How Warehouse 13 Did Me Wrong

Time for today's tv rant. It's late I know, seeing as how WH13 has been off the air for a good 2 months now. For some reason this morning's shower mental meanderings took me back to it though. At the time of the finale all I could muster was an outraged tweet. I suppose I've pouted and ruminated enough now to use more than 140 characters.

There's nothing new under the sun in tv and movies. Whenever someone thinks they've done something new and inventive, it's really taking an existing framework and implementing it in perhaps a different way. WH13 was no different. Their framework was the oft-used male/female duo solving mysteries and fighting the good fight. If I thought about it hard enough I could probably come up with a few shows from every decade since tv came into existence that uses this. Off the top of my head: Hart to Hart, Scarecrow and Mrs. King, Father Dowling Mysteries, and Moonlighting for historical fare (is my age showing yet?); Bones and X-Files for something a little more current (probably reaching with X-Files, but my tv-watching dropped off with adulthood). Anyone remember Friday the 13th, the Series, which WH13 has been compared with on many occasions?

With a few exceptions (because yuck, Father Dowling Mysteries), this framework has been put to use to tell the story of partners working together and ultimately becoming "partners" in every sense of the word—even if it took several seasons (hi, X-Files!). Having attractive female and male co-stars whose characters don't eventually get it on? That's simply not done. It's become a given, something you can predict immediately. The crimes and mysteries may vary—and that's how the studios convince themselves that they're doing something "different"—but the romantic aspect is pretty much a done deal. This is why I was initially so impressed with WH13. In addition to being a funny show with a neat little plot (despite its resemblance to Ft13th), I didn't feel like the whole thing was just a mask for a romantic plotline. I enjoyed the sibling-like relationship between Pete and Myka. It was fun, it was funny. It worked.

And then the final episodes. They went and ruined everything by buying in to the played out romantic subplot between the two main characters. What made it extra ridiculous and frustrating was that it didn't even flow! Watching Pete and Myka kiss didn't feel like, "Aaahhh, finally; the romantic and sexual tension has been resolved." There was no sense of coming home, of closure, of meant-to-be. It felt like "Eeeewwwww" with a side of "What the fuck?!". It certainly didn't feel like this was something the show runners had intended to happen all along. If it was, then they either have zero skills in casting people or zero skills in creating romantic or flirtatious undertones.

Adding insult to injury is the fact that despite whatever their shortcomings in writing or casting they had—with little to no work on their end—an awesome alternative to doing the guy/girl partner/romance trope. Jaime Murray and Joanne Kelly had more chemistry in a handful of episodes than Kelly and Eddie McClintock had in 3 seasons.

You know what? Let's just lay the cards out on the table. If HG Wells had been realized as a male, and an actor had been cast that had the same chemistry with Kelly that Murray had...well, we would have seen another well-used plot device employed. How about the age old "good guy falls for the bad guy" story arc? Good guy tries to redeem the bad guy, maybe sees something in her that no one else does, sees potential for good? Or hell, maybe the bad guy is still a bad guy but the good guy really, really digs her? We probably wouldn't get a happily ever after, but we'd get some maintext, right? Yeah, except Jaime Murray is a woman, and they didn't expect the two of them to zing quite like they did. And rather than flesh that zing out, let it drive the creative process a little, give that chemistry a voice, the show runners decided to take the safe road. They used the chemistry to titillate, to draw in the fans, but never delivered, never committed, and in the end shored up the standard heteronormative story we've come to expect. And Jack Kenny is gay! I mean...that's not to say that every gay person has to put gay themes or characters in their creative work. But if the bug is biting and you swat it away? Feh on you. He had an interview with Collider.com where the question was asked: "How do you approach writing for this cast, to keep the great chemistry they have?" His response?

"We write them like family members. We write them like brothers and sisters, and daughters and sons. Everybody can relate to family.  Everybody has a mother or father, or a brother or sister that drives them crazy."

Sure, sure. Makes sense. Until you read this SciFi Vision interview that has him saying that Pete and Myka were endgame from the beginning. He describes a "dynamic between the two of them that there was a will-they-or-won't-they kind of tension". I'm beginning to think I was on the money with the theory that they don't actually know how to write romantic tension, because that there that he's describing? I've seen that dynamic done expertly on many tv shows, and this wasn't one of them. Actually, I'm starting to think that maybe he didn't watch his own show. He goes on to say that it was never going to be about Myka and HG setting up house together...but that was apparently good enough to have Pete and Myka do in the end? He even directly contradicts the actresses themselves: "If you seriously sat down with Jaime or Joanne they would say, 'Well no, they're not going to go set up house somewhere.'". Murray and Kelly have been pretty vocal in their support of and openness to a Berings and Wells "partnership". And somehow putting them together would have been "trivializing" their friendship, but not so with Pete and Myka. Ugh.

I kind of want to put together snippets from his own interviews and email them to him like "What the fuck, man? Do you even know what you're saying?"

I didn't expect a Myka/HG sunset. I was hoping that they'd get some respect, that we might get to see some maintext, that the show would be brave and different. A torrid romantic affair between the troubled villain and the quirky hero for a short while would have been pretty rad. Instead they play into the same tired themes that  Kenny himself acknowledges in that interview. As he said in regards to the Pete/Myka pairing: "...it's not like we're breaking any new ground here". And that is the biggest shame of all. When you hear a creative person admit, almost cynically, that they were just following the formula. How disappointing.

More Lesbian-ish TV That I Missed: Mistresses

I've mentioned before that I'm not on real time when it comes to watching tv. I usually don't find the time or energy to get into a show until it's long been available for streaming or something. I was just made fun of on Facebook for being on S1E3 of Game of Thrones. It's my thing though. I hate delayed gratification. I made the mistake of starting to watch Faking It in real time, and now I have to wait with this huge, ugly cliffhanger until MTV does season 2, however long that will be. 

In the meantime, I take to Youtube to find out if I've been missing anything, and I came across this show called Mistresses—in particular the storyline of Joss and Alex. Joss is a real estate agent who is hired to help Alex and her wife find a house. Now, if you've watched any television at all you can pretty much write the storyline out yourself. Whenever a show introduces a lesbian character, especially if they're not part of the cast, it generally means they're about to send one of their main female characters (notice I didn't say lead) on a temporary trip to Sappho Island. I say temporary because while there are an increasing number of shows willing to take one of their main characters and send them on that journey, it's usually for a short time. There are exceptions of course, but there are far more OCs (Alex/Marissa) and Mistresses than there are Buffys (Willow/Tara) or Rookie Blues (Gail/Holly). 

I'm gonna rip on Mistresses for its predictability, but I'll start off with a bit of praise and an admission. Admission: I know that this is based on the UK version of the same name (it's a trend to just copy someone else's show these days), and I've never seen that version. I don't know how much of what happens on this show is sticking strictly to the story as it existed originally and how much is being embellished upon, added, or subtracted. So it may be that what I'm about to say about this show is out of their control, although I don't think so. While they may not be able to keep Alex and Joss together in the interest of staying true to the source, I'm sure they way they do things is open to interpretation and artistic license.  

On to the praise. One of the things that I did like about this storyline was the way they introduced the lesbian character and how they handled her sexuality. There was no big reveal—we didn't see Joss and Alex hanging out and becoming friends and then suddenly find out, oh hey, Alex is a lesbian. Joss and Alex become friends and there's no weirdness. You don't see Joss have to affirm her heterosexuality to Alex or warn her that she's not into women (because we know every lesbian really wants to bang straight women). It's all so very...human. Two women meet, have things in common, get along, and hang out. They go jogging together, drinking together, they talk about their lives and their relationships. It was beautiful. 

Then we fall into the Well of Tropes. Alex is attracted to Joss. Alex and Joss sleep together. Alex has feelings for Joss. Joss really values Alex. They give a relationship a go. Joss actually isn't a lesbian. They break up. Here's where I start ripping into the show. 

I don't have a problem with them getting together and breaking up. I have a problem with the reason for the breakup. What did her brother-in-law say? "You're not a lesbian." And that was sort've the shows way of summing up why Joss cheated on Alex and slept with her boss. She's such a hetero that she was missing the peen like crazy and couldn't help herself. One minute they have her sitting with this same dude telling him how her friendship with Alex was "the single most important thing in my life right now", and the next they show her getting all hot and bothered by this dude's mere presence. He's so steamy and dreamy, right? Suddenly. 

Here's the thing. We've long ago established that Joss is her own woman and not into the whole relationship thing. It's an integral part of her character and likely the thing that's going to be her development as the show goes on. I can't tell you how many times I heard reference to her flighty, free-spirited, no-commitments ways in the few episodes that I watched. It's her thing. And that thing would have been enough to explain why she was not going to work with Alex in the long term. It would have been more true to the storyline, to her character, and more organic. No one expects the woman who has a series of casual engagements to actually have a long-term relationship. 

Instead, they hang it on a definition of her sexuality, and a narrow one at that. So she's not a lesbian. Maybe she's bisexual. Are you saying a bisexual woman can't have a long-term relationship with a woman who identifies as lesbian? The way they've defined Joss actually leans more towards the possibility that she could be involved/in love with anyone. She even mentions that she had a threesome once before. She doesn't come across as a woman who would let a little thing like a label get in her way. Hell, she seems like the kind of woman who would actually bristle at being labeled. Why choose a hard-line definition of sexuality as the way to dissolve a relationship instead of using her inherent character traits? It's perfectly fine if she misses dudes and needs to get her hetero on. Again, it doesn't have to be at the expense of making such a hardline statement. A bisexual woman can miss men too. A bisexual, comittment-phobic woman could, say, enter a relationship with a woman, and then decide she needs to sleep with dudes again and that unless they can have an open relationship, they have to break up. This is all in keeping with the character.

Also, the whole "not a lesbian" thing as a reason doesn't jive with the way they've portrayed the relationship between these two women. Joss doesn't seem to have a problem with the whole "female" part of the relationship. One of my favorite scenes is this one:

Did that look like a woman for whom her partner's sex was a problem?

I wasn't surprised by what they did, but I was disappointed. It was just so easy and dismissive, and they started off so well. One day I'll be able to watch a show and see a girl-on-girl storyline developing and instead of feeling cautiously pessimistic I can be cautiously optimistic. Come on Rookie Blue Season 5!

Those Were the Days: 20 Years Later

Apparently I graduated from high school on this day 20 years ago. I would never have known this if it weren't for Facebook. FB is a really interesting social experiment still for me. My "friends" are an interesting mixture of people I actually see in real life on the regular, people that I still like but never see for various reasons (geography, time), people I'm meh about but keep in touch with for nostalgia (ex-coworkers), and —and this is the joint of this post —high school peeps.

The high school peeps...it's a weird situation, no way around it. I was friends with some of them and really enjoy catching up and seeing what they're up to these days. Then there are The Others. The Bullies. The Clique. The Popular Ones. The kids who laughed at me, made fun of my clothes, told me I smelled, teased me about being on welfare, and generally made my life kinda suck at times. The ones who even, at times, reduced me to tears. The ones who scared me. They send friend requests on FB, just throwing their net out like they literally picked up a yearbook and went through the list of names, looking everyone up and hitting the Request button over and and over again. What other reason could their be for them reaching out? They certainly didn't message me and apologize or try to make any kind of personal connection. I was just another name on their friend list. I don't understand their motivation, because it never even crossed my mind to look those people up. I had forgotten about them, and was glad for it.

Here's the really confusing part though. I don't know their motivation, and no one would expect me to, but I can be expected to know my own and for the life of me I cannot explain why I accepted their friend requests. Why I let myself get dragged into this strange world of retrofitting the past. To be fair, I don't think the worst of the offenders tried to reconnect. The guy who pulled his pants down and rubbed his ass on my shoulder? I've seen him comment on posts of mutual acquaintances but I haven't gotten a request from him. It may help that my first name is not the same. The requests that I have gotten from the worst of the worse? I've ignored. But there are a few that I let through. The girl who teased me in the bathroom in 4th grade for using "big words" and accused me of talking "white"? Yeah, she's my "friend". Some of the guys who, while not seeking me out for humiliation certainly had more than a few laughs at my expense (the girls are always the worse to each other), they're my "friends". So I've practiced some restraint, some selectivity. But I'm confused as to why I let even the milder offenders through?

It's through these connections that my feed is flooded with a bunch of nostalgia posts for what is the 20th anniversary of us graduating from high school and getting the fuck away from each other. Or maybe the last part only applies to me. Everyone is posting and tagging everyone else, people are commenting and waxing poetic and saying lovely things like "CSA Family Love!" and "Omg I miss you guyyysssss!!! (insert hearts here)", etc. Are they serious?

Do I sound jaded, and perhaps a tad bitter? Then why the hell am I "friends" with these people? I really don't know. I've de-friended people over less. One of them was a high school "friend" who was constantly posting uber-righty loony anti-government conspiracy theory gun talk. It was just talk, wasn't directed at me, but I was so very tired of seeing that shit on my timeline. And he was actually a nice guy in high school, a fringe element like me and the people I hung with. The high school contingent I'm still connected to on FB were definitely worse to me back then. But now they're all smiles and reminiscing. I have half a mind to comment on one of their posts and say something like, "Wow, 20 years! Can't believe it's been that long since I had someone tell me my hair looks like shit! Love you guyyyyysssss!"

Unrelated, but I really hate the new versions of the Kars for Kids commercials. Keep it Klassic.

Solange Knowles Finally Gets A Hit...Is That Funny?

I wrote this post title and flinched a little, because it make me guilty of the same thing I'm about to talk about. As of yesterday I've seen headline after headline about the alleged physical altercation in the elevator at the Met, wherein Solange Knowles looks like she's kicking the shit out of Jay-Z while Beyonce stands idly by. Most of the stories address the story with humor. There are already a ton of memes out there. Perhaps you've seen this

Beyonce was in the elevator like... pic.twitter.com/1eLVNhhury
— Chubby Theo Huxtable (@SouthShotYa) May 12, 2014

or this

They are legion, and most at his expense. Here's the thing: the internet is full of trolls and folks who will find humor in some pretty unsavory things. People are finding it hilarious that this woman (a little woman it seems) wailed on this big hip-hop star. The big question on everyone's mind is: What did he do/say? Even major news outlets are asking this.

Come one now. Let's play the ol' "Situation Reversed" game. Let's say those elevator doors closed and Jay went HAM on Solange. Yeah, you'd still have your idiots out there laughing and talking about "What did she do to him?", as if there's something she (or he) could have done to warrant that kind of behavior, but you'd have a very loud majority screaming for his head. "Put him in jail!" "You don't put your hands on a woman!" Anyone asking what she did to provoke him would have been the victim of an online tongue-lashing. Your friends on Facebook would never share a meme that joked about the incident.

But it's a dude. It's Jay-Z. So, you know, it's okay. Instead we can talk about her behavior in tones that border on impressed ("Man, did you see how she went hard on him?") and talk about his misfortune in a manner that's almost gleeful. Instead of shaking our head in wonder and being proud of his ability to stand there and not physically retaliate (because many of us wonder if we could have done that), we're mocking him and calling into question his manhood. Really? What a double standard we have. I mean, I know that we know about the double standard, that this isn't the first or last thing to ever happen that will be subject to it, but it's just so blatant. I was reading this "article" on The Daily Beast about the incident. It I quote:

(There is nothing more insufferable, in this writer’s opinion, than the vaunting of Jay Z as some sort of celebrity god. How quickly we forget that Jay Z stabbed someone! In 1999 he pleaded guilty to stabbing a record producer outside a Manhattan nightclub. He pleaded guilty to literally driving a knife into a human. Ugh, and then there was that pompous “I’m retired…just kidding! I’m not retired.” nonsense. Slap away, Solange!)

Are you kidding me? Do we really think this author would have been bold enough to make this kind of statement not only condoning but calling for violence if this had been a man attacking a woman? If it had been, say, some dude smacking Miley Cyrus (who is arguably just as polarizing)? I get that Jay-Z isn't a saint, but dude!

And for the record, when I see the photo of the the three of them leaving afterwards, I don't get "Stepford Wives" from Beyonce's expression as many have said. I get a woman seething inside and tired of her sister's antics but trying to hold it together and not act a fool in front of a crowd that would love nothing better than to start slinging dirt. I'm not a Beyonce fan in particular, not a Jay-Z fan in particular, but Solange has problems. Clearly.

Good luck to Bey and her family as they try and work through whatever this nonsense is. 

Why I Ditched the Nexus 5

I wanted the Nexus 5. I wanted it so badly. I had finally paid off my Samsung S3 and decided to go for it. Over the years I've learned a little something about being a consumer though so I did my due diligence before dropping $350 plus shipping and some accessories on Google Play. There were a few things that gave me pause about the device.

• 16GB internal storage with no microSD slot. (I know I could buy the 32GB version, but still)
• Non-replaceable battery
• Reportedly inferior camera/video, especially the front-facing camera (although I typically don't even use the front-facing camera, so...)
• Reports of low volume on playback

Despite these concerns I was really drawn by the prospect of having a vanilla Android install to do with as I please, so I went for it. I ordered it and waited for its arrival eagerly. Of course, a day after ordering it I checked on its status and realized I had mistakenly ordered the white version instead of the black one. Whoops. No worries; a case would cover that up anyway. 

I got the device and it was as glorious as I'd anticipated. It felt light and thin in my hands, despite being taller than my S3. Startup was a cinch. My apps downloaded from the Play store, I used a 3rd party app to pull over some other apps and files from old phone, and enjoyed exploring the new version of Android. I really dug the ability to say "Okay Google" and have it ready to do my bidding. "Okay, Google, make me dinner!" That didn't work obviously, but it was still a lot of fun to play with. I never use Siri on my iPad but I could see myself using this feature a lot. 

I was about 3 days in to my exploration when the bottom dropped out. Lying in bed, I decided to set up Spotify and give it a listen. I played a song that's been on repeat for me for a few days now, "Sweet Nothing" by Calvin Harris feat. Florence Welch.  It was, without question, awful. The high end was incredibly present, the sound overall tinny and weak. I played with the equalizer in Spotify and set it to exactly the same as my S3 and was blown away by the difference in sound quality. That alone was a deal breaker for me. I'm sure I could have looked around online for some software to tweak the sound, but that was more trouble than I wanted to go through for something that I think should have been better out of the box. I even had Wifey listen to it—she's not known for having a particularly discriminating ear—and even she was shocked by how bad it was. I made the decision then and there to box it up and go get an S5. 

Overall I'm happy enough with the S5, but setting it up made me miss the simplicity of the Nexus 5. The most stand-out differences:

• The S5 is huge in comparison. Hell, it's huge compared to the S3. I actually struggle a little to get my thumb across the width of it.
• The EULAs. So many legal agreements about the software. I felt like I was selling my soul off with the agreements to not alter my phone, and to let Samsung or T-Mobile collect data for "performance purposes". Sure. 
• So much included software that I neither want nor care about, and no way to uninstall it. At best I can disable the stuff. That's better than before I suppose, but I can't remove/disable all of it, so there're still background processes running that I don't need or want. That's as frustrating as it ever was. 

If Google could throw a better audio processor in there, I'd have been happy as shit. As it is, I use my phone for listening to music a lot, so there was no compromising on this front. 

Elfquest Revisited

I was a huge Elfquest fan when I was a tween. I remember going to the library and eagerly looking for the latest issue of the comic. My best friend Jim was a big comic buff and he took me to my first bona fide comic book store where I discovered the concept of "graphic novels" and saw Elfquest Book One. It was an amazing collection of every comic released to date, including those that I had missed. Love, love, love. (I actually shoplifted it from the store and never went back because the dude knew I'd done it).

Wifey and her bro were also Elfquest fans but because they were middle class suburban kids they actually owned every graphic novel in the series. Inevitably every time I visit their home I start reading through their collection, traveling back to my youth. I used to run around the yard with my thumb tucked in, pretending like I was a four-fingered elf and using a stick as a sword, so this was a big deal to me. It's funny how reading these now I have a slightly different reaction to them. I mean, I still love the artwork and the story is still compelling, but I kind've think the Wolfriders are...well...sort've assholes sometimes. 

The Wolfriders flee the burning forest and barge their way into the trolls' caves. The trolls don't want them there; the Wolfriders are comin' anyway. The trolls have to trick them to get them to leave, otherwise they're just barging in and taking what they want. So okay, they don't get along with the trolls, they're running from their lives and have nowhere to go. It'd be nice if the trolls offered to help, but can you really blame them for not wanting to harbor their enemy?

Next the personable Wolfriders raid "Sorrow's End" (the home of the Sun Folk). Cutter actually abducts a woman. It's because of recognition (some sort of undeniable soul connection) but I don't think that really excuses kidnapping, do you? At any rate they essentially ride into the village, plunder and pillage and snatch a woman, and proceed to make themselves at home. The Sun Folk kind've roll over and let them because they're pacifist essentially (except Rayek). Cutter stalks Leetah and eventually wears her down and gets her to sex him up and give in to her feelings. Not creepy at all.

I still love the series, I'd be down for an Elfquest movie, and I'm still gonna devour this treasure trove of online copies of the original series I found (http://www.elfquest.com/gallery/OnlineComics3.html), but it will be interesting to see how my reactions to the storyline have changed. 

Food for Thought

I'm very particular about food. Not in the way of, say, sending a steak back to the kitchen if it's a smidge over medium or something. There are just some things I will only eat a certain way. I will only eat a burger if it's a cheeseburger. I don't like omelettes with too much egg in them. As a rule I don't like egg yolk, but I do like deviled eggs. I only like pasta with pesto, not red sauce. If I have a taco or burrito, it has to have just the right fillings. And this is where the story begins.

Tonight I ordered a burrito from this Mexican place called Jose's. I've ordered delivery from there via GrubHub a few times now with great success. I took a chance on what they call a Super Burrito because by default it comes packed with all the stuff I need in a burrito: guacamole, cheese, sour cream, salsa, in addition to the usual rice and beans and meat. It sounded grand, and at $16 it was certainly a risk, but it turned out to be a huge win. Loved that thing. I ate the shit out of it. It's now my go-to thing when I'm craving Mexican and can't go somewhere.

I get my super burrito tonight, and it was decidedly not super. I took my first bite and got all meat and beans and rice. I thought, Alright, no big. Sometimes the good stuff is a little further down. I kept trying to convince myself with every bite that I was about to get some guacamole, that it just slipped down or something. Not the case. I finally gave up and realized that nope, there was no secret stash of condiment goodness in my burrito. It had simply been prepared poorly. And by poorly, I mean they'd just plain forgotten to put everything on it.

This is where my food particularity comes into play. There are people (like my wife) who could shrug and say, "Well, it's still tasty and I paid for it" and keep eating. Others would have called and bitched someone out to get a replacement. I stopped eating it. I just can't make myself eat something that is less than I want, especially if I've had it before so I have an expectation about what I should be getting. It also made me more than a little annoyed. This wasn't like some special order, where I'd added things to a basic menu item. This happens to me sometimes when I order, say, eggs, and ask them to add cheese. Sometimes the cheese just doesn't make it onto the eggs, and I kind've get that. This however was a regular menu item. It always comes with these things, so for it not to have a single one of these things on it means that someone was just not paying attention. To add insult to injury, they also neglected to include the tortillas that were supposed to come with my queso fundido—again, another standard menu item.

The bright side is that GrubHub is pretty awesome. I went back to my order and filled out a comment about it, and maybe 20-30 minutes later got a text from them asking if I wanted them to try and get a refund or give me a credit. I opted for the credit because I figured it'd be much harder for them to get a refund. Mind you, they credited $15 to my account for an order that was $36 all told, but it was something. More than I would have gotten had I called Jose's directly. This may be the end of my love affair with Jose's Super Burrito though.