Life as an Extreme Sport

the fog of not asleep

life and living

Close my eyes, glazed with sleep and sticky. See him, from the corner of the closed eyes, blue darkening to black. But if I try to focus he shifts form, to a large spider, hairy and threatening, drumming front legs against the ground in a bass staccato I can feel. I look away to turn him back to a man, predatory and coming.

The front door opens, and two shapes – men? – drift in, almost gliding on the wake of white froth. They stop at the foot of the bed, at either post, and wait.

I open my eyes, sticky and glazed with sleep. I know I can’t continue to fend it off, but I rub them wearily and resigned, hands numb, chest cold, dropping off to sleep again and the scene replays and I wake and the scene replays.

What will happen when I finally fail to wake? What will the dream be, how will it finish?

Stargate Atlantis: Trinity

Stargate

Random comments:

– Aaah, Teyla has a bulldog. How cute! She’s going to kick his ass the minute she gets the chance…
– The Daedalus is leaving. Wonder if that will come up on Stargate in the next few weeks, to see Daniel refusing going to the Pegasus galaxy.
– Hey! Nice redress of the Ori village!
– Oooh, bad Ronan. That’s really gonna piss Teyla off. There goes his chances with her.

Okay, now then, to the story. Oh my. Could I possibly love McKay any more? I keep thinking no, it’s not possible, and then I’m proven wrong. David Hewlett is an awesome, incredible actor. This episode highlighted the “best” of Rodney’s incredible arrogance, and finally showed him coming against something he can’t handle, fix, or even get his massive brain around. It’s nice to finally see his comeuppance, even if it had to be a program/weapon that did it, as opposed to an actual person. I’m also rather impressed that Shepperd had some of the necessary knowledge to stay up with McKay; Shepperd often comes arcoss as the dumb military muscle, and seeing that he does have a brain is an unusual event.

I found the intersplicing of two totally separate stories to be really irritating, and breaking the tensions existing in either. I realize that writing a story that focuses solely on certain characters runs the risk of alienating fans, but it also seems that fans won’t stop watching based on a single episode. I’d rather have had Teyla and Ronan’s story in one, McKay and the others in another. It would have flowed much better.

Seeing Elizabeth chewing out Rodney out through Teyla and Ronan’s return was a nice touch; it might have been a bit much to see it up close. But the last bit of dialogue between McKay and Shepperd, regaining trust… seeing McKay at his most arrogance, and then at the end at his most vulnerable, hoping for trust and seeing that he’s not going to get it. Well, it had just the effect that the writers wanted. McKay needing to regain the trust of the people he respects the most will be an interesting motivation for the character.

Stargate SG-1: Beachhead

Stargate

Sam’s back! Sam’s back! VALA’S LEAVING! Sam’s back! Sam’s back! YAY! Really, what more does an episode need?

Oh, okay, fine…

Let me start out by saying that the Ori have the best badguy music ever: gregorian chant. It’s momentous, large, stirring. And it just highlights how religious they are; I’d really love to know how the music goes over in non-Christian-influenced countries. Does it still sound high holy to them? …but that’s really not much to do with the show either, eh? Fine…

Not your fight? You engineered the downfall of the goauld… this is a galaxy of your own making, and you have responsibilities.

Nerus says this to guilt Stargate Command to action against the Ori; it’s interesting logic, similar to the you break it you buy it philosophy. Does it actually hold up, though? Are we actually responsible for the aftermath of your actions indefinitely, or does there become a point at which we throw up our hands and say “no longer our responsibility”? It’ll be interesting to see how Stargate reacts to this policy; will humans become the new, docile overlords, by virtue of their power and technology?

Sam! Sam! Hey, wait – that’s a clever way to keep Jack in the show. SAM!

Oh, the “let’s do this” march with them all walking in tandem was very nice and moving. Yay. (Seriously, it was, but they’d better not pull too many of those “let’s all be teammates!” moments, or it’ll get cloying soon.)

Mmm. Interesting use of the goa’uld, and in a twisted way, very sensible. Goa’uld society developed around a hierarchical pack mentality, so it makes sense that many, if not all, would bow to the power of the Ori, and even join with them. After all the Ori promise their Prior’s ascention upon death, and ascention was largely a goal of the goa’uld. (Should that be Goa’uld, since it’s Ori? Interesting…)

This was not an episode riff with startling new things. Using an enemies weapons against them, splitting allies, establishing badguy alliances – all common themes. One of the joys of Stargate (both SG-1 and Atlantis) is that they take these common plots and turn them on their side, do something new an interesting. It was clever to use the break it/buy it philosophy to guilt Stargate Command into action, but not so clever to be novel. Sadly, this episode lacked the creativity that has become expected.

…of course, typing that 12 minutes before the end of the show just shows me. That was completely unexpected and damned clever, even if Vala turned into a hero. (My dislike of the character aside, it was a fitting completion of the transformation started in the prior episode.) Well, that just shows me.

And, I’ve just to say, Daniel’s response to where Vala just might be… *snerk* Fitting.

To just complete the theme of this post, SAM!

light

life and living

It’s light out. I’ve stayed up all night – the second time in a week. I simply couldn’t sleep. I got tired several times, but never actually succumbed to that temporary death. By the time I realized this was an issue, it was too late to take Ambien (so often the case, since I don’t have a set bedtime), if I had any hope of getting up in the morning to finish a paper. Oh well. I eventually decided it would be a good idea to finish the paper, since I was awake. It’s amazing what you can do with so little…

Anyhow, the sun has come up. The sun doesn’t come up slowly; it’s dark one moment, and then a lighter shade of very dark blue seems to be edging the buildings and trees, but only if you look slyly out of the corner of your eyes. And then you bend into the fridge to reach your bottle of water, straighten back up, and it’s light. No hazy dawn, no suble shift with sunrised colours. Just blackish blue, then light. It was strange.

Toledo is laying next to/against me. He’s fully extended and stretched out, on his back, front paws curled in the air and on his chest. You see, he was laying on his tummy, and the he stretched and rolled over, and stopped rolling when he hit me, still extended. And fell back asleep.

It’s so damned adorable.

time

...and everything else, life and living

I was walking to my office, back from the HUB. It’s a pleasant walk along a tree-lined path, and while walking I noticed that the trees are turning. This is my last fall at UW.

This is probably my last fall in Seattle.

Time has suddenly become so much more precious.