Strictly Week 11, plus other telly.

Sorry for the lack of posts. We are currently in the middle of a major roof-and-windows replacement which has become a bit of a nightmare. I still have internet, but it's all a bit disheartening. I've been sleeping on the sofa bed downstairs for a week, and it looks like it'll be another week before I can get back into my bedroom.

The other problem is that the current contestents on Strictly seem all a bit... bland. Thank god for Austin and Erin's paso, which had some energy to it! Everyone else is good, but a bit dull; Arlene really shouldn't have tried to compared Rachel to Alesha, because, basically, hell no. Alesha was exciting and energetic, she had such presence on the dance floor, and no one this series is living up to that consistantly. There have been a couple of dances that did, but largely I think there is a lack of engery and excitment. I did enjoy Lisa and Brendan's dances, Brendan has had a fairly massive change of attitude this year and I'm starting to (gulp) almost like him. Almost.

Anyway.

Last night I watched new comedy show "Beehive." Which was possibly the weirdest tv show in a long time. I enjoyed it, for the most part (minus the vomiting section,) but it wasn't exactly laugh out loud stuff. I liked the parts were they were being themselves, rather than dressed up. The first sex in the city sketch was good, the second one had vomiting, and I think anymore are going to get less funny over time. I laughed at the spiderman bit. So, enjoyable if not exactly funny, and I will probably try and remember to watch again.

I've also been rewatching series 1 and 2 of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and being amused-slash-horrified that a)Star Trek manages to illustrate moral ambiguity with more subtley than any current TV shows I watch. (Seriously Star Trek. WTF?) and b) that a generation are growing up thinking that NewWho is how you write scifi. In twenty years time we are either going to have awful scifi shows written by children who watching Doctor Who and write like that, or we are going to have good scifi shows written by children who watching NewWho and went I can write better than that.

Fingers crossed.

(This is probably the one and only mention NewWho will get on this blog.)

Star Trek: Voyager (1x01)

Quick quiz! You have crashed on a planet, with one other starfleet officer. You come face to face with three aliens. You warn them that you will shoot if they don't back off, but they shoot at the other officer, injuring him. Do you:

a) shoot the aliens
b) warn them again that you will shoot them if they don't back off
c) turn around to check on the injured officer, thus turning your back on the still-armed aliens who have proven themselves to be hostile?

What the hell Janeway? NO REALLY. Less rubbish, more awesome please.

In her defense it turned out to be a near-death experience type hallucination with an alien who was trying to convince her concisceness to enter his "matrix" so he could feed off it. Or something. Probably it wasn't an entirely accurate portryal of how she would actually act.

Yes, I accidently caught an episode of Star Trek Voyager on Virgin1 last night. So today I decided to watching the pilot again. It's been a long time.

And I really enjoyed it! Chakotay isn't unbearably annoying yet, nor is Neelix. In fact, I rather liked the Neelix/Tuvok interaction at this point.

"Perhaps you'd like a bath?"
"A what?"

Though the way Neelix talks to Kes is still insanely patronising and unbearable. Kes isn't exactly a shining beacon of characteristation though.

The Harry/Tom relationship is good here too - Tom just manages to be both sympathetic and arrogant without going too far in either direction. B'Elanna's at her most angry-with-the-whole-universe, and it's nice to see her calm down as the series progresses.

Janeway is suitable awesome. "It's not crunch time yet Mr. Kim. I'll tell you when."

"Captain, There's something out there."
"I need a better description than that Mr Kim!

She's completely in charge, no questions asked. I love the scenes between her and Tuvok, they have a lovely friendship.

(There are plot holes you could drive a starship through, of course. Did they really only have two medical staff aboard? Who looked after the crew when they were off-duty? I suppose they only thought they would be gone a couple of weeks, but still, they were heading into a potentially dangerous situation that might require a medical team.)