My own self

The Spaniards complained that Captain F. Drake, the memorable bowlsman, had singed the King of Spain's beard (or Spanish Mane, as it was called) one day when it was in Cadiz Harbour. Drake replied that he was in his hammock at the time and a thousand miles away. The King of Spain, however, insisted that the beard had been spoilt and sent the Great Spanish Armadillo to ravish the shores of England.
The crisis was boldly faced in England, especially by Big Bess herself, who instantly put on an enormous quantity of clothing and rode to and fro on a white horse as Tilbury - a courageous act wjocj was warmly applauded by the English sailors.
In this striking and romantic manner the English were once more victorious.

- 1066 And All That, page 88.
By W. C. Sellar and R. J. Yeatman.

By congregating there, armed to the teeth, the Barons compelled John to sign the Magna Charter, which said:

1. That no one was to be put to death, save for some reason - (except the Common People).
2. That everyone should be free - (except the Common People).
3. That everything should be of the same weight and measure throughout the Realm - (except the Common People).
4. That the Courts should be stationary, instead of following a very tiresome medieval official known as King's Person all over the country.
5. That 'no person should be fined to his utter ruin' - (except the King's Person).
6. That the Barons should not be tried except by a special jury of other Barons who would understand.

Magna Charter was therefore the chief cause of Democracy in England, and was thus a Good Thing for everyone (except the Common People).

- 1066 And All That, page 39-40.
By W. C. Sellar and R. J. Yeatman.

Everyone's looking to play an angle.

On the sage counsel of the entity I think of as Rkuang, I sat down a couple of weeks ago or so and checked out Damages. My motivation? Threefold.

One, everything I could find of information on it seemed appealing. Ruthless lawyers, complex intrigue, an utter lack of moral absolutes... Sounds good, no?

Two, Glenn Close.

Three, Ted Danson.

So, check it out I did, and with an immediacy that'd put Lucky Luke's right hand to shame, I was hooked. The show virtually seethed with complexity. If I were watching this on a week-to-week basis, I have no idea how I would have kept it all straight. Watching it all in a week and a half made that easy, but... I'm worried how I'll fare with season 3.

So how is it complex, you might ask? Well, each season has an on-going main story that the episodes spend most of the time on. This story uses cut-scenes very cleverly to repeatedly make you think one thing is happening, when truthfully the scene turns out to have meant something else entirely. Sure, you see a lot of these twists coming - at least I did - but there is just so delightfully many of them, there is no way you can see them all. On top of this comes a "x months in the future" frame-story, filmed in dystopian colour-schemes, which shows you out of context fragments of what will happen to the characters down the line. These little glimpses affect the way you watch the main plot deeply - and the next little glimpse of a future scene will almost always turn what you were thinking topsy turvy.

Add to this the fact that most of the characters on the show are scheming bastards, and you've got a mixture that can't but engage.

As for the actual stories and characters, it is all very good. Without giving much away, I think my initial gut-comparison on Twitter still describes this rather well - Damages is somewhere floating in the creative middle-point between Profit and State of Play. (My review of the former - I sadly haven't gotten around to writing one for the latter, but it is an excellent BBC miniseries, go see!)

Rarely do you find a better cast - more or less every actor impressed - but the one who in the end impressed me the most was in fact neither Danson nor Close, though they were of course both stellar, it was Zeljko Ivanek. (One of the main baddies of 24's legendary first season, one of the few good things about Heroes' third season, and also a fantastic guest star actor having been on popular shows such as Lost, Ally McBeal, House MD, True Blood, and a million others) Never having seen him in this close to a protagonistic role (gun to my head I'd call him the show's third in line for the title, at worst fourth), I was deeply impressed. Fantastic character, fantastic actor, fantastic arc. But really, he doesn't stand out that much - because these guys are all good.

Even the "innocent" lamb for the slaughter played by Rose Byrne impressed. Instead of being the stereotypical nice person the viewer is supposed to identify with, she rather played the role of showing what happens to an intelligent but decent person if she's thrown into a cutthroat environment such as this show's. One very excellent way to watch the show is as a tale of the gradual but inevitable corruption of this character, and it is exquisite. To give a final example of how good the actors on this show are? Well, by the end of the second season, we've seen two regulars from The Wire and two from Deadwood pop up as either regulars or recurring character. And that's not even mentioning the movie-actors they bring in.

The show's main strength, of course, is Glenn Close's Patty Hewes, the other protagonist next to Byrne's. An ends-always-justifies-the-means kind of woman with a towering intellect and just enough morals not to be a psychopath, she's the hub around which the show circles. Suffice to say, unless you're going to hire Ian McShane, you can't really find a better focal point for any show.

In conclusion, a few words on the show's progression - the second season is slightly less intense than the first, and the conclusions, though nicely wrapped up, feel less deliciously entwined and interconnected. This is understandable for a whole host of reasons, not the least of which is the mere fact of being a second season after such an incredible start as this show had. While still very good, very entertaining, and still spilling over with great actors, you're hereby warned, season 2 is not quite as ingenious as the first. But compared to most other shows it is still like asking the archangel Michael to engage in a fistfight with Donald Duck. (Except in this case, Michael would likely in truth be Sammael disguised as the Devil pretending to be Gabriel in a convincing Michael-costume. Or something. Donald's so screwed.)

It's not my favourite show of all time, and since I've seen some damned good TV in my day, it won't reach the top five list, either. But I can honestly say I feel bad about that, that's how good Damages is. It should be on a top five list somewhere, because that's how hooked I am. But it is definitely in top 10. I'm not sure who it'd be pushing out, but good riddance. Being beaten out by Close, Danson and Ivanek is a badge of honour in my book.

"If you were a man, I'd kick the living dogshit out of you."
"If you were a man, I'd be worried."

Highly recommended.

If you like this world so much, keep your fool mouth shut and maybe I'll let you keep it.

Me? I'm going to be a god again.

- Lex Luthor,
Justice League Unlimited 2x12: Alive!

People fake a lot of human interactions, but I feel like I fake them all, and I fake them very well. That’s my burden, I guess.

Many people have recommended me this show based on a book called Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsey, but I believe main credit for pushing me past the "will try it out sometime"-block and into the "trying it out now"-zone should be handed to Amras Elensar more than anyone else. By funny coincidence, the day before my scheduled watch of the pilot episode, Shirgaal reviewed it as well, a very positive one that would probably have tipped me over had I not decided to watch it already.

I was strongly skeptical at first mainly due to my lack of interest in and the downright unpleasantness of seeing a lot of explicit violence on screen. Oddly, the show didn't have much of it, and most of what there was happened in the first few episodes. Sure, they don't shy away from it, but they usually cut away from the worse acts of violence, just showing the lead-up and, of course, the results, but even the latter category got a little less horridly vivid as the show progressed. I applaud. No need to speculate, right.

The show, you see, is not at all about the violence. It's about the lack of feeling anything that drives the character(s) to it. The main and title character Dexter Morgan is not just the centre building block of the show, he is its epitome, its foundation and walls both, its carrying pillar, its axis mundi. A quote from Jane Espenson's blog springs to mind - "A House without a House at its centre cannot stand" - nor could a Dexter without a Dexter. With that, as on House, comes a myriad of strengths and weaknesses.

This is, to me, the first of show's two main issues keeping me from unequivocally loving it to, if you'll pardon a quite tasteless pun (and of course you will, you're reading my weblog after all and shouldn't be expecting any better), bits. See, I'm an ensemble cast man. I grew up loving Animals of Farthing Wood and Sinbad the Sailor. I got sold on serialized television in my teens through shows like Friends, Angel, Buffy, Judging Amy and Babylon 5. My present-day top favourite TV-shows are to a one marked by a big family of protagonists, each able to carry an episode on their own if they need to - and they're usually given the chance, too.

That's why a show like Dexter or House M.D. have hard times really climbing the ladder of my list of excellent shows. When this much time and energy is spent on the title character, making him look interesting and give him issues to deal with, the other characters have to suffer, and what's left is only degrees of how much So believe me when I tell you - it's still an excellent show, and you should try it out.

The other issue I have with the show is simply one of genre and premise - it's not really for me. I don't mean I don't enjoy it, I do, but I can never enjoy it as much as I would if this took place in Narnia rather than Miami. It's a mental block, a genre preference, a silly boy's silly tastes, call it what you will, but to me, any premise of a story set in present day in the real world will necessarily be less interesting than something that's not. That need not bother the reader though, and I will not bring that up again in this review. Just keep in mind that this is an additional reason for me to be less-than-excited with the show that's colouring what I think of it.

So, what IS this show? Well, without spoiling much beyond the pilot, it's a show following Dexter, a man shaped by a horrid and suppressed childhood trauma and a freakishly intelligent, hard, caring and morally free-thinking adoptive father into a trained killer. He has no emotions, having only the urge to kill, but he channels his need to do so into carefully planned out and just as carefully executed entrapments and killings of other serial killers on the Code his adoptive father taught him. Simultaneously, he was trained to blend in as a normal person, faking emotions, faking human relations, faking affection and attachment. And he's damned good at it, too, just about everybody loves Dexter. But Dexter, sadly, loves no-one.

Or at least, that's how the season starts out. Dexter is living an emotionless life in the forensics of the Miami police by day, being almost a prodigy at analysing dead bodies and blood splatters. By night he is killing off the scum of the Earth, and feeling good about it too. Then comes along the Ice Truck Killer, an, in Dexter's eyes, true artist of murder, and Dexter gets caught up in his game.

The cast is good for a title-character-focused show. Dexter's sister is lacking a little bit in charisma, but I honestly feel that's mostly because her character is an off-putting combination of insecure and overly sure of herself, and not through any fault of the actress'. The policemen in Dexter's life are all interesting enough, the exception maybe being a character I grew quite the distaste for, the local lieutenant. Thankfully she has a superior officer who is a far more classy brand of jackass (reminding me every so slightly of the awesome Rawls of The Wire) and knows how to put her into her place, which produced some of my favourite non-Dexter scenes of the show.

There are only two truly fascinating characters beyond Dexter himself, though - the Ice Truck Killer, and Dexter's girlfriend, Rita. A long-time victim of spousal abuse and single mum to two, Dexter chooses to spend time with Rita because she is damaged and, in a way, empty like him. The awkwardness and tentative steps of their relationship is beautiful and my by far favourite aspect of the show.

The show is heavy on the season mystery while following smaller episode-by-episode plots as well, much like Veronica Mars used to be, but in that comparison, the mystery is a little less captivating and more predictable than Veronica's was despite (or because) getting more attention during the entire season's run. It's still very good, though, and the show as a whole is incredibly addictive.




Now follows the spoilery part of the review, those who haven't seen the season yet and think they will at some point should skip to the last paragraph.

As the season progresses the Ice Truck Killer keeps attempting to undermine Harry's Code in Dexter's head, keeps trying to open up his suppressed memories to reveal, among other things, his adoptive father's somewhat less than truthful behaviour with regards to Dexter's childhood.

Rudy/Brian was very interesting. The problem was, of course, that I felt pretty confident that he was the Ice Truck Killer the second the character came on scene. You could tell that the man in the white coat was a character actor, and not just some random guy, and that was really enough. It's a sad fact, but, dramatically, they HAVE to make the killer into someone that's already introduced on the show to make the reveal exciting enough, and he was the only character who not only grew from a background-character with two lines into one with as much screentime as any other supporting actor, but who was clearly not cast by a nobody-actor.

When they started heaping on hints on him in addition, I actually started thinking he might not be the guy after all, but an intentional mislead. So that the Big Mystery Of The Season really only ever had one real candidate among the cast was saddening. The character himself, though, was awesome, as was the actor. I have to admit that while I obviously realized he had some connection to Dexter’s childhood, once I saw how young he was (and thus he couldn't possibly have been the killer of Dexter's mum) I stopped thinking about that and thus didn’t see his being Dexter’s brother coming until just a short while before it was revealed. So at least they got me a little there.

As loose ends go, the season didn't really leave many except obvious start-ups for season 2, but I do wonder a lot on Brian's need to kill their biological father. It felt as though there was something there that should've been revealed but never was, which bugs me.

The unblocking of Dexter's memories also leading him to feel a little again, thus starting to care for his sister beyond Harry's Code just as Harry's authority was broken down enough in his head for him to consider breaking it, was a very nice and ironic twist. Brian would probably have succeeded in his scheme had he confronted Dexter with Harry's lies without also unblocking his memories - he would've lost faith in his father's Code without regaining some sense of emotion.

This also lead to a very nice - and long in the coming - turn in Dexter's relationship with Rita, as he is genuinely starting to need company in his life. The season finale is very, very good.




On the whole, the season is a beautifully crafted story with very good visuals and at times very funny little mental remarks from Dexter, and my only real complaint isn't truly valid - as it is that I don't think this particular story could be told much better, but that I think they could have made a story more suited to my tastes in stead. As it stands, it is a very successful and almost equally daring piece of work. The only thing I've seen that's remotely similar to this is the very excellent and thoroughly canceled The Inside, but even that wasn't quite as dark as the mere premise of this show. I might not have heard of James Manos Jr. before (Wikipedia claims he's been involved on The Sopranos and The Shield though), but he's made what's easily one of the best made shows I've ever seen, and certainly one of the more addictive ones. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and look forward to the second season - which I will of course be watching right away.

Joker, in Arkham Asylum, as Lex Luthor breaks The Riddler out and they refuse to let Joker in on what's going on:

Nigma?! NIGMA!?! You can't DO this to me!

I can leave here whenever I WANT. You know that! I only stay here for as long as I think it's FUNNY!

[the two of them leave, Joker stops screaming, and turns around in his cell, talking to himself]

And it's not funny anymore.

There's no truth in the pleads of the damned.

- Liliana Vess, Planeswalker.

Miss Kingsley repeatedly chided the colonial powers for abolishing political systems they did not understand and for then showing pained surprise when the natives failed to reveal a proper gratitude.

The imperial story, she wrote, was very like "that improving fable of the kind-hearted she-elephant who, while out walking one day, inadvertently trod upon a partridge and killed it, and observing close at hand the bird's nest full of callow fledglings, dropped a tear, and saying 'I have feelings of a mother myself,' sat down upon the brood."

- Mary Kingsley on British impreialism in Africa in the 19th century,
as rendered by Basil Davidson in African Kingdoms, page 167-168.

Accounts of religion in Benin are vague, but the Bini apparently believed in a supreme god who created and ruled the earth; they considered it useless to worship him, however, since he was already benevolent. Instead, they worshiped numerous lesser gods, who they felt could mediate for them with the supreme god. The human sacrifices were offered not to the gods, but to the devil, whom the Bini blamed for all their misfortunes. Victims rarely struggled; some actually assisted the executioner, and a few even volunteered to be sacrificed - powerful proof of the intensity of their religion.

[...]

After the Europeans arrived, the slave trade mushroomed; farming and commerce were slighted and the economy - inevitably - started to collapse. The Oba [king], believing his bad fortune was the work of the devil, ordered more and more human sacrifices to turn the tide. But by 1897 the disintegration was complete; that year a British force found the city of Benin all but deserted and littered with the bodies of sacrificial victims. After four centuries of greatness, Benin had finally passed into history.

- Basil Davidson
in African Kingdoms, page 112 & 118.

In 1413 a man called Anselm d'Isalguier came safely home to Marseilles and Toulouse, bringing with him an African princess for a wife and a train of African servants - one of whom set himself up as a doctor and enormously irritated the French medical profession by treating no less a person than the Dauphin Charles, heir to the throne of France.

- Basil Davidson
in African Kingdoms, page 85.

Adequate.

By the way, why are you %#&@% on the post office? For 44 cents, someone comes to your house, picks up some piece of crap you wrote, and takes it to Wyoming on a plane.

- Jon Stewart, The Daily Show, June 17th, 2009

"I am prepared to die."
"Good. I'm prepared to kill you."

- Darth Kruhl and Emperor-in-Exile Roan Fel

If you're anything like me at all, you enjoy the idea of Star Wars more than the actual movies. By that I mean the archetypes, the grand mythos, the entire world that we were shown in the movies more than the mere plots inside them should indicate. Sure, Empire Strikes Back is a pretty great movie, but mostly, what these movies have going for them can be summed up in cool concepts: The lightsabers, the space-fights, the lasergun-slingers, the Jedi Order protecting a corrupt galaxy, the Sith Order trying to rule it, the Grand Moffs cooly ordering genocides, the Jedi Spirits, the Death Star, the roaring Wookie, the Force, and just about everything about Darth Vader. These things are all awesome, and they, in addition to the common appeal of legend/fairytalesque plots in general, are why I find these movies to be such an important part of my DVD-collection.

Because of enjoying these concepts, I've at many points in my life delved into the chasm of entertainment that is the Star Wars Expanded Universe. There are novels, short stories, comics, video games, computer games, and TV-series. And a whole bunch of other stuff. I've mainly kept with the novels and the comics, though I should say both the TV-serials based upon the Clone Wars, one of which is still on-going, are surprising me with their level of quality.

Now, I've by no means read all the novels and comics, I've not even read all the good ones - believe you me, there are many not so good ones out there too - but I've read enough to have a basic grasp of the history of the gigantic Star Wars universe. It goes back to millenia before the prequel-movies, and covers events during, between and even after the six films of Lucas' making. And for the most part, it all fits together in a gigantic continuity. The latter appeals to me a lot, because I'm an anal crazy-person.

Anyway, to get to the point, even though books and comics have previously ventured pretty far ahead into the time after Return of the Jedi, they never went beyond the years were the good old main characters could reasonbly be expected to be active. Until Star Wars Legacy. Legacy jumps a full century ahead in time from the last point we have previously been told stories from - a point which was already a good three decades after he final film - and introduces us to a very changed Star Wars-universe. New characters, new allegiances, new conflicts. So does it work?

Holy crap, yes! And the why is the concepts. There are lightsabers, there are Jedi, there are Sith, there are evil Moffs and Jedi Spirits, the whole shebang. These familiar, tantalizing concepts have in Legacy been put into a completely new environment, which harkens back to and descends from but is still very different when compared to the good old days of Palpatine's Empire. There are three branches of Force-users now - the Jedi, who are much like they were in their glory days of the Old Republic. The Imperial Knights, who do not adhere to the light- and dark-side philosophies but rather swear loyalty to the Emperor personally over any one value-system. The Emperor is a descendent from the Fel-family, a major group of characters in the novels and comics taking place after Return of the Jedi, who apparently at some point became the heads of what was left of Palpatine's Empire. Now, this Emperor is not a bad guy, if anything, he's rather benevolent. But he was usurped by a new and changed Sith Order who also extinguished most of the Jedi Knights, making Legacy start out in a world with a handful of Jedi, vast armies of Sith, and a third group of Force-users supporting the now Emperor-in-Exile.

And then there's a new Skywalker, who is a little bit like Han Solo would be if he had had basic Jedi training and was really, really grumpy. Together with all of these pieces come plots which, while maybe not brilliant, are far more intricate and interesting than most of the linear storylines of the original movies.

After three volumes, I'm well and truly hooked, and I will continue trying to set aside money to buy these TPBs. Legacy has breathed new life into the Star Wars-universe for me - and it has even retroactively made things that happen before it more interesting, as the century-long gap of information preceding it is now basically just begging to be filled. Where did Luke go? What about Leia? And all their children?

If you have any interest in Star Wars and think you could enjoy a comic with new characters and new plots but the same good old concepts that drew you to the original movies in the first place, I suggest you check out Legacy. If not, well, I'm thoroughly impressed you managed to stay interested throughout the entire post!

If you can keep your head when all about you
are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
if you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
but make allowance for their doubting too;
if you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
and yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

if you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
if you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
if you can meet with triumph and disaster
and treat those two imposters just the same;
if you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
and stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

if you can make one heap of all your winnings
and risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
and lose, and start again at your beginnings
and never breath a word about your loss;
if you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
to serve your turn long after they are gone,
and so hold on when there is nothing in you
except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

if you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
if all men count with you, but none too much;
if you can fill the unforgiving minute
with sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
and - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

- Rudyard Kipling

How would you like a show where the Ice Truck Killer from Dexter was the protagonist, only instead of killing people he just wanted to control them?

If you're anything like me, you're currently drooling incontrollably, so you should find a towel to put over your keyboard for protection before you continue reading this review of Profit.

Revenge is pointless. It's a tool for the weak. And you're not weak. Not anymore.

- Jim Profit


Now this was a thoroughly pleasant surprise! And out of nowhere, too. Whilst surfing Wikipedia and IMDB for the further works of the writers of some of the best Angel-episodes, I decided to check out the resume of the show's co-creator David Greenwalt. Lo and behold, Angel was not the first show he co-created, as he in 1996 together with a John McNamara made the short-lived Fox-show Profit.

"Short-lived" all to often means "too good to appeal to a mainstream audience", so added to Greenwalt's name, my interest was already stirring. Then I see that the title character Jim Profit was played by Adrian Pasdar, who I knew fondly from his parts on Judging Amy and Heroes.

Some more checking, and it turns out the ever-eminent Keith Szarabajka (recently the growly copper in Dark Knight, fellow Whedon-fans will remember him as the morally ambigious Angel-villain Holtz) was another regular on the show.

Wikipedia described Profit as a forerunner of darker and more morally dubious TV-shows in general and protagonists in paticular, listing Nip/Tuck, Dexter and Mad Men as later successes in the same vain.

Alright, so I was sold. Now, I've never seen Nip/Tuck, largely because I suspect I'm much too tender for it, but I have seen the other two, and while the comparison to Mad Men in my opinion is way, way off, the comparison to Dexter, well, isn't. Profit, like the more recent Dexter, uses a psycopath and/or sociopath as its protagonist, making the viewer root for someone who at best is of dubious moral integrity and at worst is the personification of all that is evil. The difference is that where Dexter is obsessed with killing, Profit is obsessed with controlling. But beyond this main difference in premise and M.O., there are many similarities. They both narrate their respective shows, bringing the viewer into their world through them. Profit even addresses the camera directly in the beginning and end of every episode. Where Dexter had his cop dad teaching him to live out his needs and fit in with society, Profit has a drug-addict con-woman stepmother from whom he indubitably learned many a trick. (A stepmother who is also his long-time lover - the show is seriously depraved). The shows have a thoroughly different feel to them, though, and the supporting cast and the episode plots are vastly different between them, so if you've seen Dexter, there's not a big worry of Profit feeling as a rehash.

As mentioned, Profit is obsessed with controlling, making him a perfect fit for corporate America. Gaining a leg in the door on the top floor of what's basically the proto-Wolfram & Hart (the classic Big Scary Morally Bankrupt Supercompany for those who haven't seen Angel), Profit's mission in life is to control and protect this corporation who played an integral part of his childhood trauma.

In a mere nine episodes - only four of which originally aired - the mythology still has the time to build rather extensively, and you get to know many characters quite well. My favourite is probably Profit's hesitant accomplice Gail (Lisa Darr), a woman he originally blackmails into helping him, and then corrupts a little more with every episode. Her constant struggle between the benefits of helping Profit and the moral issues of performing the tasks he asks of her is all the more delightful in lieu of her gradual realisation that she's actually quite good at it - and that thus, she also partly enjoys it. But there are a myriad of interesting and fascinating characters to delve into on this show.

It's difficult, still being under the spell of fresh "ooh, this is so much fun!"-feelings but trying to write an objective review. The show isn't perfect, by any means. To bring the comparison with Dexter further, this show is ten years older, looks much less sleek, and is sometimes a little clunky. Especially its visuals of things done in computers are sometimes a little... overly corny. But, I mean, come on, it was made in 1996. Considering that, Profit was impressively ahead of the curve in more ways than one, and I for one have thoroughly enjoyed it. The ending, while not a proper nor probably even half-way intended one, still ended up tying together a lot of plot-threads, and for those interested in more, the creators have let on some plans of what would have happened in a second season that can be read on the show's Wikipedia-page.

I don't think I've ever discovered, seen, and reviewed an entire TV-show in two days before. But I did with this one. And while it is rather old, it is actually out on DVD-people, so go buy. Or catch it on Chiller, Wikipedia informs me they're currently airing the full series.