A conspiracy to commit jaywalking

I watched more Due South this week. (This will be a reoccurring theme here for at least the next week. You may wish to filter me if you're getting bored.) I got up through "Heaven and Earth" tonight.

I think the show really gets into gear with "The Gift of the Wheelman," where the first appearance of Bob Fraser's ghost fleshes out the hints of absurdity that were evident in the previous episodes. I'm not a fan of cop shows, and I only watch them when they're very different from the usual cops and robbers stuff (i.e., vampires in Forever Knight, outlandish plots and quirky characters/situations in DS). The episodes prior to TGotW, with a few exceptions (The Pilot, "Free Willie," "They Eat Horses...", and "A Mountie, a Cop, and a Baby") seem to me like more standard actiony crime tales. I don't think I'll be watching them again, let's put it that way. The ones after, it's like the people in charge said, "Ah, screw it. We're funny; everyone knows we're funny 'cause we put in a few jokes and have Fraser being weird; let's go hog wild." And they do. And they also add in literary references, which is always a good thing, and then top it off by really starting to dig into their characters.

And since I enjoy this show in large part because of Teh Funny, that is fine with me. "The Man Who Knew Too Little" had me in stitches the entire way through. Canadian jokes! American jokes! It's an international free-for-all! I must admit that I didn't watch all of "Invitation to Romance," because my patience wasn't strong enough to withstand that...that woman, whoever she was. I've blocked her from my memory. Five minutes of her, and I had to speed through to parts where she. wasn't. talking. Which meant I did get to see Ray in the Mountie suit, and that was hilarious.

I think we also see a lot more of the characters come out in the later episodes of this season. "The Deal" was amazing in ways I really wasn't sure a story about the mob could be. "A Hawk and a Handsaw" was one of the episodes I watched before that convinced me to buy the season sets; it's got lots of good things about Fraser and his father in it (not to mention the first of the two Hamlet title references). "The Wild Bunch" even does a similar character examination of Diefenbaker. And there are lots of other little moments here and there, in particular that great scene in "You Must Remember This" where Fraser is talking to a sleeping Ray late at night on the stakeout, where we get the first inkling of how Victoria ripped out his heart and went STOMP STOMP STOMP all over it.

Oof. "Victoria's Secret" is up next. I'm actually a little scared to watch it, since my understanding is that it's basically two hours of pure, unadulterated pain. And of Paul Gross acting his little heart out, which only means the pain is that much more painful, because if Slings & Arrows taught me anything, it's that Paul Gross can totally make me cry.

One other thing I noticed was that...apparently someone on the production staff was a huge Sarah McLachlan fan? I think I've heard four or five songs from her already this season, and I know there's another three coming up in the remaining three episodes. My vote for best use so far is the car chase set to "Steaming" in "The Gift of the Wheelman." It made a car chase not only interesting, but kind of beautiful. And they had Loreena McKennitt and Holly Cole in episodes as well. I...kind of felt like I was back in high school again. Hmm. I do hope they don't bring in Alanis Morrisette, or else I really will start having flashbacks to ninth grade.

Well, that was traumatizing.

Yeah, I just watched "Victoria's Secret" and "Letting Go." Ow. Owowowowowowow. Oh, the trauma.

Did I mention "ow"? 'Cause that was painful, particularly the second half of VS.

And now, thanks to this show, there's a significant chunk of the "Fumbling Towards Ecstasy" album I won't be able to listen to for a good long time. Gah.

(In this case, I'm kind of unhappy I spoiled myself for these episodes--not that there was a way to avoid that, seeing as I'd heard about Victoria maybe seven or eight years ago, when all I knew about this show was that it involved some guy named Fraser whose name seemed to make it into half the fandoms I followed at the time--because if I didn't know what was to come, I might've spent the the first part without the overwhelming sense of impending doom. Then again, maybe not. That many candles is never a good sign.)