January 2017 – The Big Frickin' Swede

On the Redeemability of Fellow Humans

I saw the documentary The Overnighters on my local PBS station this weekend. It’s an intriguing film about a particularly fraught situation: the oil boom town of Williston, ND and the men it draws to work there, some of whom only have a car (if that) to their name. The local pastor of a church starts a program to help the most desperate, providing food and places to sleep for many in the church itself, and sometimes just the parking lot so some can sleep in their car overnight. He even puts some of them up in his home with his family.

The movie’s description probably puts it best, “Broken, desperate men chase their dreams and run from their demons in the North Dakota oil fields. A local Pastor risks everything to help them.” Needless to say, there are a lot of issues at work here, none of them particularly easy to deal with. Some of these men have felonies on their record, and besides that, the town of Williston is going through all the difficulties any community would when its population doubles or triples in just a few years. The backlash of the church and local community against these newcomers is at once understandable and saddening.

The scene that sticks with me, the thing that keeps bugging me, is one where the pastor, Jay Reinke, goes around to neighboring houses, trying to get residents to come to the church and meet the overnighters, on the belief that if they start to get to know them, the fear of the newcomers will go away. After the pastor introduces himself at the door of one house, the neighbor comments on the “trash” he’s keeping at the church.

To call another human trash is to profess a depressing belief in the irredeemability of you and your fellow humans. I’m not so naive as to say there aren’t quite a few members of humanity that can commit despicable and heinous acts—history and the present moment and even this documentary provide far too many examples of this—but to call another human trash is to say they’re on the level of a greasy food wrapper, not worth anything but wadding up and tossing in a landfill. It’s to also ignore the many examples to the contrary of what humanity is capable of, some of which the film also captures.

I wish I could focus more on those hopeful aspects caught in the film, one of which has Pastor Reinke stopping his car so he can wave at a passing Amtrak—the day is beautifully sunny, and it is something to see a grown man wave at a passing train like a ten year-old. But try as I might, I can’t stop seeing the other scene, the one with that perfectly normal house with the perfectly normal person answering the door, calling other humans trash because they’re less fortunate than they are.

I knew some people in high school that liked to look at the “gross stuff” in medical books, for some reason. Weird, cheap thrills, or something… the eww factor that leads to some of the stupid stuff you see on reality TV, I guess. I did it once and couldn’t do it again, because I couldn’t get rid of the image in my head. This is also why I have difficulty with shows or movies that are overly violent—it’s hard to forget what I’ve seen.

I wish I could stop seeing someone call their fellow humans trash, but I can’t.

On a Less Than Hoped for Series Four from Sherlock

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Methods of Film Television and Series Reviews

So the BBC production of Sherlock roared on the scene in 2010, delighting me with its modern take on the great Sherlock Cumberbatch/Freeman detective—surprisingly so, considering the Robert Downey, jr/Jude Law movie of 2009 should have made me feel tapped out on the character and concept… at least for awhile (tell Elementary how not interested in it I am, deservedly or not).

Cumberbatch has his own zany, manic take on the character, with enough indications of humanity brought out by Martin Freeman (and the rest of the cast) to make you want to spend time with him, to hope he might become something more than an often egomaniacal brainiac that turns to drugs to make his overpowered brain slow down for a time.

Which is why Series Four (Season Four, for us noobs across the pond), carried much hope for me. Other than a rather fun special in 2016, we’d all been waiting three years for things to pick up where they left off, with Moriarty maybe, possibly, not being dead as we all surmised.

More than that, in Series Three, Watson was challenging Sherlock’s destructive ways more than ever, backed up by an excellent addition to the cast, Watson’s fiancee (then wife), Mary Morstan. It was just the change the show, and Sherlock, needed. While there were still weird things going on in Series Three that worried me, Series Four was set up to take things in a good direction as a potential finale for the show.

Instead, it royally bollocksed it up.

Bollocks #1: Watson emotionally cheats on his wife, Mary. This might—might—have made sense in Series Three, when Watson first finds out about Mary’s secret past. But no, this is Series Four. The two have a child, and more, Watson forgave Mary all her secrets in Series Three, saying “the problems of your past are your business, the problems of your future are my privilege.” Sure, people can have moments of doubt even after saying something that romantic and loving (and Watson even said he was still angry after he said those words), but one of Watson’s main characteristics is loyalty. He sticks by Sherlock despite all his shenanigans and he shows the same loyalty and love to Mary. The show’s creators even seem to realize how much of a bollocks this is, as they couldn’t go so far as to have any physical cheating going on, just some texting after a woman on the bus takes a shine to Watson and gives him her number.

Infidelity does happen, sure, but it’s an all too common tactic used by lazy writers (particularly TV writers) to shake things up when needed: whether the shoe fits for a particular character or not… and it really does not fit for Watson.

Bollocks #2: Mary’s fate in episode one, “The Six Thatchers.” Good lord, talk about lame. An elite super spy/assassin, taken down by an office drudge—even if said drudge was smarter than she appeared. Extra cookie points for selflessly saving someone else, I guess, but it was a terrible send-off to a character that was a much needed addition to the show (more on this below). It’s made even worse when you consider all of “The Six Thatchers” is incidental to the main villain and plot of Series Four!

Bollocks #3: The main villain of Series 4, Eurus, is inadequately developed and doesn’t have enough screen time. She’s hanging about in little ways throughout Series 4, but she really only has screen time in the final episode. This would be okay if she was a villain of an episode, like Culverton Smith or Charles Magnussen, but she’s not. Compare with Moriarty, Sherlock’s other main nemesis: Moriarty was a factor and had plenty of screen time in Series 1 and 2, and the show plumbed the depths of the connection between the two more than adequately.

With Eurus, we have someone that was foundational to Sherlock and who he is—which the show took pains to note—and all we get is one episode to deal with her, which is mostly filled with nasty little puzzles, like a wannabe Saw. She’s also taken care of far too simply. She apparently has no remorse or conscience, but getting a hug from Sherlock is all that it takes to stop her extremely convoluted and drawn out methods of revenge? Not buying it. The show simply ran out of time to adequately deal with her and what she represented to both Sherlock and his older brother, Mycroft.

Bollocks #4: Sherlock’s emotions and treatment of others receives little recognition or closure. Series Three was aiming in a clear direction: Sherlock’s actions were self-destructive and pushing him away from those who were close to him. Even Molly Hooper—meek Molly Hooper who is hopelessly smitten with Sherlock—literally slaps him upside the head for wasting his gifts.

The show’s main writers, Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat, remembered this well. They even brought in Molly to up the emotional stakes in the final episode of Series Four, but other than a short, visceral reaction from Sherlock, his harmful treatment of Molly receives no follow through.

As noted above, Mary was a terrific foil for both Sherlock and Watson (and how their friendship was going), but her rather pointless death didn’t even do anything for the show and its two main characters other than to be a cheap upping of the emotional stakes for an otherwise red herring of an episode. At one point, Sherlock notes that Mary’s sacrifice conferred a value upon his life that he hadn’t yet been able to calculate, but just like Molly Hooper, Mary Watson is cast aside so the show can spend more time on crazy, brilliant Sherlock antics.

What always set this show aside wasn’t just its production values—fun and frenetic as they always were—it was its relationships. Despite some weird moments in the first three series, the show paid good attention to those relationships and how Sherlock was endangering them. The pieces were there for Series Four to deal with those effectively (you can see them on the drawing board: how Eurus affected both Sherlock and Mycroft, Mycroft maybe starting a relationship, of all things, etc.), but it simply didn’t focus on them. Instead, it focused on the surface—convoluted plots, Sherlockian hijinks, and vicious villains—mistaking its production values for the real heart of the show.

The final episode ends with an odd fan-service type of superhero shot, with Watson and Sherlock racing out the door to solve another crime. It might have worked, albeit schlockily, if the show had adequately dealt with its emotional center. Instead, it left me feeling hollow—so close, and yet so far from what it could have been.

BFS Update: How This Fall Just Needed to End and My Cat Is Plotting My Doom

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Humor Musings Slice of BFS's Life (memoir)

So I spent the Fall of 2016 just wanting it to be over. Going in, it was already guaranteed to add some more white hairs to my once gloriously red goatee—full class loads as a college professor of writing have a tendency to do that. But then this wonderful year just kept wanting to give:

Here you go, your your last living grandparent is going to pass on. Here you go, your wife is going to land a dream job in a city 4.5 hours away, and while the job is wonderful, it’s also going to require you moving during the aforementioned busy semester—once for her and many of your things in late October so she can start the dream job, and once for you with the rest of your things after you finish teaching your classes for the semester. Oh, and did you notice that? Here you go, you get to find an apartment in a strange city and live apart from your wife for two months, even though you two are pretty much inseparable!

But wait, there’s more! Just when you think you’re all done, grades turned in for all of your classes, both moves completed, sanity about to be restored, here you go… a stupid neighbor will leave a window open in the second floor community room of your apartment building (during a winter storm, no less), causing a pipe to freeze and send water everywhere. Sure, it won’t be directly over your apartment, but it will make the carpet in much of your living room swampy and squishy, and the management for your building will take over a day to get a water extractor in (it being the day after Christmas). A dehumidifier will take two days.

Good times, am I right? See you later, 2016, I don’t miss ya. And it certainly explains the dearth of blogginess around here the past couple months. Yet something more is troubling me, something that makes the events of the past few months pale in comparison: my cat seeks my doom.

Don’t believe all the cute pictures Jessica/the Celt may show you of our cat, Rosie, nor the picture below. She may seem quiet, shy, and altogether adorable, but she is crafty—she plays the long game in seeking my demise. With our living room unusable and our office full of boxes and objects rescued from the living room, Jessica and I must live in the bedroom. And even though we have two (not just one) kitty beds in this bedroom, this is not good enough for our seemingly innocent feline named Rosie. Oh no, she must lie all day on my side of the bed. Not just an hour or two: all day.

What? I'm just lying here innocently, I'm not plotting your imminent demise. — What? I’m just lying here innocently, I’m not plotting your imminent demise.

She’ll grudgingly accede for me to take the spot back when Jessica is home—though I have had to pick her up on more than one occasion—but if I get up to do something? Perhaps to put something away? Perhaps to let the maintenance men in to work on the living room rug? Spring, spring! Lightly does the Rosie leap from wherever she lay before, finding my spot on the bed, curling up so cutely, so innocently, that surely no human could possibly try to move her!

This obviously is leading in one direction. My permanent removal! Rosie had a month to grow accustomed to having an entire half of a queen-sized bed to herself, and she does not want to give it up. Every time I have to move her, she looks at me with those big, kitty eyes, tearing my soul in two… and she knows it.

Soon, I’ll be forced into sleeping on a couch I am too tall for, or on a not very comfortable airbed. Soon, I’ll be so tired my mental capacity will deteriorate, my paranoia reigning supreme, and I will be relegated to the funny farm. Soon…

And Rosie will have her half of the bed all to herself.