Once Upon a Time, "Heroes and Villains": 101 Dalmatians is Not a Fairy Tale

I know, I know, neither is Frankenstein.  But it's still a bit out of left field.  Here's where you say, "Did you not see the previews?  You knew Cruella was coming."  And you know what?  I did see the previews.  I guess I thought that there was going to be some kind of explanation as to what realm she came from, instead of her just popping in next to Maleficent and Ursula.  Two powerful magical creatures and...a rich lady who likes making coats out of dogs.  Someone is clearly not pulling their weight in the evil trio.

This is the result of Disney execs frantically searching their rogues' gallery for three recognizable femmes fatales, instead of going for magical and recognizable regardless of gender (Facilier, much?) or going for magical and female, regardless of pop culture cred, in which case they could have gone with...

The magnificent, marvelous, mad Madam Mim!

Who is that, you ask?  Well, young'uns, Madam Mim is an evil witch from 1963's The Sword in the Stone.  I'm too young to have caught it's actual theatrical release, but I am just ancient enough to have watched it when Disney released it as a VHS tape in a puffy case (80's babies know what I'm talking about.  They all came in puffy cases 'cause every Disney movie was a precious classic).  She has a really cool magic battle with Merlin--

Cut that out, imaginary youthful reader!  Anyway, where was I?  Magic?  Check.  Disney character?  Check.  Female?  Check.  Evil?  Check.  Instantly recognizable to the 18-35 demographic?  Oops.  Ah, well.  Can't blame them, really.  It's just that skinning dogs for outerwear is a really limited skill set, especially in the Enchanted Forest where I suspect there isn't much call for that sort of thing.

Unless, of course,  they just make Cruella magical.

Oh. 

Oh dear.

That's what they're going to do, isn't it?

Haven "Chosen" Episode Review

That awkward moment when you discover that your girlfriend is a thousand-year-old alien and the mom of one of your work friends.  Poor Dwight.  Well, they'll always have the hospital storage room.

Totally called it on the whole "Charlotte fixing Mara's whoopsies" thing, although they kinda telegraphed it with her CDC cover.  I'll give myself one pat on the back for my insight.  And in case you weren't satisfied with just one plot point lifted from Star Trek, Mara and Audrey had to be smooshed back together like Kirk in "The Enemy Within."  Is this a setup for the introduction of William Shatner into the series?

Gotta love the technicality of the "if Mara dies" clause.  Reminds me of the "certain point of view" caveat from Star Wars.  We've got our fully reconstituted Audrey back, but the Duke-bomb went off anyway and released a whole other season's worth of troubles into the world.  And if the ones he leaked out before he erupted are any indication (EXPLODY TOUCH), lots of fun post-break mayhem will ensue--maybe even enough to finally get on all the social media that exists in the twenty-first century.  I mean seriously, what is up with Haven's teenagers?  I'm guessing no one's gonna update their Facebook status to "glad to be out of that boat we were magically trapped in."  The Guard may be good at damage control, but they can't do an end-run on every kid's iPhone.  For every large-scale trouble Audrey and the Audreyettes have solved, there should be someone in the background yelling out "WORLDSTAR!  WORLDSTAR!"  Anyway...

Vince and Dave's excellent adventure leads them to a rock carved with the word "Croatoan" recently carved into it.  As we all know, Haven takes place in the Kingiverse and we've already seen references to King's other works, but they've usually been subtle.  An appearance by Linoge from Storm of the Century would be a much bigger deal, and probably not up the show's alley.  Plus, they'd have some serious retconning to do; the backstory of Haven's Roanoke mystery is a departure from the weird-demon-guy-comes-and-takes-kid-or-destroys-whole-town-if-they-refuse plot of the other story.  So what is Dave? And what is the thingamajig that he picked up from the cave?  Perhaps it is a creature from the Void itself, one of the many reasons why the Otherworlders don't hold truck with gallivanting back and forth.  I eagerly await the answers to some of these questions--but not all of them, as mystery is part of what makes Haven tick.

RANDOM THOUGHTS:

How cool was Mara's tipsy rant in the car?  She was a very bad lady, but she will be missed.

I would like to see a Veronica flashback, please.

On Bewitched, a witch couldn't undo a spell made by another witch.  I sense a similar thing in effect here, as a being powerful enough to slam two people into one seems flummoxed by the Troubles.  However, Mara is portrayed as kind of an innovator in aether science, and a people that eschews trans-world travel might have a bit of trouble wrapping their heads around Mara's accomplishments.


Havest thou a theory regarding any of these fine topics?  Leave a comment in my web zone if you want a pizza roll--wait, that's that other guy...



  

Grimm "The Grimm Who Stole Christmas" Episode Review

Huzzah!  The Christmas episode is upon us!  And nothing says "Happy Holidays" like juvenile delinquency.  I couldn't help getting nostalgic feelings for all of the  "tiny things coming to get you" movies of the 80's and 90's--Gremlins, Critters, Ghoulies, Puppet Master, etc.  Not a particularly interesting plot, but the execution was fun enough to watch.  I always like the little bits of "Wesen science" world-building stuffs they slip in from time to time--in this case, the rarity of Kallikantzaroi Syndrome being compared to Tay-Sachs and, as the Indole Gentile dad turns toward Hank, "like sickle-cell anemia in African-Americans."  And Hank's all, "Oh, now I get it."  

By the way, how does one have the "You may or may not turn into a Christmas Goblin" talk with their child?  Also, how do you have the "I may or may not have bashed your child's face in with a frying pan" talk with that child's parents?  I would've liked to have seen at least a little throwaway line from Juliette or Rosalee along the lines of "whoops," or something.  If you still have the episode on your DVR, play back all the scenes and witness the horrific child abuse taking place.  Kudos to David Giuntoli for his completely straight delivery of the line, "Got any fruitcake?" as he walks up to a fruitcake truck.  Yet another excellent piece of world-building from the creative team: a strange alternate reality where fruitcake is in such demand that someone could have a successful fruitcake truck business.  Can't wait for the Candy Corn Emporium to appear in the next Halloween episode.  

Speaking of that, the caper is finally solved with what could be the most ill-conceived plan of all time.  You could either: A) inform all the Indole Gentile parents that their kids might be publicly morphing into evil Hobbits so that they could all be privately contained and fed fruitcake in some secret room somewhere, or B) create a public spectacle and lead the kids out the FRONT OF THE CHURCH with cake crumbs that lead to a spectacularly conspicuous fruitcake truck.  

In another thread, we have the adventures of Trubel and Josh the Boy Wonder.  From this pairing we get wonderful buddy chemistry between Jacqueline Toboni and Lucas Near-Verbrugghe (I giggled at Trubel maternally moving Josh's hand away from the dangerous weapons), two weenie jokes and some more information about the Wesen Skinheads.  Apparently, some loose-lipped bonehead, possibly in full knowledge of the existence of these racist groups, posted Blutbad/Fuchsbau wedding pics on his Facebook page and figured whoever didn't like it would just get over it.

Blabbermouth: Hey, you're not gonna throw a brick through their window 'cause I told you that, are you?

Blabbermouth's Racist Friend: No, of course not, that would be silly.  Where would I even find a brick at this time of day?

Blabbermouth: I dunno...the hardware store?

Blabbermouth's Racist Friend: [getting out a pen and paper] Which hardware store?

After their little investigation, Josh decides to go back home, and Trubel decides to go with him.  We'll either be checking in on them sporadically a la Adalind in Austria, or we'll check on them way later, like Nick's mom and Adalind's baby.  It'd be cool to see a couple of Trubel-centric Philly episodes in the future.  Grimm East, anyone?  

So, Juliette is preggers--which would normally be good news, except she might have been Adalind at the time of conception.  Which begs the question, as put forth by Melissa McCarthy in The Heat: What's gonna come poppin' out?  Another Hexenbaby?  Maybe it'll be part Grimm, part Hexenbiest--a super-cool thing whose full coolness would have to be realized in flash-forward: a cloaked figure, roaming the streets of future Portland, telekinetically dispatching evil Wesen.  Then again, Adalind's baby is doing some pretty cool things in baby form, so maybe not.  Either way, the royals will probably be interested in that too, and we can weave another thread into our giant ball of plot yarn. 

Monroe and Rosalee are finally going on their honeymoon.  Will the Secundum Ordinem E Pluribus Unum follow them to Tahiti or wherever?  What of the ominous portent of the fallen model train?  Time will tell.  For now, according to the preview, we can look forward to a visit from El Chupacabra and Wu possibly being brought into the fold.  Methinks he might not be as receptive as Hank--especially when Wu realizes that Nick and Hank allowed him to be institutionalized to protect their secret.  

RANDOM THOUGHTS:

"Kallikantzaroi" is one of the most fun Wesen words since "Unbezahlbar."

I feel like I haven't seen Rosalee's adorable woge in quite some time.  

Hey, remember that Juliette is a veterinarian?  We were pleasantly reminded of this as she drugged and caged a child.

In a post-9/11 world, who takes a giant, anonymously delivered box into their home and puts it under the Christmas tree?

When the Indole Gentile mom woged, I was like, "Beat THEM peepers, Juliette!"

Haven "Chemistry" Episode Review

***YARR, MATEYS!  THERE BE SPOILERS AHEAD!  SLAW SOME CHUTNEY OFF THE PORT BOW AND oh, who am I kidding, I don't know pirate lingo just read ahead***

So, um, yep.  Turns out Mara's evil.  Last Friday's episode "revealed" that with her startling bathtub confession: "Hey Duke, remember how I was introduced as a manipulative, evil sea hag who only sees human beings as guinea pigs?  Well guess what, baby?  I AM STILL THAT."

Cue the audience slow-clapping as Duke clutches his chest in horror at his completely expected betrayal.  A bit disappointing for me, mostly because it totally derails my "Duke and Mara hunt for aether" story arc that could have fleshed Mara out as a complex character with conflicting emotions.  Don't get me wrong; it's SUPER fun to watch Emily Rose use her Bambi eyes for evil, but I see a ton of potential for this character, given that she's the source of all Haven's woes.  Someone who has invested centuries of life into creating the Troubles should have a bit more to her than "Wouldn't it be cool if lasers came out this chick?  AH NEEDS MAH GOO BALLS!"  I think the creative team is banking on the layer-by-layer reveal of Mara's Actual Plan making up for her one-dimensional villainy.  That, and the intriguing details of Haven's history and what Mara, William and Dave are. [Author takes a few moments to reminisce on his "Audrey is an angel" theory from seasons past.] 

The expected betrayal, expected though it may be, does not come without earth-shattering plot relevance.  Apparently, gaining Duke's trust, sleeping with him, staging her own kidnapping--including going the full LeBeouf and cutting off her own toe for realism--getting Duke to kill Kirk, absorb Kirk's trouble and then give it to someone else before finding out over the phone (how rude) that his new girlfriend was just using him is the exact recipe to turn Duke's Chernobyl-esque Barrel o' Troubles into an aether vending machine.  Duke cries aether now, which is another thing he can stick on his OkCupid profile and add to his fixer-upper charm.  

Last but not least, we get a very cool and extremely not-obvious reveal in this episode: Charlotte is Mara's mommy!  In the words of Hermes Conrad, "Dot just raises further questions!"  Where has she been all this time?  Is she an Evil Experimenter like her daughter?  Where has she been all this time?  Can she use Duke's aether secretions to end the Troubles?  Where has she been all this time?  I feel like I'm repeating myself here.  I'm guessing she's either been scouring the globe in search of Mara or she has just recently entered this world through a thinny.  Part of me wants to see a Star Trek-style ending where Charlotte grabs Mara by the ear and drags her back to the Other Side.  "Now you clean up these Troubles right now, young lady!"  While it might not play out like that, it seems like Charlotte's character might go in that direction--an Othersider who has the knowledge and ability to undo Mara and William's mess and possibly put Mara in the Phantom Zone for breaking the No Meddling with Humans Rule or something like that.  Aether way (sorry), watching how this new development plays out should be interesting.  It should also make for some hilariously awkward dinner table discussions between Charlotte, Dwight, Nathan and Audrey.

Being Human and Lost Girl Review

I know it's a couple of days late, but I invoke the "It's good until the next episode airs" rule.

How do I begin to break down Monday's Being Human? I think we all learned that even eight hundred years on the Earth isn't long enough for some people to learn that "Hey, we banged the same guy" is not appropriate double-date conversation. I thought werewolves could sense each other, like immortals in Highlander. Vampires can sniff them out but they can't smell each other? Or maybe those are just the British rules. Didn't the purebreds say they could tell that Josh was a wolf? Just...just check the perimeter before you make out, is all I'm saying. It's like the Whedonverse: kissing always hurts someone.

I don't like Mother. She's a big meanie, even among people who drink human blood. However, I agree with her trying to separate Aidan and Suren--albeit for a different reason than she probably had. We all know Suren is bad news bears for Aidan, but it'll be fun to watch this train wreck of a relationship progress through the next episodes.

So, if you kill your maker, you aren't a werewolf anymore. Writers kickin' it old school, I see. Of course, we know that they just can't leave it with Josh refusing to kill Ray and Nora doing likewise. How this new wrinkle will manifest itself later remains to be seen. I see lots of plot loophole potential for that. Maybe Brynn will turn someone and they can reverse it by killing her. Side note: is anyone else a bit anxious as to what Nora meant when she said she got "full" of violence hanging with Brynn?

And now for Saturday's Being Human. Yeah, that's right: I work both sides of the pond and I'm not ashamed of it! My only note on that would be...um...yeah. Succubi. We now have succubi in the mix (and if you paid attention to how a succubus comes into the world, we also have demons). An interesting addition, and I'm not exactly against it, but the three-thing formula gave it a nice, tight little structure, and you could explore the crap out of the inner workings of those three things. As much as I like "everything exists" shows like True Blood, I don't think I want Being Human to become one. Perhaps they toy with the form every once in a while, like in the zombie episode. It was like, "Yep, if the conditions are right, you can be a zombie. How about that?" and they never spoke of it again. Maybe it's a not-so-running gag that occasionally a fourth kind of thing will blow through and then be on it's merry way at the end of the episode. However, there is something tantalizing about the prospect of Hal the Old One knowing a lot more about the supernatural world than Annie or Tom, and using him to reveal new things to his roommates and us.

And speaking of succubi, on to Lost Girl (once-in-a-lifetime segue opportunity).

I started watching this show way after I started recording it, so I had a nice little DVR Lost Girl marathon and now it's on my permanent lineup. Anyway, I think I'll just hit the story arc points that stood out the most in Monday's episode:

Trick and the Ash going at it...yipe! So far (on the US side of things, as we are very late to this party), neither the Ash nor Trick has shown his particular Fae power, and I thought their little confrontation would involve some magical posturing. I suppose in the Fae world, age begets restraint, as the Morrigan also refrained from throwing her magical weight around (I don't know if her Fae power involves wearing the crap out of a red dress, but GOOD GRAVY!). When you're a big mucky-muck you can have grunts do all the zapping and hypnotizing and what-have-you.

Bo: Hey, can I use that awesome weapon that I used on Vex last time?
Trick: Oh, that one. Yeah, the writers don't want to seem repetitive--er, I mean, it got confiscated.
Real cute, guys. I know, it's Story 101: Superman can only throw the "S" on his suit once, then he has to come up with something else to do. It's just really hard to hide the obviousness of that move.

Lauren and Bo being super awkward with each other, and of course Bo can't trust Lauren anymore, but just wait until she finds out what Dyson knows about her past! Crap will hit the fan--of course, since this is Dyson we're talking about, it'll be one of those bladeless fans and the crap will fly right through it. I'm guessing once she finds out about Trick and Dyson keeping things from her, she'll be seduced by the Dark Side and hang out with the Morrigan and her crew for a bit. Just a guess; the Canadian fans getting to the end of season two can correct me if I'm wrong. Bo is very much a good guy, and even though she hasn't picked a side, she seems (at the moment) very Light-leaning. It would be interesting to play up the "lost girl" angle and have her hobnob with the Dark more.

Kenzi is super cute. Not really a plot point; just thought it bore mentioning.

Stay tuned for Thursday (maybe) and Friday (definitely) reviews.

Curiosity: Did God Create the Universe? Stephen Hawking has the definitive answer

Yeah, this is a little old, but I still wanted to weigh in on the "controversy."

Did you notice the quotation marks around the word "controversy?"

On August 7, 2011, Discovery aired the inaugural episode of it's show Curiosity, asking the question: "Did God create the universe?" First of all, WOW. That's the question you're STARTING the show with? You've made it practically impossible to top yourselves with that one--oh, wait. Mike Rowe peeing on camera. I stand corrected. Anyway, the discussion on this topic was guided by the incomparable mind of one Stephen Hawking, who concluded to no one's surprise that since time began with the Big Bang, there was no room for a God to create the universe, as there could have been nothing before time. Problem solved. Throw away your various holy texts, all Earth religions, Hawking has deemed them obsolete. Nothing could have existed before time! It's all so simple, why didn't I see it before? Should have...sent...a poet...

I'll give you some time to wipe all of the condensed sarcasm off of your screens.

It's really presumptuous for scientists, who can't even come up with much concrete info on the early universe, to say that nothing came before it. There are schools of thought in theoretical physics that propose a cosmic sea of universe bubbles bumping into each other and forming big bangs in the process. Some theoreticians think that our universe Banged out of the Crunch of an earlier universe--which is to say, a previous universe collapsed into a single point, which then exploded back out to form our universe. With all these imaginations working overtime to hash out the particulars of existence (and I haven't even gotten to what different faiths suggest), it just seems a tad odd that Mr. Hawking, in all his unmatched brilliance, couldn't envision anything before time, let alone a God. Which brings me to my next point:

How can you set scientific parameters for an omnipotent Creator? "Well, God wouldn't be able to do that..." And how would you know? It's like the people who say that Superman would not have been able to fly around the world and turn back time in "real life." If Superman exists in real life, all bets are off. If God created time, He would have to have existed before it. Is this impossible? WE'RE TALKING ABOUT GOD, people. Scientists put limits on observable phenomena: motion, gravity, light, etc. Since you say He does not exist, you clearly have not observed Him, so there's no way you can limit Him.

Beyond Earth, the universe has yielded nothing but dead rocks and gas giants and yet people believe that there has to be life out there. Even Kepler-22b, our best shot so far, is still a maybe. And yet people--and by people, I mean serious scientists--believe that there MUST be life out there somewhere. MUST. With no evidence whatsoever. I see an ordered universe, from the motions of planets around stars to the twisting ladder of a DNA strand, and I say there MUST be a Creator. Somehow, my lack of scientific evidence makes that idea sillier than the notion of aliens.

In the final analysis, we return to the quotation marks around the word "controversy." If you believe in God, chances are, Hawking hasn't changed your mind. He's just another guy, like Richard Dawkins, using his authority in the scientific community to tackle subjects outside the realm of science. Let me refine that statement: science can search for God, using its limited tools; but until there is definitive proof of existence or nonexistence, a true scientist cannot, in good conscience, make a definitive statement.

Sam and Dean are back!

Yes, two posts in one day, who'd have thunk it? Answer: no one, because no one reads this blog. Self-deprecation aside, I watched the Supernatural season premiere yesterday. When last we left our heroes, Castiel had declared himself the successor to the throne of Heaven--which is, you know, a bit presumptuous. The only thing worse than his ridiculous claim was that he had the ridiculous amount of power necessary to back up said claim. Anywho, when we return--oops, wait a minute.

***SPOILERS BELOW THIS LINE THAT WARNS ABOUT SPOILERS!***

When we return, Sam, Dean and Bobby are all, "okay, you're God now, that's cool, please don't kill us" and Cas is all "You guys weren't supportive of my totally well-conceived plan to team up with a demon and absorb human souls, and now we are no longer besties! I'm updating my Facebook status to 'God--and NOT in a relationship.'" So then he starts exacting holy vengeance on churches who have, in his mind, "gone astray"--basically taking out anyone the executive producers wanted to make not-so-subtle comments about. He starts with the anti-gay dudes and then breaks up the KKK. He's not just smiting the right-wing, though; he also hits a transcendental new age-y place and brings his wrath upon the greatest sinners of them all: MOTIVATIONAL SPEAKERS! In my opinion, it's about time they got what was coming to them. Have you seen Tony Robbins's teeth? That's not natural.

Where was I? Oh yeah, power-mad angel. Meanwhile, Sam is dealing with the busted wall in his head--busted by Cas, of course. Memories of Hell are leaking into his real life and it becomes harder to differentiate between what's real and what isn't. I just realized that re-capping is very tedious work. Cas makes Crowley his Satan (makes sense, when you change administration, the new guy brings in his own cabinet) and then Crowley is promptly summoned by the boys to help with taking Cas down. Crowley does that gravelly British thing and Dean does his gravelly American thing--amazingly, the word "gank" never comes up. [Side note: wouldn't Mark Sheppard make an awesome younger version of Malcolm McDowell on Franklin and Bash in a flashback sequence or something?]

Dean: "You gots a spell what can bind Death!" Crowley: "Blah blah tea and crumpets, blah blah you can't handle it." Crowley doesn't give it up, but the awesome analog Googling skills of one Robert Fisher eventually yield the spell and they summon ONE OF THE COOLEST CHARACTERS ON THE SHOW EVER sorry about that shameless fanboy outburst. All scenes with Death are funny and interesting, and this one is no exception. Dean: "Here's some junk food, DO OUR BIDDING!" Further banter ensues--Dean and Bobby find out about Sam's hallucinations--until Cas appears and releases Death. Death does the usual fist-shaking expected of upper-level supernatural beings and vanishes. ["One wall per customer?" As if he just goes around blocking everyone's infernal memories. These guys never like to seem like they're too available, which makes storytelling sense. Problems can't be too easily solved. But STILL...GRR!] He does tell them how to beat Cas, however: they've got to get him to fart out the Old Ones (shout out to H.P.) and send them back to Purgatory. Later, they do all that. And then...

Lucifer: What's up, Sam? You're still in the cage! You've been MINDFREAKED! Are you ready?

Sam: No. It's not true. It's IMPOSSIBLE!

Lucifer: Search your feelings, you know it to be true!

Sam: DO NOT WANT!

Meanwhile...

Cas: Wow, that was crazy, wasn't it? Remember when I killed all those innocent people? Man, that was out of control. But I'm cool--ah. Wait...no, no I'm not. RUN!

Dean: Let me walk closer to you so I can hear that warning again. What's this about running?

The indestructible bodies of Dean and Bobby get thrown into various parts of the room.

Cas: There is no Castiel, only Zuul!

Black out.

I hope they spend as little time as possible on Sam not being able to tell the difference between hallucination and reality. Or if they do, at least give it some kind of interesting twist. If you haven't noticed, every single sci-fi/fantasy show has an episode where the heroes wake up in some mental institution and they discover that the whole show up until this point has been a delusion. Of course, the mental institution is revealed to be an illusion created by some creature and they return to business as usual. Those plots are so tedious to me because you already know they aren't actually going to write off the entire show as a deranged fantasy. There's no suspense, it's just prolonged resolution. Supernatural had an episode like that, and now they're breaking down the walls between reality and illusion in another way. Sam obviously isn't still in the cage if he's not in every scene. How can he hallucinate stuff he can't see? You can't do a Sixth Sense review of every episode since Sam came back and make it all fit. So, I think the next episode is going to resolve that whole thing--or else it'll be about the other characters trying to restore Sam's sanity, without any Blade Runner-esque questions about what's real and what isn't.