Just the start of it all

Hee! I just figured out the answer to House 3x02 fifteen minutes before Hugh Laurie did. (On accounta reading about it in New Scientist ages back.)

*engage smug mode*

1. Rewatched Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire for the first time since the cinema this weekend. Given the amount of Tennant tongue action in this one (he's in it about as much as he is in Love and Monsters, but there's about as much tongue in that time as in S2 as a whole) I'm thinking Ten's oral fixation is something the actor brought to the table. Also: Mike Newell is a Harmonian.

2. Pirates of the Caribbean! I have finally seen it. Jack Davenport is wonderful in this one ( minor spoiler ). Needed more Jonathan Pryce though, but he was fab when he was there. I didn't think it dragged that badly, though it has got a bad case of middle-of-trilogy-resolves-nothing syndrome. Great twist right at the end which bodes well for Number Three.

3. Speaking of Mr Davenport, whatever happened to Daniela Nardini? I less-than-3-ed Anna-This-Life so hard.

4. American Television!

4a. I finally saw the last episode of S2 of House. ( just in case it's still a spoiler, even though I am probably the last person to see it. ) In conclusion: it made me want to watch TNG: Frame of Mind.

4b. Actually, everything I watch at the moment is making me want to watch old episodes of ST, which is not a desire I have had for years -- it must be something to do with Enterprise disappearing helping me remember when the franchise didn't suck. For instance, Lost 2-13 ( with one of its plotpoints ) made me want to watch DS9: In the Pale Moonlight for obvious reasons. In general, that was one of the best Losts we've had for ages, 'cos all the plot arose in this lovely organic way out of the characters' interactions and their differing goals and methods, rather than just being a drip feed of new revelations about the situation they're in. It is much more like I thought Lost was going to be when I first heard about it.

5. Argh the whofest deadline is only a week away. Must finish fics. (Why is the Davison era so angsty? Why? Not that I mind writing angst, but I am trying to give them a happy or at least bittersweet ending and they keep refusing to get to it.)

6. Is not a number, is a free man.

7. Related to the "must finish fic" bit in 5: OMG, CivIV is such an evil timesuck. Except not "evil" so much as Huge Enormous Dodgy-Historical-Model-Of-The-Inevitability-Of-Progress Fun. I am currently being the Industrious/Creative pre-Revolutionary French (as opposed to the Napoleonic Industrious/Aggressive French) and going for the Kulchar Win so I have naturally called my leader Reinette. Which allows me to read entertaining subtext into the things the other leaders say about being friendly, building a closer bond, etc. (Catherine the Great is flirty as hell in general, which makes for entertaining femslashiness).

8. Comics!

8a. OMG, why did I never try Sandman until now? 'Cos I was well aware of Gaiman's godlike genius. Hrm. Anyway, he is a godlike genius and Sandman is brill.

8b. Paul Cornell is writing a miniseries about some third-tier X-Man or other. This could be interesting. Or it could be full of dodgy religious subtext, OTT portentousness and overt emotional manipulativeness. Probably it will be good though. I still see Father's Day as an aberration.

8c. They really need to hurry up and get on with finishing the current storyline in Astonishing X-Men so I can buy the trade of it. I need my Whedon fix! I very nearly broke down and started buying individual issues (a line of comics-nerddom I was once determined never to cross) but I couldn't find #13 so I didn't.

So, er, yeah. Us slow terrestrial UK types have just had the second half of the Enterprise S4 opener.

My question is: it was intentional, right? The way the aliens (y'know, the ones who wanted to be the Time Lords whose defeat meant that they could just forget about the whole three year arc with a two-minute scene set in the Hologram Chamber from Quantum Leap that made The Ancestor Cell look like a good way of wrapping up a Time War) were just like the Kro-Maggs from Sliders, from the facial prosthetics to the fascist uniforms to the funnely wormhole thing they were trying to open? It was a deliberate homage, wasn't it?

And eeeee!!! I have just stumbled across my off-air tape off Angel: In The Dark from liek last millennium. Spike's little overdubbing moment at the beginning is Teh Best Spike Bit Evah. I think I will have to go watch that a few hundred times now.

"You see, I was once a badass vampire, but love -- and a pesky curse -- defanged me, and now I'm just a biiig fluffy puppy with bad teeth."

Oh, Evil!Spike, how we missed you ...