#sky the lazarus project

[rouyn]

"Oh shit."

Tom Burke as Dennis Rebrov in The Lazarus Project 2.06 (2023)

[naivety]

the vague shape of george's non-romantic relationships that's been formed over time within the narrative is on constant rotation in my mind btw. the entire gravitational pull of george's character throughout both seasons has been sarah, before and after she gets killed, it's why he blows up a nuclear bomb, why he kills a bunch of people to start a war that's big enough to press the apocalypse is about to happen so we need to start over the entire year button and kills and betrays his friends and colleagues in the process. sarah is his world, and his world in the time that she's dead and even later when she's just left him is not just defined by the isolation of grief and depression, but just straight up isolation.

we know he has one (1) friend who he doesn't actually like and financially sabotages for dating his girlfriend once in a discarded timeline, we know he has a cousin who wanted to introduce him and sarah in the first place but is never seen or mentioned after that, no apparent siblings to speak of. in season 2, we do learn he has parents who presumably live in london as well, or at least within some semblance of driving distance. there's no particular warmth or even a lack of it it how he describes them before breaking into their empty house to establish a temporary time traveler headquarters, no reason to believe much of anything about anything about them. yet, when sarah dies, it's her dad who reaches out to him, not his own. in montages, it's sarah's parents who come to visit for holidays, nobody else. we don't see any friends reach out after sarah's death, no friends or family visit her with him while she's in the hospital, just george. when george joins sarah in an outing with her friends, it's portrayed as something strange and abnormal, and not just because of the timeline he'd just lived and then discarded for her without her knowledge, but abnormal to sarah, who knows george both better and worse than anyone else at that point. joining the lazarus project isn't just something that alienates him from the rest of the normal world, he appears to have no attachment to it in the first place other than sarah herself. his relationship with archie and shiv in his first year with lazarus appear to be the closest things he has to actual friends, and he kills one and betrays both, for sarah. the second the life he envisioned with sarah evaporates, the vision he had for his life at all does the same.

but the thing about george is that he appears, at least from the outside, perfectly capable of forming connections with people. he's incredibly intelligent, appearing fairly well off materially, very charming as a person, if not a little awkward, but in a way that mostly just enhances the charm. he is for all intents and purposes a pretty normal guy, which is why his descent into sabotaging all his newfound connections and ending the world is so startling for both the people around him and the audience, but it begs the question why he's so isolated in every aspect of his life outside of this one person in the first place. why he's so separate and alienated from the world even before he awakens to an inherently separate and alienating ability. this reality explains his actions and their hubris entirely, but has yet to explain it in of itself, let alone address it as quite a core aspect of his character and actions. hello can anyone hear me. sky max. i am asking

[gebo4482]

Lazarus Project | Series 2 | Official Teaser Trailer

[walkaloner]

You guys have to check out The Lazarus Project.

[ndostairlyrium]

Latest Fanfics - Opening Lines

Rules: post the beginning lines of your most recent 10 published fanfics, then attempt to tag 10 people!

Thank you so much @greypetrel for the tag <33

I always try to avoid sharing my writerings because of reasons I've been mentioning a whole lot, but I plan to change my attitude towards it <3

Tagging: @underneathestars @sparatus @heniareth @bibutterflies @bronzeagelove @briannasroger @herearedragons @violets-and-amber @maternal-space-person @lyricallyriumao3 and whoever feels like doing it <3

1. "Non Oggi" - Cullavellan | Dragon Age: Inquisition | 1,616 words | One-Shot | Language: English

Summary: Cullen doesn't feel like going out in the world out of guilt and not feeling enough, Lavellan goes all the way to comfort him.

Laid down, eyes fixated on a small flower pot, fluffy blanket covering his waist.

2. "Efficiente" - Cullavellan before they became an item | Dragon Age: Inquisition | 2,224 words | One-Shot | Language: Italian

Summary: The one with Lavellan trying to approach poetry, with terrible results. Cullen tries his best to assist her.

Era una mattinata egregiamente regolare. / That morning was egregiously regular.

3. "Primula Vulgaris" - Cullavellan | Dragon Age: Inquisition | 333,345 words | Ongoing | Language: Italian, English <- until chapter 14 although I have no plans to keep translating it until I find some help <<

Summary: A parallel story to the main plot of Inquisition featuring two neurotic individuals, trauma™, barn owls nesting on impossible perches, and the search for mutual protection

In the woods that marked the western edge of the Outskirts, the sun was shining at the highest point in the sky, scattering its rays softly through a dense web of yellowing leaves.

4. "In A Moment" - [Rewrite] Shakarian | After the event of ME2, focused on Lazarus project and the synthetic nature of a reborn Shepard | 71,379 words | Complete | Language: Italian

Summary: A painstaking search, arising from a simple assumption. Lenore Shepard will have to face an inner conflict that will lead her to doubt her own nature and, together with her companions, she will be the protagonist of a delicate and exhausting investigation to find meaning in her existence.

La distesa di terra brulla delle Highlands si apriva davanti a lei: una coltre di sassi aguzzi e terriccio molle in un panorama arido e monotono, il cielo plumbeo a fare da cornice. / Highlands' barren grounds stretched wide open in front of her: blanket of sharp boulders and spongy soil in a dry and monotonous landscape. Leaden sky framing the scene.

5. "Sore" - Lavellan & Advisors, Cullavellan hinted | Dragon Age: Inquisition | 1,029 words | One-Shot | Language: English

Summary: After Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts - The advisors are discussing questionable beauty routines, Cullen is being dense, the girls are happy to tease him because of it

"You're not being serious, are you?"

6. "Withered Flowers" - Elanor Cousland (after Witch Hunt), m!Hawke (after the main storyline of DA2), Ankh Lavellan (ten years before the Conclave) | 1,643 words | Complete | Language: Italian

Summary: Collection of three one-shots following Elanor Cousland, Hawke, and Ankh Lavellan, respectively. Three petals of three different flowers that find themselves floating in the same still water.

Ultimamente l'orto di girasoli non andava bene. / Lately, the sunflower field wasn't going well.

7. "The Talk" - Leandra Amell & Hawke | Dragon Age 2 | 1151 words | One-Shot | Language: English

Summary: (Act 2) Leandra wants to find a wife for Hawke, Hawke just wants to read in peace.

"Miss Glinda could use some lessons for her table manners but she has a delightful personality. What do you think?"

8. "The Shepard Syndrome" - Fenhawke (trying to blossom) | Dragon Age 2 | 1,353 words | One-Shot | Language: English

Summary: Beginning of act 2 - The one in which Fenris wants to know why nobody calls Hawke by his given name, but there's some tension going on between the two as they just have finished discussing about their feelings.

Birds chirping, merchants chattering, life going on…

9. "I Like You" - Cullavellan | Dragon Age: Inquisition | 424 Words | One-Shot | Language: English

Summary: The Inquisitor is persistent in letting her commander know she likes him, but he won't reciprocate. Apparently, at least.

"I like you"

10. "Libra" - Turian original characters, MxM | Mass Effect (10 years before the events of the first game) | 165,954 words | Incomplete | Language: Italian

Summary: A disastrous meet cute; the spy smells injustice and the target is too hot to be put down. Serge "Starblazer" R'lyeh is set up for an impossible mission by his superior officer, who knows it will potentially cause an irreparable stain in his service status.

Il finto rumore delle cicale, la proiezione di un cielo terso e rosa, la sensazione di essere sfiorati dalla brezza di un ambiente tipicamente marittimo. / The fake sound of cicadas, the projection of a clear pink sky, the feeling of being brushed by the breeze of a quintessentially maritime environment.

[avesgrayson]

Short little drabble heavily projecting onto Jason and ✨mental illness✨ ft. Post-lazarus memory issues and coping

It's terrifying, losing time. Especially when you don't realize it's happened. The pit rages had gotten better, but the memory issues had only seemed to become more obvious over time. Being told events that he couldn't remember, moments of awareness going in and out, sometimes even feeling a jolt of awareness as he processes where he is. It's not like he wasn't aware before, not necessarily, but it was still a shock. It was life he had been in a haze and suddenly snapped out of it and processed where he was.

None of the other bats noticed. He knew he hid it well enough. Sometimes he just felt… weird. Like he was just to the left of himself. A version who felt different and thought different, but still knew how to keep up the charade of being the same. But when he gets asked about events he experienced, stories others told, with no memory of what happened? He can feel the creeping anxiety of just how much he lost.

And the pit rage. He lied a bit when he told the others about not remembering what happened. He did, but in bits and pieces. To be fair, he didn't regret what was done. Those bastards deserved it, and the world was better off with them dead. But when the rage takes over it's not some brainless animal that's clawing and scratching at everything in anger. It's focused, pinpointed on something.

At first it was his family and the Joker. His brother missed his funeral, his killer was alive and allowed to get free anytime he wanted, his dad never saved him or served any kind of justice. Fuck what Batman does or doesn't do, he should have made the bastard pay. He'd kill those who disagreed with him, take over Crime Alley, and ensure the kids were safe.

It gradually shifted. He couldn't tell you when, just that it did. He cared less and less about the joker and more about himself and his brothers. Now? Now if he flies into a rage it's more… protective. It's still violent, and he never regrets what happens during the episodes (okay, well, the lectures from Bruce are always a pain but-). He isn't some crazed animal, though. The family knows he's violent, knows he still deals with the side effects of the Lazarus Pit. It gives him a good excuse for when he ends up blowing three warehouses to the sky because he found they were planning to kidnap and assault Robin.

He's considered going to a therapist, maybe see if they could figure out what was causing his memory issues. The idea was quickly thrown out the window, though. No one can exactly walk into their new therapist's office and say “Hi I have severe memory issues that I've managed to hide from everyone around me and I've also killed dozens of people, how are you today?” So, yeah, therapy was out of the question. Didn't mean he slacked on his research though.

While nothing was confirmed, he had a pretty good idea that it was something mental. Trauma related too, given everything around his childhood. Maybe it was a bad idea, but he looked into the common coping mechanism. What other people's therapists suggested, ways to get around the memory loss. The worst part? Some of it worked. So he confirmed he was definitely fucked in the head, even if he refused to slap a label on and call it good.

One of the first things he tried to do was connect to the pit rage. Or whatever it was that he was dealing with. Meditation was the easiest, but also the most annoying. It was as if he was fighting himself. He got worse before he got better, but self isolating helped keep the fall out from the others. Worsening memory, more rage episodes, the works. Worst one was coming to while covered in blood, surrounded by the destroyed body of a confirmed child rapist in the narrows. It had been months since he last killed someone. Let alone the brutality of the murder. He didn't leave his apartment for three days after that.

It took a few months to see any improvement. His friends got worried, brothers even more so. A few snappy words kept them out of his business walk enough, thankfully. But when it started to get better… It was like a whole knew world had opened up. Sure, the memory issues were still awful, but he was able to be more aware when the rage hit and he could follow the thought process easier. It felt less and less like someone else who thought and behaved differently, and more like himself-but-to-the-left.

He felt a bit crazy, talking to himself. Not outloud, god no, but internally. It helped to imagine the pit rage as a separate person he could talk to and reason with. And it was only after he got confirmation that they wouldn't hurt his family that he went back to regular patrols and collaborations with the Bats.

The most jarring part to come out of it, though, was rediscovering Robin. Or, well, the version of him who was Robin. As both him and him-to-the-left (he should find a better name for that guy) were more jaded and comfortable with the darker sides of society, it almost made him cry the first time he felt a small part of himself filled with pure joy and excitement at his brother's existence. He awkwardly had to excuse himself to the bathroom in the middle of fucking Mario kart because Robin decided to randomly overwhelm him with emotions.

Couldn't say anything to his brothers, though. His mental issues could stay his and his alone. Him and his two other versions of himself. That apparently exist. But it was both a blessing and a curse making progress towards healing. On one hand his memory issues were slowly getting better. On the other hand, he now has to deal with the random thoughts of the others being forced to the front of his mind in the middle of conversations. Random commentary, jokes, or even the most random pieces of information were sometimes shared and it made pretending nothing was going on a lot harder at times.

His family knew something changed. He also knew that no one was brave enough to ask what it was, they were just glad he was back and seemed to be doing decently okay. Sure he had his moments of snapping at them, but nothing was outright malicious. It was nice. But he refused to let Robin out around them. He could be out and about on his own or at their place, but he did not need to deal with the fall-out of such a sudden shift in behavior being perceived by his family. Maybe one day they'd get to be around Robin, even if they didn't know it, but not yet.

He was fine just dealing with this comfortable push-and-pull between him and his family. He was healing, and that's what mattered.

[gallifreyanhotfive]

Random Doctor Who Facts You Might Not Know, Part 51

The Eighth Doctor can play multiple instruments, one of which is the violin. (Novel: The Year of the Intelligent Tigers)

The Master tried to use Kamelion's remaining connection to the TARDIS to prevent the Fifth Doctor’s regeneration. (Audio: Winter)

A version of the Sixth Doctor and Evelyn got imprisoned in 1903. The parallel Sixth lost Evelyn, his mind, both of his legs, and after a century, his life. (Audio: Jubilee)

The TARDIS has a Hostile Owner Destruction System, which will destroy the TARDIS and anyone inside of it. (Audio: Island of the Fendahl)

Nyssa is still able to point out where Traken is in the sky from Earth. (Audio: Autumn) The light from its destruction must not have reached Earth yet, so she can see it while there but never return.

Fegax was a student at the Prydonian Academy who tried to use a time drill to protest against the elite, but his time drill did not work. The Fifth Doctor - who was Lord President at the time - fixed it for him and returned it, and Fegax used it to flood the whole Academy. (Audio: Time in Office)

Types of regeneration include the Blur, the Disciplinary, the Explosion (subtype: the Slow Explosion, the Reverse Explosion), the Morph, the Swirl, the White Light, and the Memory Vortex. (Novel: How to be a Time Lord)

The Eighth Doctor was taken over by the Fendahl once. While taken over, Lucie said he glowed. (Audio: Island of the Fendahl)

Anya Kingdom, who traveled with the Tenth Doctor and posed as Ann Kelso in the 1970s for a while, is the niece of Sara Kingdom. (Audio: The House of Kingdom)

The Eighth Doctor has been known to occasionally sing while piloting the TARDIS. (Audio: The Dalek Trap)

As mentioned in other parts, the Forge was an intelligence agency that often experimented with enhanced or alien life. While many of them were obsessed with Lazarus - the project about the Doctor - one Forge member was much more interested in Project: Wildthyme, which was about Iris Wildthyme. She decided to end it by giving them her blood, which damaged their Oracle system and destroyed one of their bases. (Short story: Project: Wildthyme)

In the Psychodrome, memories and nightmares were brought back to life. The twisted way Nyssa perceived the Doctor at first blended with her thoughts on the Master melded the two together to create King Magus. (Audio: Psychodrome)

Galah attended the Academy with the Doctor, but they were never close to each other due to differences in opinion. She was a sculptor, but one day, she landed her TARDIS on an asteroid and created a dreamscape by hooking herself up to her TARDIS's protyon unit. (Novel: Strange England)

Temporal energy smells like roses to time sensitives. (Short story: Ring Theory)

There was a moment in The Waters of Amsterdam (which takes place immediately after Arc of Infinity) where the Fifth Doctor seemingly left Nyssa and Tegan behind, but he rematerialized seconds later. While it was only seconds for Nyssa and Tegan, the Doctor did: Omega, The Burning Prince, Time Crash, The Gates of Hell, Fallen Angels, Empire of the Racnoss (in which he took on a new companion we never learn what happened to), The Lady of the Lake, A Requiem for the Doctor, My Dinner with Andrew, The Furies, Relative Time, and Collision Course. Considering we don't know what happened to Alayna, his new Gallifreyan companion, this is an incredibly incomplete list of his adventures during this time before he went back for Nyssa and Tegan. Talk about a side quest, Doc!

First 1 Prev 50 Next 52

[fandomhype]

For anyone who never managed to catch the Lazarus Project, Sky have now uploaded it all to Youtube starting with episode one here:

[aulwil]

Absolutely no one is ready for this AU but I want everyone to just hear me out and walk with me for a moment here: what if Charlie was the head physicist at a research reactor that was nicknamed "Lucifer" because it keeps causing Problems (On Purpose). And then she fell in love with it.

"With the—" Yes. With the reactor. That's also an angel.

More under the cut for those who are interested:

The years: 1951 to 1953. The setting: Lazarus Bluffs Natl. Laboratory, a top-secret research facility in the New Mexico desert for the Y-7 research reactor, a graphite-moderated water-cooled reactor that was completed in 1942 at the height of the Manhattan Project.

Ten years on from the day it was first brought online, Y-7, alternatively nicknamed "the Devil himself" or "Lucifer," has begun to fall apart — but for the government, watching how a nuclear reactor crumbles is of significant interest. So they send some of their most promising scientists, students, and employees there — such as Charlotte "Charlie" Magne, who finds herself recruited straight out of her graduating class at the University of California and whisked away to New Mexico, where she meets Alastor Broussard, the facilities manager, Vivian Alvarado, head of security, Anthony Marino and Cecil "Husk" Strickland, instrumentation and control technicians, Audrey "Nifty" Kimura, janitorial, and Edward Peterson, engineering, along with the rest of the small crew and those in the small town nearby.

At first thrilled to be head of research at her very own reactor, even if the valves don't always like to turn, the monitors sometimes need to be thunked to display their scrolling data, and (most frighteningly of all) the control rods occasionally stick, Charlie throws herself into her new job with enthusiasm unmatched by any of her cynical colleagues. Yes, the data is endlessly identical, every day is the same, and the only scenery that's even slightly worth it is the desert sky on a clear night, but it's hers, and after over twenty years of fighting tooth and nail to be taken seriously, Charlie's going to grab it in both hands and never let it go.

As the days turn to weeks, and then to months, Charlie starts understanding the temperamental reactor. And sometimes, when she's sitting on the balcony above it, listening to the endless hum of water rushing through the cooling system and the impossible sound of atoms being blasted apart, she gets the strangest feeling that it's beginning to understand her. There's always a sense of being watched, as surely as she watches it, but Charlie tells herself she's imagining things, that she's merely overworked and stressed from the sudden change from purely theoretical work in a classroom to a real-life control room.

Then...Lucifer starts talking to her.

And to make things worse, as Charlie follows her course of research and turns her relentless dedication and optimism to studying everything she can about what she takes to calling "the angel in the core," the lie of Lazarus Bluffs begins to crumble around her as surely as the aging technology is.

[kousaka-ayumu]

Samara Maryse

Nickmakes: Samara(All), Majordome Vampire(Rook), lowly peasant(Yuzu Sakamaki), Callidora(Fuyumi), Samara-chan(Sonomi), Selene(Vil), Maryse-san(Ortho), Maryse-shi(Idia)

Twisted from: Vaggie(Hazbin Hotel), Frill Jellyfish Cookie(Cookie Run Kingdom),Ena(Project Sekai), CatNap(Poppy Playtime)

Voice Claim: Sumi Tomomi Jiena

Age: 16

Height: 154cm

DOB: 1/30

Species: Vampire

Homeland: Sagewillow

Family:

Gisela(Mother)

Everald(Father)

Warin(Older brother)

Lazarus(Older brother)

Dorm: Pomefiore

Class: 1-C(No.1)

Clubs: Gardening, Science

Hobby: Assisting Sonomi, the night sky, singing lullabies.

Likes: Sonomi, making friends, taking photos of scenery, making people fall asleep at their most tired moment, slandering Yuzu.

Dislikes: Sonomi getting hurt, people getting framed for things they didn't do, getting sick.

Pet Peeves: People entering the room at the worst times ever.

Favorite food: Burgers.

Least favorite food: Human blood.

Favorite drink: Strawberry ramune.

"A first year at Pomefiore who is a vampire butler, if you have any trouble/problems, just look for her in the library."

Appearance

Samara has ivory white hair, that is tied to a side ponytail, on both sides of her head have red rose hair clips and has heterochromia with blood purple on the left and blood red on the right with both fading to yellow.

Background

Samara is the daughter of the Witch of Darkness Gisela and the War General Everald, she's the younger sister of Warin and Lazarus and is Sonomi's butler.

She is assigned to look after her while she was sick due to both families being too busy investigating Sakura's death and both Akio and Fuyumi have limited time visiting her by their father.

Due to that both of them becoming close friends results in Samara calling Sonomi "My lady".

Personality

She's calm, polite and sometimes Hotheaded girl who is often mistaken as a albino due to her pale skin and pale hair but she's not, since her skin doesn't burn easily in the sun.

Because of her, Sonomi, Fuyumi, Akio, Warin and Lazarus's upbringing that she wanted to make friends.

Although she can be a bit of a calculating, and cunning woman, she was often spoken to the people that she hate in a very harsh and brutal tone.

Due to what she was like growing up besides her brothers, and the Hoshiakari siblings she saw love as a very powerful emotion that she's proud of having it.

Unique Magic: Lavender/Poppy Sleep

Samara will blow a petal of lavender flowers on the person to help them fall asleep, making them having pleasant dreams.

If it were somebody she despises she will blow a petal of poppy flowers, causing them to have hallucinations/nightmares, it will also caused them to get sick the next day.

Trivia

If there's any Sakamaki that Samara hated the most, it's Yuzu.

She shared the same voice actress as An from Project Sekai and Elsie from D4DJ.

She's a sweetooth AKA somebody who is obsessed with anything related to sugar.

She's obsessed with cats.

Samara usually have small conversations with Subaru Sakamaki hence he's the only normal out of the Sakamaki family, even he didn't trusted her due to his "mother".

Have a good relationship with Yui Komori.

Her birthday January 30 is the same day as the release of Poppy Playtime chapter 3.

Her heterochromia eyes are references to CatNap's lavender scent and the poppy gas.

Ocs: Yuzu belongs to @anxious-twisted-vampire

What do you guys think of her?

@zexal-club @anxious-twisted-vampire @yukii0nna @writing-heiress

[rouyn]

Tom Burke as Dennis Rebrov in The Lazarus Project 2.03 (2023)

[mairaiscarrierofthepaperclips]

Fic Writing Review 2023

Tagged by the glorious @thewolvesof1998.

Words and Fics

117,284 words published to AO3 (so many words still in docs as WIPs)

2 fandoms (9-1-1 and The Rookie)

Most recent drop: i opened my eyes (and all i saw was you)

Longest Fic: hard kick, slow burn (M, 11,382 words)

Top Fics by Kudos (all Buddie)

and i always will (M, 2,365 words)

you're where i stand, hearing the sea (T, 2,972 words)

i am never without it (T, 3,404 words)

a madman and a minstrel (T, 2,575 words)

to the depth and breadth and height (M, 6,231 words)

My fandom fic events in 2023

Flufftober 2023! And it was a banger.

My Buddie collection for Flufftober can be found here.

Upcoming Events and Projects for 2024

Fics I'm going to try and get out in the upcoming year:

Almost complete:

lazarus rising - Buck needs space after the lightning strike. Eddie doesn't understand, not really, but he lets him go. But when Buck comes home, he finds out that something has gone terribly, terribly wrong.

Already started:

magical realism fic (Buck thinks he's allergic to Eddie. Spoiler warning: he's not).

vesper - inspired by the poker episode, Athena asks the boys to go undercover in a poker ring. Think Casino Royale.

Gravedigger fic - fans of Bones will immediately know what I'm talking about here, amirite?

not like this (title TBC) - based on the New Girl kiss (IYKYK)

snow shovel fic - AU where Buck and Eddie are neighbours. it's a whole thing.

you're in my arms (and all the world is calm) sequel - Chenford fic, sequel is from Lucy's POV (and answers the cliffhanger from YIMA)

a Davrick (Schitt's Creek) piece inspired by the 9-1-1: Lone Star episode 'Saving Grace'.

Ideas/planned fics (basically the Notes app on my phone):

No Nut November fic - my actual November turned hectic, but if all goes well I'll still write this one because the plot makes me giggle.

Multi-chapter AU featuring past lives, reincarnation, and soul mates.

night strewn salt across the sky sequel - featuring Barista!Buck and Nurse!Eddie's First Date!

when words and deeds are in accord (my whole world is transformed) sequel - featuring established Buddie fluffiness. With singing!

apocalypse fic - snow. so much snow.

I have had so much fun writing in the 9-1-1 fandom this year - I switched from the HP fandom due to Reasons, and the welcome and love I've been shown has been truly lovely.

Thank you so much to everyone who has read/left kudos/commented/mentioned me in a post or sent me an ask - y'all are amazing.

[gebo4482]

The Lazarus Project | Series 2 | Official Trailer

[cinemaocd]

Ten Characters from Ten Shows

Babylon Berlin: Malu Seegers

Call the Midwife: Jenny Lee

The Great: Georgina Dymova

The Lazarus Project: Dennis Rebrov

I, Claudius: Herod Agrippa

Yellowjackets: Shauna Shipman

The O.C.: Ryan Atwood

Russian Doll: Maxine

Spooks: Ruth Evershed

The Mirror and the Light: The Lady Mary

Thanks, @air-mechanical for the tag.

I'm tagging: @power-chords, @green-like-the-sky, @tenderlady, @iwantadecentblogname, @haredjarris

and anyone else who wants to play!

[cantsayidont]

Some recentish shows of note, or lack thereof:

COUNT ABDULLA: Charming comedy about a Pakistani doctor who gets turned into a vampire by a white vamp with a fetish for brown men, and the many complications that ensue. Not so much a horror story as a witty parable about the travails of being a person of color in Tory Britain today. (So, a horror story after all, then.) Jaime Winstone needs to dial it back, but the rest of the cast delights.

DEADLOCH: Snarky comedy-mystery by a well-known Australian comedy team, about mismatched cops investigating a gruesome murder in a small town. The mystery is clever; the payoff is blah; and despite the predominantly female, mostly LGBT cast, the humor is awfully reliant on misogynistic and homophobic cracks that frequently cross a line from "laughing with" to "laughing at."

HIJACK: Tense but very contrived seven-part thriller about the hijacking of a British airliner on a seven-hour-flight from Dubai to London, with passenger Idris Elba the wildcard. Gripping, but not terribly plausible, and the many false climaxes become exhausting, especially if you watch the episodes back to back.

THE LAZARUS PROJECT: Convoluted, intermittently fascinating, unpleasantly mean Sky sci-fi thriller about an app developer named George Addo (Paapa Essiedu), who's drawn into a secret organization that can undo world-ending disasters (natural or manmade) by resetting time to a predetermined save point, like a video game, although this has harrowing consequences for the handful of people capable of remembering the repeated resets. At first, this is basically just window dressing for grim espionage procedural nonsense, with some extremely questionable character motivations, but after a relentlessly bleak midsection, the first season finds its dramatic footing in the unexpectedly interesting final episodes, in which the premise is pushed to its breaking point and the grimness gives way to black comedy. This is the note on which the considerably more complicated second season begins, but it again grows uglier and bleaker as it goes on, and any sympathy for George, positioned at the start of the show as a relatable everyman, has long since evaporated. There are some provocative ideas and a number of surprisingly funny moments, but the whole story is predicated on pushing the characters into morally compromised positions (one assumes creator Joe Barton always has a browser tab open to the TV Tropes "Moral Event Horizon" page), and the fact that some of the (many) atrocities the characters perpetrate in hopes of fixing the existential catastrophes they've set in motion are subsequently undone doesn't make them any easier to stomach. Anjli Mohindra (who plays Archie, the veteran agent who initially recruits George into the project) remains frustratingly under-utilized in both seasons.

THE MORNING SHOW: Big-budget, all-star TV news drama is all dressed up with nothing to say, undone at every turn by truly spineless whataboutism and a centrist world view so gormless it makes Aaron Sorkin seem like Alexander Berkman. Reese Witherspoon is pretty good as closeted bisexual cohost Bradley Jackson, but costar Jennifer Anniston's limited range becomes a problem, particularly as the quality of the scripts declines noticeably in later seasons. You could always just watch BROADCAST NEWS.

THE OTHER BLACK GIRL: Disjointed adaptation of the 2021 Zakiya Dalila Harris novel scores when it focus on the workplace drama of a young Black woman in a painfully white publishing company, but trips over its own feet in its attempts to also be a paranoid thriller, with plenty of bad vibes that never add up to a coherent sense of threat and a conspiracy plot that doesn't really make any sense.

THE PERIPHERAL: Misfired adaptation of the 2014 William Gibson novel is executive-produced by the same people as the recent WESTWORLD series and has the same problems: big ideas that don't translate into action and an infuriating tendency to consign characters of color to marginal or villainous roles. Worse, it eventually becomes clear that several more compelling characters have been sidelined in favor of the poor white trash leads (Chloë Grace Moretz and Jack Reynor), who are neither very interesting nor especially sympathetic.

WHO IS ERIN CARTER?: Kinetic but preposterous seven-part action thriller with Evin Ahmad as a suburban mom in Barcelona who is secretly an incredible badass with a shady past. Basically a violent Walter Mitty fantasy for soccer moms who love the JOHN WICK movies, with a showy supporting role for Denise Gough from ANDOR.