You have 12 hours

Before Joss Whedon's Supervillian musical in three acts disappears from the freeform internets and you have to download it from iTunes or wait for the DVD. So go. Watch it now.

George Carlin is Not in Heaven

But only because there's no such thing, and you know he wouldn't thank us for pretending. His passing marks a sad day for intelligent people everywhere. He may not have been a Mary Ann or a Molly Ivins, but his voice added a refreshing and needed dose of sanity and perspective to the prevaling North American discourse and he will certainly be missed.

Via.

Anyone Else Sick of this Story?

It's a regular on cop shows, and it goes like this:

A crime is committed in Chinatown.* The locals don't want to go to the police, but you can't really keep a death/explosion/kidnapping secret, so they find out anyway. The cop assigned to the case suspects the local Chinese organized crime group (LCOCG), but since no one who witnessed or knows about the crime will talk to him**, he's blocked at every turn and the LCOCG continues to threaten and harm and generally cause mayhem until finally, out of desperation, someone close to the original crime victim agrees to talk to the cop, whereupon she is rewarded for her wise trust in the police by seeing all the leaders of the LCOCG arrested and, if applicable, all kidnapped people returned unharmed. Unless, of course, she waited too long, in which case the mob bosses are still arrested and she is sternly reminded that if only she had come forward sooner poor Nathan Wu would still be alive and what has she learned from all this?

Does anyone else feel like they're being forced to vicariously act like a patronizing asshole when they're watching these sorts of things? Cuz I do.

You know, just once I'd like to see a story where a crime committed in Chinatown is not committed by the Chinese Mafia, the victims and/or families thereof cooperate with police as much as the details of the story allow, and cooperating with the police is not a deus ex machina for getting the damn crime solved. I feel like that's not really a lot to ask.

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*Extra points if Torontonians can identify the streets they're shooting on.

**Even more points if a woman on the police force makes some halfhearted comment about the Chinese people's fear of white cops being justified on account of a history of institutionalized racism, which comment is promptly forgotten by all.

OIC

Thoughout this third season of Doctor Who, although I enjoyed many of the episodes and Martha was starting to grow on me as a character, there was one thing that absolutely drove me crazy. That was the way Martha pined after the doctor from day one, long before he'd shown himself to be deserving of it. With Rose it was different. She initially signed on with the Doctor not because of who he was, but because of where he could take her and what he could show her, and as they spent time together, their friendship grew stronger until they became inseparable. Martha, on the other hand, although she enjoys and participates fully in the adventures, seemed to initially be signing on so that she could be near the Doctor, and I just didn't see what was motivating that. But now I think I do. I was rewatching the beginning of the season because I had missed what this year's Bad Wolf/Torchwood equivalent was and now that it seemed to be coming to a head, I wanted to go back and find it. So I was watching the first episode and in the beginning Martha is kind of unsure of the Doctor, but thought he might know what he was doing, which was a sensible position given the evidence. Then, in order to save the world and for entirely non-romantic reasons (which he stresses), the Doctor kisses her, whereupon she gets all melty. Now with most people this wouldn't make sense, but since, as we all know, the Doctor is made of magic, I can see how being kissed by him might cause a person to fall immediately and completely in love with him and want to follow him to the end of the universe. It's still a cheap plot device that they could have done without, but it's better than no motivation at all.

Torchwood

* * * * *SPOILER ALERT - If you haven't seen all of Torchwood yet and don't want to know, don't read this post* * * * *

For all its flaws (and they are legion), Torchwood will always hold a place in my heart as the first show I've seen to completely normalize same-sex relationships. Generally, when we think about shows that normalize queers we think of things like Queer as Folk or The L Word. But QAF and The L Word aren't really shows about anything. They're not mysteries, or medical shows, or sci fi, or cop shows, or anything. They're personal dramas, about relationships and sex and love and friendships and rivalries. They're shows about gay people being gay. And that's fine as far as it goes, but Torchwood takes it a step further. Torchwood is a science fiction show about a group of people who work for an alien-watching organization, and that is *really* what the show is about. They have adventures and fight aliens and screw around with advanced technologies they have no business touching and open tears in the fabric of space and time, and *that* is what drives the plot. But, like any remotely decent show, the primary characters have personal lives beyond the main focus of the show and we see depth and development in their interactions with each other. And not a single one of them is entirely monosexual.

The main character, Gwen, is primarily straight. She has a steady boyfriend and there are strong indications that this is not an exception for her, but there is one episode that has her making out with a girl under the influence of alien pheromones and, while this may not be something she does every day, there is nothing in her manner to suggest that she finds it shocking or disgusting after the fact.

Captain Jack, as many of us know from Doctor Who, is just a good old-fashioned slut. He'll sleep with anything pretty enough, it doesn't even have to be human, and he likes it that way. This fact seems totally fine with the rest of the Torchwood staff.

Owen is, for the most part, a womanizing jackass, but if the boyfriend of the woman he is currently, um, izing, kicks a fuss, Owen is more than happy to arrange to bring them both home with him in order to keep the peace.

We see many indications throughout the show that Toshiko is pining after Owen, but when the right woman comes along, Tosh falls head over heels. Although things don't work out for them (the woman ends up being a murdering alien in disguise, in love with Tosh but also using her to get inside Torchwood) and Tosh's colleagues suggest that maybe falling for a murdering alien isn't the best course of action, the fact that the murdering alien was also a woman doesn't enter into it. And in fact, Gwen specifically tells Tosh that she shouldn't let this put her off relationships, because "love suited [her]".

And finally, Ianto, who we know is Jack's at-least-occasional lover, we find out also has/had a girlfriend who he is madly in love with.

In addition to having all these wonderfully queer characters, another thing that the writers, etc. on Torchwood do right is how they write their same-sex relationships. It's done respectfully and realistically, with the relationships varying, depending on the situations and the personalities of the participants. There are no archetypal gay or lesbian couplings to be found. We are not banged over the head with any "look, this character is gay, GAY!!!" stereotyping, nor are we subjected to idiotic are-they-aren't-they? ambiguities a la early Willow and Tara or late Xena and Gabrielle. The same-sex sex scenes are shown every bit as explicitly as the opposite sex ones (which is to say not very) and the characters' interactions are as complex or superficial as one would expect from a straight couple in a similar situation.

I know that British television is a lot more willing to push the envelope with this sort of thing, but for those of us exposed mostly to North American media, this is downright revolutionary and, crappy writing and acting be damned, I want the show to continue and, if it hasn't already, air here.