AAA 'Miles/Trials' - Sep 26

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, and I really hate my family sometimes. This is it, no epithets, no elaborations, (my apologizes to those who want gossip – I do not feel much like gossiping at this moment), so let us move onto this week’s episode of AAA instead. Here… we do not find much improvement, as the titular character, the ex-witch Aggie-poo, already loses one member of her new coven, one missus Hart/Davis. Let us shed a tear for this fallen worthy, and… not much more, because in the greater MCU the good Mistress Sharon was not much more to begin with. Aye, Wanda treated her – in WV – as one of the NPCs’ in her sitcom-based RPG, but the greater MCU… didn’t really treat her any different.

No, indeed, hold the outrage: in WV, the character was an occasional, albeit a recurring one, and once the WV miniseries ended, we never saw anything else of her or of her fellow West View denizens. The way that Wanda treated them – regardless of her own reasons, issues, and mental state – was abominable, but AAA is not about Wanda, Wanda is off the table due to her apparent death.

…As the ‘Dr. Strange-2’ movie showed, there are plenty of Wanda Maximoffs in the multiverse still; some of them are actually happy mothers (and wives?). A Wanda Maximoff may appear (reappear) in MCU still, who knows – but what about Agatha?

In WV, Agatha inserted herself into Wanda’s RPG and waited for the Scarlet Witch to exhaust herself mentally and physically before bringing her superior skills and experience into play. It was a good plan, but it failed nonetheless, and Wanda trapped the older witch in a Framework-like reality of her own.

Framework was a part of AoS portion of the MCU, which was more of science than of sorcery, but Framework itself was created with the help of the Darkhold – the same Darkhold that played an important role in both WV and ‘Dr. Strange-2’; it’s unlikely that any of AoS’ characters will appear in AAA, but who knows, a fan crossover is always possible. More importantly, however, that even under the spell that made her an officer of the law and a protagonist rather than an antagonist, Agatha remained antagonizing, petty, and selfish. When ‘The Teen’ (TT; might be Billy the Wiccan, Wanda’s gay son, or might be Nick Scratch, Agatha’s own son in the comics, or might be yet another MCU OC – who knows?) broke the spell and snapped Agatha back to reality (in a manner not unlike the Framework, again), she still remained this sort of person – and so far she doesn’t appear to be changing for the better, either.

Will Agatha change? The world of MCU, her corner of MCU is as much Neopagan as anything, and-

-and look at the Pinocchio franchise, of all things. (I know, of all things, but still). In the original novel, the philosophy was Catholic Christian (and it even reflected in the original animated Disney film), and so Pinocchio changed himself on the inside and became a better person, (among other things). In a Soviet spinoff of the novel, (much less known and widespread in the West, but still), the Pinocchio-counterpart remains a puppet, but he makes the world (his world) a better place for all but the villains. In addition, in the more recent Disney remake of the abovementioned-animated classic, Pinocchio just accepts as to who he is and does not change at all. Pause. So where does this leave Agatha?

The role of monotheism is downplayed in AAA, but the fact is that regardless the bracing discussion on the definition of ‘witch’ and ‘witchcraft’, for modern people witches are descendants of the pagan/polytheistic clergy, and their demons/devils/etc. used to be ‘pagan’ gods. As KAOS and ‘Twilight’ (recently released on Netflix) show, ‘pagan’ culture is alive and well in the Western society. Moreover, in that culture, a person does not need to change to be better; they already are good. In this context, Agatha doesn’t need to change – she just needs to survive Rio, the Salem Seven, and anyone else who’ll be gunning after her while she’s depowered, (probably not Wanda or Steven Strange though). If that happens, she will just kill the rest of her new coven; she will recover her power and move on to newer pastures. The end of this miniseries. Since aside from Agatha herself we have never met any of those characters, (Sharon doesn’t count for the abovementioned reasons), and Agatha herself so far has a bigger reputation than anything, this still could happen – but whom do we kidding? Agatha will become a better person despite all of the Neopagan paraphernalia AAA the show is dressed in, and become an important part in MCU’s next phase. If MCU does not collapse first, that is, but it probably will not, (events in RL notwithstanding).

…In any case, I probably will not be able to review and/or discuss the AAA episode 1x04 next week on time, so you have been warned. Sorry about this. Real life sucks. For now, however, this is it. See you all soon.

 

 

AAA series premiere - Sep 18

Obligatory disclaimer: sometimes, real life… does not suck, as earlier today I got to see both a raccoon and a striped skunk in the wild. Naturally, the two animals do not look anything similar to each other, for the pair are distant relatives at best, but moreover…

The raccoon is a tree-climbing mammal. Eyesight is important to it for the obvious reasons, and so its’ skull has a shape that allows for some binocular (forward-facing) vision at least. The raccoon is equally confident on the ground, but it prefers to retreat to the nearest growing/standing tree (or a burrow, true), than stand its’ ground and fight… on the ground, pardon my tautology. That is good news… for both sides, for raccoons tend to have powerful jaws, sharp teeth, and an attitude to match them. (In addition, in Toronto, only the coyotes are bigger than they are, and coyotes do not appear to be too interested in raccoons, you know?)

The skunk is a burrowing mammal. For it, sense of smell is the most important, and so, it has better smell and worse eyesight than the raccoon does; in addition, proportionally, skunks are smaller and lighter than the raccoons are. Here, in Toronto, and the rest of Canada, the skunk species is the striped skunk, one of the biggest modern skunk species period, and the raccoon is decidedly bigger and heavier than it is. The skunk, admittedly, has powerful forepaws with large claws to better dig out earthworms and similar food items, (it doesn’t climb trees unlike the raccoon), not to mention its’ trademark defence power of skunk spray, but the skunks in our neighborhood apparently are the shy ones, as they tend to stay away from people and dash from cover to cover instead.

Again, on this occasion, I saw both of these mammals during the morning, way after sunrise, mid-September or not, so it is probable they were not at their best or their regular, (both skunks and raccoons tend to be more active at night instead), but still, the raccoon was slightly bolder out of the two species. Anything else?

‘Agatha All Along’ has premiered today, (Sep 18, 2024), and what can be said about the miniseries? It is progressive. It has same-sex couple (couples?). It has a Euro-American, an Afro-American, and an Asian-American character – all of them are in Agatha’s entourage and are on her side (at least initially). The series’ story is a travel story, a journey story, a story of transformations and transitions and changes – everything that MCU tried to be ever since the Avengers: Endgame film. The actors’ playing is very good and confident, the roles are cast quite nicely – i.e., the actors fit the characters – and we just saw the first two episodes out of several, so it is too early to judge the plot in general. As for WV…

Well, Elizabeth Olsen and her Wanda are finished with MCU for now, apparently. The character of Vision is going to get his own miniseries in the future, but for the moment there are no details aside from a statement that there’s going to be a series for Vision. AAA stems from WV, of course, but aside from an obligatory homage, AAA is quickly leaving WV behind both literally and metaphorically. Let us wish it good luck. Last time there were witches on the TV screen, it had been the SW: Acolyte series and that had been a failure, clear and simple. I hope that AAA will not be MCU’s version of it.

For now, this is it. See you all soon.

Jaws vs. Livyatan 2024 - Sep 17

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us briefly talk about the ‘Jaws vs. Leviathan’ that was aired during the summer 2024. It is a sequel to the ‘Jaws vs. Meg’ that also aired earlier, and was discussed by us as well. Therefore, what about this show?

On one hand, it is an improvement over the first show, if simply by virtue of having a better CGI, one that is not almost all-monotonous dark blue. There are different shades and colors, and one can easily notice what is going on here. Moreover, the plot/script of the final face-off is a bit better, and is less reminiscent of the dragon-not-quite-a-fight in the HoD S1 finale. Therefore, why is the rant?

Because the premise of the show just feels somewhat wrong. Sharks are cartilaginous fish, while whales are cetacean mammals, alongside the smaller dolphins, porpoises, and co. The physical similarities between the two groups (and the extinct ichthyosaurus reptiles of the Mesozoic) are only superficial and physical, and are not even complete, given how the cetaceans (and the extinct ichthyosaurs) breathe air, while the sharks (and their relatives) do not.

Yet, the differences between sharks and cetaceans is more than just physical, it is mental: like most of the mammals, the cetaceans take care of their young, (as it was shown in the show), while the sharks – not so much. The cooperative hunting/feeding by the great white sharks is something else again: it is a pecking order, and a cooperative pecking order, but it is not pack hunting of the orcas.

Orcas… they’re the top pack hunters in the modern oceans; great white sharks attack and eat whale calves, to be sure, but orcas attack and successfully eat adult whales instead, including such big species as the modern grey whale, and even, according to some rumors, sperm whales.

Now, male sperm whales are the biggest modern toothed whales (cetaceans), period, and not even orcas like to mess with them, but sperm whale females and calves are smaller and thus have bigger chances to end up on the orcas’ menu. That said, what matters here is that the orcas do what the great whites can do, only better, and their existence is one of the reasons as to why the Megalodon shark did die out by the Pleistocene epoch. (Recent past, but still the past). In addition, the modern sperm whale?

First, the modern sperm whale is a carnivore specialist, as it feeds primarily on large species of squid and octopus, while the modern orca will try to eat anything at least once. Second, the two species are not close relatives; the sperm whale’s close relatives are the Kogia whales, two species of really small cetaceans that look slightly like the sperm whale does, but without the oversized head; there are plenty of debate as to how close they are to the sperm whale… but they are still more closely related to it than the killer whale does; more specifically, the sperm whale, the Kogia whales, and the extinct Livyatan whale are one group, and the killer whale is another, in the overall cetacean clan; and to involve the orca with the sperm whales and their relatives is wrong and incorrect.

Yet genealogy does not really play a role in the ‘Jaws vs. Livyatan’ special, and it doesn’t matter; what matters is that comparing sharks to cetaceans is like comparing apples to oranges… or even potatoes – the two groups of animals are too different on the inside to compare and contrast; but-

-but frankly, the ‘Jaws vs.’ series doesn’t care about such scientific niceties; instead, in the best tradition of AFO, it does its’ best to come across as both informative and entertaining; the version I watched was rather skewed in favor of the sharks – but then again, these are Shark Week specials after all – but still informative and entertaining enough for me to watch till the end, even though the repetitive reiteration that the CGI sharks act just as the live fish do was annoying. Still, the show was better than the reality is, because real life flat-out sucks – but that is another story.

For now, however, this is it. See you all soon!