Stuff that Annoys me 3

How I Met Your Mother isn’t funny.

Why do people watch this show? Seriously, the jokes are dated, the running gag about being able to punch Barney is just plain stupid (not because of the violence, but because it just isn’t funny). Also why is a guy as young as Ted constantly looking for someone to marry? Just aim to get laid buddy. The most annoying thing about this is that it has all the ingredients to be a really funny show, but plays it safe, by following a “Friends” formula. They have a good set of comedy actors, who they’re wasting with jokes so unfunny that they require a laughter track to get anything out of them.

Channel 5

Could this channel please start producing programs that aren’t really, really bad? If they’re not pandering to whoever they think will sponsor them most, they’re showing reruns of CSI Miami, which I got along with alright when I was younger, but seriously annoys and disturbs me these days. The Pinnacle of Channel 5’s annoyance crimes has to be the way they’ve somehow made Big Brother even worse.

People who ride their Bicycles around in first gear.

For a start these people are incredibly slow and obstructive to any other road user. Not only that, but do you have any idea how annoying it is watching their feet and pedals go round and round in order to produce next to no movement. Shift that thing into a faster gear for god’s sake!

The New F**king Doctor

Peter Capaldi had landed the role of the Doctor and the web is going crazy. Now I’m not going to get into a wrong choice/right choice argument, but rather talk about what I think this means for the series and how it’s going to change. The Smith era saw the realism and science angle (of the 9^th and 10^th Docs) go out the window in favour of a more fairytale based look and storyline, so it only makes sense that the show will change again for Capaldi.

So first, things that the show has indicated so far. The Doctor is moving into darker places and actions. The Valyard was name dropped in “The Name of the Doctor” and he supposedly occurs around this time in the Doctor’s life. Could the 12^th entire storyline be based around a continual conflict with the darker parts of his personality? Is the manner of the 11^th death going to be so violent and traumatizing that it creates a serious and vengeful Doctor?

This brings us onto Capaldi himself and what we can try to ascertain about the show’s future based on his casting. First off, he’s older, with the grey hair and the wrinkles to prove it. He’s also a long-term fan of the show. One of the first things he did after stepping onto the stage of “The Next Doctor” was a William Hartnell impression. Now I’m not saying that means he’s going to play the character in the same way as Hartnell did, but that the more classic, older Doctors could inform his performance, in the same way that Peter Davison’s did Tennant’s.

With an older actor in the role, an increase in seriousness is a reasonable thing to expect. We don’t want it to go too far, like the sixth Doctor, given that Colin Baker was told play him as hyper serious and irritable to mix up the character from the juvenile and youthful days of the Peter Davison.

Whatever happens I’m confident that the Who writing team is up to the task.

Oh and there's always that chance that it'll be like this. 

  

Stand your ground…but make sure you kill someone.

So George Zimmerman was found not guilty of second degree murder, after shooting teenager Trayvon Martin, in what a jury found was self-defence. Now I’m not going to criticise the reasoning or try to disassemble the arguments of either defence or prosecution in that case. But what I am going to criticise is the fact that the stand your ground (self-defense) law which he relied on seems to only be clear cut, if you kill someone.

The case of Marissa Alexander, as reported by CBS on the 12 of May of this year, shows that if you fire a gun at someone and intentionally miss, stand your ground is not an available defence. To give some background, Ms Alexander had taken out a protective order against her husband, whom she alleged was physically abusive. When he entered her home and began allegedly acting in a way that caused her to fear for her life, she got hold of a gun and fired warning shots in the hope it would stop him.

She was handed a 20-year sentence for her heinous crime.

Reasons that this is stupid:

Her husband was in violation of a protective order. He shouldn’t have been there in the first place. Why does a man who is technically trespassing, not qualify as a threat for the purposes of self-defense? Why is afforded the protection of the law when there was a specific order in place, intended to protect the defendant in this case?

You could say, as some have, that discharging a firearm without the intention of hitting a specific target is more dangerous than aiming it at someone. If you’re shooting at someone (and can aim effectively) you at least know where the bullets are  going.

This would be a valid argument, if Ms Alexander had inadvertently killed or injured a passer-by or someone else’s properly. But she didn’t. To say that she could have, makes the assumption that cases cannot be assessed on their individual merits. A plane could have crashed into the house before she fired the gun, a ninja could have leapt from the roof and cut her husband’s head off. If you’re talking about what could have happened, you’re dealing with a set of potentially unlimited possibilities.

Now the big one; the difference with the Zimmerman case.

The Zimmerman case is later verdict, only being reported in the last few days, however, the core concept of the two cases would seem to be the same. The defendant feared for their life and discharged a firearm in appreciation of this fear. The difference, Mr Zimmerman, killed the person who caused him this fear. Now I don’t want to get into the issue of whether or not he genuinely feared for his life. This isn't a critique of his case, more an examination of the stand your ground defence.

This tells us that the laws on self-defence in Florida are apparently easier to apply, when someone’s dead. If Ms Alexander had killed her husband, then logically (based on the core concepts of her case and Mr Zimmerman’s) she would have been found not guilty. The conclusion I can draw from that is that one of these verdicts makes absolutely no sense.

To add to that the only advice I would give to Florida residents is if you fear for your life and have a gun, by all means shoot, but for god’s sake, make sure you kill someone, else you’ll end up in prison.

Ten’s Era wasn’t all that good.

With the return of David Tennant to the role of the Tenth Doctor this November the revised fandom is started to really pick up speed. I’ve seen a pretty good fan made trailer for the 50^th anniversary episode and a whole load of Facebook posts about it and particularly about how awesome things were during the tenth Doctor’s run.

Thing is, things really weren’t awesome during the tenth Doctor’s run. They were pretty crappy to be honest. The love story with Rose was clichéd and over the top and a great chunk of the episodes (across the whole run) lacked inspiration or any essence of new ideas.

There have been a couple of crappy episodes since Eleven took over (that one the pirates, that one with the plastic people, that one with the Dinosaurs  - seriously, what were they thinking with that episode?), but overall Matt Smith’s run has been fairly consistent in terms of quality.

The Tenth Doc’s era was host to one series that I would be willing to sit through again (that being series 3) and even at that I’d choose any of the Eleventh era series’ over that.

Getting on to the elephant in the room, Ten’s exit, while being the pinnacle of sadness for some, was, as far as I’m concerned a boring, over the top and slightly self-indulgent trudge fest.

The only thing that got any kind of emotion out of me from “The End of Time” was the Tenth Doctor miserable musings about regeneration. And the emotion that that happened to evoke in me was a mixture of anger and annoyance. It seemed to me that Russell T Davies was using the opportunity to tell fans; “the new Who isn’t going to half as good as this one.” You’d think from it, that David Tennat was the first person to play the Doctor and that Davies was the first person to run the show.

The entire self-indulgent, somewhat confrontational monologue is not I the spirit of this show that has been constantly changing for the best part of 50 years.

There you have it, Ten’s run wasn’t all that good ad the series under Moffat is much better.

Stuff that Annoys Me 2

“It wasn’t made for you”

In relation to television I’ve heard this excuse used a couple of times. One of these was from Matthew Graham. In response to the negative reaction of the older fans to his episode of Doctor Who “Fear Her” he said  "Well, it's a shame that they have, but it wasn't meant for them"

Let me explain why this statement holds absolutely no validity whatsoever. Doctor Who is the most popular Science Fiction show I the UK and draws in viewers of all ages. To even suggest that it would be alright to let down half these viewers for the sake of impressing the other half is just plain stupid. It’s also an insulting thing to say to a fan of the show. Graham is implying that there’s nothing wrong with how he wrote the episode, but that those who reacted badly to it are the ones with the problem. He could have reacted to the criticism by asking himself what he did wrong and what he could have done better. Instead, the only thing he seems to have asked himself seems to be, “what could possibly be wrong with the people who didn't like my work?”

Also, looking at the episode more specifically, the main antagonist (Chloe Webber) suffers from a constant fear that her dead, alcoholic, abusive father will come back to life and beat her to death. Written for the kids was that Matthew?

Star Wars is going to be the same again

With his latest Star Trek film, JJ Abrams has proved that he has no understanding of subject matter, deeper meaning or character motivation. He knows how to put on a loud light show and that’s exactly what Star Wars has been for the last few years anyway. Abrams would appear to understand as little about what the original Star Wars meant as George Lucus, to be honest.

The fact that people are obsessed with twilight and not Buffy

From the first to the third season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, there is a love story constantly running between the characters of Buffy and Angel. When broken down to it’s core elements, this love story is essentially the same as that Bella and Edward in Twilight. However, it is executed so much better in Buffy. Like Bella, Buffy is in love with a dangerous vampire who struggles with his own love for her, not to mention his bloodlust and true demonic nature. Unlike Bella, Buffy is able to draw a line between love and complete and utter devotion. She is capable operating without Angel, she regularly addresses the fact that they shouldn’t be together simply because he’s 226 years older than her  - yeah the fact that Edward Cullen is a paedophile for purposes US law is never addressed is it?

Buffy is essentially a far better role model than Bella, she exists in a similar universe and even goes through the same love story, but comes out of it as a stronger character, whereas Bella just concludes that it’s about time she surrendered everything to Edward and embraced traditional marriage.