Stalker - TV Show

I started watching Stalker as it had both Maggie Q and Dylan McDermott in it, two excellent actors.  The first episode impressed me, mainly because of its fairly unique storyline and I continued watching.

As anyone who has read Reason for Vengeance or Crusade knows, I like strong female characters who stand by themselves and aren't just window dressing to the men.  Stalker had that with an equally split team, one of the women is in charge and also had an interesting ongoing story.

If you either want to watch this series or haven't seen episode Eighteen yet, stop reading now.

All OK?

Eighteen is the conclusion to Maggie Q's storyline.  Her psycho ex-boyfriend/stalker from her past has escaped from his mental asylum and kidnapped her.  The episodes leading up to this were very good with twists and turns throughout.  I thoroughly enjoyed them, but I've held off seeing this one for over a month.  I had a bad feeling about it and, having just watched it, I saw I was unfortunately right.

The junior male member of the team is badly injured and Maggie Q is kidnapped.  This leaves Dylan McDermott and the other female detective played by Mariana Klaveno to find her.  The kidnapper takes Maggie Q to a secluded cabin and then it all goes downhill from there.

Maggie Q manages to attack and defeat her kidnapper three times!  Each time, after he's down, she doesn't keep sticking the boot in until he can't get up again, oh no.  She turns her back on him and tries to run.  He of course catches her again.  This was bad enough, but the ending was much worse and pure Hollywood/American TV sexism.

Maggie Q escapes a fourth time and runs off into the woods pursued by the kidnapper.  McDermott and Klaveno turn up shortly after and go after them.  They are entering woods they don't know at night after someone they know is armed and what do they do?  They split up.

McDermott finds Maggie Q and takes her to a nearby cabin.  Shock of shocks, the kidnapper manages to capture Klaveno and follow them.  Klaveno gets knocked out, Maggie Q is tied up and McDermott is left free.  Kidnapper sets fire to house, McDermott tackles him, Maggie Q escapes, getting Klaveno out, McDermott defeats kidnapper and leaves him behind to burn.

Why with two strong female characters, does it have to be the male who saves the day?  This was pure lazy writing in my opinion.  You could have had a suspenseful standoff between Maggie Q and the kidnapper without all the forced action, while the others search frantically for them.  Then you have Maggie Q escape, just once mind, kick the kidnappers ass and call in the rest of the team who were already on their way.

Now I'm not saying I could write that.  I couldn't, not yet.  I've got a lot to learn, but these people are paid a reasonable amount of money and it should be well within their capabilities.

Anyway.  I'm off to watch the last two episodes.  Hopefully they'll be like the rest of the series and not as lazy as eighteen.

Edit - For the record, they weren't.  Nineteen and Twenty were much better and it's a shame the series wasn't picked up for a second season.

Oh, on the subject of my writing, don't ask.  It's not going very well on my new book.

Still on the Short Story

I've finished part 2 of what I think is going to be a five part short story.  I guess it's going to be more of a Novella in the end.  I wrote 2,000 words and then went out into the garden to edit while sitting in the Sun.  It was very pleasant.

Not much else to report I guess.  The Spanish Grandprix was good yesterday and good win for Rosberg.  It looks like it is all going Hamilton's way, but all it takes is a single DNF and suddenly Rosberg is ahead again.

I always watch the Sky coverage even when the BBC has it.  I think they've done a really good job, though Crofty is a bit annoying when he's not commentating.  His style is too sensationalist for me.  I much prefer Martin Brundle or Ted Kravitz's calm and measured approach.  I really missed Ted's coverage at the final test before the start of the season.  Crofty gave us almost no useful information.

50% of F1 is racing and the other half is technical.  We need to know what new gubbins are being put on the cars.  Spain was a clear example of that.  Mclaren leapfrogged Force India and Sauber in qualifying because of their developments.  These are the things we need to know about, not what Lewis has been up to when not racing.  Though I did wonder if that's why Rosberg beat him.  Did Rosberg put more time in learning in the simulator or other preparations than Lewis?  That would be an interesting story to look into.

My one real complaint though is they always seem to forget about Williams.  Yes they've been at the back for years, but last year they came a very strong third and they've been third all this year.  Yet Torro Rosso, Mclaren and Force India all seem to get more coverage.  Don't forget that Williams are the third most successful team in F1 history.  Only Ferrari and Mclaren have done better.

That's my moan done for the day.  Off to watch Prometheus for the first time.  Unfortunately, I don't think there are any Aliens in it.

Interesting Times ahead

I got distracted this morning by the election results.  I watched a bit of the coverage last night before I went to bed.  The commentators were droning on about the exit polls showing a Conservative victory.  I got a bit annoyed as it was a poll and they were treating it as fact.  Basically talking about it as they had nothing else to say for hours.  I did jot down the numbers out of curiosity before heading upstairs.

Wow, weren't they close?  The Exit poll stated Con 316 and Lab 239, completely contrary to all the polls before.  The result?  Con 331 and Lab 232.  A Conservative win.  That's not the interesting thing though, that's just normal British politics with either a Tory or Labour government.

The interesting thing is just how badly the SNP beat everyone in Scotland.  Was this a swing in their favour from last years No voters or did all the Yes people turn up and only some of the No's?  I do wonder.  How all those very left wing MP's are going to interact with a right wing government is going to be fun to watch.

The question I have is:  Without Scotland, can Labour ever again govern Britain?

The good news for me is that phone call about the job happened.  I know have an interview and can stop worrying about missing the call.

I managed a couple of thousand words today on the short story, so at least I did something.

Today's been a bit different.

I did something stupid last night at Karate.  We were doing a bear race as a warm up where you run around on your hands and feet.  The stupid bit was when I went too fast, couldn't stop and crashed into a wall head first.  My head was fine, but I twisted my wrist quite badly.  Every move was agony.  Fortunately we weren't doing any punching so I was able to tough out the rest of the lesson.

It's pretty bad though, I can't lift anything, opening doors is painful and even writing is difficult.  I think I would have actually preferred a black eye and bloody nose to this.  They heel pretty quickly and don't stop you from doing anything.  Fortuitously I can type without any discomfort.  This has actually helped me concentrate better.  Possibly because I can't physically do anything else, but I'm not downstairs watching TV.

I decided to stick with giving the New Project a break and work on my practice short story.

It's polling day and a few days ago I saw an advert/notice that E4 were going to switch off to help promote voting.  I was intrigued as to what they would put up instead so while my tea was brewing, I switched it on.  It was hilarious in a funny surreal way.  They had this big guy in the a purple shirt sitting in a chair by a screen confirming E4 was off.  There was also scrolling text running along the bottom with funny comments like:

E4 is off for today, you could go back to bed or you could take half an hour and vote.

I thought it was extremely clever and all done very well.  It's one of those things that's very simple, but works so well.  The kind of thing you think 'I could have thought of that' but you didn't.

I have no idea if it repeats during the twelve hours it's off and I wasn't going to stick around to find out.  It was tempting though, it was strangely compelling viewing.  I was going to see what was happening before nd after my lunch but I forgot.

For the record I voted before nine this morning.

Writing wise, I actually managed 4,500 words on a short story I've been working on as practice.  I like to publish these anonymously on a writers website and get feedback.  It can be quite enlightening and the good comments give me a real boost.

Urgh - It is not going well.

On Wednesday and Thursday I had my daughter round.  That was its normal brilliance.  We had a great time together.  On Thursday afternoon I received a call in regard to a job I'd applied for.  I lucked out on the timing.  Willow was fast asleep having her afternoon nap.  I did need to warn the woman that she was due to wake up at any time though.

The call went very well and I have to admit that I was quite excited at the possibilities it represented.  Willow’s timing was spot on and I heard the thump from her room of her getting out of bed as the conversation was winding up.  She wandered round to me and was as good as gold.  I gave her a hug and she stood there quietly while I finished the call.

The lady said I would be contacted to arrange a time and date for an interview, Wednesday the following week was mentioned as a possibility.  All good.  I didn't hear anything Friday, Monday was a bank holiday and nothing yesterday or today.  For most of that time I've been on edge, carrying my phone with me everywhere.

It's been a long while since I've gone through this.  Before taking the time to write, I worked for the same company for a very long time.  I'm just not used to the highs and lows of job searching.

I did feel a little better this afternoon, more relaxed.  I didn't work on the new project, but I did some more on a short story I've been working on here and there.

Hopefully tomorrow will be more positive.  I'll give the company a polite chase up call and put it aside until I hear from them.

I had no idea how much my mood would affect my writing.  I've had it before in the past year, but nothing this bad.