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thanks to frelling_talk I've seen this youtube tribute to Jesse/Walt


I love the pair so much. Their relationship has become the core of the show as much as Walter's journey is.

Sometimes I think that I'm more into non sexual relationships than into romantic ones, yet I used to be a Spuffy 'shipper!

So here is a list of my 10 favourite non sexual relationships on tv.

1. Jesse Pinkman/Walter White in Breaking Bad

2. Sam Tyler/Gene Hunt in Life On Mars

3. Titus Pullo/Lucius Vorenus in Rome

4. Sherlock/John in Sherlock

5. Seth Bullock/Sol Star in Deadwood

6. Bill Adama/Saul Tigh in Battlestar Galactica

7.  Raylan Givens/Boyd Crowder in Justified

8.  Will Gardner/ Diane Lockhart in The Good Wife

9.   Daniel Graystone/Joseph Adama in Caprica

10. Vinnie Terranova/Sonny Steelgrave in Wiseguy

I know, almost all my choices are about male relationships, and there are no female friendship in my list. I blame my taste for bromance but the tv writers for not creating more strong relationships between female characters.

I've started uploading pictures from Rome, on photobucket, but I'm feeling extremely Internet-lazy...and every time I think of posting  a new LJ entry, I give up. All will come in time, I guess.

BTW, Breaking Bad returns in 4 days (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) and I have a post in my head, about the character Walter White, that demands to be done, but I am not ready to write it down yet.

As for the tv shows I missed when I was away, I have caught up with Mad Men, The Borgias...and I even watched the final episodes of The Killing, because I was curious, and I caught up with the new season of True Blood.
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Still waiting for the bloody parcel! It'd better arrive soon for I'm off to the library in the afternoon.

This holiday is going to be very sudious. I have to, otherwise my thesis will never progress. I rested for the last two days because I was truly exhausted. Also went to the opera on Saturday evening and saw Verdi's La Forza del Destino. The production was rather average and the singers weren't great, but Philippe Jordan was, as usual, terrific at directing the orchestra. He is an amazing conductor.

I have some free cable channels until January 7, including TCM, so apart from my Deadwood sessions I also watched or re-watched a few films.

I re-watched Cold Hand Luke, It's A Wonderful Life and Mr Smith Goes to Washington (they're having a Capra week!), and watched two French films that I didn't bother to see at the cinema when they were released: Demain Dès L'Aube and Le Concert. The latter was a big success in France at the time. It's one of those popular feel-good movies  that aren't actually very good.

I'm also catching up on Downton Abbey's second series (only the first one has been showed on French tv). The strings are obvious and it's super melodramatical, but it's well-filmed, the dialogues are well done and the actors are good...I must admit that the characters have grown on me(I'm quite fond of his Lordship and Mr Bates). It's a bit of a guilty pleasure, like Merlin (well to be fair, it's better written than Merlin). By the way I can't wait for the finale of Merlin on Sunday!!!!! :- )

I've given up on Hell on Wheels (AMC has been so disappointing when it comes to new shows *sigh*) and I'm dropping Dexter for good. this season was an ordeal. I watched until the last episode because I hate to quit, but it was just awful. I don't think I have felt that embarrassed for the writers and the actors, especially during terrible episodes like "Get Gellar" (worst episode ever!!) or "Talk to the Hand". It's a sad thing to see a promising show (in its first two seasons at least, after that it mostly relied on the lead's acting skills and good villains played by great actors) turn into something so ridiculous, badly executed and poorly written (the supposed twist that everybody and their uncle saw coming from the first episode! *eyes roll*). It's actually become worse than House yet House jumped the shark a while back!

So now I'm waiting for the third season of Justified, Sherlock's second series and the return of The Good Wife and FRINGE. Not really looking forward to watching any other show (except for the final season of Breaking Bad of course, but there's still a long wait until that) but I know myself, I will probably watch The Waking Dead when it comes back (because you know...Daryl!) and, mostly out of curiosity, Game of Thrones' second season.

I realise that I haven't tried or liked many "new shows", but yes I'm picky, watching tv shows online isn't as easier as turning the telly on and using the remote control and I usually can guess what I will like or not. My best "finds" in 2011 were definitely Justified (thanks to shadowkat67), Boardwalk Empire and The Shadow Line (thanks to elisi ).

Still mourning Caprica, Terriers and Rubicon....

Since I work on my thesis during the week days, I have decided to have real week ends. When this break is over, I will resume the busy weekends filled with preparations and marking.

So I'm treating myself with movies-- I saw Clooney's last movie, starring Ryan Gosling (who is in every films these days)--, books and tv shows.

Except that, when the week end comes I'm running out of tv shows!

Of course someday I'll have to watch the third and final season of Deadwood that I own on DVD, but I'm still postponing it, to keep it a bit longer, to save it for when I will have nothing really good left to watch. It's like having a great bottle of wine aging in your cave and wanting to keep it for the perfect day.

The fact that it's the second week sans FRINGE doesn't help, though. Not that FRINGE is in the same league, but it's one of those tv shows I'm hooked to and follow, like a good tv slut, so they make the Breaking Bad withdrawal easier.

BTW, do we know when the third season of Justified is supposed to start? I'm longing for my Raylan and Boyd. :-(

But I've received my DVD box of Caprica, so I spent yesterday evening (after watching the Bolshoi thing on ARTE), and today's grey and rainy afternoon, re-watching the series and listening to the episode commentaries (basically the podcasts they recorded when the series was on). I'm surprised to like some scenes I didn't like much when I saw the series in 2010 (like the dancing robot scene) and I don't think it's only because watching it on my big flat screen is better than on my laptop.

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Stolen from David Lavery:

"When it comes to TV shows, it’s easy to forget the importance of perception. We can think of an episode, or an entire season, as a sort of single entity, and then act like that entity can be marked as “good” or “bad,” quality-wise. Simple enough, right? Like, “The third season of Breaking Bad is one of the best seasons of any show in the history of television.” That’s a bold statement, and it’s certainly possible to disagree with it, but nobody argues that you can’t say it at all. And once it’s said, if you do agree with it, that group of 13 episodes becomes more than its individual parts. You rewatch it, you see connections between scenes you might not have noticed before, that might not even have been intended by the show’s creators. And when you go into the next season, you expect that level of quality to continue, which is good and bad. On the plus side, it means every new scene, even the most mundane, will be viewed with an eye presuming genius. On the down side, if those new scenes don’t start delivering on the same (and I mean the exact same) promises the last season provided, people will get restless. It’s a dangerous line to walk."
--Zach Handlen (recapping the firs episode of Season 4 of Sons of Anarchy)

That's it, I'm done watching the episodes I missed while I was away, mostly Breaking Bad's "Open House" and "Bullet Points". The latter was simply amazing: a super cool cold open, three great conversation scenes involving Walt (the "bullet points" one being both funny and horrible and almost made me feel sorry for Walt), new heartbreaking Jesse scenes (I wanted to slap Walter for being so selfish and unconcerned with Jesse's distress, and the video game thing just made me so sad), new stellar perfomances from Bryan and Aaron...

Tim Goodman wrote a good analysis of the last two episodes and the themes of season 4 (thanks to hungryhippo11  for the link) and Myles McNutt wrote a great review of "Bullet Points" on his blog.

I really should stop watching any other tv shows when Breaking Bad is currently on. It's so brillant, both in writing, acting and in regard to the cinematography, that it isn't fair to other series to  be seen along.

Yet I still watched the True Blood and Torchwood episodes I had missed.

Concering Miracle Day, I must say that the two last episodes showed a certain improvement but that Americanized version of Torchwood just doesn't work for me. ( Read more... )

As for True Blood, it's a bit less boring now than in the beginning of the season and the series had its moments but it's hardly quality tv. ( Read more... )
I'm also watching 90's show these days...

I have been having an OZ dvd marathon (a birthday present!) for weeks and falling in love with the show all over again. It was truly a groundbreaking tv shows and a masterpiece in terms of originality and characters study. Eammon Walker was so gorgeous as Kareem Said, Dean Winters so charming as survivor and Iago-like Ryan O'Reilly, and I love Rita Moreno as Sister Pete, father Mukada...and oh Miguel Alvarez' tragic fate still breaks my heart!

And it's funny to notice that there were so many actors who would be on The Wire years later, who appeared there, either as regulars (Bodie used to be Kenny Wangler!) or guests playing hacks or prisoners (Daniels, Avon Barksdale, Carter, Herc, Lester!). Also, I had forgotten that Battista from Dexter used to be an inmate in Emerald City (when Dexter started I only recognised Gloria) .

Sometimes it's just soooo obvious that there's a huge gap between the greatest tv shows and entertaining and efficient tv shows (which are already so much better than most of the tv crap people watch).

That said, entertainment can be good too, when it's done well. I'm still watching my way through Babylon 5 (currently I'm halfway in season 2) and loving the ride. I wouldn't put the show in my pantheon and it has a bit aged already (much more than OZ), but it's a lot of fun and I've grown fond of the characters who are more subtle than it appeared at first.  I rather adore Garibaldi, G'Kar and Lennier, I think that Londo's journey is quite interesting. I'm pleased that Sinclair has been replaced by Sheridan aka Bruce Boxleitner


I know, I really watch a lot of television this Summer...

My DVD box of Deadwood has arrived !!!!

I'm so excited and yet I want to save season 2 and 3  so the wonderful experience of watching that brilliant show will last longer. And I don't have much time these days anyway.

As for my online shows, the last episode of The Killing was poorly written. I'm  *this* close to give it up (I won't because I want to know who killed Rosie). It's a shame really because there's wasted potential here.

Fortunately the last episode of Game of Thrones was good. It's the first time the series really worked for me, completely, and, from what I read it's the first time that it took many liberties from the book, making up several scenes that didn't exist in it (I read that about half the episode is "new"). The show might be becoming a proper tv series after all (I was losing faith in it given that I was extremely bored during the previous episode and I did consider dropping it).
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I haven't watched the last episode of The Borgias yet.

I've been re-watching Twin Peaks on ARTE (the French-german network) for three weeks, and guess what? It isn't as good as I remembered.
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I'm again somewhat underwhelmed by the three shows I watch on Mondays, same as last week, id est The Killing, The Borgias, and Game of Thrones, although the latter was better this week (and Tyrion was again well fleshed out by Peter Dinklage!).

I have the feeling that The Killing could be terrific but there's something missing still, and the show is playing with fire with all the winks at Twin Peaks while its tone and "identity" are obviously different. There are several things that I like in each episode of the show, and it had a strong pilot, but since then it seems to be looking to find a way to bloom into greatness and that way keeps eluding it.

The Borgias and Game of Thrones are both entertaining, nice to watch...but that's it. They aren't bad at all, but it's all about the eyes and  a little bit about the heart (this week at least GoT was more emotionally-filled) – and probably about the hormones too – but I can't find any food for thoughts, while I can't help noticing tv tropes and the obvious goals of certain scenes.

So I don't want to write down a review that would mostly consist in either pointing out the tropes and predicatble stuff (or historical inacurracies in the case of The Borgias!) or simply re-telling the events on screen and describing certain scenes, or maybe swooning over the good looks of certain actors – although I could point out that certains shots from The Borgias seem to be "composed" as Renaissance paintings– and, in the case of GoT since I haven't read the books it's based on, I can't even discuss the adptation and the choices that were made; I have nothing to say about the writing, no connection to draw, no desire to speculate; I just don't get excited about those shows' episodes neither before watching, during watching or after seeing them while I got all excited yesterday by Steven Moffat's "The Impossible Astronaut" !!!

*shrugs*


On the other hand, I've started to watch Deadwood and boy, now that's a fantastic show! I know I'm very late to the party, and I know I'm bound to be frustrated as the show had a premature death, but it's REALLY good television.

The fourth episode of the first season, "Here was a man", just blew me away. I knew it was going to happen, and it happened just on time so the show could go on and have its own little fictional universe filled with incredible characters.

Deadwood I would love to write about, but I guess that it would be for myself only since it's an old story (the show was cancelled in 2006!).

Oh well, maybe I will nonetheless.

If Jeremy Irons weren't playing Alexander VI I am not sure that I would stick with The Borgias. The writing isn't that good, there's a lack of originality in the storytelling and you can smell the tv formula behind the prettiness. It isn't a new Rome but Iron's charisma, sex-appeal and acting are simply too good to miss.

I wonder if  Tom Fontana's Borgia will be better. It will air in November on Canal Plus (teaser here). The cast seems good even though there is no big star. The actor playing Rodrigo Borgia was Rawls on The Wire and looks much more like the real Alexander VI. And Fontana (who is apparently a Catholic!) was behind one of the best tv series ever, OZ, so he could bring a creativity that the Showtime's series lacks.

Fontana said he wanted to be faithful to history while Neil Jordan was willing to change stuff and make things up (which he already did in the first three episodes I've seen). Also, Fontana obviously doesn't shy away from incest while I am not sure that Neil Jordan will go that road, at least not explicitly.

That said, I like the idea of those two series reviving the old pope/anitpope and Great Schism issues. Oddly enough Fontana wrote his episodes before The Borgias pilot was even written, but the Showtime series started being shot 6 months before Borgia (both being shot in Eastern Europe of course). So who is the antipope here?

I suppose that we should consider Jeremy Irons to be the Roman Pope because he was elected first on screen, which makes John Doman the antipope in Avignon.

We'll see in November if this Cathodic  adept must claim her support to one of them or simply decide a soustraction d'obédience ! :- )