stay in the future by virtue of Spock being there, and also because the show is really billed as a prequel despite it being increasingly clear that at least some of the writers would have preferred it not to be), but still a lot of feels.

Who would have thought that they could put a Lawful Good character in authority and have me care so much? But Pike is just heartwrenching. Like I'm glad he's only there for one season because by virtue of him being a white male captain, I feel like they'd be tempted to make the show all about him if he stayed longer, but he's awesome.

Though. Why wouldn't he go into the future with them? I guess three outcomes are possible: 1) his presence makes the mission a failure, 2) the fate he sees can't happen because it's clearly not something that can happen in the far future, or 3) they're not trapped permanently because his fate in the beep-boop machine is sealed by the crystal, which guarantees that they do get back eventually. Two out of those three options are better than if he doesn't go.

I was about to be so pissed that they didn't give us a Michael/Tilly goodbye and so happy when it was revealed as to why. Because you know Tilly was the one who convinced everyone that they should stay.

The Georgiou/Michael goodbye was everything I hoped it would be, though. Complicated and unresolved and Georgiou wants so much to be eeeevul and not care about anyone, except of course she does really care about Michael. I love their relationship so much.

Actually, I was just thinking about how well-written almost all of the relationships on the show are, especially the ones between women. So much depth and complexity, and the show takes its time with it, even when there's a shitload of plot going on at the same time.

I think the crystal doesn't kill people, just shows the future? So Jet Reno isn't really doing a heroic sacrifice type thing any more than Pike did or Michael accidentally did. At least I hope not. I hope she's back for season 3.

Still kind of disappointed with Stamets and Culber. There's not enough of them on screen for their parting of the ways to have emotional resonance. Like, Stamets and Tilly being separated would feel far worse to me.

Tyler is weird. Like WTF dude, if you're so in love with Michael (which, again, I have a harder time buying than, say, Michael/Tilly) you can just leave running Section 31 to Georgiou. Granted she's evil and fully willing to wipe out a bunch of civilizations in a supernova, but she did listen when people talked her out of it and she's demonstrably more competent than you are.


Magicians:

There have been some good bits this season but basically possession storylines are my least favourite thing after forced pregnancy, and it doesn't help that Hale Appleman is by far the best actor on the show (and Eliot is my favourite character in the books; on the show Penny and Margo are tied for that) and they have him doing this crap. So I have been cranky about the entire season, but there's been the odd stroke of brilliance, like the musical episode or OG Penny's takedown of the basic white dude in the Underworld, that's kept me going.

But the thing I like best, not only in all three books, but up there with my favourite moments in any books ever, is the bit with the flower. I can't begin to talk about how much that spoke to me, how much that was needed at the point in my life where I read it, and how much that encompasses my love of reading and fantasy as a genre. It's why I try to make everyone read the books.

And they did it WRONG.

So of course I'll watch the finale and next season and grumble a lot but if I were prone to rage-quitting, that would have done it.

[lapinlunaire]

I can't wait to see Us. Thank you for the music rec, I love WTF stuff! And by the way, which TV show is Disco? I can't find anything about it AT ALL. Googling it just brings up hits for music shows from the 1970s.

[sabotabby]

Oh, haha. Star Trek Discovery. Otherwise known as Disco, Very. Are you watching it?

[lapinlunaire]

Ah, thank you! I'm not watching it. Is it good? Is it easy to pick up for someone who has never watched Star Trek before?

[sabotabby]

I love it. I just anticipate each new episode so much and it makes me so happy. The first season is uneven but the second season is a massive course correction.

It’s a prequel, so the story would mainly make sense if you’ve never seen a Star Trek. Especially early on, there are a few fanservice things dropped in. But then there’s stuff that I think hits harder if you’re familiar with the original canon. If you want, I could give you a run down of the main things it’s important to know.

But I’m just gonna say that there are space tardigrades and Michelle Yeoh in a studded leather catsuit and if that’s not reason to watch, I’m not sure what is.

[lapinlunaire]

Thank you! I think I might watch it then. I'd love a run down of the important things, but only if you have time, of course :D

[sabotabby]

I will make the time. Also the list of what you need to know is very short. Assuming that you have never heard of a Star Trek before...

Season 1:
Basic understanding of the Federation (militaristic and sciencey space communists, but they're not 100% there yet) and the Klingon Empire (warrior race that completely makes no sense, obsessed with honour, fight with bladed weapons despite the fact that everyone else has phasers, i.e. space guns. They are eventually allies and some Klingons eventually join Starfleet (the Federation's space exploration fleet) but not at this point in canon.

The Federation is a bunch of different alien races in theory, but in most shows tend to be majority humans and a few Vulcans. The Vulcans are space elves who are into repressing their emotions and playing space chess.

One of the major characters in the original series is Spock, who is half-human and half-Vulcan. He has Identity Struggles. He has a half-brother at one point and we meet his parents, and at no time does he mention any other family members.

Starting in the original series, there is a Mirror Universe where, I shit you not, everyone is evil and has goatees and, in later series, everyone wears a lot of leather and is bisexual. Mirror Universe episodes fucking rule and tended to be Deep Space Nine's excuse to do really cracky shit that was hilarious. They are Space Fascists ruled by the Terran Empire, who lord it over all the other aliens.

Ships in Star Trek have warp cores powered by dilithium crystals. Never in five series and a bunch of movies have they ever run on mushroom spores.

Season 2: In the pilot episode of the original series, there was a different captain than Kirk, named Christopher Pike. His first officer was a woman named Number One, not Spock (who was in it but slightly different). The pilot revolves around going to a planet where there are telepaths and there's a woman who Pike falls in love with but it turns out that she's the sole survivor of a crash landing, and she's hideously scarred, but the telepaths allow her to appear, both to herself and everyone else, as undamaged. They also reconstruct a version of him to keep her company after he leaves.

They ended up going with a different cast, with Kirk as captain of the Enterprise and Spock as first officer.

Then there's another episode where Pike shows up again, but he's horribly scarred after an accident and is in a machine that fandom has termed the Beep Boop machine because he can only communicate in beeps and boops. Everyone basically agrees that this makes no sense given the level of the Federation's technology. But it's canon.

I think that's all you need to know, really. If you're going to watch any of the older series, watch DS9 because it's the best one and has my all-time favourite Trek character. But they all do feel really dated compared to Disco.

[lapinlunaire]

Thank you!

Who are the bad guys? Both the Federation and the Klingons sound kind of crappy to me.

So, right now is the captain Kirk or Pike?

[sabotabby]

The Federation is pretty rad; like they've abolished money and are mainly committed to space exploration and have rules against interfering with other civilizations (which they break all the time but w/e). There's some corruption in the upper levels, and in DS9 it turns out that they have an espionage organization called Section 31 that gets up to all of the shady shit that the Federation thinks that it's too good for, but they're roughly on the side of good.

In previous canon, the Klingons started out as baddies but by Next Generation, they were allies, with the first Klingon joining the Federation. To some degree they're the villains of Season 1 of Disco except that it's written with an awareness that they will ultimately become the fan-favourite race of thousands of neckbeards. The Klingon stuff is the worst part of Disco and they scale it way back for Season 2.

Other major baddies include the Romulans (the same species as Vulcans but minus the logic; basically the Russians during the Cold War), the Borg (cyborg people who assimilate every civilization they encounter), Cardassians (Machiavellian lizard people who occupied another planet, Bajor, and were utter dicks about it, except that the best character in the history of Trek is Cardassian so they do get some nuance later on), Ferengi (Space Jews who start off as villains and then become uncomfortable allies/comic relief and I hate everything about them except for a few interesting characters in DS9), and the Dominion (liquid people who are the best villains IMO). None of these have made an appearance in Disco yet, though I feel we're going to get Borg if the showrunners don't start reining in the fanservice a bit.

Mainly, though, the antagonists are not, strictly speaking, evil. Typical Trek plots are as often as not "we have encountered a Space Problem and we must SCIENCE our way out of it," "some individual is being an evil git and needs space punching," "a computer has decided it's God and we need to deal with it," or "the wank room* has malfunctioned and we are stuck in a historical reenactment that is trying to kill us." That's one of the things I really, really like about the shows are that they're primarily about solving problems with science and teamwork rather than violent conflict. Even the Federation's weapons are typically used to render someone unconscious rather than killing them. Season 1 of Disco is unusually violent for Trek, probably influenced by the shitty movies and the even shittier post-9/11 Enterprise series, but Season 2 is much more traditionally Trek in terms of its philosophical outlook.

So, right now is the captain Kirk or Pike?

Pike is the captain of the USS Enterprise (Starfleet's flagship), but the show is about the USS Discovery.

* It's called the holodeck or holosuite and it's on every ship from Next Gen onwards and human nature in the 24th century has not changed so drastically that it's not used as a wank room. There are hardly any episodes where it functions properly and is such a death trap that one wonders why they keep putting them on ships, except that I guess people need to get their space jollies somehow.

[nyctanthes]

picture Chris Isaak and Roy Orbison giving each other handjobs in a truck stop, only in musical form, and sung by a sexy lamp.

I have saved Pony in Spotify on the strength of this line. I know what I'll be listening to on my walk to work.

[sabotabby]

I hope you enjoy!

[rdi]

I was considering the Orville Peck gig, but haven't gotten around to listening to the album, and needed to be judicious about how I spent my weekend, which ended up being busier than I anticipated. Shall have to investigate further.

I was underwhelmed by Us, maybe because I was expecting something that was more obviously incisive commentary on the state of race relations in the U S of A. The best I can salvage is oblique commentary on the state of class relations in the U S of A, I guess?

[50ftqueenie]

Did you see Get Out? That was definitely incisive commentary on race relations and I think a lot of people were expecting Us to be in the same vein. I read some interviews with Jordan Peele where he clarified that Us is not about race relations. It's more of a traditional horror film but with black actors as leads instead of white ones. Although there are a lot of subtle digs at America's history of racism, incarceration etc.

Why yes, I did spend the weekend reading think pieces about the movie. Why do you ask? ;)

[sabotabby]

And prisoners. Lots of jumpsuits and chains. I appreciated that the social commentary was there, but not obvious. Lots of hints, but everyone seems to be finding their own meaning in it.

I hope you like Orville Peck!