Mari Ness's Blog, page 10

And speaking of coverups and deception and ethical lapses

The New York Post gets to the bottom of the dead groundhog cover up. Prepare to be scandalized.

How to Get Away with Murder, ABC

I find I don't have that much to say about How to Get Away with Murder, the new vehicle kinda from Shonda Rhimes - she's not writing this one, just producing it, a distinction that a certain reviewer over at the New York Times completely missed. This is perhaps the only mistake in that now-infamous review that is marginally forgiveable, since How to Get Away with Murder does have quite a few traits I associate with Scandal: sharp edits! shocking twists! Lots of sex! (Because of course getting away with murder requires random sex. Did you think it wouldn't?) Betrayal! More sex! Wine! Revealing moments in bathrooms! And, of course, covering up for people who do really really bad things.

And yes, some of the setup is identical to Scandal: Viola Davis plays Professor Keating, who when not terrorizing law students defends murderers. She's also the leader of a group of employees/followers/sycophants, at least one of whom wants to be just like her (shades of Original Quinn back on Scandal), and one of whom seems to have actual - gasp - ethics. (He kinda stands out in the group.) The main plot goes more or less the way it did in Scandal's first two seasons (the pattern that show, thankfully, appears to be returning to): client has problem, said group runs around trying to solve problem, while BETRAYALS and SEX litter the background. The one major difference: How to Get Away with Murder also intersperses this with fairly lengthy flashbacks, something Scandal has generally used sparsely, and only to explain current things: How to Get Away with Murder, more or less borrowing from Revenge, uses these flashbacks to increase the mystery/tension and leave viewers wanting an explanation.

The chief difference, and one that apparently missed The New York Times completely, is that Olivia Pope at least believes she has ethics and believes that she is doing the right thing. She's wrong, of course, and Scandal doesn't flinch from that,* but she is astonishingly good at self-deception here, partly because she's surrounded by a bunch of unethical sociopaths.

The portrayal of Professor Keating is far more ambiguous. It's not at all clear that Keating has any ethics whatsoever, although one scene suggests that she's at least aware of that lack, and another small scene does suggest that she strongly believes that all of her students have the right to learn things. Olivia Pope ives and works in a world of massive deception. Professor Keating - so far, at least - appears to be trying to create a second one.

Anyway, two things became apparent: one, this will probably be another hit, and two, it's going to be another one of those shows that works best either through livetweeting and gasping along with other viewers, or marathoning later. I think I'm going to choose the second option: I am kinda curious to see just how unethical this show can get.

* Although an actually ethical person would have shot Fitz by now and them stomped all over him while he was dying**, Olivia, TAKE NOTE.

**Scandal is going to end with Olivia and Mellie teaming up to kill him, right? Right? REASSURE ME, everyone!

Duchess of Devonshire, last of the Mitford sisters, RIP

Deborah Cavendish, nee Mitford, dies at the age of 94.

I read her autobiography a couple years back and found it jawdropping, and not in a good way. Thanks largely to her five larger than life sisters (Nancy, the novelist; Pamela, the rabbit breeder; Diana the "she's so charming we all have to overlook that she was a complete fascist; Unity, who fell in love with Hitler no really; Jessica, who ran off to the Spanish Civil War and then California and the civil rights movement) and her own aristocratic connections - she was, after all, a Duchess, and related by marriage to the Kennedys - Deborah Mitford met almost everyone who was anyone in the 20th century. Her autobiography has little things like, had tea with Hitler on Thursday, danced with Jack Kennedy on Saturday and chatted with Churchill on Sunday oh and now that I think about it Charles and Camilla and John Betjeman and Fred Astaire and....it goes on. A lot.

But what is jaw dropping about this is that if you believe Deborah, absolutely none of these people had anything interesting to say. Like, nothing.

That seems impossible. But then again, Deborah met many of these people through her sisters, and through the Kennedys, and here and there in her autobiography, I got the sense that she wanted to be remembered not just as one of the six Mitford sisters - a crushing legacy to be attached to - but as a person in her own right: as the woman who helped save the stately home of Cavendish and keep it in private hands. As the woman who welcomed everyone and everybody, regardless of political beliefs. And a woman who knew a lot about chickens. And so her autobiography focuses on that: on hospitality, on restoring an estate, and on chickens. And a number of famous people that she just happened to have tea with. And she could look at Chatsworth, and feel quite a bit of pride.

Gotham

On its own, Gotham is not a bad show. It's got all the setup: corrupt police force, hardworking honest detective with questionable girlfriend, three cute young teens or preteens that we can root for; over the top campy villains, and one not at all over the top bad guy there to remind us of the thin line between good and evil and how many things end up being grey. The acting for the most part is decent to solid; camera work ok; plenty of money has gone into the sets. I can't stand Gordon's partner, but otherwise, lots of potential.

The problem is that this show isn't on its own. And however much it may be calling itself Jim Gordon's origin story, it's also Batman's origin story.

And that is a major limitation that the show was already struggling against just in the pilot.

I live tweeted the show as I often do, being careful to just snark and avoid any major spoilers. About fifteen minutes in, however, I realized that didn't matter – there'd been nothing to spoil in those fifteen minutes other than someone's decision to run a Dracula trailer during the commercial break. (Whoops. I possibly should have put a spoiler warning for that.) It's not just that Batman's origin story is well known: it's that this was at least the third if not fourth time that I have seen this on film. Some of the shots were even identical to the ones in the 1989 Nicholson/Keaton Batman film. I know it's iconic – but in many ways that's the exact problem.

That in turn led to the main issue in the pilot: a general lack of suspense about the fates of any characters. I'm not just talking about Bruce Wayne here, but virtually everyone else on the screen, most of whom were introduced with exactly no subtlety whatsoever: "IT'S A RIDDLE! A RIDDLE! HA HA RIDDLE!" or "Here I am FEEDING A CAT. A CAT. GET IT. A CAT!" It's not even so much that the show decided to introduce three iconic Bat-villains in the first ten minutes, but rather that it does so in a way that telegraphs WOW, THESE ARE IMPORTANT CHARACTERS WHO WILL BE RETURNING LATER HOPE YOU DIDN'T MISS THAT.

And, of course, if you know Batman at all, you know they will be returning later.

Which leads to another problem – the sheer number of Bat characters that popped up in the 42 minute pilot – five major Bat-villains PLUS Alfred PLUS Bruce Wayne PLUS Jim Gordon PLUS Renee Montoya; I'm sure there were others I missed. The only real question was why Ra's Al Ghul and Harvey Dent didn't also just stroll into the bar. Well, I guess Ra's is busy getting ready to hunt down Oliver Queen over on Arrow.

Speaking of Arrow, that was another slight issue. Arrow, granted, not only uses some of the Bat-villains but also extensively ripped off the Nolan Batman films. What's interesting here is that Gotham, in turn, directly ripped off a scene from Arrow's pilot – only considerably less successfully, because Oliver Queen is going to be a superhero, and Jim Gordon is going to be an ordinary guy. That allowed Arrow to put together one major and awesome stunt sequence in its pilot, with a twist end, giving a sense of where the show would be going. Gotham, by nature, had to be more restrained. It's not a bad stunt sequence, but it feels tired, as if we've seen it before.

Speaking of Arrow, there's another contrast here, not in Gotham's favor. Arrow is loosely based on the Green Arrow comics, but very loosely: so loosely that the show has been able to feature completely different takes on various DC characters and play with expectations and even, in a couple of cases, feature different and opposing versions of the characters (Deathstroke and Black Canary). That gives Arrow more freedom. And because Arrow wasn't introducing the entire Bat mythos, it also could focus on just its main characters in the pilot – allowing the DC Easter eggs to pop up later, and (presumably) allowing the upcoming Flash pilot to do something similar since it's jumping into an established universe.

As it is, Gotham felt less fresh than, and I'm sorry to type this, the first season of Smallville - which also suffered under similar constraints, but used its location to play around a bit more with the Superman origin story – and also did not suffer by having to include so many Superman characters in its pilot. And it didn't help that I knew, throughout the entire episode, that main character Jim Gordon is, eventually, going to fail, even as he rises through the police force. Because, Batman.

Which is not to say that Gotham was a bad show. It had its moments, and the last fifteen minutes had some very strong stuff, even if the outcome was inevitable because, again, Batman. I just think I would have liked it more if it was called something else.

The reluctant blogger

Wow, it's been awhile since I've said anything here, hasn't it? There's various reasons for this, all more or less boiling down to I haven't felt the blogging bug. But, the new fall TV season is starting up, giving me a few things to say. I also still have some notes from the UK/Ireland trip that might yet come together in a coherent fashion. We'll see. Meanwhile, onwards to television!

While I was away

I'm back, more or less, but only in the physical sense: I'm mildly feverish and very fatigued. But just to note a few things that happened while I was away:

1. Upgraded, edited by Neil Clarke, popped up for preorder everywhere, and also started collecting its first (favorable) reviews. The anthology includes my story "Memories and Wire," AND short stories by Elizabeth Bear, Tobias Buckell, Ken Liu, Rachel Swirsky, Genevieve Valentine, and E. Lily Yu. It should be available in September.

2. Uncanny Magazine met not only its initial Kickstarter goals, but also its stretch goals, meaning that we have a full year ahead filled with fantastic fiction – including at least one little poem by me.

3. I continued to blog for Tor.com, covering the Green Knowe books by Lucy M. Boston. I bring this up largely because this month included the first book, in about five years of blogging for Tor.com, that broke me.

Last Dublin morning

It is cold - even by normal standards; people in Dublin are hurrying by in coats, August or not. The seagulls look damp. Well, seagulls always look damp, but you know what I mean. Duolingo has just informed me that their free language program for Irish Gaelic has just become available. Great timing, Duolingo.

I'm packing up to leave: Hurricane Cristobal has kindly enough not aimed for Florida; the Iceland volcano hasn't exploded. Yet.

I do feel cheated on Ireland - I should have arranged to spend more time here, and I barely saw any of it - but the same thing could be said about virtually every point on this trip, really (except for the London ExCel center - I think I saw enough of that). Another trip, another time. So I will get to know you later, Ireland. Because yes, I do plan to return. (Also to Bath.)

And also yes, I know I owe plenty of blog posts - but as anyone who has chatted with me over the last few days can confirm, coherency is not my strong point at the moment, so that will have to wait just a little bit.

Bath

Bath was lovely, though I admit that I was initially in no mood to appreciate it. I arrived dizzy and exhausted, and the hotel I was staying at - a Hilton - lived thoroughly down to expectations. If you don't use a wheelchair, I thoroughly agree with everyone on TripAdvisor that you should stay at any of Bath's other hotels, and if you do use a wheelchair, you should also probably stay - or at least look at - other hotels. But it did have a bed, which was the important thing.

I was so tired and out of it that I didn't realize just why the seagulls just outside seemed so incredibly loud - the wnidows were open. The next day I still felt a bit dizzy, a feeling that did not improve when I looked at the Hilton's room service options. Or by seagulls. So I decided to try my luck outside the hotel.

Which is more or less how I ended up at the Assembly Rooms, drinking cappuccino.

I know. I know. It's the ENTIRELY WRONG DRINK for the Bath Assembly Rooms. I could almost hear Jane Austen's ghost sniffing, but, see, Jane Austen never had cappuccino, and plus, I had already had a lot of tea. So cappuccino instead.

So that was not Jane Austen like. Neither, frankly, were my muttered comments about Bath's inexplicable curb cuts. (On one side of the street, but not the other.) But the rest was lovely. I didn't manage to see everything, or even half of everything - and I may have spent just a little too much time sipping hot drinks and watching the rain. But I also looked at stained glass, and Roman baths, and swans.

Also, Laura Place.

Someday I would like to go back, and see all the many bits I missed. Just maybe not at that hotel.

Trains and Bath and seagulls and stuff

Have more or less successfully survived Loncon3. Lots to post about, but that should be done in a more organized fashion, so that will be coming later.

(Also, yes, while that was probably the longest trek from the ExCel area to Greenwich in history, I did finally make it to Greenwich, and, no, Google did not lie: Greenwich DID have a Marks and Spencer with more than tolerable sandwiches which you can eat right in front of the Cutty Sark. I approve of this.)

My original plan was to leave London Monday morning and trek out to Bath, spending the afternoon looking at Bath and then the following day doing one of the little tourist bus trips out to Glastonbury and Wells. That did not happen, but for a very good reason: kate_nepveu and her husband Chad kidnapped me for a lovely high tea near Green Park, complete with all of the Proper little finger sandwiches and scones and little cakes including something that is apparently called Battenberg cake that I loved if Kate, alas, didn't.

I had a few awful moments of thinking that I wouldn't make it - I woke up a bit dizzy, then got better, then got very dizzy again, but after I stayed prone for a couple hours I felt better and by the time Kate and Chad showed up I was slightly light headed but otherwise fine.

Getting there was...entertaining. We started with the DLR (fine). Then the Jubilee line (less fine.)

See, the London Underground will tell you that the Jubilee line at the Green Park station is wheelchair accessible. It is -- but only from ONE of the train cars at ONE location, where the platform has been raised up to be level with the train and then tapers off with slightly steep ramps back to the rest of the platform. The rest of the platform is a solid FOOT down from the train, not something my wheelchair can handle. FORTUNATELY, Chad looked down the car and saw the raised platform and sent me there, allowing me to escape just as the doors were closing.

And then we had to get through the Green Park Tube station, which I can report has not improved in twenty years. So you can see that all of the little cakes were Medically Necessary, as was the delightful conversation.

They also turned out to be medically necessary for another reason: Paddington Station.

Getting to Paddington Station was fine - I rolled into a little cab and we rolled around London and then the cab driver waved down disability access for me. This got a little confusing - I can't actually buy my tickets at a kiosk (like THANKS CHASE BANK) but we got me to the main ticket station. Where the access person took off telling me I was in helpful hands.

Here I encountered the hands down least helpful person yet in the UK, I told him I needed to get to Bath Spa. He sold me a ticket (at, I later found, NOT the cheapest price for the train I was on) but failed to tell me a) what train I could get on (I ended up guessing, correctly, Bristol, but seriously....) what platform the train was on. And then this:

"Where can I request disability assistance?" (National Rail's webpage said I needed it at Paddington and Bath - this is correct.)

"You don't need it for this train."

That was a lie.

My access person had left so a helpful Brit helped me roll my suitcase to the information booth and said he would help me on the train. I still wasn't sure if I could GET on the 7 o'clock train - the electronic board suggested not - so I rolled up to the desk to request information assistance, who chose that moment to tell me that yes, I DID need ramp assistance.

So off I headed to the access area, slightly worried because the train was scheduled to leave in 20 minutes at this point, but telling myself and access that I could just take the next train. Another wheelchair user happened to be requesting access to the same train. We were told that it was on platform one (good) and it was coach C (way way way way down the platform, less good) and the access people were all running around so since time was running out the wheelchair user took me down to Coach C on platform one, followed by the helpful Brit with my bag --

-- it was the wrong train, and the helpful Brit had already taken off.

We had five minutes to reach coach C (way way way way way down) on the other platform, and no access people in sight.

I offered to take the next train. I had underestimated the helpfulness of other Brits; the other wheelchair user was in an electric, so he offered to take my suitcase (it's wheeled) and we rushed. I never ever want to push my manual that quickly, that distance, again. At the station end of the platform we explained the situation and were allowed through Secret Inaccessible doors and then sped down that way. At that point I started having breathing problems. My suitcase went on ahead of me; a porter saw me and started running with me down the platform. The ramp was set up and the train left while we were still getting ourselves into place.

That took awhile because I was still having breathing issues and palpitations. After that, I got my head down and pretty much stayed there until Swindon, which is to say if you are looking for a lovely description of a train ride from London to Bath you need to look elsewhere.

The Bath train station was a lot less exciting, but at that point the only thing I wanted was a bed. Any bed. See why the high tea was so helpful? I had no need for dinner.

I have more to say on Bath (which is lovely) and seagulls and other things, but for now, time for the next train.

Trains and Bath and seaguls and stuff

Have more or less successfully survived Loncon3. Lots to post about, but that should be done in a more organized fashion, so that will be coming later.

(Also, yes, while that was probably the longest trek from the ExCel area to Greenwich in history, I did finally make it to Greenwich, and, no, Google did not lie: Greenwich DID have a Marks and Spencer with more than tolerable sandwiches which you can eat right in front of the Cutty Sark. I approve of this.)

My original plan was to leave London Monday morning and trek out to Bath, spending the afternoon looking at Bath and then the following day doing one of the little tourist bus trips out to Glastonbury and Wells. That did not happen, but for a very good reason: kate_nepveu and her husband Chad kidnapped me for a lovely high tea near Green Park, complete with all of the Proper little finger sandwiches and scones and little cakes including something that is apparently called Battenberg cake that I loved if Kate, alas, didn't.

I had a few awful moments of thinking that I wouldn't make it - I woke up a bit dizzy, then got better, then got very dizzy again, but after I stayed prone for a couple hours I felt better and by the time Kate and Chad showed up I was slightly light headed but otherwise fine.

Getting there was...entertaining. We started with the DLR (fine). Then the Jubilee line (less fine.)

See, the London Underground will tell you that the Jubilee line at the Green Park station is wheelchair accessible. It is -- but only from ONE of the train cars at ONE location, where the platform has been raised up to be level with the train and then tapers off with slightly steep ramps back to the rest of the platform. The rest of the platform is a solid FOOT down from the train, not something my wheelchair can handle. FORTUNATELY, Chad looked down the car and saw the raised platform and sent me there, allowing me to escape just as the doors were closing.

And then we had to get through the Green Park Tube station, which I can report has not improved in twenty years. So you can see that all of the little cakes were Medically Necessary, as was the delightful conversation.

They also turned out to be medically necessary for another reason: Paddington Station.

Getting to Paddington Station was fine - I rolled into a little cab and we rolled around London and then the cab driver waved down disability access for me. This got a little confusing - I can't actually buy my tickets at a kiosk (like THANKS CHASE BANK) but we got me to the main ticket station. Where the access person took off telling me I was in helpful hands.

Here I encountered the hands down least helpful person yet in the UK, I told him I needed to get to Bath Spa. He sold me a ticket (at, I later found, NOT the cheapest price for the train I was on) but failed to tell me a) what train I could get on (I ended up guessing, correctly, Bristol, but seriously....) what platform the train was on. And then this:

"Where can I request disability assistance?" (National Rail's webpage said I needed it at Paddington and Bath - this is correct.)

"You don't need it for this train."

That was a lie.

My access person had left so a helpful Brit helped me roll my suitcase to the information booth and said he would help me on the train. I still wasn't sure if I could GET on the 7 o'clock train - the electronic board suggested not - so I rolled up to the desk to request information assistance, who chose that moment to tell me that yes, I DID need ramp assistance.

So off I headed to the access area, slightly worried because the train was scheduled to leave in 20 minutes at this point, but telling myself and access that I could just take the next train. Another wheelchair user happened to be requesting access to the same train. We were told that it was on platform one (good) and it was coach C (way way way way down the platform, less good) and the access people were all running around so since time was running out the wheelchair user took me down to Coach C on platform one, followed by the helpful Brit with my bag --

-- it was the wrong train, and the helpful Brit had already taken off.

We had five minutes to reach coach C (way way way way way down) on the other platform, and no access people in sight.

I offered to take the next train. I had underestimated the helpfulness of other Brits; the other wheelchair user was in an electric, so he offered to take my suitcase (it's wheeled) and we rushed. I never ever want to push my manual that quickly, that distance, again. At the station end of the platform we explained the situation and were allowed through Secret Inaccessible doors and then sped down that way. At that point I started having breathing problems. My suitcase went on ahead of me; a porter saw me and started running with me down the platform. The ramp was set up and the train left while we were still getting ourselves into place.

That took awhile because I was still having breathing issues and palpitations. After that, I got my head down and pretty much stayed there until Swindon, which is to say if you are looking for a lovely description of a train ride from London to Bath you need to look elsewhere.

The Bath train station was a lot less exciting, but at that point the only thing I wanted was a bed. Any bed. See why the high tea was so helpful? I had no need for dinner.

I have more to say on Bath (which is lovely) and seagulls and other things, but for now, time for the next train.