Haven't posted a Friday Five for 3 months... but here goes again now:
1) Today marks 9 years exactly since I started working at the Met Office
.
2) It's been a busy few weeks... I was supposed to attend 3 weddings in 4 weekends in Sept and early Oct: my cousin's, then my brother's a week later, and a colleague's 2 weeks after that. Only problem was, on the day of my cousin's wedding, my brother called
his wedding off (I think I may have previously mentioned our concerns about whether he should marry her or not - she'd basically been emotionally blackmailing him for much of the relationship - and after a heart-to-heart with our other brother, he finally realised that he was making a mistake). They have now split up and he's had to find somewhere else to live, though they still have to figure out what to do about the house they bought last year (the idea is that she will spend the next couple of months seeing if she can afford the mortgage and bills on her own, and if not, they might sell it)
3) In 2 weeks, I'm heading to Paris for a long weekend (to attend a convention, and probably also go to Disneyland for a day). I originally booked my Eurostar train for Friday Nov 1st, and then realised I might get delayed if Brexit actually happens on the 31st, so I changed my train ticket to get there Thursday evening, which gives me Friday to maybe go to Disney
. Just hope I won't be delayed on the way back!
4) Two weeks after the Paris trip, I'm off to Germany for a music festival, and then 3 weeks after
that our family are all going to South Africa for 3 weeks to spend Christmas with my brother and his wife (and her dad and sister)
. Our other brother was supposed to spend Christmas with his new in-laws, but since they didn't get married, he's now coming to South Africa as well
.
5) Apologies in advance for the upcoming rant:
The reason I haven't done a Friday Five for 3 months, and the reason I haven't been around much on the forum lately, is because a few hours after I last posted in this thread, Hulu released the new season of Veronica Mars a week early in the middle of San Diego Comic Con (they claim it was for Kristen Bell's birthday, but in reality it was damage control after a major spoiler was leaked).
After been excited for it for several months, I now wish I had never seen it at all. It was terrible - bad writing, lazy plotting, established supporting characters who have been in the show since 2004 shoved to the sidelines like they didn't matter (Veronica's best friend got a total 5 minutes of screen time in 8 episodes), Veronica was written completely out of character, and right at the end, they killed off one of the most important characters, in an off-screen, shock value death which served no narrative purpose at all (that was the big spoiler), and then immediately skipped forward 1 year (there was no funeral and no grieving period for a character we've loved for 15 years). Think GoT and HIMYM endings, but 10 times worse, because the showrunner manipulated the fans into thinking they were getting exactly what they wanted in the revival and then betrayed them by stabbing them in the back (they promoted it using the character who was unceremoniously killed off) - last year the Writer's Room actually tweeted asking fans what they wanted to see in the revival, and then deliberately wrote the opposite, and in the process, destroyed everything that used to be good about the show.
The worst part of it though, were the post-season interviews from the creator of the show, where he 'explained' why the character had to die. Basically, it's because he's a sexist, racist, misogynistic, entitled white man (think Joss Whedon, but not nearly as talented) who thinks 30-something women can't be interesting unless they are emotionally damaged and suffer constant trauma
. Even though the ending was left ambiguous (off-screen death, no funeral, no mention of the word 'dead') the showrunner confirmed that the death is 'definite'. He also said the character - who was basically the most popular character on the show - had to die because he's run out of ideas for how to write them (despite being one of the most layered, well-developed, most interesting characters ever written for the screen) - he actually said he struggled to find anything for said character to do in the revival, when actually, that character has an extremely interesting job which could have been worked into the story in a number of ways, and their scenes were the only good parts of the season.
Also, right after the revival was released, the showrunner and Kristen Bell went into hiding, and left the actor who'd just been killed off to do all the press interviews (they were visibly upset and barely holding it together as they touted the party-line that the death was 'for the best and will help the show move forward', even though it was obvious they didn't agree with the decision). As a result of the crappy season and the terrible interviews afterwards, approximately 80% of the entire fanbase has now jumped ship and have said they will never watch the show again (assuming it's renewed that is - Hulu have been silent on that front). Even if they backtracked now and brought the character back, I will never trust the showrunner to be respectful of these characters again.
The whole debacle made me so upset and angry that I basically spent the next 2 months completely depressed (I literally spent a week after watching grieving the loss of the main character - I cried for 2 days straight, couldn't eat, couldn't sleep, lost weight - the whole shebang). I couldn't even face posting here at UK-Y. I'm feeling a lot better now, though the anger is still simmering just beneath the surface.
