Justin Timberlake...

has been away so long that he's starting to look like a Mr Schu-alike, not the other way round. 


Gotta love the Glee <3


xXx

Take A Trip To Unpleasantville...

Morning all! As promised, as delightful recap of The Vampire Diaries - Episode 12: Unpleasantville.

Last week's episode was something of an unexpected change; returning after a winter hiatus in the US, the show decided to also take something of a hiatus from the usual small town/high school drama. The dramatic cliffhanger of Episode 10 (in which Elena hits a mysterious vampire in her car, and is left trapped upside down as he menacingly approaches) was quickly resolved by Damon rescuing her... and then quickly deciding that hospitals were for wimps - what a girl REALLY needs straight after a life threatening car accident is a ROAD TRIP. Personally, I was just surprised Elena hadn't actually broken any of her frighteningly slender limbs.
Anyway, the episode offered a good chance for some pleasantly unusual pairings: Bonnie and Stefan getting on well (it's so nice when The Best Friend actually approves of The Boyfriend) and delving into some minor witchcraft, as Damon finally manages to loosen Elena up and get her to have a little fun. Curiously, in this one episode both Damon and Elena end up saving each other's lives. D'awwh. Cute.
There were also a few guest stars - Gina Torres, the magnificent Gina Torres! (as at home playing tough-as-old-boots co-captain Zoe Washburne in Firefly as an irritating bohemian hippie type as Vanessa's mum in Gossip Girl) and also Brandon Quinn (best known as Big Wolf On Campus, but has also notched up guest starring roles in Charmed and The O.C.) to add some colour.

Unpleasantville marked a return to the VD tradition of high school drama, small town history, endlessly plotting vampires and gooey romantic moments between Stefan and Elena.

There was an abundance of new characters too - Ben, the hot bartender who used to be a high school football star, plus sweet little Anna from last episode, plus The New Menacing Hoodie-Wearing Vampire, who was later revealed to be somewhat psychotically inclined ("She looks like Katherine", he intoned eerily whenever called upon to justify his attacks on Elena).

So here are the YAY factors:

1. STEFAN!! Being INTERESTING!! With smart lines, some of which even managed to subvert the tropes that VD has come to rely on. For instance:

Stefan makes another lame attempt to uncover Damon's secrets (as the latter ransacks the library in search of A Macguffin To Aid His Evil Plot Of The Week), and Damon quickly says what we're all thinking - "You're pathetic when you're fishing." Neatly followed up by Stefan with "And you're transparent when you're deflecting." Nice.

Another example: Stefan describing Damon's plan as his "Diabolical Plan: The Sequel". 

Stefan also finds the steel within him to torture and finish off the Hoodie Vamp. I suppose if you HAVE been alive since 1864 you need some cajones. 

2. The teaming up of the three leads. It's sweet, and it kinda works. I also like how, for once, Damon gets subtly undermined in all his usual areas of expertise. Namely, sarcasm, flirting and violence. 

3. Mildly risque jokes, less surprising than you'd think given that Damon seems to ravish some half-naked girl every other week. My favourites were Alaric describing the Gilbert journal as "porn for History teachers", and Caroline making a cute "lesbian friendship" joke when Elena gives her a vervain filled necklace. YAY for a lesbian friendship joke, finally! It's about time someone made one - it's all JD+Turk these days... 

4. The Decade Dance. The perfect opportunity for retro music, retro dancing, retro outfits: THE WORKS. The Stelena moments weren't even that mushy! And you've gotta love the surprise 50s dancing skills, though I'm guessing Elena's unnatural skinniness and Stefan's vampiric strength helped somewhat here. YAY for Jenna and Alaric looking beyond gorgeous.

5. The Om Nom Nom of Alaric in the letterman jacket deserves another mention, plus Caroline looking pretty   and au naturel whilst sign painting with Matt. Also YAY for her going so DEMURE to the dance! 

6. The closing track - a punky version of Mr Sandman by Oranger, continuing the 50s theme but giving it just the right amount of edge. Epic.

7. Romcom subversion: Matt may use the typical "I gotta go" to escape sign painting, and he does take offence at an overheard remark of Caroline's, but he does the Legally Blonde thing of driving past the walking Caroline, then STOPS! And gets out! She's about to yell at him and he shuts her up by kissing her. Brilliant. 

FUN FACT: Alaric Saltzmann is played Matt Davis, the originator of the LB thing of driving past the walking blonde girl. Cool.

Similarly, the bartender gets immediately flirty with Bonnie. In a romcom this would be genuine but thoroughly unbelievable due to the random spontaneity of it all. In VD, he's a vamp after her witchy powers. Or something. ALSO, the flirty feisty sparks between Bonnie and Damon are only because... yep, that's right, he wants her to help him with her witchcraft. Darling, they're only after one thing, but this time it ain't sex.

8. YAY for Alaric remaining a mystery - he wasn't invited in, he wears a ring but then again Damon killed or possibly turned his wife, he seems to loathe vampires, he killed Logan and he uses vervain. What IS he? Also,  is there the slightest chance that he's Elena's birth father? I wasn't listening to his relationship drivel so I don't know if he could have been with Isobel when she was 15/16 in order for her to be Elena's (teenaged) birth mum.

The NAY factors:

1. The Hoodie Vamp gets invited in, then stalks Elena to the girll and calls her, looks at her creepily in the parking lot (at night, of course) and Elena jumps in her car (or rather Jenna's much nicer car) and drives off. Yeah, because being in a car REALLY helped last time you ran into Hoodie Vamp. The next scene is Elena at the boarding house in the daytime. WTF??!! The HV could have done ANYTHING to her that night. And she would have called Stefan anyway. Make sense dammit!

2. High school groups of friends being incestual, because they can't have friends/relationships outside of school, or possibly remain single/have nothing else going on in their lives. However I do realise that this is the fault of TV in general, not VD. And tbh, high school groups of friends ARE actually that incestual. I call this one even.

3. Every new character is a vampire. Everyone interesting is a vampire. All the vampires are at the dance, and no one notices. No one notices Hoodie Vamp. Weird pale kid willingly takes the hoodie from Hoodie Vamp. But then again, the vamps are drawn to the Salvatores and Elena and all the other town history crap. And the pale kid is weird. Oh yeah and he could have been compelled. Another wash.

4. Immediately dropping the coincidence of Isabelle/Isobel in. Was that really necessary? You could have dropped one of them in the next or previous episode, surely.

5. Anna's act cracking badly enough for her to show her vamp eyes to Jeremy. 

6. Elena not being more freaked out by sex. She seems like the type to be all skittish and worried about it. In all honesty, this is an episode 10/11 complaint. But meh. Then again, thank GOD for her growing up a little and not being that freaked out by the Hoodie Vampire torture/death, and also vowing to help Stefan. And also that impressive fight with HV, including the amateur staking. Another wash (I'm getting worse at these nays.)

7. Stefan plotting against Damon. It won't end well. Damon is just too clever. And how on Earth are you going convince Katherine that only she can come out to play, but her 26 vamp friends must die?! Not going to happen. Also, how the frick are they going to deal with Katherine and Elena existing at the same time? I'm predicting Katherine possessing Elena, or impersonating her at the very least and generally causing a whole world of trouble.

8. NAY for how all mystery is driven out of our newer characters within one/two episodes (namely Anna and Ben) but older characters are slow SLOW burners. The pacing needs consideration - a slow reveal can often be the most chilling and terrifying, but a quick reveal pushes the plot on and allows the audience to see what evil things they're planning. Thing is, we've had a LOT of evil plots and quick reveals. Hmm...

All in all, a fairly decent, thrilling episode of VD, but one that was determinedly coy about what's really going on. I'm expecting some BIG episode later in the season, otherwise I will be sorely disappointed!

Much love, vamp fans

xXx

Formspring? Okay...

Apparently you can now ask me anything... Hmmm :s http://formspring.me/happycrescendo

Bitten By The Vampire Bug

Vampires these days are inescapable. From the dreaded Twilight (beloved, of course, by hordes of pre-teen/teenage girls, amongst others) to the dark, sexy True Blood, you can hardly move for a pair of fangs, eternal bloodlust and pale, brooding men yearning to suck their sweethearts dry. Personally, I don't mind the vampire craze too much. One has to admire a mythical creature that can withstand such a plethora of books, TV series and films without losing (much of) its allure. To sum up:

The Twilight Saga books: lame, underwritten, sub-fan fiction level writing with some disturbing messages beneath "it's okay to wait!" message. Not too hard to bear, what with all four books already published, and the proposed fifth (Midnight Sun, Edward's perspective of the events of Twilight, the first book in the saga) put on hold indefinitely, probably never to be published.

The Twilight Saga films: have never seen them, so couldn't possibly comment. But the bastardising of Muse songs to fit the soundtrack grates on my nerves.

True Blood, TV series: HBO really manage to excel themselves with their homegrown TV series. Incredibly sexy, dark, blood-drenched viewing - you can practically feel the swampy heat of the South, even in the most miserable of weather here in Britain. A good show with a nice series length, but not one I've kept up with.

Being Human, TV series: homegrown British drama at its finest. I watched the pilot when it aired way back in January 2008 and immediately instructed my friends to watch it now, dammit! I even signed the petition to the BBC to commission a full series. Two have since aired, featuring only two of the original cast from the pilot (the excellent Russell Tovey of The History Boys and Little Dorrit fame, playing George, the werewolf, and Dylan Brown, playing Seth, a vampire henchman in the first series only), but my goodness the 'replacements' are fabulous.

A third series is definitely on the way, but is to be filmed and set in Cardiff - a big change for the show, which was previously set and filmed in Bristol. For the uninitiated, it concerns Mitchell, a vampire (the wonderfully sexy Aidan Turner), the aforementioned George, and Annie, a ghost, sharing a house, formerly in Bristol. It's warm, witty, dark, thrilling and genuinely fantastic.

Moonlight, TV series: produced by Joel Silver and starring Jason Dohring (both alumni of Neptune High/Hearst College, so to speak), as well as Sophia Myles (New Who, as Madame de Pompadour in Steven Moffat's gloriously romantic Season 2 ep, The Girl In The Fireplace) and Shannyn Sossamon (A Knight's Tale, the spiky haired 'fair lady' to Heath Ledger's fraudulent knight). It had an interesting premise, but one quite similar to the Canadian series, Blood Ties: sexy male vampire and beautiful woman team up to fight crime, sparks fly, woman's significant other gets in the way, fangs cause issues etc. Sadly it lasted only 16 episodes, and never really got the chance to shine.

Blood Ties, TV series: based on the Blood Books series by Tanya Huff, this show lasted for two seasons before losing network support. Featuring a host of beautiful TV tropes, a dangerously sexy male vampire and a reasonably rugged and delicious male cop, this show managed to combine a crime drama with fantasy/horror, with a generous splash of unresolved sexual tension on top. The main cast remained resolutely small, and the fans resolutely loyal, but there are no signs of it returning to our screens afresh any time soon.

And finally, for now, The Vampire Diaries!- based on the books by L.J. Smith, a veteran of the young adult vampire novel (she's the author behind the Nightworld series - set to conclude this summer, as well as many more fantasy/horror novels). These were written LONG before Ms Meyer and her sparkling bloodsuckers came around and were published waaayyy before I was even born in 1991. She followed up her original trilogy with another VD book the next year, due to fan support, and recently began releasing a new trilogy called The Return.

The VD TV series also began airing its first season in September of last year. So far it has managed to juggle high school drama, nefarious plots, and a decent amount of smouldering and brooding, mostly concerning the three leads, but also the intriguing secrets of the small town of Mystic Falls. Thankfully, us Brits don't have to wait 18 months to get our VD fix - it's broadcast every Tuesday at 9pm on ITV2, albeit with a time lag of a few weeks (VD started airing here in February, but we Brits don't do mid-season breaks or winter hiatuses, so we're about level).

You may have noticed, but its Tuesday. And that means its VD day for me! (Well, not really. Tuesdays are actually 90210 days for me, but I'm ahead on those, so for once I get to appreciate the gloom of the Salvatore boarding house and the sheer power of Stefan's brooding stare on the TV, as opposed to my laptop screen.)

So, au revoir! Tomorrow I shall return, armed with a nice little review of tonight's VD ep.

See you soon!

xXx

Happy Crescendo, Quirky Girl

Why hello there.

I'm an old blogger. By which I mean, I used to blog a few years back, not that I'm free-bus-pass-living-on-my-pension old. I'm 17, going on 18. Anyway, I've changed - I'm a bit of a new person, so this is a new blog.

I'm also on Twitter - as Happy Crescendo.

A few things about me:

I'm a bit of TV addict.

I love and live music.

I'm a maths girl. So sue me.

I'm a Whovian, but a NewWhovian.

I live half my life in a fictional world.

This blog is going to be, hopefully, interesting. There'll be TV and books and films and music and, occasionally, even some of my life. Enjoy.

xXx