My brain is still in recovery mode from that intense January. Still busy at work but I’m being careful to use my downtime for down. This is something of a change, I realize. Example: for the first time ever, I’m watching a TV series* on DVD by myself. Just cuing up the next episode when the previous is done feels very strange to me, like that time in ’98 when I was getting paid to watch an empty room and surf the internet. How can this be allowed?
* Lost season 1, actually. I downloaded the very first episode of Lost right after broadcast but didn’t get around to watching it that week, then decided I couldn’t be bothered catching up. I’ve told anyone who’s listened that I’d only give Lost a try when the whole series was complete and they had demonstrated they knew what they were doing. Well, the buzz about the final season has convinced me to give it a try. Ten episodes in, I’m not exactly hooked, but it’s very watchable. But slow. Man, but this show takes its time. I’m confident you could edit every episode down to about 22 minutes and not lose any content. Losties, are there episodes worth skipping entirely?
Last Friday Cal and I went to see The 39 Steps at Circa. Theatre for the win – so much more fun than cinema. The show is in a revival season, and it’s obvious why – a highly energetic farce that throws out gag after gag without pausing for breath. Not all of it worked for me, but there’s always another bit just around the corner, and the sheer enthusiasm on display won me (and everyone else) over. The performers were dropping lines and corpsing all over the place, because they could get away with it in this show, and their ad libs were some of the best bits. Great fun. We were sitting next to a drunken Irishman who’d seen the show in London and announced that this was “completely different” (in fact he announced it every few minutes, while the performance was underway), and finally said he thought this one was even better than the London one. So, drunken Irishman seal of approval there. It’s on until the 13th, Welly folk – go see it.
Minor achievement at basketball last night: you know that bit where the score is tied and the guy in the movie is fouled with no time left and has to go to the free throw line and win the game from there, with the whole stadium watching? I was that guy, and made the second of the two shots so we won. But that wasn’t the achievement. The achievement was that we, as a team, called a time out with 3 seconds left, decided how we would use those final 3 seconds, and then executed our plan perfectly. In all my long years of playing basketball, that has never happened before. I was proud of us. Nice one team.
9 thoughts on “DVDs, 39 Steps”
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Keep us updated on watching Lost. We made it through the first series and half of the second but then gave up when the slow pacing of the episodes started giving William Hartnell episodes of Doctor Who a run for their money.
It’ll be good to know if there’s some sort of payoof to be had and I should try watching again.
There are definitely skippable episodes in Lost Season 1 (and even more so in Seasons 2 and 3).
You could maybe make a case for skipping 1.12 (Whatever the Case may be), but really I wouldn’t bother. Just sit back and get to know the characters. When you hit Season 2, let me know and I’ll hook you up with which eps are bullshit.
You’ll also find the pace of the writing lurches into an outrageous sort of overdrive at about episode 5 or 6, and settles itself down into a nice TV-ish momentum around 12-13.
Now! Off to watch the last three eps of Dollhouse!
skipped all but the basketball. nice one team! indeed!
Andrew: will do
hix: thanks. I’ll do all of season 1, then either I’ll forge on with your recommendations, or I’ll ask people to convince me its worth sticking with…
chuck: chur!
I warned you that Lost was slow. As I said, I could only watch it on DVD, where you could just cue it up and watch several episodes. Otherwise you just get no payoff, it takes too long for things to develop.
You did, JB – but I didn’t understand what you meant until I started watching.
It’s good though, I put it on and do other things at the same time and when it gets cool I can pay close attention. And when they spend five minutes carefully explaining the shocking reversal in the previous flashback, instead of just trusting the viewer to keep up, I can do something else 🙂
Oh, and re: basketball. Yeah, there’s a beauty in simplicity. I liked our plan: “I’ll inbound to Mike, Mike, try and get it to Morgan near the hoop, he’ll get a basket or get fouled. If you can’t get it to Morgue, shoot it”. I knew that, with the game on the line and Dean fouled out, we needed the ball in your’s or Mike’s hands.
My favourite Lost ep for various reasons is “Expose”.
Oh yeah. Expose is a good one. Apparently they were writing that just as the first Nikki & Paolo episode went to air … Reason #58 to trust that the Lost writers kinda know what they’re doing.