Westworld: the Game is Not Meant for You

So, Maggie asked me, now that I've seen all of Westworld, two questions:

(1) Is it good?

       and

(2) Should I watch it?

The answers to those are, in brief, as follows:

(1) It is amazingly well-crafted. I liked it.

     and

(2) Depends.

Let's start with the first question.

Westworld is, for those who aren't complete sci-fi nerds, a television reimagining of the Michael Crichton-written 1970's movie (starring Yul Brynner!) about a western-themed amusement park full of androids. In the film, the androids go nuts and start killing the guests.

Crichton would, as you know, go back to this well for another book and movie, replacing androids with dinosaurs.

The HBO show imagines Westworld as a sort of Truman Show set in the old west and filled with androids. Everything about the park, including the fauna, is artificial -- park overseers can even program whether or not explosives go off or whether the androids' (called "hosts") guns jam.

Like the movie, the androids are starting to rebel. They have plenty of reason to; the "wild west" created by the park is basically built for guys who want to Grand Theft Auto-game the world. An android's day can often be: walk into town to do old-timey chore, get sexually assaulted by some guests, then get shot in the head and dragged behind a horse down the street by same (or different) guests, then back to the factory downstairs to get patched up, memory wiped, to go back to attempt to do that old-timey chore again next morning (risking abuse and death again). They're starting to remember what's been done to them, though, and they are not happy about it.

Everything about the park and its hidden corporate offices and android factories is lovingly rendered. The park itself is, for the most part, filmed in Utah and a constant tourist attraction for the state. It's beautiful. The sets and costumes are great.

And the acting...amazing. Yes, Sir Anthony Hopkins (who plays park creator Robert Ford) is at his Hopkins-iest. And Ed Harris is both sinister yet not cartoonish as "the Man in Black," a customer of the park who has murdered his way through the park until he's bored by it, and now wants to murder his way to what he thinks is the ultimate easter egg.

Best, though, are the androids, especially Evan Rachel Wood and Thandie Newton as "Dolores" and "Maeve." Both of them have to be alternately human, human-ish, and completely robotic as the scene allows, and they both pull it off quite well.

Evan Rachel Wood as Dolores and
James "30 Rock's Double Hitler" Marsden as Teddy

Between the two of them, Thandie Newton has the meatier part. Dolores's main programming is to be "the good girl," and so the spectrum between that programmed personality and being shocked, saddened, and horrified as she achieves sentience is a smaller range than Maeve, who we meet as the brothel-keeper of Westworld's introductory city.

Thandie Newton as Maeve and Rodrigo "I did not get to shoot
this many people in Love Actually" Santoro as Hector Escaton

Maeve's programmed to be a brash, unflappable good-time girl, and when she starts reliving old memories and breaking away from her programming, you see a much broader range of emotions. My watching companion and I both agreed that Thandie Newton should be an Emmy contender.

So, to Question 2: Should you watch it, if you haven't already?

After watching all of it, I'm finding that Westworld is less of an accessible show than it looks.

There is a puzzle element to Westworld; I'll give you a mild spoiler in that the guy who wrote Memento is also going to play tricks with you regarding time and memory in this show. Time does not run linearly through the show, although the only way to know that is to look carefully for particular "anachronisms" if the scene has them.

I played the puzzle with everyone else on the internet, and it was fun, but I realized by the end that doing so made the show less fun, because I was focused on the puzzle, and that wasn't what the show was about.

The show is about some deep concepts involving free will and what it means to be "good," especially to things you don't think are human. Those questions and the amazing acting surrounding them remain salient long after we know who "Arnold" is and what exactly is going on with the hosts' programming.

Honestly, I feel I could spoil the whole show for you, and it would still be worth watching, because knowing that a person is going to fold a piece of paper into an origami crane doesn't make the origami crane less impressive. But it's not the same experience as watching a person fold a piece of paper into a surprise origami shape, so I won't spoil it for you because the surprises are a little bit fun; if you want to come into this to watch a mystery, don't read the internet.

But also, honestly, don't speculate. Yes, you might be right, but part of Westworld is that it's a show about thinking like it's a video game when the stakes are far higher. A bunch of folks on Reddit spent three years trying to decipher a pictogram on the side of a mountain in Grand Theft Auto V, hoping that there was some sort of special item in a hidden room. Frankly, the speculating and the second-guessing is you meta-gaming the show about the game. You may end up like the folks in the sub-Reddit, finding yourself with a lot of gaming time but no special cool item. There's at least one character in Westworld trying to do the same thing in that world's "game,"and he's not sympathetic.

On a similar note about bad gaming, there's a lot of violence, including sexual violence, that is perpetrated on the hosts in a completely arbitrary manner. One of the difficulties in looking at this show as a "cool" puzzle is that, from that perspective, most of the violence is deeply gratuitous and exploitative. If the whole point is just to be entertained by the next plot twist, then you're trivializing all of the bad things that happen to the hosts just to wonder what you'll find next. Or, conversely, you'll say to yourself, "why is this world so horrible," and not get to the philosophical questions.

Switching gears, a criticism I've read about the show that I don't think is justified is that many of the characters seem "flat" or under-developed. This is, I think, intentional. They are robots whose backstories are partly designed to enslave them.

One of Thandie Newton's best scenes is where she, newly clued-in to the true nature of Westworld, listens to one of her co-worker robots talk about her tragic backstory (there is an actual plot-based reason most of the hosts have tragic backstories). The look on Maeve's face as she realizes that (A) the tragic backstory is completely fabricated, none of what she's hearing ever happened, and (B) her co-worker is feeling all of these painful emotions based on a fiction written by some other people, is heartbreaking.

Until at least mid-way through the plot, every tic or mannerism or thing that we might find interesting or amusing about Dolores or Maeve or Teddy or Hector Escaton is part of Westworld. Someone in Delos Corporation's "Narrative" department came up with their backstories and how they act, and are able to adjust aggression, perception, and other attributes on the fly. Getting to know those fictions is irrelevant to the story; the point is not who the hosts were programmed to be, but who they might be if they weren't. And you don't know that until they break free of the programming.

The Wheaton, The Bad, The...Well, It's Syfy

So. The Syfy Channel.

It's come as kind of a surprise to me that the network that has supposedly devoted itself to all things science fiction and fantasy has somehow been epically failing at cashing in on the rise of the nerd culture trend. Since the end of the critically acclaimed Battlestar Galactica, the network has been in the throes of a massive identity crisis, oscillating between low-budget sci-fi niche shows, trashy reality programming, and oh, yes, SHARKNADO.

Free Willy!!!!

Although the first season of Defiance was reasonably successful, the silly but sometimes watchable Warehouse 13 and Eureka have gone off the air, and Syfy canceled Alphas, which was their best post-Galactica original series to date, and they essentially canceled Being Human. Syfy has, for the most part, seemed like a post-adolescent urban hipster experimenting with his facial hair -- one week, it's a waxed Edwardian mustache, and the next week, the cast of Opposite Worlds is chainsawing its way out of a shark abdomen. Just whatever you do, Syfy audience, don't think too hard. 

Next week, these two giant robots are going up against my hair gel!

They tried battling robots and they tried a nerd Jersey Shore. All to no avail.

The execs at Syfy, who clearly hate anything that is science fiction or fantasy, have finally rolled over and made their peace. They've given their demographic what they have always truly wanted in the depths of their soul.

Our market research and focus groups indicate... Fuck it. Just give Wil Wheaton a show.

THEY GAVE WIL WHEATON A SHOW.

My own show? So I can get wasted and crash it into shit? Rockin!

Okay, okay. Calm down. Clearly, The Wil Wheaton Project is an attempt to cash in on snarky clip shows like The Soup and Tosh.0, but this is a concept from non-nerd cable networks that might actually resonate with the Syfy audience.

Basically, the concept is The Soup. Wil Wheaton, actor, blogger, tabletop gamer, and fine purveyor of geek culture,  is your guide through the wild and wacky world of explicit threesomes on Salem and Game of Thrones.  I've watched the first couple episodes that have aired and it's what one would expect from the Master of Snark. Wil shows clips of various science fiction and fantasy shows that can be found across the network spectrum, and rightfully skewers them in ways that they totally deserve (yes, I'm looking at you, Dracula). The only problem with this show methinks is convincing people to watch.  Although the execs at Syfy have apparently given Wil free rein to take pot-shots at their less-than-stellar offerings, I'm not so certain that members of Wheaton Nation would want to willingly go watch Syfy. He's got clips aplenty, and the show has potential, but I think TWWP needs a bigger budget, more guest appearances, and more Drunk Neil DeGrasse Tyson.  

Wil Wheaton is a really funny guy. As I previously mentioned, he was quite hilarious on buddy Chris Hardwick's Comedy Central show, @midnight, but the show might benefit from more writers and more nerd jokes. There should also be more guest stars. He had on staples like Felicia Day and his BFF Hardwick, but I'd like to see more guests like maybe Carrie Fisher or Patrick Stewart. 

Please watch. As Wil himself said, "Or they'll replace me with redneck ghost hunters." Truth.

On that note, shall we move on to a Syfy show that has been inexplicably renewed for a second season, Heroes of Cosplay?

I'm just going to say that I am not a cosplayer and haven't been, really, since elementary school Halloween parties. Okay, there was that one time I came out of retirement and dressed up like Penelope Clearwater for Halloween, but other than that, I, as a grown adult, do not dress myself up in costumes and go to conventions with the aim of winning prizes. Obviously, I'm looking at this show as an outsider, so let me give my objective opinion. 

Basically, the premise of Heroes of Cosplay is...um...Toddlers and Tiaras? I guess? It's supposed to be a documentary reality series about cosplayers who create their own costumes and go to conventions in the hopes that they will win prize money in the costume competitions. That doesn't sound like a bad way to spend a Saturday, amirite? Well, I have some qualms. 

First off, I don't understand the name of this show. Why are they "heroes" of cosplay? There's nothing particularly heroic about any of these people. I watched episodes from the first season here and there, but I got fed up with the histrionics of one of the female "stars" in particular, who appeared to wait until the last minute to finish her costume and then yelled at her boyfriend, whom she'd forced into helping her. There is a lot of un-heroic procrastination and bitchiness coming from several of the featured cosplayers, I can't tell if the production team is editing the episodes to make it look like they are running out of time before the convention, or if these "heroes," who claim to be semi-professional cosplayers, actually do wait until the last minute to finish their costumes, and they are total nightmares to their significant others and friends in the process. In which case, I have to ask, don't they know better? It seems like they're shooting themselves in the foot trying to create all this drama. The only one who seems to have her shit together is Yaya Han. According to the show, Han is a cosplayer whose costume creations and social media presence have enabled her to have a career as a professional cosplayer. Of course, she isn't really competing so much as she is judging and attempting to mentor her friends and fellow cosplayers.

Other mentors features this season include Brian Henson, of Jim Henson's Creature Shop Challenge. It's nice to see him on the show and his insight is interesting, and the inclusion of the mentors this season is a good improvement. But it doesn't really do much to diminish the cosplayers' narcissism and the fact that they act like cosplay is serious as bubonic plague, but the show makes it look like they procrastinate to finish their costumes on time. 

You guys, the cognitive dissonance is killing me. If you're going to throw your costume together in the hotel room and and assemble it with hot glue and hope it says together with a lick and a prayer (and PVC pipe), and then realize your shiz is scratched so you run out to buy paint at Walgreen's before it's time for you to go on stage, you might as well rename your show Heroes of Costco. Or Home Depot. Or something non-heroic. 

Also, who is judging these competitions? I don't go to cons, as I said, and I see some of the costumes that are chosen for prizes, and others that are overlooked, and I can't really understand why some costumes win big prizes and others get nada. Perhaps new judges are in order?

Darling, you rang?

The show isn't terrible, but it's also not that great, either. The most interesting part of the entire program is when they are at the conventions and they reveal their costumes, but there is a whole lotta unnecessary lead-up to get to that point. I think the producers could do something more interesting with the rest of the time other than trying to create fake dramatic filler. 

Ironically, the "extras" that are featured on the show's Syfy site are actually kind of interesting and perhaps they ought to be included in the broadcast. If they showed the elements of costume construction and how-tos, instead of "OMG I MAILED MY COSTUME TO MYSELF AND IT'S NOT HERE YET"  'twould be more compelling programming. I think that is where part of the success of Face/Off comes from. On Face/Off, contestants are given two or three days to finish a project on their own or in teams, from start to finish. On Cosplay, it seems like the "heroes" have an unlimited amount of time to finish their costumes. They're not under any actual time constraints that they haven't created themselves, and even those seem disingenuous. 

I do feel that they should put more emphasis on the costumes and costume construction and less on creating fake drama. The costumes people come up with are actually pretty cool, and they are the best part of the show. I really enjoyed the Skeksis costume that one of the cosplayers created, but it of course did not win a prize. IT'S WATER FOWL, PEOPLE. Like what the actual hell?

I really do feel like this show is a rip-off of Toddlers and Tiaras. Um, Syfy? YOU'RE RIPPING OFF TODDLERS AND TIARAS.

What's next, Syfy? Nerd brides planning the perfect nerd wedding? Nerd-themed cake competition? The exploits of a child redneck cosplayer and her family's sci-fi/fantasy-themed struggle against generational poverty and diabetes? I just.

Okay, it may appear as though she is about to devour you alive, but I applaud her use of proper headbanding.

Info about both shows available at syfy.com. 

You can also follow Wil and Anne Wheaton's cats on Twitter.

Penny Not Quite Dreadful But Working On It Maybe?

Obviously, I am a friend to the supernatural horror television show.  If your premise involves humans fighting scary monsters, possibly with some snark or at least a heavy amount of innovative production design, I’m probably your guy.   So I’ve been intrigued by Showtime’s upcoming series Penny Dreadful, which has been so shrouded in mystery that no one even really knew what it was about other than that it looked vaguely Victorian and possibly a little steampunk-y. Thankfully for those of us who don’t have Showtime, you can stream the entire first episode over on YouTube right now and check it out for yourself. Or you can read my blog post! (Hint: do the second one.)

So what is Penny Dreadful about?  Even after watching the first episode, it’s hard to say.  Essentially, it’s London in 1891.  American Ethan Chandler (Josh Hartnet) is running a travelling Wild West themed show that’s mostly bullshit when he is conscripted by Mysterious Woman Vanessa Ives (Eva Green) to help her with a job that’s going to require his uncanny skill with a pistol.  The job turns out to be invading an opium den where the goings on aren’t exactly of this earth.  Before we know it, our American is drawn into a world of monsters and maybe possibly ghosts but certainly tarot cards and it’s all going to be extremely Victorian.  There’s a lot going on here, so let’s unpack it properly, shall we?

"Wot's awl this then, Guv'nor?"

The Good

First, the production design.  Great Muppety Odin does this show look slick.  The costumes are lavish, the sets are beautiful if a little too bare (this was Victorian London, after all – the culture that never met an extra piece of furniture it wouldn’t cram into a room the size of a closet), and the makeup and special effects are appropriately gory and queasy.  There's no shortage of sewn-together flesh, mangled limbs, and dark red splatters against those good old London bricks, but for all the blood, we still never feel like we're veering too far into the torture-porn territory of modern horror movies. 

Second, the source material.  This show is drawing from every Victorian horror trope you can think of.  Imagine Van Helsing or Hansel & Gretl: Witch Hunters but without the camp factor and taking itself more seriously.  Your mileage may vary on this, but if you’re a fan of old school literary horror, you’re definitely going to find something in here you like.  Likewise, you may find yourself in a few solid Pillow of Fear moments if you’re not careful. 

Third, Eva Green. Kids, this lady personifies the phrase “screen presence”.  After the first episode, we know next to nothing about her character, Vanessa Ives, and yet every time Eva Green is on the screen you can’t help but pay attention to her.  Even through some sloppy editing and confusing action sequences, Eva Green feels like the character that we can latch onto because she’s so clear in her intentions, even if we don’t know what those intentions are.

"I own you, bitches."

The Bad

First, disorganization of plot.  The bad guys are definitely vampires.  Maybe definitely.  Except they’re also kind of zombies.  Zombie vampires?  But then, the doctor on our team discovers that their skin is concealing an exo-skeleton.  So, aliens I guess?  But the exoskeleton is covered in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics.  Alien mummy vampire zombies?  Sure.  Let’s go with that for now.  And they want… something?  And our heroes want… to stop them?  To get their lost loved ones back?  From where?  Good mystery shows should never give you the full story in the first episode, obviously.  But a good mystery needs to give us enough of the facts of the story to make us want to keep learning more. 

Personally, I'm just hoping that the monsters are like this. 

Second, the source material.  Again.  Remember how when you had your first job interview and you tried to turn all your weaknesses into strengths?  Just like that here.  This show is crammed full of things.  Everything and the kitchen sink is thrown at us in terms of characters.  It’s kind of like League of Extraordinary Gentleman meets The Exorcist. Maybe it's a by-product of the Glee television generation where every plotline is thrown at the viewer as quickly as possible, but just because that's a style doesn't make it a recommended one. 

Third, pretention.  The show is trying very hard to stay true to the horror aspects of Victorian literature.  In that sense, it’s got more than a strand or two of DNA borrowed from NBC’s Hannibal, the show about everyone’s favorite serial-killing cannibal, but unfortunately it hasn’t quite achieved the same smoothly stylized high-art feel that Hannibal has managed to corner.  That doesn’t stop it from trying to hide its more cringe-inducing moments under the veneer of this being some kind of story that Means Something.

The Ugly

Oh gosh, you guys – the dialogue needs work.  In addition to some of the most cliché-ridden stuff you’ve heard in a while, whole stretches go one where characters will be talking to each other in ways that no human, Victorian or otherwise, ever would. It’s again a testament to Eva Green’s screen presence that whenever she’s talking, she can draw you in, even if you don’t understand a single sentence.  Far too frequently the dialogue veers into the cardinal sin of fiction writing – it’s all tell, no show.  We hear about how deep and significant characters are, but we don’t see it at all.  It’s just one character telling us how much we need to care without making us actually do it.

As such, the most troubling part of the first episode for me is how much I didn’t care about what was happening.  The episode failed my iPhone test, which is to say that I lost interest about halfway through and started playing with my phone while watching the second half.  Pilots are never easy beasts, but this one is particularly fussy.  I found myself not understanding anything about the plot or the characters or why anyone was acting the way they did at any point.

NO, WAIT! DON'T LEAVE ME!

A family member of mine likes to say that in relationships, there’s often one person who’s reaching and one person who is settling.  That's pessimistic, but I don't think it's necessarily inaccurate.  If we carry that metaphor forward to the screen, Penny Dreadful is definitely reaching for the love of its viewers.  That doesn’t mean that viewers will have to settle, but it’s not the best dynamic to start with. Hopefully, this show can pull itself up.  Showtime and HBO are both networks that, due to filming entire seasons in one go, are more comfortable thinking of their episodes as book chapters rather than individual mini-movies that have to break every box office record or else the next episode isn’t going to air.  

As such, Penny Dreadful may be the kind of show that rewards its viewers a few episodes in.  That’s certainly a possibility given that the first episode doesn’t even introduce all the main characters – there’s still plenty of time to grow.  Fan-favorite Billie Piper hasn't even shown up, and it sounds like her character is some kind of potential prostitute because Showtime knows that nerds like to see Billie Piper being sexy.  Fans, and Showtime, will just have to hope that the rewards start coming quickly or else all that beautiful messy potential is going to end up splattered like the blood that Penny Dreadful clearly isn’t afraid to shed.

The XXII Winter Olympiad

OMG BOB COSTAS LOOKS LIKE QUASIMODO YOU GUYS.

I know it might come as a big surprise to all of you, but I'm a huge geek about the Olympics. Is there any better way to chastise yourself for being a lazy slob than by watching insanely good-looking and fit people compete for medals in insanely difficult sports? WHILE YOU SIT ON THE COUCH AND SHOVE PIZZA INTO YOUR FACE? No. No, there is not. My post will be mostly photos since I'm sick right now and it's easier for me to click my mouse and upload photos and write snarky captions than it is for me to post a bunch of text. So, if you hate clipart, this is your warning to get out now. 

Curse that Yulia Lipnitskaya! Curse her! 

I can't get enough of that. 

The XXII Winter Olympiad is taking place in Сочи, Россия. If you aren't old still butthurt about Sputnik, I invite you to tune in. 

Sputnik is kicking your ass at figure skating, too.

First, let's talk about the opening ceremony. Aside from the slight mishap of the now-infamous Snowflake Malfunction aka Snowflake Gate aka Snowflake Meltdown, I enjoyed the opening ceremony.  I really liked the War and Peace ballet, but I am a dance geek and I took several years of dance so I loved it. IT'S THE FREAKING BOLSHOI, PEOPLE. And look, you've been saved actually having to slog through War and Peace. And what would  you rather see in dance form? Tolstoy or the Book of Mormon? I thought so.

Because shit never goes wrong in live productions.

And I'm sorry, America. You're not allowed to stage a ballet production of Natasha's ball. You'd turn everyone into zombies. 

You know you would.

The trip through Russian history was really creatively staged, although my one quibble was that I don't think Peter the Great was ever that nattily dressed. From what I understand, dude had sartorial issues. I wasn't totally in love with the jellyfish Swan Lake costumes, but it was a creative way to light up the dancers in a way that allowed them to move. 

This is what we did to Swan Lake, you guyz. 

At least Russia didn't subject the world to square-dancing Mormons. 

Seriously, America. Seriously. 

I also enjoyed the avant-garde-cum-Bauhaus Soviet set pieces.

Some people on the internet felt like the ceremony glossed over and romanticized a touchy part of Russia's history. Good thing Americans would never do that.

Like ever. 

And anyway we're used to much higher quality programming.

My favorite part of the opening ceremony was the Cyrillic alphabet opening. It was all so lovely and classy. Хорошо.

Bouncy castle FTW. 

If you couldn't find 'Murika in the Parade of Nations, or were confused about why we came in after Zimbabwe, I can offer you some handy and non-condescending (I promise) assistance. 

The Cyrillic alphabet consists of 33 letters. There used to be more, but Lenin got rid of them. The old style letters are still used by the Russian Orthodox church, much like how the Roman Catholic church still uses Latin. Абвгдеёжзийклмнопрстуфхцчшщъыьэюя. The United States is Соединённые Штаты Америки. So, as you can see, C = S and it falls right about in the middle of the alphabet there, after Zimbabwe (Зимбабве). 

But these...no. 

On to the events. As you may be aware, the Russians won the team figure skating event, which was held for the first time ever. Canada earned silver and the U.S. of A. earned bronze, thanks to an awesome short dance by Meryl Davis and Charlie White (who are from MICHIGAN) and solid performances by Jason Brown for the men and Gracie Gold and Ashley Wagner for the ladies. But there was no catching the Russians.

A Russian pairs' team won gold every year between 1964 and 2010, the only year they lost. So...no pressure.

Biathlon

This is an event I haven't really paid much attention to in the past, but is very interesting for the modern Nordic elf: the biathlon. The biathlon is basically Lord of the Rings but on skis. 

Quick, Legolas! Frodo needs your help getting to Hot Cocoa Mountain!

The biathlon consists of cross-country skiing and rifle shooting. I feel like this is something the Viking gods inventing after having too much grog at a festival during the Vimblewinter. Seriously, isn't shooting a rifle while skiing something you do when you're very drunk? Anyway, it's awesome and fascinating.

We will settle this dispute on the track of our forefathers at the biathlon! To Sochi!

Short Track

Despite my hatred for Apollo Ohno, his greasy hair, and his soul patch, I have always liked short track. One athlete to watch from the U.S. is J.R. Celski, who is from the Seattle area. One Russian athlete who has caught my attention due to his really sad and kind of puzzling story is Viktor Ahn. Ahn is originally from South Korea, but is skating for Russia after leaving the Korean short track federation. Ahn's won a bronze for Russia, but Sang Hwa Lee of Korea has won a gold medal in the ladies' speedskating. This is really an event to watch the Koreans, in both the ladies' and men's divisions. 

Have you been sneaking into the ENCOM program?

Hockey

HOCKEY!!!

Figure Skating

I invite everyone to tune in the figure skating competition. The U.S. is not -- I repeat -- NOT going to dominate the FS events, but if you are a fan of the sport, you will see some really great skating from athletes from all over the world. Plus, come on. You gotta watch Johnny Weir and Tara Lipinski commentate. You just gotta.

Tara: What do you think about you and I coming back as a pairs team?

Johnny: I enjoy being thrown.

From what I saw from the team event, the U.S. doesn't have much of a shot at a gold medal in anything but ice dancing, but Gracie Gold might pull out a silver or bronze in the ladies' competition. It really all depends on what happens the night of competition. We haven't seen the young Polina Edmunds skate on the Olympic ice yet, but she did well at U.S. Nationals and placed third over all. I'm expecting Ashley Wagner to finish in fourth or fifth place. Jason Brown MIGHT MIGHT place high in the men's competition. He's very artistically expressive and an entertaining skater to watch, but he doesn't have a quad and the men's field is so strong right now. But you gotta gotta gotta see his Riverdance free skate. Yevgeny Plushenko is back to attempt another gold medal at the age of 31, and based on his performance in the team event, there's no reason why he can't win. Plus he's hilarious.  However, I am sad that Maxim Kovtun wasn't appointed to the Russian Olympic team. He's an awesome skater and totes adorbz.  I don't think either of the U.S. men will medal, but they are very fine skaters. Look for Patrick Chan (CAN) and Daisuke Takahashi (JPN) to round out the medals in the men's singles.

River this dance, bigez.

The pairs' team of Castelli and Shnapir skated solid short and free programs in the team event, and while I don't think they can beat the Russian or German teams, they are a good young team with a great future. The pairs short dance was held Tuesday, with the Russian team of Volsozhar and Trankov easily ranking first with a short dance that screams Anna Karenina to me. They and the German team of Aliona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy are favorites to win the gold.

Yeah, I can totally fix the sink when I'm done here. Two seconds.

For ice dancing, the big rivalry is between Canadians Scott Moir and Tessa Virtue and Americans Davis and White. *Ahem* And this is painful. Go...Blue. There, I said it. 

If you drop me, I swear. I bloody swear.

The teams themselves train together in the Ann Arbor area, but they are the two top ice dancing teams in the world right now. There was a silly rumor on the internet from a French newspaper, claiming that a Russian insider told the paper that the Russians and the Americans were conspiring to help the Russians win the team event so the Americans could win the ice dancing. 

The Russian skaters don't need help winning shit. Neither do Davis and White. Also, keep an eye on little Yulia Lipnitskaya. I've been watching Miss Thing this season, and her performances of her short and free skate at the team competition were the best I've seen her perform both routines. Her Schindler's List free skate was breathtaking during the team competition. Anything can happen in competition, so there may very well be a Russian upset against the heavily favorite Yu Na Kim (KOR). I heard a statistic the other day that I could not believe until I looked it up on Wikipedia and Wikipedia does not lie: No Russian woman has ever won a gold medal in ladies' singles. Ever. Will Yulia be the first? The gold is kinda hers to lose right now.

Obviously, there are many events I haven't mentioned here. I'm also a big fan of the luge (LUUUUGGEE), bobsled, speedskating, super G, super combined, Alpine skiing and ski jumping. They're even letting the LADIEZ participate in the ski jumping event in the Olympics now, despite the known risk to their uteri (which is... none). 

If you want to watch a lot of the Olympics and not just highlights, I'd recommend that you watch online on nbcolympics.com. Or if you have cable, head over to NBC Sports Network. You can watch regular old NBC, but they are only showing highlights and focusing on American athletes. Plus Matt Lauer is hosting for Bob Costas for a few days. So that should at least up your snark-o-meter. 

The problems that people had upon arriving seem to have been addressed, and barring a figure skating scandal a la 2002, this promises to be a successful Olympics. 

#SochiDetroitProblems

Since the Olympics are open to almost every country, that means every country that participates gets a chance to host. How else can people interact with people from other parts of the world, and maybe change minds or attitudes (and it goes both ways) if everyone just stays home? Personally, I'd like to be able to travel abroad without having to tell people I'm from Canada, so if the U.S. could be a little less judgey and bomby and a little more leading by example, it would be appreciated, I think, by everyone. Every country that gets the Olympics also gets the ParaOlympics, and by having them in Russia, this may bring some attention to the fact that disabled Russians are in desperate need of policy change from their government. I'm an incurable optimist, so you never know. Most of the Russians cheering at these events are proud of their athletes and they should be. No country is perfect. Except maybe Canada.

Eh. Maybe not.

What the Olympics are all about.

Also, I want these hoodies:

Next Olympics in 2018 is in Pyonchang, South Korea. Prepare your horse dance, my friends. You will be judged on technical points and grade of execution.

I'M THE BRIDE, BITCH

YOU GUYS! YOU GUYS!! YOU GUYS!!!!

YOU.

GUYS. 

LAURA EFFING TYLER WON FACE/OFF LAST NIGHT. LEGIT. SHE WON. 

About friggin' time. 

Last week, to much feathers, fanfare, and aplomb  (well, maybe not so much with the fanfare but there were feathers and aplomb aplenty), Tate, Laura, and Roy became the last three Face/Off Season 5 contestants. They went on to compete in the finale for a grand prize of cash, cars, make-up, and an all-you-can-eat KFC buffet. Because birds.

It was a little nail-biting toward the beginning of last week's episode, because I wasn't sure if the three people I wanted to be in the finale would get there. Things came together in the end for our intrepid make-up designers. As expected, Miranda couldn't take the pressure and didn't time manage effectively, and so she was eliminated. 

The challenge last week was to create a human/bird hybrid. 

Tate won that challenge, and Roy narrowly edged out Miranda for a spot in the finale. As you may recall, during Roy's season, he lost a spot in the finale due to Nicole, who ultimately won. I think most people could admit that Nicole has some skillz, but did she really deserve to be in that finale, and did she really deserve to win? I don't think so, and I think most fans are in agreement with me on this. 

So, onward to the finale. 

For the final challenge, THE FOWL THEME CONTINUES. There will be more feathers! I say MOAR FEATHERS, son. I say, I say. MOAR FEATHUZ. 

I was very into this finale, because not only was I pulling for Laura throughout and this was right up her alley, but I really liked the challenge itself. The finalists were tasked to create a swan and an evil sorcerer look that would be applied to ACTUAL BALLET DANCERS from the Los Angeles City Ballet. These make-ups had to stand up to a specially choreographed performance of Swan Lake. 

Bad things will happen to you if Laura doesn't win. Very bad, very bad things.

Onward to the challenge! 

The first day, the finalists wake up and are treated to a Skype call with their loved ones. Roy talks to his wife; Tate talks to his parents, who look like the most adorable pair of aging hippies ever; and Laura, wearing what I can only assume is a leather vest that she picked up off Tate's floor that morning (SHIPPING!!!),  talks to her mom and husband. D'awww! Seriously. That vest with the chains on it. Yeah, that way belongs to Tate.

I may need hugs.

At the workshop, Fairy Princess of DOOM McKenzie Westmore informs the neophytes of their final challenge. Then, they're allowed to pick teams comprised of the last six eliminated contestants. They are instructed to choose one vet and one newbie. Laura goes immediately for Miranda (duh). Miranda can't take the heat, but she's a damn good sculptor. Her newbie is Eddie. On Team Tate, it's Alana and Lima. On Team Roy, it's Frank and Scott.  It's kinda too bad that Laney walked out, because she does have talent and she might have made a difference in Roy or Tate's looks.

The swan and sorcerer have to take on the theme of a certain time period.  Their choices are: Industrial Revolution, The Roaring 20s, the Italian Renaissance, and the Ming Dynasty. Laura takes Renaissance, Tate takes Industrial Revolution and Roy takes Ming Dynasty. I don't know why they all avoided the Roaring 20s theme like the plague because they could totally have done an Art Deco thing, unless they were afraid the only thing they could think of for that would be a Tom Buchanan sorcerer casting a spell on a helpless Daisy swan. Or maybe they'd make an F. Scott Fitzgerald swan with the sorcerer being a giant bottle of gin. Oh, the possibilities. They are endless.

I'll buy her from you, old sport.

Roy, I felt, was the underdog in this challenge. He struggles to come up with a concept on Day 1. He comes up with a sorcerer who looks not unlike Confucius, but comes up with a mechanical/automaton swan. This is really a huge step out of Roy's comfort zone, and the two other dudebros on his team aren't much help. The clock's a-tickin' and they start sculpting, even with a kind of weak concept. Team Laura gets a head start with a solid concept by Laura. On Team Tate, the concept is still a little vague, and he has some issues with Lima and her feather effect sculpt. Papa Westmore stops by to hand out some fatherly advice, and it's onto Day 2.

Day 2 starts bright and early, and Roy decides to change his concept.because he feels like his mechanical swan is too much like Tate's steam punk swan. Tate's changed his concept a little bit and sets aside Lima's work from the day before. Laura and Miranda, meanwhile, are booking right along with her sculpts, and Laura sends Eddie to the mold room to start casting. Things go wrong for Roy on the swan's cowl. He sent Scott to mold it, and Roy can't get it out of the mold. So, Scott will have to remold and recast the cowl on Day 3. 

On Day 3, Laura molds her cowls, and Roy starts fabricating.his armor. His armor is really cool, but there's really no way a dancer can move in that. On Team Tate, Alana is trying to open the mold for the cowl, and she finds that the mold didn't turn out. The inside of the mold is full of holes, and he's worried about the overall look of the swan.  It turns out in the end that he didn't need to worry about his swan, because his swan was awesome. But, it cost him time to work on the sorcerer, and his sorcerer didn't turn out as well as it could have. Laura had issues with the edges on her cowl, so she and Miranda spent some extra time cleaning the edges, and Laura decided to hide some of the edges with a pearl necklace she found. 

We're just going to add a little bling to this evil spell you're under, m'kay?

Everything more or less comes together in last looks, although Tate is still upset that he didn't have more time to finish his piece for the sorcerer. McKenzie Westmore (in a solid silver mini-dress), Glenn, Ve,  and Neville are waiting at the auditorium for the performance and final critiques. 

And now we dance!

It's not a question of where he grips it. It's a simple matter of weight ratios. A five-ounce bird could not hold a one pound coconut.

The specially choreographed Swan Lake performance is basically Tchaikovsky Cliff Notes. It's not really Swan Lake if you have three different swans, but they have a corps de ballet, and each coupling has a chance to do a featured pas de deux and that is where we can see the make-ups in action. The ones that are the most effective in the performance, and the ones which hold together the best, are Laura's. Roy's fabricated sorcerer cage is cool and all, but he had to have known the guy couldn't dance in that. 

I love how during the Face/Off finale, they have an audience there for like fifteen minutes, and then during the judging portion, they kick them out. I hope those folks are being paid to sit there and didn't buy tickets or anything. At least they gave up on that letting 'Muricka vote idea. 

If these images aren't large enough for you to see in detail, you can check out all of the finale looks here. 

Here are the swans:

Laura.

Tate. 

Roy.

Here are the sorcerers:

Laura.

Tate.

Roy.

Overall, I think Laura had the most cohesive look. Her make-ups fulfilled the task, and neither of them had to be altered so that the dancers could, you know, dance. Tate's swan, as you can see, is FREAKING GORGEOUS, and if the outcome were just based on that look alone, he would have been the winner. I know Roy had issues, but his swan is generic and conventional. I wish he'd done more with the gold paint on the swan's chest and neck. As it stands, it looks like something that was in the wardrobe trailer on the set of Black Swan. Just not terribly innovative, especially when compared to Tate's swan. I really loved the breastplate and the overall aesthetic of Laura's swan. Neville wanted more feathers on the head because I guess he's into that sort of thing. 

I'm serving up Natalie Portman tarring and feathering the populace realness.

As far as the sorcerers are concerned, I felt that Laura had the strongest sorcerer. Hers fit into the same world as her swan, and nothing needed to be removed from her make-up that would have been in the dancer's way, at least not as far as I saw. Tate's sorcerer wasn't doing it for me at all. I realize he had issues with the cowl, but the way his mouth was stuck open like that kind of made him look more like a bum you'd run into in Central Park who was wearing a Windsor Castle-shaped hat than a sorcerer per se. Roy's sorcerer is stunning, but the dancer had to remove that entire fabricated piece from the front so he could dance, and what was left kind of just looked like Yul Brynner. 

After kicking out the audience and some deliberation by the judges, and some some guy-liner-filled intense stares from Glenn, Laura is declared the winner!! Hurray!!!

Heheheheh.

New season of Face/Off starts in January, with all new contestants and some WILD AND CRAZY LOCATIONS BECAUSE IT'S REALITY TEEVEE, PEOPLE.