I woke up a tweet today that literally had me barfing all over my own crotch. Yes grammar Nazis, literally. Amidst the screams of “Why, God, why have you forsaken me?” and the shrills of my cat, understandably upset at his master, barfing and barfing all over his own bare balls, I read this:

Love it or hate it, there’s no denying that people are watching Warehouse 13. The Syfy series set an all-time ratings high for the network again last week, with 4.4 million people tuning in to see evil Myka.

Who would have thought a simple tweet from Mr. Mars would have sent me on an incredible ball-soaking vomit bonanza.

Sweet Jesus lord, end my fucking life now. You man that Warehouse 13, the generic, Shaws Cola edition of Fringe Files Torchwood-atron beat out every episode of Battlestar Galactica? Ever? Whoops, there I go again. Barfing on my god damn balls.

You’re all welcome for the picture. I thought Evan Rachel Wood coming onto True Blood (pictured above) would be awesome. Why? As seen above, she’s absolutely gorgeous. I guess most of the time. She debuted on Sunday, puffy-faced and pimply, spitting awful dialogue from Mr. Alan Ball.

My good friend Mr. Patrick Mars writes a hilarious True Blood Re-Up every week over at Mishka Bloglin. Poor dude was watching True Blood tonight and texting me as he endured it, and he hit me with a sentence that hollered genius. In one blast of hilarity, he captures how I feel about the entire episode:

I wonder if this is how they explain shit in the books. Its like Muppet Babies.

Awesome.

[ spoilers from 8/30, you’ve been warned. ]

I know that Alan Ball is all whacky and amazing and he’s responsible for Six Feet Under and American Beauty and True Blood. But with that in mind, I’d like to kindly ask him to never write True Blood again. Ball’s sporadic appearances on True Blood raise important issues I have with television shows and comic books. They both routinely feature different writers interpreting the same characters. But let’s stick to one issue here. True Blood.

Here’s the first problem with Alan Ball on True Blood. He doesn’t write it every episode, but he acts like he does. The various writers that contribute to True Blood work to create a cohesive universe. They pay respect to the other writers’ work on developing characters, and script their episodes accordingly. And then Alan Ball comes in and he’s all:

OH HAI GUYZ, I CREATES THIS SHOW, I DO WHAT THE FUKK I WANT.

In his episodes, Ball throws the characters’ behaviors and development out the window for his view of how they act. For example, his Jason Stackhouse is a bumbling redneck retard. To the zillionth degree. His Lafayette is uber hood.

Stackhouse is appealing because he’s the idiot kid who may have some cerebral activity, but it’s consistently stifled before it can brim over the top. He’s always the lovable retard, but Ball plays that up to the point of nausea. Jason’s arc and redemption in the L.O.D.I episodes proved him to be a nuanced dumb ass, not some slapstick retard. I love his stupidity as much as anyone, but I love that underneath it all, he’s redeemable. How stoked were you when he capped Steve Newlin in his dumb Bible-Thumping-Face?

And then there’s Lafayette. Lafayette’s arc on the show was really friggin’ interesting at the begin of the season. Tortured and left for dead in a dungeon, Lafayette’s character had been turned inside out. He had seen the darkness, and we got to see a guy wounded emotionally and physically from that sort of serious shit.

Then Ball steps in.

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Patton Oswalt is going to be on Caprica. We already know this. When I found out, I almost went comatose. Oswalt, much to his chargin I’m sure, is a hero amongst us pudgy nerds. He references X-Men in his act, he is the voice behind a Pixar film, and oh yeah – he has your dream gig, acting in a motherfuckin’ BSG spin-off. The dude is a god. A brilliant, incisive God who was probably one of the few highlights of Dollhouse this season.

I stumbled across this quote via /Film, who nabbed it from A/V Club:

I’m just going to be a sort of Jon Stewart-esque presence that’s always going to be on television in the background. I think that’s going to be the role I have, though there’s a big confrontation I have with Eric Stoltz and Paula Malcomson.

A recurring role as Caprica’s equivalent of Jon Stewart? Sign me up. I was cautious about Caprica, and how it was going to impact the re-imagined BSG mythos. But the pilot talked me off the edge – a mixture of good ole Phillip K. Dick, and Snow Crash and various obvious references. Sure, maybe the Cylons are going to end up the weepy product of a guy losing his daughter (fucking ugh), but for once I’m going to try and not hate. It’s got Moore’s blessing. And now, more importantly, it’s got fucking Patton Oswalt.

OMFG! Summer Glau, also known as the creepy fanboy wetdream River from Firely is joining the cast of Dollhouse.

According to the Hollywood Reporter:

“(Glau) will have a recurring role as Bennett, a Dollhouse employee who shares a secret past with Eliza Dushku’s Echo.”

Secret past? Can you say lesbian sex scenes interspersed with mind-numbing and heavy-handed exploration of identity? YES. Or probably not.
It’s ironic, right? Firefly gets canceled after one season, despite being excellent. Dollhouse, the biggest piece of shit I’ve watched on television in years gets renewed. Well done, Whedon zealots. You’ve saved this pile of high school philosophy and drama club dialogue. And your reward? Summer Glau! If anything, Whedon et company are doing a great fan service to the perennial virgins out there – getting them geeked out with appearances by first Felecia Day, and now Summer Glau. Get ready to fap, boys.

Do you remember where you were, the first time you saw Anna Paquin’s tits in True Blood? Yeah, me too. I was right next to my girlfriend, trying to not let my boner show. However, as the second season has gone on, we’ve seen her boobs roughly six-zillion times. Awesome, right?

Wrong.

In a truly shocking moment, I am tired of her boobs. There was a point when I absolutely adored them, all done up tight in her little Merlotte’s uniform. Or on Bill’s bed. But now I’m tired of them. Sorry Alan Ball and company, I’m jaded.

Maybe it’s because every time Sookie is naked, and showing them goodies, she’s usually crying and lamenting with Bill in some bedroom somewhere. No, seriously. All they do is fuck, and have these awful Dawson’s Creek conversations.

Sookie! I CANNOT ALLOW you to go there and blahdy bloop and let me munch your neck hey you have tits…

BILL! Don’t give into your vampire side you’re a human too sugary sophmoric bullshit et cetera…

I never thought I’d say this, but please creators behind True Blood. Enough with Sookie’s rack. And enough with the dreadful bedroom conversations. I beg you. These two characters read like fanfiction some fat chick wrote after eating a pint of ice cream and fingering herself to Bill’s fangs.

There was a time when I was a pill-popping, unmedicated bipolar mess. I worked at a convenience station, was woefully unhappy, and spent my days locked in a relationship that was a dead-man walking. And when I try and remember a bright spot during those dismal days, I remember one thing.

Battlestar Galactica.

It’s pathetic to admit that my existence was kept afloat by a bunch of fictional characters gallivanting about a spaceship. But at the same time, we all need our escapes. What are the arts for, if not to use as a means to get away from the drudgery of our lives?

Books, movies, albums, television shows.

So when I say that I love Battlestar Galactica, I mean that I love it. I’ll never cop to it being some astounding piece of fiction. And there are enough threads and articles out there arguing over every minute detail; there are seas of forums swimming with the blood of fallen nerds. So I don’t’ need to write another article for you to read where I tell you how much the finale was amazing or sucked.

We’ve both been there.

Something more boring and personal.

I began watching Battlestar Galactica in 2006. And watching it. And watching it. I’d run through the series with one person. And then get another person addicted, so I could watch it with them. I’d run the show while I was cleaning my room. Or playing World of Warcraft.

I was working at a convenience store in 2006 when I fell in love with Battlestar Galactica. And being the new guy at work, I had to work Friday nights. I was twenty-three at the time, pulling shit pay. Selling lottery tickets and cigarettes to wash-outs and kids I went to high school with.

Being twenty-three and making shit money peddling habits sucked. Doing it on a Friday night while my friends and girlfriend were off elsewhere was even better. I take ownership for not being more proactive in finding a better job, of not improving my lot at the moment.

But I was down in a pretty shitty hole. Rolling out of bed after sleeping through class in time to work three until eleven was a bit of an accomplishment for me those days. And there’s only one thing I remember helping me out on those shitty Friday nights.

Billy Adama and his legion of lasers, robots, and pontificating.

I’d set up shop with my Macbook. Slap that bitch up on two milk crates, and I’d sit on another two facing them. Head resting on fist, fist driving elbow into my thigh. In my Macbook pro would be a random disc of Battlestar whirling.

As I had to stare at club skanks and orange dudes with blow-outs, Starbuck would be getting her ovaries harvested in some creepy Cylon den. As I had to sell some fat old fuck with thick-rimmed glasses five-hundred dollars worth of scratch tickets, Adama would be telling everyone they had jumped far beyond the red line.

The customers would come and go, and every time after they left I’d sit back down. And for a few moments, I was free. I didn’t have to focus on the shitty store, my shitty job, my fifteen-year in progress degree, anything.

It sounds like some rotten teenage drama when I type this. Maybe next I’ll date the football captain after tutoring him, right? But I’m just kicking it real here. If I can tell you how I like fingers in funny places, I can tell you my embarrassing crush on a bunch of pointless characters.

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