Sometimes I do still watch television.

[melannen]

QI so far this season has had seven female guest panelists and only five male (as opposed to a previous ratio of something less than 1:10). What happened? Did Stephen Fry lose a bet with Sandi Toksvig or something?

I am enjoying the hell out of it, anyway. They are fixing the main thing that was wrong with that show! And it's been entertaining to watch Stephen over the course of the season slowly realizing what they've been missing out on all these years. And realizing just how much more I enjoy a panel show when there are at least two women on it, talking to each other. (Which I kind of know already because I've been following some of the Radio 4 panel shows, which have always been better on the gender balance.)

Don't read the youtube comments, though.

(also I am enjoying the hell out of imagining Stephen Fry repeatedly losing bets with Sandi Toksvig, let's be honest.)

Also I watched The Angels Take Manhattan and




...wow, that was possibly the worst-put-together episode of Dr. Who I've ever seen, which is saying something. If you want an example of the concept of "passing the Idiot Ball", that is the best one I've ever seen.

The plot of this episode: The producers decide Amy and Rory have to leave the Doctor in the most melodramatic way possible, so they spend an episode having Amy, Rory, River, and Eleven being increasingly stupid between having EMOTIONOAL MOMENTS in an attempt to maneuver the viewers into not noticing that THERE IS NO LOGICAL REASON THEY CAN'T JUST COME BACK.

*ahem*.

Like, nine-year-old Amy with a broken vortex manipulator and time-travel physics learned entirely from Mostly Harmless could have fixed that, that's how dumb it was. I'm finding it impossible to read any of the post-ATM Amy/Rory futurefic because I'm finding it impossible to believe they didn't just head back out into spacetime within a year.

Bah.

In the old days the doctor would've just dumped 'em somewhere with about two lines of explanation and maybe ten minutes of emotional fallout, and it STILL WOULD HAVE MADE MORE SENSE, both emotionally and logically.

Right now I am feeling quite satisfied in my inability to become emotionally invested in any run of Doctor Who that doesn't feature the Master and/or Romana.

...I am supposed to be finishing my Big Bang draft tonight, can you tell?


Also I bought a copy of The Game of Kings at a book sale today. People talk about Dunnett on DW all the time, so I thought it was worth a quarter. Somehow I had acquired the impression that the Lymond Chronicles were a high fantasy epic from the mid-90s, I was very confused when I found this 1963 paperback romance. You people need to be more specific. :P

p.s.: I am still giving people recipes on my previous post!

p.p.s.: I have finished sorting my mp3s! That only took three years. Now to make proper backups and all that...

Comments

[whatistigerbalm]

Also I am enjoying the hell out of imagining Stephen Fry repeatedly losing bets with Sandi Toksvig, let's be honest

Same!

[melannen]

I may end up requesting Stephen&Sandi for yuletide again this year. I wasn't planning to, but they are both so interesting, and you *know* who would win every time.

[copracat]

QI has been delightful! I think the whole show has enjoyed the different dynamic when a bunch of women tease Steven. Also Sue Perkins is completely perfect in every way.

As for Angels Take Manhattan AUGH YES YES YES. I feel so resentful of such a stupid attempt at emotional manipulation and such a woeful plot. The short video of Matt, Arthur and Karen talking about Arthur and Karen's departure is so very much more affecting because Arthur seems to be so gutted he can't bear to let anything show on his face, Matt keeps hiding his face from camera when he talks about it and Karen's dizzy energy and her insistence on being there to read the voiceover to Matt when he was doing the 'reading the last page' scene broke my heart into pieces.

[melannen]

I have a completely unreasonable appreciation for Stephen + Lesbians in all iterations, I am discovering. (Also Stephen being outnumbered by women. Also Sue Perkins.)

And also yes AUGH AUGH. I've been watching Eleven's run only piecemeal (see above: lack of Romana or the Master) so I'm not particularly emotionally attached to the Ponds but I still adore them and they deserved a better-put-together swan song than that! AUGH. Maybe it was all a fake-out to pay Eleven back for some trick and River will be by to pick them up next week! :D

[sara]

*blinks* That...actually might make me go back to QI. I'd stopped watching because I realized I was shouting, "Stephen, you imperialist asshole!" every episode, and that gets tiring after a while.

[melannen]

I... they didn't fix *everything* that's wrong with the show. And Stephen is still Stephen. But somehow I find the other problems less annoying when there's always at least one person on the panel who isn't a white male.

Also. Y'know. Sue Perkins and/or Victoria Coren can get me to overlook a lot (especially Victoria, who will occasionally actually try to call them out on stuff, and be witty enough in the process that it's left in the show.)

[phoebe_zeitgeist]

Oh, no, the Dunnett books are epic historical intrigue/politics/adventure/war in Europe, the Med, and Russia, covering roughly the few years between the death of Henry VIII and the accession of Elizabeth.

They also feature epic iterations of every fanfic trope known to womankind. And possibly the original Draco in Leather Pants. No matter what the cover art and copy seem to be telling you, it's not your normal 1963 paperback romance in there.

[melannen]

Oh, I knew about the Draco in Leather Pants bit - fandom's had no trouble conveying *that* part :D I just somehow assumed they were Rennaissance fantasy rather than supposedly-historical Rennaissance. (Maybe it's the company they tend to get mentioned in.)

[sineala]

I liked the all-women-panel episode a lot more than the others I have seen recently, so I think I'm right there with you. Also I think I now have a crush on Sue Perkins *and* Sandi Toksvig. All the British lesbian comedians, yesssss.

...wait, the Lymond Chronicles isn't high fantasy? I've seen it getting mentioned a lot lately, and I had been assuming it was. I thought only fantasy got to have Chronicles.

[melannen]

The two-women-two men ones are okay, too. Really it seems to be the at-least-two-women factor, for me.

...I think I have smushes on Sue Perkins, Sandi Toksvig, Victoria Coren, Katy Brand, and Susan Calman (who has not been on QI [yet] but is all over Radio 4. She is tiny and Scottish and lesbian and cheerful and dresses her cats up in costumes as a hobby, there is nothing about her that I don't find adorable.)

...and Catherine Tate of course but who doesn't.

RE: Lymond Chronicles: I haven't read it yet, but apparently not! It appears to be Renaissance suspense/adventure/intrigue instead. (I am shocked, too. But there is something of a tradition of historical novels having Chronicles, though lately they seem more likely to be Sagas if they're historicals.)

[sineala]

Clearly they need a Women's Comedy Hour. I would pay to see that.

Also I am now even more intrigued by the Lymond Chronicles; let me know if they're any good?

[melannen]

Do you listen to The News Quiz regularly? It consistently has at least two women (the host, and one, more often two, of the four panellists), and they're often the first one to have a new woman who's joining the panel-show circuit. That's where I first met a lot of my favorites. (also: Sandi Toksvig! Short and in charge!)

I give you Francesca Martinez, who was on The News Quiz for the first time this week and I am already in love with a little.

[sineala]

I have never heard The News Quiz! Clearly I should start!

[melannen]

Yes. Everybody should!

[goseaward]

heh. A bet is more charitable than what I was thinking, namely something along the lines of "smackdown from Ofcom." (Apparently there was a report from an independent group early in the year that called out Question Time, Mock the Week, and QI specifically...)

I've always loved Sue Perkins, but she in particular seems even better when she's got another woman to bounce things off.

[melannen]

I was wondering if there'd been some kind of kerfuffle that I'd missed, but it's not like nobody's ever pointed out the problem before (they've been getting flack for years). And Mock the Week certainly hasn't changed its ways...

Clearly there was a bet involved. :P

I watched some old episodes today and it is really pointedly bizarre to see Stephen to throw out a comment about female experience and have no female to respond to him.