Seasons Finales Greetings

Prefect Slog
Americans just don’t get irony, I’ve often heard it said. Alanis Morisette is part-Canadian, so what’s her excuse? But my wife is American and she tends to do okay with it. I’m sure she’d agree that it was pretty ironic that now that I’m taking time off work for the festive season, I find I have a lot less spare time on my hands. The upshot of which is I’m not going to have time for a lengthy Christmas message here, but you know, I figured a simple ‘Merry Christmas’ just wouldn’t cut the cranberry.
So by way of rounding off this year’s blogging, I thought I’d just add an update or two to some of those discourses on TV I’ve rattled off over the past few months.
Farscape, first of all, warrants a mention, not least because someone was kind enough to ask me to post my thoughts on the final season when I finally got there. Really, it merits a blog entry all its own, and it will get one in the New Year. For now, I’ll just say that, far from spiralling away up its own nostrils (seeing as how it’s Christmas, I think a more polite metaphorical orifice is in order) it was/is – with many of the same sort of caveats I gave before – superlative sci fi entertainment. Most creative, dynamic sf show ever. And, in the light of what I now know about that 4th Season, Peacekeeper Wars strikes a curious balance: being both a generally satisfying conclusion to the journey, and offering an insight of just how bloody fantastic it would have been if they’d been able to close the story with a full 5th Season. But more on this at a later date. It’s a compulsion, and I don’t see why indulgence should be limited to this time of year :)
Meanwhile, Award For Most Surprising Season Finale has to go to Ghost Whisper. Wow, I thought, when this show wakes up it really wakes up! Not only did we get two whole helpings of Jennifer Love Hewitt (overdoing good things, see, it’s entirely in keeping with the Christmas theme) but they cleverly diverted attention with big disaster-movie level drama, while pulling one of the best Sixth Sense-style twists I’ve seen since The Others. It would be difficult to see this falling back to formula after that, but what the heck do I care, I’m on board for another season.
But for Torchwood, I think not. That show upped its game too with the most recent episode – Out Of Time, I think it was called (really, the series doesn’t even inspire much effort to check my facts). Credit where it’s due, that was the best yet, but in the context of the series I suspect it’s too little too late. Overall, i gets my vote for Most Awful Series I’ve Watched All Year. It's Space:1999 Series 2 Awful. In the interests of open-mindedness, it may yet win me over, but as things stand, it’ll have to deliver something way, way above its current par for the end of season to keep me from saving myself thirteen lots of 45 minutes next year.
And who can blame me? As it is, I’m going to have to watch the Sarah Jane Adventures on New Year’s Day, and the advance publicity seems to suggest that someone thought K9 & Company was just too adult and had to be toned down for a younger audience. But it’s Lis Sladen, isn’t it, and hence another compulsion.
Never mind. On the plus side, it is starting the New Year with Sarah Jane Smith and really there was many a year in the past I’d have liked to have kicked off like that! So on that note, Merry Christmas to everyone here and here’s to heaps of positive things in 2007 for all of you.