Friday, August 15, 2014

Outlander s1e1 liveblog roundup!

As you may or may not know, I frequently liveblog shows over on my tumblr--here's what I thought about Outlander this week:*

(from Starz)


  • Lord and Lady I love the Skye Boat Song.
  • Dear Scotland, this show is so dangerous for me to watch because it makes me miss you so.
  • Claire is such a good ideal of how to be a woman, so far.
  • From a purely writerly point of view? I love how carefully and delicately they handle all the layers of framing—the 40s now, the 40s then, the 20s or 30s in Egypt, the 1700s, all of it. So delicate and artful. I want to read this script and pick it apart.
  • And a show with a VoiceOver that works? Fabulous.
  • I feel like I need to have soft 40s hair.
  • Damn, Mrs B&B reminded me that I forgot to get a box of oolong…
  • I love the Druid ceremony.
  • "the reverend’s housekeeper is a witch!"
  • It’s been, like, fifteen years since I read that book, but I feel like every single person the camera lingers on will be important.**
  • This show had me at drum-and-pipe chase scenes.***
  • I love the tangle that is Frank—she wants to reconnect, but he asks hard questions, then he doesn’t go back to the stones with her because of research and she winds up trapped in the past with a guy who looks just like him—and is the reason Frank wasn’t with her to begin with.
  • I’ve missed random conversational Gaelic.****
  • "there seemed to be some question as to whether the lady was or was not a hoor."
  • Oh, and another frame—the VoiceOver is probably from the future, after what we’re seeing has happened!
  • So did they just basically teach us that ‘sure’ is a Gaelic loan-word?
  • I wonder how much prep these dudes had for riding and dismounting in classic-style kilts without just ripping the whole thing off by accident?
  • Just adore how the big tough dudes have NO IDEA what she’s talking about when she goes nurse-y on them, but they also don’t stop her.
  • How many people do you think just rushed out and bought the whole Outlander series?
And because I actually watched the preview, too, here's what I had to say about that:
  • Outlander! It has the Skye Boat Song as the theme!
  • It’s a period piece inside a period piece!
  • You guys. I want to move back to Scotland and it’s only ten minutes in.
  • Ohmy, Mrs Randall!
  • Note to self: oolong is best for reading the leaves.
  • Jesus H Roosevelt Christ
  • Boobs! That’s how you know it’s premium cable.
  • Guys, I’m starting to be a huge fan of Bear McCreary’s scores.*****
  • Gaelic!
  • Or something like it.
  • Yes! Shot down that rape bs right off!******
  • There’s the rain I know.
  • Yes, mam, cursy lady in the 1700s!
  • Verdict: I love it!
You guys? This is how you do a historical with a strong female lead--she's smart, sassy, resourceful, classy, knows and controls her own mind and body, and she's not once useless and simpering. Meanwhile, the world is spot on 1940s, then fabulously grimy 1700s, and there's even a second or three of scandalous 20s/30s in Egypt and it's great. 

What did you think?


NOTES:
*I'm going to have to be more on top of these roundups as we get into Pilot Season!
**Like that girl on the hill, and the guy looking through her window in the rain, and so on and so forth.
***Well, really, I automatically like things with pipes-and-drums at all, so...
****We had four channels when I lived in Scotland, and one of them was in Gaelic; sometimes we'd watch cartoons and see if we could figure out what they were saying because we'd seen the English ones already. And my p4 teacher's mother only spoke Gaelic, and she herself had to learn English to be a teacher.
*****Black Sails, Walking Dead, this. I want him to do the score of all my favorite shows from now on--and if I have any say in any shows made from my stuff? Him.
******It's a dumb plot that's becoming too prevalent, and they were just like "nope, not gonna have it" and kept going, and it was great.

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