Week in Review, Apr 12 to 18

The Week in Books

With the very welcome arrival of 20+ C sunny days, my desire to sit outside in the backyard and read a book returned with a vengeance this weekend. So, on Sunday, I finally jumped back into Steven Erikson's epic fantasy series Malazan Book of the Fallen, reading the first quarter (200+ pages) of House of Chains, the fourth book in the series. I will wait until I finish the entire book (which will be a few weeks yet) before I do any reviewing.

It is actually a bit of an understatement to call the Malazan Book of the Fallen epic. I have never read anything with the depth of detail in world-building and storytelling as this series. (You could argue for Tolkien's Middle-Earth, but Erikson takes it to the next level in my opinion.) And no other author that I have ever read has so dared to confuse the fuck out of his readers with random shit happening at random times without explanation. When I read Gardens of the Moon, the first book in the series, a couple years back, I had no idea what the fuck was going on on most of the pages. But I kept reading because it was fascinating in its details, thoroughly well-written, and many of the characters were quite interesting.

I read both Deadhouse Gates and Memories of Ice last summer in numerous marathon backyard reading sessions, and I appreciated that both of those books were much more coherent. There were still many moments of confusion and random gods doing random shit, but I was better able to follow the through-stories this time. Memories of Ice, the best book of the first three, also did a fantastic job of explaining retroactively many of the most confusing moments from Gardens of the Moon, so I found myself jumping back and forth between the two books, trying to get a better understanding of this world and its rules. I have never done that with any book series previously, because I haven't had to.

The Malazan Book of the Fallen also features a staggering number of characters, and I often have a hard time remembering who is who. I can't even imagine how many characters I'll have to keep straight by book ten. (Thankfully, each book includes a handy "cast of characters" list!) If I have one complaint with the series, it is that I sometimes feel like an outsider watching these characters go through their motions, rarely knowing their motivations. The reader does not spend as much time inside the characters' heads as I am used to from other similar fiction. This sounds like a big complaint, but it's actually a minor quibble, because the scope of the action that surrounds these characters generally dwarfs their individual significance. This series is telling a truly epic story about a unique world and its powerful gods and vengeful demons and diverse peoples and endless wars.

The Week in Television

Monday, April 12th
Liked: The Big Bang Theory (3x19), How I Met Your Mother (5x19)
Meh: House (6x16)

The Big Bang Theory's "The Wheaton Recurrence" was a solid episode, reuniting Sheldon with his newest nemesis, Evil Wil Wheaton, for (of all things) competitive bowling. The important storyline in this episode, tightly interlinked with the bowling games, was a rift in Leonard and Penny's relationship due to a mismatch in depth of feelings.

"Zoo or False" was an unapologetically silly episode of How I Met Your Mother, but I laughed at many of the dumb jokes, so I guess it gets a pass. I imagine that Ted's children in 2030 were as confused as I about what any of this had to do with how he met their mother.

I recently caught up on the multiple weeks of House that I was behind on, so I was able to watch this week's episode, "Lockdown," in a timely fashion. And it was okay. Wilson and Thirteen's game of Truth or Dare provided most of the episode's entertainment. House's storyline was a snoozer, Cameron and Chase were depressing, and Foreman and Taub took drugs and did a bunch of silly nonsense.

Tuesday, April 13th
Loved: Lost (6x12)
Liked: Glee (1x14)

While it wasn't as revelatory as last week's episode, "Everybody Loves Hugo" continued the trend of using the alternate reality to do awesome things, such as reuniting Hurley with Libby (!) and having Desmond be all cool and mysterious and then murderous. On island, there was all kinds of crazy shit going down, including another hilariously shocking death due to unstable dynamite, Hurley taking over as leader, and Not!Locke throwing Desmond down a well. Is it next Tuesday yet?

Glee made its long awaited return (okay, not really--it's a good show, but omigod the hype!) with "Hell-o," an episode that did a great job of crapping all over the supposedly happy endings from the mid-season finale. The musical highlights were (unexpectedly) Rachel rocking out with The All-American Rejects' "Gives You Hell," a duet between Rachel and new guy Jesse on Lionel Richie's "Hello," and the whole gang taking on The Beatles' "Hello, Goodbye."

Wednesday, April 14th
Loved: South Park (14x5)

I adored South Park's love letter to long time fans, "200," so titled because it was the 200th episode of this long running series. This was an episode that relied entirely on call-backs to previous episodes, and for me, it was brilliantly done. Also, it ended with a hilarious redo of the first season's cliffhanger, "Who is Eric Cartman's father?"

Thursday, April 15th
Loved: Fringe (2x18)
Liked: Survivor (20x10)

This week's Survivor was marketed as featuring the dumbest move in Survivor history. While JT giving Russell his immunity idol was certainly a dumb move, he at least thought he had sound strategic reasons for doing so (and he seemingly had his tribe's support, except for possibly Amanda), which is better than James not playing one of his two idols and getting voted off or Eric giving his idol away and getting voted off. So, no, not the dumbest move in Survivor history... but if Russell somehow uses that specific idol to engineer JT's elimination, maybe I'll come back to this point. With the merge coming up next, it is tough to say where this game is going to go, but with two idols in their hands, Russell and Parvati (and the rest of the Villains?) are in good shape.

"White Tulip" was an excellent standalone episode of Fringe, making extremely good use of time travel. The heart of the episode was in Walter's sympathy with the time traveler's motivation, and his and Olivia's continued struggle with whether Peter should know the truth of his origins.

Friday, April 16th
Loved: Spartacus (1x13)
Liked: Stargate Universe (1x13), The Ricky Gervais Show (1x8)

Spartacus' "Kill Them All" was a thoroughly satisfying season finale, brutally setting up a second season that will (by necessity) barely resemble the first. My early season concerns that this series would grow stale and boring with the same old, same old every week were completely eradicated by a blood bath of unimaginable proportions. There was nothing on TV this winter that I enjoyed more than Spartacus Blood and Sand.

"Faith" was a welcome return to the entirely character driven Stargate Universe of the first half of this season, but with the added plus of no fucking communication stones. As you can guess from the title, this episode was concerned with issues of spirituality and fate, which I am okay with in my sci-fi. I appreciated that the story offered no easy answers and that the resolution was not tidy.

I find it fascinating, or maybe it's more accurate to say disbelieving, that Karl would so willingly hand over his hilarious diary for Ricky and Stephen to read on their podcast. What is the fucking deal with that guy?

Saturday, April 17th
Liked: Doctor Who (5x3), Legend of the Seeker (2x17)

Doctor Who's "Victory of the Daleks" was the weakest episode of this season so far, but it was still enjoyable for its character moments. Making the ultra-cheesy Daleks seem like a threat is often challenging, and the introduction of a new breed of super (colourful!) Daleks was particularly silly. I'm sure they'll be back later this season, and I hope they bring a better story with them.

I had high hopes for Legend of the Seeker's "Vengeance," seeing as it guest starred John Rhys-Davies as Panis Rahl, but it was a bit disappointing. The episode featured a number of interesting flashbacks to Zedd's past, providing suitable back story, included one hell of a Zedd-on-a-rampage sequence, and I appreciated the return to the Stone of Tears storyline, but the ending of the episode didn't pack the punch it should have.