something queer going on

I'm watching Sanctuary 4x06, "Homecoming." Those who know me and watched the episode may be able to predict what I'm about to say next: ( spoilers for this and other aired Sanctuary episodes and Warehouse 13 )

What the hell has happened to Sanctuary? For two and a half seasons it got (for the most part) better and better, then suddenly in the second half of S3 there've been five dire episodes in a row. And dire in a tedious, uncreative way--it's not that the show took risks and failed, but that it hasn't taken any risks, in fact its ambitions could hardly be lower, and it's still failed.

I suspect some of the problem is a directive from On High telling the showrunners to (a) cut the budget and (b) make episodes that are easy for new viewers to understand. So we get ( into specific territory, spoilery for aired episodes )

1) I have the energy to post again now, because the doctor took me off the medicine (a beta-blocker) that was making me dizzy, exhausted, and brain-dead. I'm starting to remember what normal feels like, yay! Maybe soon I'll be together enough to resume writing fic.

2) I've been back at work since Sunday. It was very hard at first (especially while I was still having bad dizziness) but the boss and my co-workers have been pretty damn awesome. I'm readjusting, which is good because tomorrow I have to work a full eight hours on my feet. Eep.

3) There aren't a whole lot of upsides to anemia, but I have learned to cook dirty rice, which is very tasty as well as containing lots of iron-rich chicken livers. (I put great dollops of hot sauce on mine, as though it's jambalaya.) Any of you know other good recipes for chicken livers in, er, a fairly disguised form? I don't dislike the taste of liver, exactly, but I find it too strong to eat more than a couple of bites of, say, a sauteed chicken liver.

4) Yesterday I read Mary Roach's Packing for Mars, and now I need to read everything else she's ever written. Her writing has a lot of style and wit, and I must bow down to someone who includes, in her book on the pitfalls of space travel, a detailed discussion of a porn movie ostensibly shot in zero G (Roach concludes, based on the behavior of, er, liquids, that it wasn't).

5) I have also now read all of the Eighth Doctor Adventures novels except the very last. Well, all of the ones with Fitz in, except the very last. I can't quite bring myself to start The Gallifrey Chronicles, partly because I don't want the series to end, partly because it's by Lance Parkin, who hates my favorite characters. I've heard enough bad stuff about what he does in the book to make avoiding it seem wise. And yet my inner completist nags me.

6) The second half of Sanctuary S3 starts very soon! Which is great, but also bad because my fic (partly set after the aired episodes) is very much not finished and will now inevitably be jossed. Also, I fear there will be More Canonical Het Romance For Everyone. *sigh* I'd much rather see Great Adventures For Everyone. Or Genuinely Thoughtful Character Development For Everyone.

7) I'm trying to cheerfully look forward to the Doctor Who Easter special while simultaneously keeping my expectations low. (I am unspoiled. Please don't make any spoilery comments at all, not even hints.) It's not that I have any particular reason to worry, just that I find my relationship with new Who is happier if I don't get my hopes up too much.

8) Tell me things! What are you enjoying, fannishly, or looking forward to? What's something cool you've read/watched/listened to lately? I feel out of touch. I've been trying to keep up with my DW and LJ reading lists, but I haven't had much brain to spare. Which is also why in a lot of cases I haven't responded to comments. Sorry about that; your comments are always appreciated, it's just that for most of the last three weeks I've had the energy level and brain capacity of blue-green algae.

In the last couple of minutes I've seen two different people assert (in relation to the Sanctuary Cage Match thing) that Helen is bisexual. Where are they getting this? Was it actually on the show and I missed it somehow, or is it word of producers who are too chickenshit to depict queerness on the show but want the cred anyway god, or is it fanon?

I'd very much like Sanctuary to have canon queer characters, preferably more than one, but I'm wary of fandom's tendency to assert things as canon that . . . aren't.

I will not write Ryan Robbins/Christopher Heyerdahl RPF.

I will not write Ryan Robbins/Christopher Heyerdahl RPF.

I will not write Ryan Robbins/Christopher Heyerdahl RPF.

I will not write Ryan Robbins/Christopher Heyerdahl RPF. Despite this. And this. And this, for which, tragically, there does not appear to be a YouTube clip.




*is strongly, strongly tempted to write Ryan Robbins/Christopher Heyerdahl RPF*

Argh, I've just been forcibly reminded of why I have some issues with scripted shows. I just watched Sanctuary 3x09, "Vigilante," and ( spoilers; also, I'm mad as hell and I have the italics to prove it )

I'm watching the beginning of 2x08, "Next Tuesday," and ( not really spoilery, but cut anyway )

A quick reaction to the end of Sanctuary season 1: ( major spoiler )