cahn

Downton Abbey: So, I watched the second season, and two things:

1. Michelle Dockery (Mary) is my new crush. She is just luminous and amazing, doubly so in this season. And Mary and Matthew have such amazing chemistry that I just do not care that they used to be all wrong for each other. (They're not wrong for each other now. I am just the biggest Mary/Matthew shipper now! Though frustrated that more wasn't done with Richard/Mary, that had a lot of potential that was squandered in favor of making Richard unequivocally the bad guy.)

2. WHAT IS THIS ABLEIST CRAP. WHAT. I mean... I'm like the poster child for not being sensitive to such things, and even I thought it was lame. I mean, in addition to being ableist, it was bad storytelling! (I mean, don't get me wrong, I am thrilled that [spoiler], but also ABLEIST CRAP and bad storytelling, okay?)

Once Upon a Time: Why must this show vacillate between having awesome character interactions and lame plot? Why? Why must you have awesome heroines with awesome friendships who are then utterly stupid? Why must you win my heart with your parent-child relationships (I do love that after setting up True Love as The Thing, they then completely ignore it in favor of the familial relationships - ha!) and frustrate me because nothing ever happens?

At least they are being consistent with Gold's character: with "The Return," I'm now firmly convinced that the utter fail of Belle/Rumpelstiltskin-relationship (not okay to turn your crush's boyfriend into a rose, nor okay to torture her father, just sayin') was intentional and is not being swept under the rug as oh-it's-okay-to-kill-people-if-it's-true-love (though as was pointed out to me by J., it may be swept under the rug if fans get riled up enough about it, I suppose, which makes me sad).

Smash: Ahahahaha. Smash has now officially fallen off the cliff. It was falling since episode one, but now it's hit the bottom, or at least the part where I have stopped watching because I can't deal with seeing it fall any farther because everyone is having affairs with everyone else and show, have I told you how much I do not care? I just wanted to hear people sing and stress about making a Broadway show, is this so hard? Apparently so, because for several episodes now Jack Davenport's character has been the only character who has seemed to care about the show at all more than his pathetic love life, and he's supposed (I think) to be the villain. Only I can't tell because I hate all the other characters, except for Christian Borle. (Still in love with Borle! At least they gave him a chance to sing/act a character role. AWESOME. Best straight-acting-gay-acting-straight I've ever seen.) Thanks a lot, show. However, it is worth it to read the abridged episodes, so there's that.