This Week's Doctor Who

No spoilers in the comments. NONE. I have Yank friends with delayed access. Spoilers lifted when I've heard from all parties necessary.

But mission goddam accomplished. I was twelve again. Somehow that ending managed to stack multiple geekgasms on top of itself. From the start of a very weak season, we've come to the last few episodes being unending hammer blows of sci-fi coolness.

And yes, BLINK was brilliant. Choose either "quantum locked" -- which had Mark Waid calling me at 1 a.m. to scream like a schoolgirl -- or the directorial chops required to shoot a chase sequence starring inanimate objects for teh win.

That, by the way, is the measure of my bizarre cultural framework. Sunday night I watched Dr. Who, the season finale of Trailer Park Boys, and The Sopranos series finale (see Bob Harris for the analysis), and would put The Sopranos solidly in third place in that lineup of satisfaction.

I Wish Friends Had Ended with a Car Crash

Ken Levine reminded me in an e-mail, as I muttered darkly, how The Sopranos ending could have gone. Reposted in its entirety from his blog:

The finale would be at least two hours.

There would be a one hour clip show hosted by Bob Costas preceding it.

There would be live coverage of the cast party on the network’s local 11:00 news. It would be the lead story even if Hurricane Katrina hit that day.

There would be a little animated promo swooshing across the bottom of the screen after every commercial break of every other prime time show on that network for two weeks. A little gun would shoot a little mobster. The blood would spell out SOPRANOS.

Also, on the bottom of the screen there would be a little countdown clock for a month leading up to the finale.

The cast would be on that network’s late night talk show. If the network didn’t have a late night talk show they would create one just for this purpose.

An online contest would offer prizes if you guessed who would be whacked and when. That way you could watch the final episode and play along at home.

They would spin off Janice. Coming in September: WIDOW WITH CHILDREN.

They would insist that Tony’s mother return despite the fact that the actress who played her has died.

They would NEVER EVER EVER allow an ambiguous ending.

They would want the following changes in the last scene. Meadow should drive a Ford because that’s who is sponsoring. She should have no trouble parallel parking because Fords are easy to parallel park. The restaurant must be TGI Fridays – also a sponsor and much more colorful. The threat should come from a singing waiter wearing a straw hat, suspenders, and hundreds of fun buttons. A secondary threat should be an Arab terrorist with a scar. The Arab should pull his gun. The waiter should point his banjo (which is also a semi-automatic rifle). It looks like Tony, Carmela, and A.J. are done for it. Final commercial break. We come back just as Meadow bursts in the door with an Uzi and blows the bad guys away. Meadow, it seems, has just come from dance class and is wearing nothing but a hot leotards. Tony says, “That’s what I get for going to Fridays on Tuesday.” The family shares a laugh. Meadow sits down. Everyone hugs and declares their love for each other. Carmelo calls out, “Can we get ANOTHER waiter?” They laugh. One more hug. Long fade out, as music swells – Dino’s “Ain’t That a Kick in the Head”. Fade out. Your local news is next.

So if you’re still pissed at David Chase for the way he really ended the series just think of the alternative.

I am, however, in the minority for finding John from Cincinnati interesting. Is Milch about to do Carnivale? Damn.

Bridal Scams

via Ezra again (am I still unpacking boxes and simultaneously trying to hire a DP? Yes, yes I am ...) Meghan O'Roarke runs through a brief history of the vile "engagement ring" tradition, including some rather surprising connections to historical legal issues rather than straight-up de Beers bashing.

A related book I've picked at but haven't completely plowed through yet is One Perfect Day: The Selling of the American Wedding. Luckily my wife and I a.) got hitched well before this industrialized madness became mainstream and b.) weren't the type for that sort of insanity anyway. As vaguely horrifying as I find spending this sort of money on an engagement ring and one day ceremony --

-- sidebar. Take it from old married guy. It is one day. You will be so emotionally overwrought that the wedding/reception preparations will barely register, and it will be 90% forgotten within a month. Unless, of course, you're one of those couples that keeps their wedding photo album and video out on the coffee table for way, way too long. I knew several of those couples. They are all divorced now. All. Of. Them.

Oh, and you will fall asleep as soon as you get to the hotel. Adrenaline crash. I've never heard the exception.

-- where was I? Oh yes, I'm kind of tickled at the growth of the wedding industry because it renews my faith in capitalism. If you can monetize weddings, you can monetize solar energy and burst television.

In comments, feel free to proclaim the benefits of your engagement ring-less proposals, tiny wedding and reception, or the emotional satisfaction of locking down your intended with a carpal-tunnel inducing rock and then sealing the deal with a nuptial-day full-scale recreation of the D-Day landings, with the families being arranged in seating matching Juno, Gold, Sword.

Women in Western Art

Making the rounds, but worth the push. via Ezra's Joint. Lord Whimsy notes:

If you're interested, here is the approximate progression: Leonardo Da Vinci, Raphael - Raffaello, Titian - Tiziano Vecellio , Sandro Botticelli , Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio, Albrecht Dürer, Lucas Cranach the Elder, Antonello da Messina, Pietro Perugino, Hans Memling, El Greco, Hans Holbein, Fyodor Stepanovich Rokotov , Peter Paul Rubens, Gobert, Caspar Netscher, Pierre Mignard, Jean-Marc Nattier, Élisabeth-Louise Vigée-Le Brun, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Franz Xaver Winterhalter, Alexei Vasilievich Tyranov, Vladimir Lukich Borovikovsky, Alexey Gavrilovich Venetsianov, Antoine-Jean Gros, Orest Adamovich Kiprensky, Amalie, Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot, Édouard Manet, Flatour, Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, Wontner, William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Comerre, Leighton, Blaas, Renoir, Millias, Duveneck, Cassat, Weir, Zorn, Alphonse Mucha, Paul Gaugin, Henri Matisse, Picabia, Gustav Klimt, Hawkins, Magritte, Salvador Dali, Malevich, Merrild, Modigliani, Pablo Picasso.

Domo Arigato

Blog was locked down by Google for a week, because apparently they thought this was a spam blog.

I've been called a lot of things before, but never a robot. Back at it shortly.