The Pop Tart

Last week I went out and bought my first dvds of a tv show. Whew! Spend that kind of money once and the second time comes a lot easier. I've now seen the movie Serenity twice and today I bought the tv series it's based on, Firefly. Can't wait to get started watching that!

The movie is good stuff. Think of a cross between Star Wars and Pirates of the Carribean and you'll kind of have an idea. Space opera with some serious snark - oh and the eminently cute Nathan Fillion as Mal doesn't hurt either. Yes, the production values aren't always top-notch (I don't think they had a very big budget) but that sort of suits the movie.

It's supposed to be the little guys, Mal and his motley gang, against the big bad guys, the Alliance. This takes place years in our future after humanity had to abandon earth because it was ruined (doesn't sound that far fetched). People escaped to another galaxy and inhabited many planets, all of which the Alliance wanted to control. The rebel planets tried to fight them off, but they lost, and now former soldier Mal takes any job he can get to keep his ship flying. Currently residing on his ship is a young doctor and his very strange teenage sister, River. The Alliance wants them and will stop at nothing to get them. Causes a mite of a problem for Mal. Keep them on the ship and endanger everyone else, or dump them and leave them to the mercy of the Alliance. What's a tough, but good-hearted, guy to do?

As he proved with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Joss Whedon knows how to write good characters and snappy dialog. This movie is the Wild West in space and man is it a fun ride.

If you haven't seen any of the tv show, don't worry. All is very clear in the movie. Friends of mine who hadn't seen the show have seen the movie and are raving. Go now. I want this one to do well so that the creator, Joss Whedon, can do a sequel.

Are you still reading this? Go to the movie.

A little secret about me. When I was a kid and longed for a more interesting name then 'Jane' I decided I wanted to be called Veronica. Much more intriguing, don't you think? Why Archie always preferred Betty to Veronica is a mystery to me. Veronica is, by far, the more interesting of the two. Even Elvis Costello thought so.

Which brings me to the newest Veronica who makes a part of me still long to be something a little more interesting then a Jane. She is Veronica Mars of the highly regarded but severely underwatched show of the same name.

Being a mystery buff I began watching the show last year when it debuted. I was hooked from the first powerful episode. In that first season Veronica is a junior in the very well-to-do town of Neptune, CA. She and her dad Keith are on their own after a scandal pushed her mom into decamping. The scandal centers around the death of Veronica's best friend Lily Kane and the fact that Keith accused Lily's dad, a very powerful man in Neptune, of the murder. Keith lost his job as sheriff and now works as a P.I. with Veronica helping out. Each episode has Veronica on a current case and also on her quest to find Lily's killer.

This show is so good I went out and bought the dvds of the first season today - a Pop Tart first. Run, don't walk, to get the first season for yourself. And watch the current season. Yeah, yeah, I know it's on at the same time as the all-powerful Lost, but that repeats all the time. This show puts DH and Lost to shame for clever writing and character angst and development.

For a while I was contemplating starting my own website devoted to junkfood reviews. Then I realized it'd already been done - Taquitos.net - and my fabulous idea became just another one killed by my own inertia.

In honor of the site that could have been, I'll review a new product every now and then. Today's new junkfood is the new Reece's Cookies. If you've seen the advertisements you know each one is a chocolate cookie (like an Oreo) covered with the Reece's peanut butter filling and then the whole thing has a milk chocolate coating. Sounds good? It certainly did to me since chocolate and peanut butter as a taste combination is my absolute favorite. Call me a connossieur even.

To the cookie. First impression is of the packaging. Nice size box in the familiar Reece's orange. Can't tell how many actual cookies are in the box, though I'm guessing not as many as I'd like. Once the box is opened, my first surprise. The plastic covering the inner package is the same as what you'd find on a Hershey candy bar, what? Okay, not to panic, I realize that Hersheys and Reeces are owned by the same company and this is the result. I haven't gotten a box of Hershey's cookies (though I'm not averse to the idea, it just wasn't what I wanted in the moment).

Okay, I gently rip open the Hershey plastic and pull out my tray of cookies. Hmmm. Looks alot like the peanut butter cookies sold by the Girl Scouts in the Spring. Each has an individual slot in the plastic base and there are about 18 cookies in the box. I know that's not very precise, but I ate them last week the box is gone so I can't refer back, sorry.

As to the cookies? Well they tasted a lot like the Girl Scout cookies too. Not that that's a bad thing (I always buy a couple boxes), but there wasn't anything particularly exciting about them either. Will I buy them again when I need my peanut butter/chocolate fix? Probably not. And that's a big indicator right there - because as a consumer of junkfood I'm easy.

One thing you'll find out about me is I like cheesy (and not just when I'm talking food!). Cheesy what? Everything. Corny too. Schmalz? Bring it on. In fact name one bad 70's song about death and I've got a recording. Run Joey Run or The Night the Lights went out in Georgia? I know 'em by heart.

None of which means I don't like "good" stuff as well. With me it's more a matter of good and bad not meaning much. My inner sap knows no bounds.

Which brings me to the two soapy shows that have captured my attention. No this is not another tribute to Lost and Desperate Housewives. This post is dedicated to two lesser known shows, one beginning to get critical acclaim and the other, hmm, not so much.

First up is a show I discovered last summer. At first I watched occasionally when I was flipping around the dial on a Saturday night (something I do with all too pathetic a regularity). What did I find the first time? Beautiful people speaking with that Australian twang we accentless Americans love so much. McLeod's Daughters is set in the Australian Outback and follows the adventures of two sisters only recently reunited by the death of their father. Claire is the tough, no-nonsense daughter of a rancher who is determined to keep running the ranch her father left to her. Complications arise when her half-sister Tess shows up and says that she is now half owner of the homestead.

Most of this I had to figure out as I went along, since I missed the beginning. But in the meantime I was completely sucked in the melodrama of these women's lives. The WE channel has just started airing season three and the love lives of our intrepid heroines are as complicated as they ever were. Of course it helps that the ranch next door has two large, hot brothers always willing to help Claire and Tess and their all woman staff. Aah. Can't wait for it to come on at 9 tonight.

Equally complicated but, I'll admit, better written is the new series on HBO, Rome. Like the soapy MD, Rome caught me a few episodes in. The show follows the machinations of the powerful as Caesar (played by the lovely Ciaran Hinds) and Pompeii fight for Rome. It is made accessible by our getting to see these world shaking events through the eyes of two soldiers in Caesar's army, Lucius Vorenus and Titus Pullo

Lucius Vorenus is an officer who believes in the Roman Republic. Though he follows orders as an officer, in his heart he does not believe in what Caesar does when he returns to Rome. Lucius' return to Rome and his wife after an 8 year absence is what drew me into the show. Vorenus is a serious, taciturn man who loves his wife Niobe but is unable to come up with the words to tell her so. The soapy scene where they first see each other again was perfectly done. He returns to find her holding a baby and accuses her of being a whore. She coldly informs him that the baby is his grandchild and walks out, leaving him looking bereft. Fabulous.

Titus Pullo is a common soldier who finds himself in trouble more often then not and frequently needs to call on Lucius for help. But where Lucius is intelligent, Titus is canny and pretty darn protective of those he takes under his wing. Nice.

What makes both of these shows is focus on character. Much as the cool technology of CSI and its numerous offshoots is, lately I've only been satisfied with deep character development. Give me tortured characters who struggle. Give me tough gals who can stand toe-to-toe with the hard guys who have hearts of gold.

May cheese and schmalz always rule.