Dollhouse update: It got canceled. Are you surprised? I’m not. Thanks a lot, Fox, for canceling yet another show you treated like crap.

Other TV update: V is great. Flash Forward is interesting, but I’m not as invested as I want to be (haven’t seen the most recent episode yet). Community is hilarious. The Office this week was the best episode of the season so far, and I actually laughed a lot, which hasn’t happened a lot lately. New Doctor Who in a matter of hours (!!!!!!!). And this week’s Bones was SO wonderful, and I cried at the end. Plus Stephen Fry always makes everything better.

A note on Bones: a girl I know who is a forensic anthropology major was complaining about how nothing in that show is scientifically accurate, and she can’t watch it because “It’s all lies.” Well, I would like to point out on behalf of the rest of the world that no one cares. I watch that show because it has the most amazing character development of any show I watch right now. Don’t wave your silly scientific inaccuracies at me! I don’t know the difference, and I don’t care to!

Sarah’s life update: I’m doing NaNoWriMo this month and it is going well. As of this moment, I have around 22,800 words. Last year I got like 10k, and the year before that I got close to 37k. I’ve never won (reached 50k) but this year is the year, my friends. And before you ask, no, you probably won’t ever be able to read this thing.

In other news my Field Production class is a little bit of a headache. Sometimes it is a million kinds of awesome, and sometimes it sucks. This weekend should be good, because we’re spending most of it filming almost all of the stuff we have left to film… it will be crazy busy, but hopefully enjoyable. And hopefully we have good weather because we’ll be outside all day Saturday. Which is technically today, since it’s just after midnight, but let’s not split hairs.

No matter what is going on here, though, I’m ready to go back to Colorado.

Waco update: We didn’t get Pirate Radio in our theaters this weekend. Why? I do not know. I am upset about it. I want to see this movie. This is not the first time Waco failed to get a movie I was looking forward to seeing, and it will most assuredly not be the last. (I am still bitter about Carriers, but according to Netflix that will be out on DVD in December. So I’m mostly over it.)

That’s all.

It wasn’t that funny.

EDIT: Okay, there were funny parts, but they were few and far between, and a lot of them were in the trailer. It wasn’t what I thought I was going to the theater to watch, is all. Jedi references with Ewan McGregor were, however, greatly appreciated by me.

Here’s one of the trailers they showed. I want to show it to you because it is an awesome trailer. One of those trailers where the trailer could possibly end up being better than the movie (a la Watchmen and Terminator Salvation). Anyway, here:

Dollhouse might get cancelled. I’m depressed about this because I really do love it. I’m not the biggest Joss Whedon person, but this show is kickass. Brilliant performances by versatile actors and a unique and intriguing storyline that clearly isn’t going to get the airtime it deserves. Fox continues to be the douchiest of networks, to no one’s surprise.

Now that that complaint is out of the way, I want to talk about the show a little bit. Because there are some things that I’ve been wondering about.

First thing: after Epitaph One (the best episode of the series, IMO), I have some questions about what it means to be alive in the context of this show. In that episode, there was a little girl character (spoiler alert) who wasn’t really a little girl, she was the body of a girl imprinted with someone else’s mind. And at one point the little girl said something like, “I got dumped in this body and I want out.” I was interested/confused by this. My understanding of this show was that when a person gets imprinted with someone else’s mind, it is just that – an imprint. Not really the person. You don’t actually take the essence of a person out of them when you take their brain scan and stick it into another person. The doll might act exactly like the person they’ve got imprinted on them, but they aren’t actually that person. What I’m confused about is whether or not the writers of this show believe that, or if they’re making a statement about the nature of humanity and saying that there is no essence and identity can be manipulated because we are only animals believing deluded into thinking we’re unique.

There was another episode where an old woman died, but before her death she’d had them take a brain scan of her and said that if the circumstances of her death were kind of weird, they should imprint her mind onto a doll and find out what happened. The whole episode, everyone was treating Echo like she was actually the old woman. Which made sense I suppose, because she thought she was, but the weird thing to me was that all the other characters seemed to believe that she really was the old woman, just in Echo’s body. So what I’m wondering is, is the point of Dollhouse just that humans are alive or exist only as what other people believe us to be? If I died, and someone took a brain scan of me and put it into another person, am I still alive?

I personally don’t believe that would be true, but that’s because I believe in an eternal soul. I know it’s just a TV show so it doesn’t matter, but it’s interesting to consider.

The other thing was something from the episode last week. We found out how Sierra came to be in the Dollhouse… it was pretty messed up and terrifying, but the ending was satisfying. What I thought was interesting was that no matter what the imprint on her was, she still remembered that she loved Victor (one of the other dolls). In any state of mind, she remembered that feeling. I don’t have any profound thoughts on this, but I do find it interesting and kind of wonderful. And sort of contradictory to the other thing, if you think about it too much. Which I do. Because that’s how I am. Anyway.

I hope it doesn’t get cancelled. If it does, I hope we get a movie. It’s possible.

I watched Before Sunrise yesterday and Before Sunset tonight. Here are some quotes from these two beautiful, intoxicating, surreal movies, which I won’t explain to you because you should just watch them for yourselves.

Before Sunrise

“If there’s any kind of magic in this world, it must be in the attempt of understanding someone, sharing something. I know, it’s almost impossible to succeed, but…who cares, really? The answer must be in the attempt.”
-Celine

“I always feel this pressure of being a strong and independent icon of womanhood, and without making it look my whole life is revolving around some guy. But loving someone, and being loved means so much to me. We always make fun of it and stuff. But isn’t everything we do in life a way to be loved a little more?”
-Celine

“I always think that I’m still this thirteen year old boy who doesn’t really know how to be an adult, pretending to live my life, taking notes for when I’ll really have to do it. Like I’m in a dress rehearsal for a junior high play.”
-Jesse

“You know what drives me crazy? It’s all these people talking about how great technology is, and how it saves all this time. But, what good is saved time, if nobody uses it? If it just turns into more busy work. You never hear somebody say, “With the time I’ve saved by using my word processor, I’m gonna go to a Zen monastery and hang out”. I mean, you never hear that.”
-Jesse

“I used to think that if none of your family or friends knew you were dead, it was like not really being dead. People can invent the best and the worst for you.”
-Celine

Before Sunset

Journalist: Do you consider the book to be autobiographical?
Jesse: Uh, well, I mean… isn’t everything autobiographical? I mean, we all see the world through our own little keyhole.

“Maybe what I’m saying is, is the world might be evolving the way a person evolves. Right? Like, I mean, me for example. Am I getting worse? Am I improving? I don’t know. When I was younger, I was healthier, but I was, uh, whacked with insecurity, you know? Now I’m older and my problems are deeper, but I’m more equipped to handle them.”
-Jesse

“I’m designed to feel slightly dissatisfied.”
-Jesse

Jesse: What do you think were the chances of us ever meeting again?
Celine: After that December, I’d say almost zero. But we’re not real anyway, right? We’re just, uh, characters in that old lady’s dream. She’s on her deathbed, fantasizing about her youth. So of course we had to meet again.

“I feel like if someone were to touch me, I’d dissolve into molecules.”
-Jesse

“You can never replace anyone because everyone is made up of such beautiful specific details.”
-Celine