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[Ian]

I wish.

[Ian]

5 more 2004 Neighbours eps last night, and quite a lot to unpack! But first up...

Sky in lingerie.... Very... erm... aesthetically pleasing.

Boyd in lingerie... I could have lived without, though.

But it's the escalating tension between Sky and Lana that comes to a head and is the highlight of these episodes, spurred on by Lana unknowingly flirting with Boyd (the look on her face when she realises is... oh dear). I'm not entirely sure why Lana then seems to set out to deliberately wind Sky up, though perhaps she's just fed up that she can't seem to do anything right with her anyway and is sick of her hostility.

It's Sky who is subtext a-go-go here, though. Lana really does seem to get under her skin, even without trying to, and it's psychologically (and sub-textually) fascinating to watch her getting so hot under the collar over her. Is this really the result of a series of misunderstandings and then some jealousy, or is there more going on here already? A bit of subconscious/sublimated "tension" of another sort, maybe?

And then it all escalates during a game of basketball, to the point of an actual physical confrontation. I'd say "poor Lana" but this is, with the benefit of hindsight, pretty hilarious really. Hey Sky, those are the eyes of your future wife you're trying to scratch out there!

Sky is aggressively all over her during the game, and then actually gets to pin her down underneath her on the ground, at which point the subtext-o-meter hits the ceiling and actually explodes.

Hell, you can even direct this subtext onto the earlier (very funny) scene with Boyd. Dressing your boyfriend up in women's underwear, Sky? Really? Hmmm....

Paging Dr. Freud!

[fish]

...Dressing your boyfriend up in women's underwear...

That's only funny a certain number of times.

[Ian]

Sound a bit too much like speaking from experience.

[fish]

...too much like...

As I've often said when caught, "of course it's only a comfort thing".

[Ian]

Some more Neighbours 2004 episodes, and Lana is breaking my heart again already.

The war between Sky and Lana is thankfully over, and the two have even started to become friends and bond, but Sky is also increasingly confused - and somewhat annoyed - by the obviously fake "Valley Girl" persona that Lana shows everyone else. Although Sky has learned (fairly surreptitiously!) that Lana was the victim not just of a bullying campaign but of an outright vicious assault by a group of girls at her former school, she doesn't know why, and is completely baffled as to why Lana seems to think she has to pretend to be someone else entirely.

It's starting to become clear to us however, with the warming relationship between the two already starting to see Lana cast some unmistakable longing glances in Sky's direction. Poor Lana. She's obviously terrified of letting anyone get too close to her, but also clearly wanting to let Sky do so. Aww. She's breaking my damn heart (again!).

[fish]

...the warming relationship between the two already starting to see Lana cast some unmistakable longing glances in Sky's direction...

Don't do that.
I've spent years avoiding Neighbours and now you're trying to entice me into the fold.

[Ian]

It worked on me back in the day.

[Ian]

And... we're here. Lana finally plants one on Sky. I really can't blame her for thinking she's getting signals, frankly I think it too (albeit completely unconsciously on Sky's part). I mean, jeez, she's drawing secret pictures of Lana as a comic book hero, holding her hand, kissing her hand and then the whole couch wrestling thing lol... but of course Sky just looks at her gobsmacked, and Lana panics and bolts out of there like a frightened rabbit.

The subsequent "coming out" scene with (her cousin) Sindi is horrible to watch. Sindi is as understanding and supportive as you'd hope when Lana finally tells her the truth, but it just doesn't seem to get through the waves of guilt and shame and self-loathing she's putting out. And the next day she's either avoiding Sky or insisting the kiss was a meaningless joke.

Sky's not buying it, of course. One thing I've noticed watching this season is Sky's nervous habit of rubbing the back of her neck with her hand when she's worried. Well she must be really worried about Lana, because she's actually graduated to the full-on two-hand neck rub now!

I'm trying not to rush through these (and watch other things too!), but dang, it's difficult at the moment, it's just so addictive.

[fish]

...I'm trying not to rush through these...

Yes.

We all believe you too.

[Ian]

And some more...
Sky's finally managed to get through to Lana that she doesn't care that she's gay, but unfortunately the latter then gets very publicly outed. Stingray's reaction to all this has been hilarious. From asking Boyd if he got the kiss on video to his glee at seeing Sky and Lana hugging (sorry, Stinger, "embracing".)

I am shocked that Serena was the one who publicly outed Lana by writing that on the blackboard, though. I did not remember that - I assumed they'd been overheard and it was probably that bitch who used to bully Sky - so was really taken aback. Wow. I know she can be a spoiled brat sometimes, but that is the nastiest thing I've ever seen her do.

It is however hilarious that because she was spending so much time with Lana, everyone's now assuming she's a lesbian too. As Sky noted, "poetic justice".

[Ian]

Rewatched Buffy season 7 again. Mmm... I have to admit I'm not big on the last two seasons these days, but honestly I preferred 6 this time. For all that's talked about how depressing 6 is, 7 is even more so, at least once the First arc kicks off. It's all so bleak and miserable, and even the warmth that normally comes from these characters is increasingly conspicuous by its absence. After her depression in season 6, we get happy quippy Buffy back... for about 6 episodes, and soon she's depressed and even icier than ever. Xander and Anya are through, I was never into the Buffy/Spike thing, Tara's dead, and the Willow/Kennedy thing is just... who GAF. Kennedy seems to be there solely to appease the gay community who were pissed off by the end of season 6 by giving Willow another girlfriend, but the character's empty and the relationship contrived, rushed and utterly unappealing. It's singularly depressing that after the lovely relationships she had with Oz and Tara, this is who Willow's with at the end of the show. It's really only in a couple of the platonic friendships that we get any warmth, with Willow and Xander being as reliable for that as ever, and I really like the warm interaction we get between Xander and Dawn this season too. (I particularly like how clingy she is with him after he gets back from the hospital after losing an eye, sitting on the arm of his chair and holding his arm even as Buffy's coming up with her next plan to get them all killed). Dawn gets a lot of stick, but her character matures a hell of a lot in season 7, and I suspect it's only the lack of material she gets in the second half that stops people noticing that.
Caleb is a menacing villain but arguably introduced far too late, with the First being too nebulous and the Bringers too faceless to really make an impact. Principal Wood is an okay character and actor, but seems really superfluous to requirements in a season that's so overloaded with new characters already that many of the regulars are being neglected, so I could have lived without him.
Again, it's not bad exactly... but it's not that good either. The first 5 seasons are by far the best, but I actually even like 6 more than this on this occasion...

[Ian]

Wicked Science, season 1 ep 6: The Jungle in the Laboratory. Elizabeth and Dina's latest outbreak of hostilities (seriously, the last few eps seem to have been more about how much they hate each other and Toby just trying to limit the fallout than anything else ) results in a solution from Toby to fix Dina's embarrassing hair loss problem that goes badly wrong, causing a disaster that threatens to expose Toby and Elizabeth's shared secret. This is a really fun episode, made all the better by the Toby/Elizabeth interaction, which is - bizarrely - the first real shared screen time they've had together since episode 1. It's weird that it's taking the program makers so long to twig that the show works best when these two are front and centre with each other, or maybe it's a deliberate build-up, I dunno. Either way, it's a lot of fun. Even in a desperate situation, Elizabeth seems a lot less angry and generally aggro when she's with him, and Toby seems genuinely enthused by their working together. There's even a sweet, if slightly awkward, moment, when Toby makes a crack about lots of people wishing she was dead, to which she goes very quiet, and asks "Even you?" And he gets all uncomfortable and almost shy before replying "... I didn't say that." Toby's never seemed to actually hate her, but this scene is the first time we get the impression he might actually have some kind of affection for her underneath their apparent rivalry. Aww.
Of course, he then rather spoils it by pretending they hadn't just been getting along quite happily when his friends show up, a practice that's unfortunately going to become quite common, and which clearly and understandably wounds Elizabeth.
Yes Toby, I'm sure that will help her with her anger issues.

[fish]

...embarrassing hair loss problem...

Didn't realise this was an episode about Fish.

[Ian]

A few more episodes of Wicked Science. The one in which Toby build a robot double for Dina so it can cover her shift at work while she goes on a date was actually a really funny comedy episode, even if Toby doing this to enable a girl he clearly fancies to go out with someone else is sad almost beyond belief.
The second was... interesting, but with a really infuriating ending. Disappointed by his romantic failures, Toby comes up with a way to attract girls with pheromones, only to realise how iffy an idea that is by Dina's furious reaction. Unfortunately the vial then gets stolen by idiot bully Garth, and released into the air conditioning at the school dance... This is interesting, not least because all of the chaos in this episode is ultimately Toby's fault. Elizabeth is doing nothing more than organising the dance, and in a very amusing Monica Gellar-esque manner ("Start having fun" she tells two bored students, "now!" ) Although initially cheesed off by the dance turning to chaos, she's actually quite impressed when she realises it's all Toby's fault.
Unfortunately, this episode ends with another, even more horrendous reminder, of Why We Should All Hate Dina, who appears to (despite clearly having no interest in Toby romantically) fly into a jealous rage just at the sight of Elizabeth and Toby having a quiet private conversation, begins loudly verbally abusing her, and then graduates to full-on physical assault. Wait, what?! Again, I'm in a quandary as to whether the show actually expects us to like Dina, because at this point I wouldn't blame Elizabeth for showing up at school with a handgun the next day and shooting her. I mean, WTH.
Again, I reiterate - Elizabeth does nothing wrong in this episode, and gets assaulted just for talking to the guy she actually does like (as opposed to keeping around like a pet, Dina ).
Is there a We Hate Dina Club I can join? Bloody hell!