I started off this TV season with trying to review whatever I watched weekly, but I quickly fell behind with that. I’ll try to keep it up a bit more when the shows come back in January, cause I do like writing about the shows I watch this way. For now, I’ll just review what I’ve seen so far: we’re halfway through the 2009/2010 season, with most shows going on a break for the Christmas holiday (or longer). I watch a quite a bit though, so I’ll be doing these reviews in multiple parts (at least 3 I think).

Warning: it should be pretty obvious, but there will be spoilers. Mainly for seasons prior to the current one, but also some stuff about the current season. I’m trying to keep spoilers to the current season at a minimum though.

Glee

This has got to be my new favourite show this season! I love the musical numbers they do each episode, and some of the guest stars they’ve had are amazing (loooved Kristen Chenoweth). So many of the songs have been added to my music library, of which most of them I like more than the originals. Highlights for me were Don’t Stop Believin’, Maybe This Time, Somebody To Love and Defying Gravity. Here’s the Glee version of Defying Gravity:

While I love the songs, the story lines don’t always work for me. I think it’s mainly because I’m liking the side characters more than the ones they are focusing on. I want to see more of Kurt, Mercedes, Artie and Tina! I loved the one episode focusing on Kurt and Artie (Wheels); we finally got to see a softer side to Sue Silvester and Kurt’s story with his dad was just touching. But why don’t we see what happens with Artie and Tina? They just left us hanging there, and it hasn’t been revisited since.

I’m glad the two main “secrets” were finally revealed, maybe they can focus now on some other things. I really liked the one-off pairing of Puck and Rachel, and I hope maybe the writers go in that direction again. Plus I like Puck’s voice way better than Finn’s who seems to be getting most of the main guy vocals (even Kurt’s and Artie’s voices I prefer over Finn). One final thing: yay for Emma and Will!

Glee returns on April 13 in the US (eek, that’s a long wait!) and will begin airing in the UK on Monday January 11th (re-airing the pilot at 9pm with the second episode straight after it).

The Vampire Diaries

This series had a rocky start for me, cause I was constantly comparing it to the books they’re based on. They are loosely, very loosely based on the books, with characters and events kind of inspired by them. Around episode 4 I accepted that they weren’t like the books and started following it with a more open mind. It reminds me a lot of Roswell, which weirdly enough were also based on books I loved and which turned out nothing like those books, but was still enjoyable. Mysterious stranger comes to town, girl-next-door falls for him, attacks on people in the town are being made, alien/vampire boy knows it’s someone like him, girl finds out he’s not “from this world”, they team up to find who is behind the attacks. Both Roswell and Vampire Diaries fit this description, right?

Is it great TV? Well, it’s not the type of show to win awards or stuff like that. But like Roswell, it’s so enjoyable. Ian Somerhalder (Damon) is hot in this and is deliciously arrogant and funny. Nina Dobrev’s Elena is a much kinder and identifiable person than how she was originally written, and I’m warming up to her. This series wouldn’t have worked if Elena remained the stuck-up snow queen, icy bitch she was in the books. I like how they’re actually expanding Bonnie’s role more with her witch powers being much more fully developed. I’m really curious as to how the second half of this season will be and if it will stick to the main plot of the original story (especially in regards to the antagonist), but even if it doesn’t I’m hooked now!

Vampire Diaries returns on January 21 in the US with episode 11. In the UK, it will air on ITV in the new year.

Fringe

I loved last season’s finale and was surprised to discover how much they revealed. Peter being actually from the other world (at least it was strongly implied), Walter having crossed over to the other world and stolen him, finally meeting William Bell. The finale was awesome! This season started off with just as a great episode: more reveals, more surprises. Great season, right? Well, kind of. I adore the archy bits of the show, and, while still entertaining, the stand alone episodes can be a bit of a drag. I understand they can’t make it too archy, that would scare off viewers and be difficult to keep up, but for me the archy episodes are just more interesting (and often less predictable).

I tried the Spot-the-Observer in every episode (if you hadn’t noticed yet, The Observer appears in every single episode in the background, just search for the YouTube video of that), but after like 5 minutes my brain forgets and isn’t paying attention to that anymore. I did like the Observer-centric episode, but it only left us with more questions: are there more Observers? What are they each specifically observing? Are they time travelers? Why was he named August? Argh!

I’d love to see more of the other world and William Bell; they are so key to all the mysteries. Also why haven’t we seen anymore of Olivia’s psychic abilities? I thought they’d revisit that this season? Anyhow, it’s still an interesting show and one of the more watchable sci-fi-ish stuff on TV right now.

Fringe will return on January 11th in the US and is currently airing on Sky1 in the UK.

Grey’s Anatomy

This is one of the shows that has had lots of ups and downs the past years; it started out great (loved season 1 and 2), but after that it got a bit meh. I still watched it, I love the characters and the cases every week, but you could see it didn’t feel as good as the those initial two seasons. I’m glad I continued watching though, cause I’m really liking this season so far. There have been quite some changes for the interns and residents of Seattle Grace, and most of them for the better.

Mer and McDreamy are finally peacefully together and although there is still drama in their life, that drama is not about their love life. And it’s refreshing. It’s good to see them both in such a good place, with Mer being way more stable and the optimist, not more the dark and twisty one. I think there are enough interesting stories for them as a couple, without the drama being the never-ending loop of them splitting up and getting back together again.

Then there’s Christina and McArmy. Loving their tormented story. Although the addition of Teddy has me slightly worried. Not another triangle! Another good change in my eyes is less Izzy. I used to like her with Alex (and Denny in the 2nd season), but so far every episode without has felt better. There are so many other interesting stories this year: Mer and little Grey, Callie and Arizona, little Grey and Marc and Marc’s pregnant daughter, the new interns vs our old interns, the Chief’s downhill slide; so far I think this season has been much better than the the previous two. Grey’s Anatomy is once again a show I’m really looking forward to every week.

Grey’s Anatomy will return on January 14 in the US and will start airing season 6 in the UK in January.

Desperate Housewives

Wow, season 6 already. Desperate Housewives hasn’t been “must-see” TV for me for ages (it’s had good and bads per season though), but it’s one of those shows you can easily watch while doing other stuff (be it folding up laundry or reading papers). The mysteries of this season are pretty intriguing: who strangled Julie and what is the new family on the block (the Bolen’s) hiding? Drea de Matteo (The Sopranos and Joey) as Angie Bolen is pretty interesting as our new ‘housewife’, kind of replacing Edie as the not very polished, says what’s on her mind character. But with a much more mysterious past. So how about the other housewives? Nothing really that pops out as “Ooh! That was exciting and such a great episode!”

Desperate Housewives return on January 3 in the US.

That’s it for this first part of the TV series halfway season review. Except the next ones in the next two weeks; haven’t reviewed loads of shows yet, like Flashforward, the new Melrose Place and the Big Bang Theory.

One of the best movies of this year for me was definitely Moon. Here’s a bit of what I had to say about it in my review:

Moon takes place sometime in the near future, where scientists have discovered an alternative energy resource harvested from the Moon. Astronaut Sam Bell is an employee for Lunar Industries stationed on a lunar base to extract this resource and send it back to Earth. He is almost at the end of his three year contract, having spent the past three years without human contact, and only his robot Gerty as a companion.

…

Moon is very much an intelligent sci-fi story about the moral consequences and dilemmas of a “What If” situation. It moves pretty slow, and harks back to those sci-fi movies of old, like 2001: A Space Odyssey and Outland.

If you’re still in need for a present for someone and that person likes intelligent movies (being a sci-fi fan is not a must), get this movie. It’s a brilliant, low-budget movie with stunning effects and an interesting plot.

And again thanks to Zavvi.com, I’ve got one DVD to giveaway of Moon! To enter the competition, leave a comment behind on this post with your favourite sci-fi movie.

You’ve got until Sunday 27th 18:00 (UK) to enter. Again sorry to disappoint, but this competition is only open to those based in the UK. For those of you overseas, keep an eye on the blog tomorrow, there will be a giveaway open for everyone!

Just a quick post to let everyone know we finally managed to arrive in the Netherlands yesterday night. Our plane was 2 hours delayed! Not as disastrous as it could have been, but still very annoying.

We were at Gatwick airport pretty early, having had no problems with bus or train, and went through check-in and security much quicker than I expected (15 minutes while last time at Stansted it took us 1.5 hours). So we had about 2 hours to spare until our flight. No problem, I had my laptop, book and ipod with me, plus shopping around the tax-free shops is also always fun.

The most irritating thing was the lack of updates. Now this isn’t as a severe situation as the whole Eurostar saga of last week, but some short quick updates to the passengers could have helped a lot. What happened was that the info boards initially showed that the ‘Gate opens at 16:25’ (this for a flight leaving at 17:05) and we would see to which gate we’d had to go. 16:25 came and went and still no change. A couple minutes later it changed to ‘Please wait’, nothing else just ‘Please wait’. 16:40, 16:50, 17:00 and still no word. Finally around that time it changed to ‘Gate opens at 17:40’. No other information, just that our Gate would open then. Eventually it only actually opened at 18:00, and we rushed to the gate, only to stand in line for even more minutes until the dispatcher showed up.

I think it was somewhere after 19:00 that we finally took flight, two hours after we were supposed to go. The thing is: in the plane we were told that the reason the plane was late, was that it got held up in the snow in Manchester. They knew pretty early on that there was at least an hour delay. If we were told that we had an hours delay around the time we were looking at the boards, we could have gone on shopping around and not being in constant ‘stand-by’ mode, peeking every few seconds at the board to see if there was any change.

Anyway, we arrived at Schiphol airport around 22:00 local time. I’m at least glad we managed to get here! Bring on the Christmas!

This is not the type of post you’re used to seeing from me here, but I’ve got to moan and rant a bit, just to calm down a bit more. Almost every single time I have a major trip, I become a bunch of nerves. It hits me each time again even though half the time it’s a trip I’ve done before without any trouble. In part, I guess it’s because a lot of it depends on factors I can’t control: the weather, buses riding on time (or even showing up in the first place), trains being delayed.

A part of me can’t help but wonder if it’s the geek in me that makes this all the more difficult. I have to think everything through, think of each possible outcome, no matter how bad, and make backup plans accordingly. Yeah, overloading myself with everything that *could* go wrong isn’t exactly the smartest thing to do, especially when I know how stressed out and nervous I can get.

This time around I’ve gotten more and more nervous since the snow of last week. Flights being cancelled, the Eurostar is completely messed up, it seems an impossible task to get out of the UK. The stupid thing is that our initial plans were to leave on the 18th, but we decided to postpone it (mind you, we booked 2 months ago). Still not exactly sure why we decided to go later; up until last Thursday I’ve been moaning about how we should have booked a longer trip and should have left earlier… like around the 18th. Looking back, I’m so so glad we didn’t do it, but even now traveling out of the UK is riddled with problems. Yesterday Gatwick was closed, because of the snow, and tons of flights were cancelled and delayed. It’s open now again, and I’m hoping hoping hoping that everything goes okay.

Another thing that gets me always worried too though, is packing. Do I have everything with me? Am I forgetting anything important? Passport? Check. Keys to get back into the flat when we’re back? Check. Reservation number? Check. And yet I almost always manage to forget something. Often it’s something small, but it annoys the hell out of me that a simple object was able to elude my mind and not make it into the suitcase.

An added nuisance this time around is that we’re flying out, and are restricted to 40 kilos of luggage. That’s an awful lot, I first thought, we shouldn’t have any problem. Ehm… think again. Christmas presents alone were 20 kilos, filling practically one suitcase. Argh! I’ve had to ditch an extra pair of shoes, some clothes (which admittedly I don’t really need) and extra goodies for my parents (like Australian BBQ sauce). I *think* we’re just under the 40 kilos now, and I’m holding my breath that the airport scales say the same.

Okay, rant over. Thanks for listening, dear readers. Hopefully, you’ll hear from me tonight that we’ve safely arrived with no problems. Fingers crossed!

This was just on TV here in the UK and I’ve got this song stuck in my head:

I love the Muppet’s version of Dicken’s A Christmas Carol; it always makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside 🙂

Episode 153: “0:59:53”

Beautiful short about a man creating a holographic world:

Regular readers here will know how much I love Joss Whedon’s work. Buffy, Angel, Firefly. The TV shows and the spinoff comic books. I love them all (although some more than others). So it shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone that I’m now addicted to his latest show Dollhouse.

I’m currently in the second season, and although it’s been cancelled, it keeps getting better and better. The latest ep? AWESOME. I can’t wait for the final 3 episodes, and I’m hoping we’re getting a finished story. I’m still annoyed that Fox cancelled it, but knowing Whedon I think we’ll get some closure one way or another.

Anyhow, back to Christmas presents. In my eyes the Dollhouse Season 1 DVD set would make a great gift! If you haven’t seen the show, it’s definitely one every sci-fi geek should watch (especially the 13th episode Epitaph One). Even if you’ve seen the show already, it’s one of those series you should own (just like Buffy, Angel and Firefly).

Thanks to Zavvi.com, I’ve gotten one DVD set of Dollhouse Season 1 to giveaway! To enter the competition, leave a comment behind on this post with your favourite Joss Whedon TV show moment. This can be anything from  a funny quote from Firefly, or an amazing monster fight from Buffy.

You’ve got until Wednesday 23rd 18:00 (UK) to enter. Sorry to disappoint, but this competition is only open to those based in the UK. For those of you overseas, don’t worry I’ve got a couple of other giveaways lined up that are open to everyone!

Interesting links for December 17th through December 20th:

• George Lucas loses court appeal over Star Wars costume copyright – Times Online – The Stormtrooper design was deemed utilitarian and made from an “industrial design” perspective, meaning it doesn’t fall under the art copyright protection from 70 years, but under the industrial design copyright protection, which only is 15 years (and has fallen by now).
• The Death of the BBC | Mssv – Interesting blog post from Adrian Hon about the BBC.
• Measuring Type : Matt Robinson – “A selection of the most commonly used typefaces were compared for how economical they are with the amount of ink which they use at the same point size. Large scale renditions of the typefaces were drawn out with ballpoint pens, allowing the remaining ink levels to display the ink efficiency of each typeface.”
• Google Browser Size – Cool visualization tool that shows you the percentage of browser sizes for people who visit Google.
• Name That Movie – Paul Rogers – I’m not linking to a specific post, but to the blog of the artist. He’s last 5 posts (and there will be more) are all about “Name That Movie”, six hand drawn pictures all taken from one movie. Guess the movie based on those 6 images. He does a lot of older movies, which I still haven’t seen, but it’s still pretty cool to play.
• 2009 in photos (part 1 of 3) – The Big Picture – 120 photos of this year.

You all know how much I love Hugh Jackman singing, and somehow I stumbled on these videos! They’re from a Disney channel Christmas concert where Hugh presented and sang.

I can’t figure out if the following one is from that same concert or not (I don’t think it is), but it’s the best of the four videos (that high note at the end!):

And a final one with Hugh singing Hark The Herald Angels Sing:

I really liked this year’s Project Runway finalists and from all of them I found Carol Hannah’s my favourite. Via A Cup of Jo I found out she has an Etsy store!

The dresses are all outside my current budget, but surprisingly not TOO far out of my current budget, all ranging from $180-$300. Here are my two favourites:

Afternoon Cupcakes Dress – $195

“You know those go-to pieces in your closet? The ones you reach for first when you’re running late or are having a lazy day? The ones you hope to goodness aren’t in the dirty laundry hamper? File this dress under that category!

Perfect for an afternoon stroll, shopping, or meeting friends for coffee and cupcakes.

Long sleeved jersey dress with clean scoop neck and skirt featuring six cascading draped points. Tie at waist….and pockets! (Oh, how I loovvvve pockets!) Invisible zipper at side.

Wear with:
-Flats or cowboy boots!
-Something pretty in your hair.
-A smile on your face. 

Available in teal (shown), amethyst, spice, or black in XS-XL.”

Vanderhorst Street Dress – $275

“This dress is an alternate version of the PR dress in black with cleaner lines. It reminds me of the ironwork on Vanderhorst Street, where I used to live!

Wear with:
-architectural jewelry
-chunky shoes
-a nude glossy lip

98% cotton, 2% lycra, brushed cotton stretch sateen with a beautiful finish. Invisible zipper at center back and kick pleat at back. Fully boned inner bustier to waist.”

Take a look at Carol Hannah’s Etsy store to see more designs.