(no subject)

[nny]

Traders is good for the same reason that Boiler Room is good, in a nutshell. I mean, seriously - you make a TV show about aliens or dragons or superheroes, you already have half my attention. I'll expect you to do something to keep that attention, obviously, but it won't really take all that much of an effort. Especially if, let's face it, the lead actors are pretty and look at each other more than once an episode.

Random Canadian series about merchant banks, though? Really, starting at a disadvantage. I know nothing and care nothing for merchant bankers, except they give me enough information that I'm drawn into the action without being bored, they give me characters and storylines that make me want to know more, that don't frustrate me with the lack of depth or moral superiority that can grate, and they use actors like David Hewlett. Who has a ridiculously odd CV, and works bloody hard, and has kept me seriously interested in various new and shiny things for a good while, now. Also, good beard.

I dunno. I watched Southbound earlier, and now I'm all 'Yay Canadian weirdnesses!' Which is something I've been doing on and off since 1995 when I was unhealthily obsessed with the X-Files and banging Mulder and Krycek action figures together. (My writing has really improved since then. My notion of a good story, definitely. I find this reassuring.) I suppose it's some kind of mutual underdog thing? I don't know - my impression of Canadian-American relations is based entirely on shows like this, and my impression of British-American relations is based entirely on the stuff I don't wince away from quickly enough on the news. :D? British-Canadian relations are the bits where I stick a maple leaf flag down the back of my T-shirt and run through the middle of arguments between family members, declaring myself neutral zone and tea-scavenger.

Some day I realise I'll have to form opinions and actually know something about something, yes. Today, however, I'm getting a cold and snot vaguely in your general direction, instead.

Comments

[unravels.livejournal.com]

Hee. Dude, I am so glad you're back. :]

All the Canadians I've known here have either been closet Canadians who were only outed late in our acquaintanceship, or else the sort where we kind of stare at each other like cows over a fence, and there's a lot of blinking before we sort of shrug and get on with whatever. The televised versions seem much more exciting.

I find that it's just depressing to depend on the news for advice on interpersonal relationships between Americans and pretty much everybody. Once I lived in a shared flat in London which then contained a Northern Irishman, a Pakistani, and an American. According to the news at the time I'm sure we should all have been building devices in our rooms and plotting to blow each other up, but we got along famously. I did once have an occasional co-worker say drunkenly to a group of people, including me, that she hated Americans. I was the only one in the group and basically... had no response. I keep thinking I'll come up with one, but so far it hasn't happened. :/

[villainny.livejournal.com]

I got that when I was in Wales. I was just kinda boggling when they'd tell me at great length how much they hated the English. And then, like, got all surprised when I told them that I was ONE OF THEM! (What, the accent didn't give me away? XD)

Dude, I am so glad to be back. Also, to receive comment. Sometimes I feel like my expiry date has come up. ¬_¬

[unravels.livejournal.com]

I think people must forget about the individuals when they say things like that... at least, I hope they do. They have a bone to pick with The English or with The Americans, and maybe they mean the government or maybe they mean something they heard from somebody else. I assume that if they really had a problem with ME than they'd say as much, but maybe I'm assuming too much.

Expiry date, bah. Like I said, I think people right now are getting beaten hard with the busy stick. It is like the proverbial ugly stick, only hopefully less permanent. Do you have that expression, about the ugly stick? I was never sure if it was just a southern US thing.

[vimeslady.livejournal.com]

Okay, you, no getting sick! Make yourself a pot of tea and get into that nice warm bed. *Hugs* *Hands you tissues* *Pokes impending cold with sharp stick*