I think I need to start watching Madmen

Having recently watched the entire Firefly series and the film Serenity on DVD, I, like most of its fans felt sorely disappointed in its untimely demise. There was just so much more that could have been explored. We all wonder about Book's back story. Would any of the budding romances get anywhere? Who are those creepy blue-gloved couples. Please someone tell me there's some fan fiction out there I can read!

And I really resent how they killed half the cast in the film. Any hopes of perhaps the series returning to our screens after a decade's hiatus, like Red Dwarf, are dashed. Although, if we treat Serenity as non-canon, maybe it could still be pulled off. I'm sure the actors would love to return to it, based on their commentary on the DVD extra's.

For now, it seems there is one other option open to me though:

Found this on http://www.reddit.com/r/scifi/duplicates/etyng/firefly_and_madmen/

Star Wars violence okay for kids

I've been asked whether it's okay to let little kids watch movies such as Star Wars, because they're quite scary and violent.

Bambam played Lego Star Wars on the Xbox before we watched the Star Wars movies with him. We felt it would give him some more background to the levels he was playing. The good part about that is that he felt fairly 'empowered' watching the scary bits, because he had already 'done' those levels in the game. The violence also seems less when you associate it with cartoon Lego violence. We've done the same with Lego Harry Potter and are now watching the Harry Potter movies. They're quite scary too, actually!

He was surprisingly good at understanding the emotional journey of Anikin into Darth Vader. We, as parents, welcomed the depth of this development compared to kids' shows actually aimed at this age bracket where 'baddies' are just bad for no reason. At least Darth Vader/Anikin is a complex person. (As a movie critic, I'd describe all this differently, but I'm talking child-rearing here). I think it actually helps him deal with the real world, in which nobody thinks or believes that they are the 'baddy'. People do things for complex reasons, including bad things, and Star Wars helped make Bambam aware of that. He often tries to discover what might drive other children to do 'naughty' things, and has also become more critical of his own motives at times.

Watching Star Wars with children has a bunch of other advantages as well. There is a lot of merchandise you can buy which can help in getting kids interested in games or activities they might not otherwise do. For example: we have Star Wars Guess Who and Star Wars Battleships game. I'm pretty sure Bambam wouldn't touch such sedate strategy board games if they weren't so excitingly branded.

Star Wars also has some pretty strong female characters. Padme Amidala can fall a bit flat at times. They tried to write her as a strong independent woman, but she seems overly reliant on the men around her, both politically and emotionally. Now Leia, with her great blaster aim, her snappy comebacks at the amourous Han Solo and the threatening Darth Vader: that's a real strong woman. She's in charge! I've seen Pebbles' princess role play turn a lot more active and empowered since watching Star Wars. Instead of dressing up and waiting in the tower to be rescued, her 'princesses' now run around shooting blasters and ordering robots about. And then there's Ahsoka, who's a female Jedi/Padawan.

Another aspect of Star Wars that is fairly interesting from a parenting point of view are the robot characters. Kirk Jr may have inherited Asperger traits from Kirk, my hubby. He tends to identify with objects more than people. For example, watching Harry Potter, he imagined being the Golden Snitch and allowing Harry to catch him so Griffindor could win. By contrast, Bambam wished to be one of the Quidditch team members who carry a cudgel to hit the ball (and perhaps other players) with. In Star Wars, Kirk Jr identifies with R2D2, which still allows for quite broad imaginative play and interaction with other children. All of which is good.

So, yes, I think watching Star Wars, and playing Star Wars games is a good thing to do with kids. Like anything, you should do it with them and then, if there is any issue with scariness or anything else, you'll be there to spot it, guide and explain.

Haven - the plot thickens...

Being a sci-fi fan, I watch Haven.
I'm watching it pretty much as it airs on Syfy, although it tends to get recorded on the Sky+ box and we watch it if and when the kids have gone to sleep.

I enjoy Haven as a monster-of-the-week series but I really expect more of good tv. We've all gotten used to larger casts and convoluted plots, even involving travel through dimensions of time and space. We can follow long plot arcs with mysterious hints scattered throughout every episode.

Haven just didn't deliver that. Audrey fairly easily drops into her role of local cop / x-files investigator. She's an FBI agent, isn't she? She could find out about the mysterious photo in the 27 year old paper without quitting her day job. She could at the very least use her powers as a federal agent to find out who her birth mother is, and track her down. Instead she chooses to stay in a rural backwater solving local mysteries in the hopes it will shed some light on her own past. Why? I don't quite believe in her motivations. Be that as it may, I'm willing to go along with it. She stays in Haven so we can witness some nice mysterious little horror stories. Fair enough. But why is she so ready to believe in supernatural explanations for the things that happen around her? Even the locals, most notably Nathan, aren't as easily convinced the 'troubles' are real, and they've witnessed them for years.

If we are meant to simply accept that Audrey just easily believes in the supernatural, and stays in Haven (and is she still on FBI payroll or what?) to find out about her past, then I'm still often left wondering why she doesn't get on with it. Every episode contains a tiny little - and badly embedded in the story at that - hint about the elusive 'Lucy' from the photograph, but how many times has Audrey let the subject drop in a conversation, and even allowed the person with the information to just walk away? Not really dogged pursuit of her stated goal, is it? If I was her, I'd be seriously interrogating some people, not least Duke, and the two newspaper men. And apparently, there are extensive police and forensic files on the Colorado Kid after all. Did she not even think to check the archives?

For a town full of people, the main cast is actually pretty small, and very few of those are presented with any depth. Compared to other recent tv-series, it seems to underestimate the capability of the audience to keep track of multiple deeply complex characters and their individual story lines and development. Give us more. We can handle it. There is some attempt to present the characters' emotional and social development in the form of several stilted romances and Audrey's attempts at making friends, but these are very episodical as well. Duke nearly died of supernatural old age, but this has brought about no lasting change to his outlook on life. Nathan can feel Audrey's touch, but it doesn't make him much more or less broody than he was before. Generally, the most shocking things happen to a lot of people, and they barely flinch. If they do, they're certainly completely over it by next week. After the doctor's death, her daughter just slots into her job as if she is an understudy in a play. I find I start to care less about the characters because they're just not real.

The monster-of-the-week format also contributes to this feeling of shallowness. Audrey and Nathan have locked up several monsters, killed some, driven some off... but they never mention them again, or visit them. It would be nice to see all the monsters continue to be part of Audrey's daily life. They could be present in the background as a duty, for example to check on whether they're still safely locked up. Or they could come back as the solution to a new problem. Instead, they're like the monsters in a children's cartoon where nothing that happens really matters and everything is reset to default by the start of the next episode. There are so few consequences for most of what anyone does in this series.

However, we have just reached an episode where Audrey finally does undertake some investigation of the elusive Lucy. She tries to get more information out of Duke and his former babysitter, to no avail. Conveniently, all involved in that incident seem to have either no memory of it, or have gone mad to the point of dancing about in their underpants. Still no resolution, but at least she tries harder than usual. There are some interesting arc-shaped hints like the tattooed arm. Currently, my theory involves time travel. The girl in the picture is in fact Audrey herself, but she has instructed everyone no to tell her future/past self about her, or possibly even done something to wipe their memories. Both the Colorado kid and Duke get killed by a tattooed arm, the one known owner of which is dead in this timeline, but possibly was alive to kill 27 years ago. Or are Duke and the Colorado Kid one and the same somehow?

I can but hope that the real resolution of the series will be at least that interesting or even better. Surprise me, Haven!

Strictly Anne!

I admit it. I'm watching this year's Strictly Come Dancing, and I'm loving it. I'm rooting for Anne Widdecombe to win. Unlike the judges, I'm seeing some real improvements in her dancing. She's actually getting a lot of steps right and she's really trying; she's not just acting silly. So what if it's not graceful!

Anne Widdecombe is one of several 'good' female role-models currently on that show this season. Some of the 'older' ladies are amazingly fit and limber for their age, some are admirably overcoming their insecurities, and all come across as independent and confident. And then there's those young pretty things. Nice to look at, but so little substance.

Anne is my favourite. She should be the ultimate feminist hero.

She is a single woman who independently reached an influential and powerful position in life, and in a sector traditionally dominated by men. She most certainly did not - no offence intended - use her looks to get where she is, nor did has she ever played any kind of minority card. She is there on merit alone and there's plenty of merit to go around. I admire her obvious intelligence, her perseverance, the way she's always right and can speak to the point. Few politicians can pull off media appearances the way she can. I've seen her on comedy shows like Have I got news for you and she does the best deadpan. She can be funny and she's always clever. I doubt she'd ever get caught expressing 'gaffes' into a forgotten microphone, as I strongly suspect she is always, even while remaining unfailingly polite and forbearing, honestly speaking her mind.

Safe to say, she's one of my favourite people to watch on Strictly and she's also my favourite politician. I didn't have the chance to vote for her in the national elections, so I'll settle for voting her onto my tv screen for as long as possible.