- Watching “Food Detectives” — they’re testing hangover cures.

Ever wonder why the Knights Sabre are all women? It’s all in the subtext. Sylia apparently likes to surround herself with women (though Nene must be just barely not jailbait.) Or maybe Sylia’s hard-suit design just works better with women?

I wonder what a slayer could do in one?

And how many episodes constitutes a marathon? All of them (24) ? Or just a DVD or 2 (4 episodes/DVD) ?

Long past midnight at this point. Only 2 episodes (of 26) to go. Could have been shorter. At least 2 episodes worth of boring exposition.

The ending never made much sense. So I think I’ll watch something a bit different as an antidote.

Najica: Blitz Tactics – A spy whose cover is a perfumer (designs perfume). Her signature is a rose left at the scene. Only twelve episodes. And lots of fan service (Yes, one of THOSE animes), though it would still be a decent spy story without that – more or less. Not something to watch if such things as fan service upset you. I’m sure I’ve commented on it before. Her first mission? Dressed in an extremely short skirt, she fights off a couple dozen maids also dressed in extremely short skirts to rescue some girl (who then follows her around like a puppy, also dressed in a short skirt, for the next 11 episodes.)

Okay, only made it thru 3 episodes of Najica before the fan service got too annoying. Now what?

Has anyone noticed that Dorothy lives on a farm with her aunt and uncle and 3 farm hands and a large number of hogs, and Toto too! So, not exactly a Depression era hard scrabble existence.

Of course, we’ve all noticed by now the foreshadowing with the farm hands, and Professor Marvel, right?

It was all a dream.

Poor Almira Gulch. She looks like she could use a friend. Thanks to Wicked we’re all aware of the UST between the Wicked Witch and Glinda but that doesn’t help poor Almira though I might have seen Dorothy/Almira femslash used to explain why she was so mean to Dorothy. ( Farmgirl + spinster teacher? Serious recipe for disaster.)

Ah… trivia. Margaret Hamilton (Gulch and the Wicked Witch) was the voice of Auntie Em in that mid 70′s Oz movie ( Journey to Oz) with Liza Minnelli as Dorothy (and a boat load of Hollywood has-beens as other characters.). She was also Morticia’s mother in The Addams Family. Have to wonder how she made a living on character parts – the Wiki says she refused to join a studio.

I have a Wizard of Oz movie poster calendar for 2011. The Witch isn’t on any of them surprisingly. Hmmm… not sure if Billy Burke ( Glinda ) is either.

(Ah… more spelunking in the trivia. Billie Burke was 18 years older than Margaret Hamilton, making her 55 when she played Glinda. (Have to wonder what she thought when someone else played her in a movie about her deceased husband Florenz Ziegfeld in ’37.) Hadn’t realized she was that old. Both of them lived into their mid 80′s.)

But, out of curiosity, I decided to buy a couple songs from the Glee version of “West Side Story”.

Okay but the usual Glee vibe. On the other hand, I did what I usually do, which is to buy the originals ( Well, from the movie, since that is the version I’m familiar with).

Verdict? Movie vs Glee? Movie. But not embarrassingly better.The Glee gang did fine for a tv production. The “ethnic” wording ( accents? Dialect? ) in “America” is cringeworthy whether Rita Moreno or Santana (Naya Rivera ) sing it. Of course we’re talking about a 1950′s view of Hispanic kids in a gang. I’m sure if it had been set several decades earlier with Irish or Italian characters it would have been also cringeworthy.

From the creators of “Lost”

In this new world:

So far –

Fairy Tale characters

Snow White is a grade school teacher.
Prince Charming is in a coma in the hospital
The Evil Queen/witch is mayor of the town (It’s not clear if she knows who she is.)
Jimminy Cricket is a shrink
Rumpelstiltskin owns the town.

Unnamed possible FTC’s
Town sheriff
Two women at the hotel Emma gets a room at.
Drunk at the jail.

Original Characters

Emma Swan – Snow White & Prince Charming’s daughter (except she doesn’t know that. She things she was abandoned as a baby. She chases down bail jumpers.). According to Rumplestiltskin, she’ll break the curse when she turns 28. Guess how old she is in this story.

Henry – Emma’s son. She gave him up for adoption when she was 18(?). The Mayor (evil Queen) adopted him. He seems to be the only person who knows what is going on in town.

Hmmm…. the show is being told with flashbacks to “fairytale land” as backstory and current time when Emma shows up.

A lot of reviewers weren’t too complimentary about the flashback aspect but I don’t think it’s too bad. Certainly better/different than the standard procedurals that litter the tv landscape.

Might have to watch the next episode.