stellaluna

• the season finale of Project Runway (subtitle: shut up, Kenley)



• the American version of Life on Mars (subtitle: Harvey Keitel, how are you so awesome?)



• those YA novel recs I started thinking about doing, oh, months ago



• the upcoming premiere of 30 Rock and the general awesomeness thereof



• the general awesomeness of Pushing Daisies
  
  
• what else I've been watching on TV or reading lately

(Posting this will, with luck, increase the chances of my actually doing so.)

The third season of Eureka debuts Tuesday, July 29th, on the Sci Fi Channel. Sci Fi will be running a marathon of the first eleven episodes of the second season tomorrow, with episodes 12 and 13 being rebroadcast immediately prior to the third-season debut on Tuesday night.

gin200168, who got me into the show in the first place, has posted an Illustrated Eureka Character Primer with a nicely detailed breakdown of all the show's main characters, intended as a guide for people who are curious about the show, but who may feel reluctant to jump into S3 without the benefit of having seen the first two seasons.

The guide, which obviously contains some spoilers (although she avoids going into detail or revealing anything too major) is an excellent resource for folks who find themselves in that boat, or for those who may have seen the show but find themselves in need of a refresher course.

Really, I'm just trying to pimp the show so that more people watch. This is a charming, occasionally goofy, well-written and thoughtful show with a great premise and with fabulously-developed characters. It has, to paraphrase myself from my post the other day, many delights in common with shows like The Middleman and Pushing Daisies, both of which it shares a number of tonal and narrative kinships with.

Although, in thinking about this since that original post, I'm inclined to say that Pushing Daisies is, ultimately, fundamentally darker at its core than either Eureka or The Middleman, despite the bright colors of the production design and the similar quirkiness of the writing. To vastly oversimplify, Pushing Daisies is about the inevitability of death in all its forms, while Eureka and The Middleman are each, in their own ways, celebrations of life -- moreover, Pushing Daisies doesn't just deal with death, it celebrates it and embraces it as a lover.

Which is something I may need to explore further after I get the S1 DVDs and have a chance to rewatch the show.

There have been several things that have made me happy lately, some of which I really, really need to make posts on at some point:

• Poppy Z. Brite's Liquor novels



• Melissa Marr's Wicked Lovely, and good YA fiction in general



• The Dark Knight. I'm not going to see it until scarletts_awry gets here in a few weeks, and then we are going to see it TOGETHER YAYZ, but I'm delighted at all the good things I've heard, and I am so excited about it.
As I think I've mentioned before, the Bale/Nolan Batman is my Batman, and seeing that finally realized on the big screen, as I originally did with Batman Begins a few years ago, makes me more happy than I can easily put into words.


• the set and costume design on Mad Men (I've been watching the marathon today), which are gorgeous



• The Middleman, which is continuing to delight me. Okay, one comment about the most recent episode, "The Flying Fish Zombification."

( episode spoilers )

Okay, I clearly need a Middleman icon. And one for Eureka and one for Batman. And, while I'm at it, one for Buffy, too.

Happy birthday, karaokegal! I hope it's a lovely one.

ABC picks up Pushing Daisies for a full season.

The news makes me very happy. Despite my concerns after the pilot aired about whether they would be able to sustain the concept (concerns I still continue to hold, mind you), I'm finding this show to be an utter delight, and so far it's held up brilliantly. I liked the third episode even more than the second (see subject line for one of the big reasons why), and that's after the second episode featured women in daisy hats and gold false eyelashes, not to mention Kristin Chenoweth doing a musical number.

I'm in the midst of writing my story for all_hallows_fic. It is very long, very challenging, and, at times, very emotionally difficult to write.

It also was probably a direct contributing factor in how scarletts_awry and I came to decide that there needed to be sonic screwdriver sex toy fic in CSI:NY, preferably featuring Flack.

We were both a little loopy and punch-drunk when this happened. That's my defense and I'm sticking to it. and she started it.

Anyway, if I'm a little light on the ground this week, this story is the reason why.

ABC is running an ongoing Pushing Daisies comic book on the show's official website. It's written by the show's creator, Bryan Fuller, and the artwork is by Cameron Stewart, who's well-known for his artwork on Ed Brubaker's Catwoman run, as well as for Grant Morrison's Seaguy and Manhattan Guardian. The initial issue features the first installment of what looks like it will be an ongoing serial, along with a short piece providing backstory on Chuck's murderer.

It's delightfully nutball in the same way the show is, and Stewart's work is perfectly suited to the tone.

I'm planning to finish the rest of the alphabet ficlets this week, so if you haven't gotten yours yet, sit tight. With luck, I'll have one batch done tomorrow, and then will have the rest done and ready to go later in the week.

There are many, many other things I want to be writing, too, so I'm hoping to get to at least some of those this week, as well. This includes individual reviews for the last few episodes of Torchwood along with various pieces of fic -- among them, my story for all_hallows_fic, which I have all plotted out, so the only challenge now is convincing myself that I actually can write it.

I'm also trying to decide whether or not I should do NaNo this year. There would be great benefits to do so, but on the other hand, there are also many reasons why I shouldn't.

My two main reactions to the pilot of Pushing Daisies:

I have no idea if, or how, this show can sustain itself as an ongoing series.

And I sort of love it big bunches.

( episode spoilers )