New series that are dead: Eastwick, Hank, Trauma. Trauma will most likely air the remainder of its thirteen episodes. Not so sure about Eastwick, and Hank is shutting down production after wrapping up just its tenth episode.

The only returning show that's been dumped so far is Dollhouse, which apparently will burn off its remaining episodes in December and January. ETA: Fox obviously wants to get rid of this one fast. It's doubling up on December episodes to help bump it out of the way before February sweeps.

Well, I'll miss Eastwick a bit. Based on the ratings, though, they all deserved to go. When reruns of other shows do 50% better in your timeslot (Dollhouse) and you lose nearly half of your audience from your debut (Eastwick), cancellation seems merciful.

*points to icon* For a horse-racing fan, I don't think it gets any better than today's Breeders' Cup Classic.

I love the mad rush of shows during the fall TV season: returning favorites, a bunch of stuff I don't care about and will never watch, and a slew of new series.

Every fall, I watch all of the new broadcast TV dramas (I usually don't watch comedies), and every fall, I pick the worst one. Last year, my choice was the extremely dull Crusoe. It even had pirates in the first episode, and managed to make them boring. The worst show of the entire season, though, was midseason replacement Dollhouse, which bored and offended me with its rampant and disgusting sexism. The only thing that makes me feel better is looking at its weekly Nielsen ratings, which redefine the term "crash and burn."

Anyway, I have now seen all of the new fall dramas, save V, which premieres on Nov. 3. The extended preview for that one looks good. And it would have to work awfully hard to be worse than the series I consider to be the worst new one of this season:
( Trauma: Watching the pilot was like being in purgatory. )

I just went and saved all the remaining material from my ancient main Geocities site. Tedious? Yeah. And now my laptop is crammed with disorganized documents and photos. On the positive side, I saved everything of any importance. I deleted all of the "borderline" material, figuring if I haven't done anything with so far, I probably never will. I do have another Geocities site that I... just realized I can't ignore, because there really is stuff there that I kind of need. Saving all of that is going to be painful.

BTW, Geocities closes for good on October 26. Just in case anyone else has stuff over there that they don't want to lose.

I'm currently checking out the TW friending meme at torch_wood. How sad is it that the first thing I do upon seeing an unfamiliar name is check to make sure that person is not a member of AGA? Membership at that comm is the one sure deal-breaker for me. Luckily, it looks like almost everyone participating in the meme so far is reasonably sane.

Happy birthday, finmagik!

A while ago, misscam posted her own list of fandom pet peeves, and I finally got around to putting mine together. Some of these things are specific to Doctor Who/Torchwood. Others are, sadly, universal. YMMV, naturally.

( TARDAS, TARDUS, TARDES )

I was just over at a site where a writer had picked the ten best and five worst audios of each Doctor. Tastes differ, sure, but in a few cases, I was very surprised by what was included (or excluded). I mean, no Kingmaker on the Fifth Doctor list? Anyway, I listed all the choices below and then included my five favorite audios.

( The picks. )

1. I made my reservations for Chicago TARDIS, so I have that to look forward to in November. My first convention ever! My family situation is still unresolved, but by that point it probably will be more or less settled. And even if it isn't, I'm going to Chicago anyway.

2. Dollhouse came out on DVD a couple of weeks ago. I hate Dollhouse, mainly because it's one of the most disgustingly sexist things I've seen in ages, and therefore am rather pleased to report that sales have been disappointing. This page discusses sales for the first week. That article was written too early to indicate that the show dropped off the sales chart in its second week, which kind of undermines the theory that Dollhouse has tons of "underground" fans clamoring to make it a hit.

3. As I learned from wiccagirl24, LJ is offering a three-day subscription extension to users with paid accounts who were affected by the service problems earlier this month. Details here.

4. My early pick for best new show of the TV season: FlashForward. The preview was awesome.

5. Speaking of TV, summer is almost over and soon enough, new episodes of my favorite night-time shows will be back. :)

I know Chicago TARDIS isn't until November, but I'm thinking things through well ahead of time. I've never been to a convention, and I'm sick of saying, "Maybe next year." At that rate, I'll never get anywhere. I live only a few hours from Chicago; getting there is an attainable goal. It still might not happen, but I'm at least going to try this time.

So... I'd love to hear from anyone who went to Chicago TARDIS in previous years and/or plans to go there this year. What it's like? Do you recommend it? Anything special to keep in mind?

Happy birthday, wiccagirl24!

Torchwood story that I liked! Recruitment, by Sphinxey. Crackfic set after Day One of Children of Earth. I wish more people would write CoE crack. I've seen boatloads of angst, but not much humor.

Since I insist on returning to Fanfiction.net time and time again, I probably was asking for this. That fact doesn't make it any less painful, though.

I just read this reaction to the Eleventh Doctor's outfit: ... also the new Doctor has a great outfit. One thing confuses me though. I read someone saying she liked his braces. It doesn't look like he has anything on his teeth and isn't kind of old to still wear braces anyway?

Excuse me. I'll be across the room headdesking for the next hour or so.

Signed,
An American Who Knows the British-English Meaning of Braces

(P.S. It doesn't help that the [Canadian] author of the story in question incorrectly used both pants and suspenders within her fic. I may end up with a concussion after all the headdesking I see myself doing.)

Happy birthday, ventruechick! And, a day early, happy birthday also to elliptic_eye!

I posted my review of this audio over at hex_rated, if anyone wants to look at it.

The Drama and Reality nominations

My initial reaction was: WTF? Katherine Heigl isn't up for Supporting Actress, Drama, for her brilliant work on Grey's Anatomy? Yeah, she made a fool of herself last year with that announcement that she hadn't been given good enough material to warrant a nomination, but that was last year! And irrelevant, despite how stupid it is to publicly diss your show's writers. Bad writing is the sort of thing you bitch about at home, to friends, in your journal no one else will ever read. It shouldn't be a press statement.

Nevertheless, she had a great story this year and was more than up to the material. She deserved a nomination (and probably the win). I see that Chandra Wilson and Sandra Oh, also from Grey's, are in the running. They're terrific too, but IMO neither one outdid Heigl during this past season.

I don't have much to say about the comedy categories, since I don't watch half-hour shows, except that Desperate Housewives got snubbed as well. Their only acting nomination was for Beau Bridges in that awful, awful Marty Stu episode where his handyman character was revealed to be the one responsible for righting the courses of the female characters' lives. That episode seems to have met with almost universal approval, but I thought it was by far the worst one DH did all year.

Back to dramas and reality shows. On the really bizarre side, Simon Baker from The Mentalist made the running as Best Actor. All right, who the hell voted for him? I don't care how many viewers the show has; his acting isn't that good, and he can't even do a decent American accent. It slips all over the place in every episode.

What did I especially like? Sally Field, up for Best Actress. She's one of my favorites on Brothers & Sisters. William Shatner could get yet another Emmy for his work on Boston Legal. Actually, that entire Supporting Actor category is very strong. And despite Heigl's exclusion, I love seeing Oh and Wilson up for Supporting Actress. The Amazing Race and American Idol are in there for Reality Competition Program, Race's Phil Keoghan got recognized as Reality Host, and the Best Actor category (with the exception of Baker) looks about right.

If they'd included Heigl and more Desperate Housewives, I'd have been very happy with this year's slate.

Happy birthday, neutralalienist!

Fellow Big Finish subscribers who get the CDs in the mail: Have you all received The Angel of Scutari yet? I've been distracted lately and only just realized that my copy has not arrived. Previous releases had reached me at around the end of each month, so my Angel of Scutari is now about two weeks later than the norm.

Has been merged with the main lists:

Doctor/Doctor, Doctor/Master, Master/Master lists
Doctors One-Five pairings
Doctors Six-Ten (or later) pairings
Non-Doctor pairings A-G
Non-Doctor pairings H-L
Non-Doctor pairings M-Z, crossover stories

My experience might be of some interest to anyone who wears glasses and is particularly appalled by their high cost.

( A cheap online source )