Dec. 31st, 2012 08:53 pm
2012 is dead. long live 2013.
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chicafrom3End-of-the-year roundup plus looking ahead to next year follows, with lots and lots of cuts because it's super long.
According to my ~records, over the course of 2012 I watched 512 new-to-me episodes of TV and 60 new-to-me movies, plus read 300 new-to-me books.
In the interest of honesty, I have to point out that within the category of 'books', single issues of Swamp Thing and Hellblazer were counted individually.
I did not keep track of how much media I re-consumed, but I'm pretty sure those numbers are higher.
♣ Slings & Arrows was the best not-new-to-anyone-but-me show I got into this year, and I highly recommend it as it is essentially flawless.
♣ I finally finished watching Black Books, which is also flawless.
♣ I got into Smash, which was not flawless at all, but arrrgh Megan Hilty and Christian Borle and Megan Hilty and Leslie Odom, Jr., and Megan Hilty and a horrifically misused Brian d'Arcy James and Megan Hilty and Will Chase and Megan Hilty and Bernadette Peters and Megan Hilty and next season is going to have Jeremy Jordan and Krysta Rodriguez and Megan Hilty... yeah, hooked for the cast and for the potential.
♣ I tried Alcatraz and failed to get hooked despite the presence of Jorge Garcia, who should be in everything.
♣ Being Human survived a rather spectacular cast shakeup, and I continue to be hooked despite it now being essentially a completely different show.
♣ I also gave Being Human (US) another try this year, and got through all of it available on Netflix Instant; once I got past the cringey bits with Josh in season one it was much better, though still not quite as magic as the original.
♣ The second half of Psych season 6 was solid, though I am still not won over to Shawn/Juliet; the wait to season 7, on the other hand, is interminable.
♣ The BBC created a miniseries of Dirk Gently and it was glorious; it wasn't at all true to the letter of the original books but mostly nailed the spirit.
♣ At Miss Niki'sbadgering request I watched all of Supernatural that Netflix Instant had to offer. There were moments I enjoyed, but on the whole I think Supernatural and I were not a match.
♣ Castle and Beckett finally hooked up on Castle, and thankfully the writers only went through a couple episodes of "how can we awkwardly prolong artificial conflict re: their relationship?" before realizing nobody wants to watch that and just letting them be a couple who solve crimes. Well done, Castle writers.
♣ I started watching Bunheads for Sutton Foster and ballet and kept watching for Boo & Sasha bouncing between BFF shippiness and FoeYay shippiness. It's not a terribly good show (so far! it could get better!) but it's got Sutton Foster and ballet and Boo/Sasha, so I'm still in.
♣ Then I was in a ballet mood so I marathoned Dance Academy on Netflix. \o/ Soapy but good and with some solid dance stuff going on.
♣ I came to Continuum for Lexa Doig as a time-travelling terrorist, and she was glorious; the shades-of-grey morality and tackling time travel tropes at angles was a major bonus. Plus, a sci-fi show shot in Vancouver that actually takes place in Vancouver! Highly recommended; it's coming to SyFy in 2013 and has been picked up for a second series.
♣ For another shallow viewing reason, I picked up Political Animals because Sebastian Stan was playing the drug-addicted gay son of politicians, and it absolutely lived up to those expectations.
♣ Alphas had its second season and got even better than its first, with an absolutely heartbreaking cliffhanger of an ending. So far it has not yet been picked up by SyFy for a third season but it hasn't yet been dropped by SyFy either so ... fingers crossed for news soon.
♣ I started watching Elementary because I'm an easy sell on Holmes adaptations, and it did not disappoint. I really like the way they're building the Holmes/Watson relationship -- slowly, and with the occasional misstep. Also, Liu and Miller have great chemistry.
♣ Doctor Who had Series 7A and the Christmas Special, and I enjoyed both, though I am now a bit burnt out on saying goodbye to the Ponds. Clara looks to be a perfectly brilliant companion, though I'm still sorry we won't get a full-time Victorian companion just yet. 2013 is the anniversary year so ... breath baited waiting to find out what the Moff has planned!
♣ Red Dwarf came back from the dead with Series X, which was lovely and hilarious and recaptured a lot of the original magic. Lister's Letter From Dad was a definite highlight of the full year.
♣ Once Upon A Time finished up its first season and started its second, and keeps getting better and better; now all I need is for them to make Mulan/Aurora canon (I would also accept Mulan/Philip/Aurora) and make some progress in the Rumpelstiltskin&Baelfire plotline and I will be an extremely happy viewer.
♣ I finally picked up Submissions Only because it's a fact of life that I need to be far behind every other geek; it's extremely cute, and a good watch if you're a BTS-Broadway fan.
♣ My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic had its third season, full of cuteness and friendship and useful asesops and the occasional nightmare-inducing bad guy.
♣ I also marathoned the United States Of Tara on Netflix, which I have to say was probably the rip-your-heart-out-and-stomp-on-it-every-episode show of my year...
♣ I did not see any movies in theaters this year, but I did actually manage to see a few relatively recent films as well as older obscure Netflix Instant things.
♣ Most recommended: A Film With Me In It, We'll Take Manhattan, Into The West, A Very Long Engagement (Un long dimanche de fiançailles), The Swell Season, Trade, Private Romeo, Plan B, and Tomorrow, When The War Began
♣ I read The Hunger Games series, again at Miss Niki's urging, and mostly enjoyed it though didn't get as fannish about it as I was expecting based on the hype.
♣ Finally finished "The Swamp Thing" although I haven't kept up with new releases since then; my thought on the series have been posted elsewhere on my journal.
♣ I picked up the Iron Druid Chronicles and enjoyed them all immensely; highly recommended to any fans of urban fantasy, especially the Dresden Files.
♣ Speaking of the Dresden Files, I just today finished Cold Days [/again very behind], and wow, it's really impressive how Butcher manages to keep upping the stakes with each book. So. Intense. And, oh, Molly, no. D:
♣ Kept up with the Animorphs rereleases until they were CANCELED BECAUSE SCHOLASTIC HATES ME OMG and the updates/edits were mostly handled surprisingly well. I was surprised partly because the BSC and SVH books were also updated and done in a much more hamfisted fashion, and partly because Animorphs is so very rooted in the 90s, but they managed to pull it off, which is why it's a tragedy they quit before getting to the super 90s Internet book.
♣ After getting into the Peter And The Starcatcher play-with-music, I picked up the book series that it was based on. The books are very different in tone from the show, but enjoyable nonetheless, though I definitely had to disconnect from my knowledge of Barrie's Pan in order to fully enjoy them. Recommended regardless.
♣ I again tried to make progress in my Great Doctor Who EDA Read, but only got a few books further in, though at least that means I'm finally past The Blue Angel. Maybe 2013 will be my year.
♣ Once I'd finished The Swamp Thing, I started on Hellblazer, which I'm enjoying a lot more and hope to get caught up on in the new year. I really enjoy Constantine as a protagonist, and he's frequently surrounded with interesting side characters. ("On The Beach" was rather nightmare inducing, though.)
♣ I didn't keep records of new-to-me music consumed this year.
♣ According to Last.FM, which isn't the most reliable source but is Good Enough, my top 16 artists of the year were The Pogues (292 plays), Taylor Swift (243), Once (226), The Mystery Of Edwin Drood (219), bare: the musical (187), Into The Woods (176), Next To Normal (162), Original Broadway Cast (157), Rent (143), Godspell (140), Wicked (130), Newsies (122), John Barrowman (114), Michael Giacchino (111), and Now. Here. This. (111)
♣ I feel like I should point out that I changed my labeling method halfway through the year, which is why Original Broadway Cast (the old method) is stuck in there amidst various show names (my new method).
♣ I also feel like owning up to the fact that that's less a list of my top music artists and more a list of my most-listened to stage musicals. I'm sorry. If we pick the next 11 non-theatre artists on the most-played list, it's Endway (102), The Muppets (70), Flogging Molly (64), Jonathan Coulton (61), The Plough And The Stars (50), Hitoshi Sakimoto (49), Boys Like Girls (47), MC Frontalot (46), Laura Osnes (46), My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (42), and Dropkick Murphys (41).
♣ What can I say, I listen to a lot of showtunes.
♣ Otherwise I have no explanation for why those lists include The Pogues, Taylor Swift, John Barrowman, The Muppets, Hitoshi Sakimot, and My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, all at the same time. I love my iTunes library but somehow doubt anyone else would.
♣ My baby Once opened on Broadway in March and did spectacularly. I'm so proud and happy and hope it has a long and healthy life on stage, because it is a beautiful piece of theatre that deserves to be seen.
♣ Newsies also opened on Broadway in March and also did spectacularly! One of those cult hits that people have been spending ages wondering why Disney never brought it to the stage; finally they did and were rewarded for it. Well done!
♣ Leap Of Faith opened on Broadway and then closed on Broadway in no time at all; disappointing but not surprising, as the production team apparently took in all the criticism made from out-of-town tryouts and decided to ignore it and screw with what worked instead. Brilliant cast, though, all of whom need to get more Broadway work now.
♣ Peter And The Starcatcher opened on Broadway in April and was a critical hit, which was very much deserved; it's a charming, inventive piece of stagecraft, and Adam Chanler-Berat, Celia Keenan-Bolger, and Christian Borle were brilliant together. Hoping for an Off-Broadway transfer in the future, as it would probably do better commercially in a smaller house.
♣ The Mystery Of Edwin Drood was revived on Broadway with a great cast, and I sincerely hope it does super well at the 2013 Tonys; it's a fun, engrossing show done ably.
♣ bare: a pop opera made its long-awaited return to NYC, now retooled as "Bare: The Musical" and stripped of everything that made it good. Yes, I'm still mad about that; bare definitely needed a lot of work, but it didn't need to be ripped apart and turned into something completely different. They didn't fix the biggest problems with the show, they just introduced new ones and made all the characters blander.
♣ The 2012 Tony Awards were great, though, and I'm not just saying that because Once won 8 awards; for once, they recognized genuine artistic merit across the board, and there are few-to-no wins I'd seriously argue with.
Personal:
♣ To get a job, either in or out of my field.
♣ To continue the housecleaning, language-learning, and exercise routines that I started late this year.
♣ To finish editing "The Stranger Now" and start getting other people's opinions on it.
Fannish:
♣ To watch at least 350 new-to-me episodes of TV.
♣ To watch at least 50 new-to-me movies.
♣ To read at least 250 new-to-me books.
♣ To take at least 4 series off my "Shows I Haven't Watched Yet" list.
♣ To post an entry to my LJ at least four times per week.
♣ To get back into the habit of regular episode reviews for the first-run shows I watch; additionally, for the older-but-new-to-me shows I watch, I want to start posting reviews by season or series, depending on length. I may or may not start reviewing movies I watch or books I read, but if I do those will be more sporadic and depending on quality.
♣ To comment more often on my friends' LJ entries.
♣ To write, complete, and post at least three fics this year. I don't have to magically become a prolific author but I can do better than the one-fic-a-year I have been doing.
♣ To original-fic!NaNo once and only once, and to either not sign up for Camp or to use Camp to work on other things.
Happy New Year to everyone; let's hope it's better than 2012 was.
According to my ~records, over the course of 2012 I watched 512 new-to-me episodes of TV and 60 new-to-me movies, plus read 300 new-to-me books.
In the interest of honesty, I have to point out that within the category of 'books', single issues of Swamp Thing and Hellblazer were counted individually.
I did not keep track of how much media I re-consumed, but I'm pretty sure those numbers are higher.
♣ Slings & Arrows was the best not-new-to-anyone-but-me show I got into this year, and I highly recommend it as it is essentially flawless.
♣ I finally finished watching Black Books, which is also flawless.
♣ I got into Smash, which was not flawless at all, but arrrgh Megan Hilty and Christian Borle and Megan Hilty and Leslie Odom, Jr., and Megan Hilty and a horrifically misused Brian d'Arcy James and Megan Hilty and Will Chase and Megan Hilty and Bernadette Peters and Megan Hilty and next season is going to have Jeremy Jordan and Krysta Rodriguez and Megan Hilty... yeah, hooked for the cast and for the potential.
♣ I tried Alcatraz and failed to get hooked despite the presence of Jorge Garcia, who should be in everything.
♣ Being Human survived a rather spectacular cast shakeup, and I continue to be hooked despite it now being essentially a completely different show.
♣ I also gave Being Human (US) another try this year, and got through all of it available on Netflix Instant; once I got past the cringey bits with Josh in season one it was much better, though still not quite as magic as the original.
♣ The second half of Psych season 6 was solid, though I am still not won over to Shawn/Juliet; the wait to season 7, on the other hand, is interminable.
♣ The BBC created a miniseries of Dirk Gently and it was glorious; it wasn't at all true to the letter of the original books but mostly nailed the spirit.
♣ At Miss Niki's
♣ Castle and Beckett finally hooked up on Castle, and thankfully the writers only went through a couple episodes of "how can we awkwardly prolong artificial conflict re: their relationship?" before realizing nobody wants to watch that and just letting them be a couple who solve crimes. Well done, Castle writers.
♣ I started watching Bunheads for Sutton Foster and ballet and kept watching for Boo & Sasha bouncing between BFF shippiness and FoeYay shippiness. It's not a terribly good show (so far! it could get better!) but it's got Sutton Foster and ballet and Boo/Sasha, so I'm still in.
♣ Then I was in a ballet mood so I marathoned Dance Academy on Netflix. \o/ Soapy but good and with some solid dance stuff going on.
♣ I came to Continuum for Lexa Doig as a time-travelling terrorist, and she was glorious; the shades-of-grey morality and tackling time travel tropes at angles was a major bonus. Plus, a sci-fi show shot in Vancouver that actually takes place in Vancouver! Highly recommended; it's coming to SyFy in 2013 and has been picked up for a second series.
♣ For another shallow viewing reason, I picked up Political Animals because Sebastian Stan was playing the drug-addicted gay son of politicians, and it absolutely lived up to those expectations.
♣ Alphas had its second season and got even better than its first, with an absolutely heartbreaking cliffhanger of an ending. So far it has not yet been picked up by SyFy for a third season but it hasn't yet been dropped by SyFy either so ... fingers crossed for news soon.
♣ I started watching Elementary because I'm an easy sell on Holmes adaptations, and it did not disappoint. I really like the way they're building the Holmes/Watson relationship -- slowly, and with the occasional misstep. Also, Liu and Miller have great chemistry.
♣ Doctor Who had Series 7A and the Christmas Special, and I enjoyed both, though I am now a bit burnt out on saying goodbye to the Ponds. Clara looks to be a perfectly brilliant companion, though I'm still sorry we won't get a full-time Victorian companion just yet. 2013 is the anniversary year so ... breath baited waiting to find out what the Moff has planned!
♣ Red Dwarf came back from the dead with Series X, which was lovely and hilarious and recaptured a lot of the original magic. Lister's Letter From Dad was a definite highlight of the full year.
♣ Once Upon A Time finished up its first season and started its second, and keeps getting better and better; now all I need is for them to make Mulan/Aurora canon (I would also accept Mulan/Philip/Aurora) and make some progress in the Rumpelstiltskin&Baelfire plotline and I will be an extremely happy viewer.
♣ I finally picked up Submissions Only because it's a fact of life that I need to be far behind every other geek; it's extremely cute, and a good watch if you're a BTS-Broadway fan.
♣ My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic had its third season, full of cuteness and friendship and useful asesops and the occasional nightmare-inducing bad guy.
♣ I also marathoned the United States Of Tara on Netflix, which I have to say was probably the rip-your-heart-out-and-stomp-on-it-every-episode show of my year...
♣ I did not see any movies in theaters this year, but I did actually manage to see a few relatively recent films as well as older obscure Netflix Instant things.
♣ Most recommended: A Film With Me In It, We'll Take Manhattan, Into The West, A Very Long Engagement (Un long dimanche de fiançailles), The Swell Season, Trade, Private Romeo, Plan B, and Tomorrow, When The War Began
♣ I read The Hunger Games series, again at Miss Niki's urging, and mostly enjoyed it though didn't get as fannish about it as I was expecting based on the hype.
♣ Finally finished "The Swamp Thing" although I haven't kept up with new releases since then; my thought on the series have been posted elsewhere on my journal.
♣ I picked up the Iron Druid Chronicles and enjoyed them all immensely; highly recommended to any fans of urban fantasy, especially the Dresden Files.
♣ Speaking of the Dresden Files, I just today finished Cold Days [/again very behind], and wow, it's really impressive how Butcher manages to keep upping the stakes with each book. So. Intense. And, oh, Molly, no. D:
♣ Kept up with the Animorphs rereleases until they were CANCELED BECAUSE SCHOLASTIC HATES ME OMG and the updates/edits were mostly handled surprisingly well. I was surprised partly because the BSC and SVH books were also updated and done in a much more hamfisted fashion, and partly because Animorphs is so very rooted in the 90s, but they managed to pull it off, which is why it's a tragedy they quit before getting to the super 90s Internet book.
♣ After getting into the Peter And The Starcatcher play-with-music, I picked up the book series that it was based on. The books are very different in tone from the show, but enjoyable nonetheless, though I definitely had to disconnect from my knowledge of Barrie's Pan in order to fully enjoy them. Recommended regardless.
♣ I again tried to make progress in my Great Doctor Who EDA Read, but only got a few books further in, though at least that means I'm finally past The Blue Angel. Maybe 2013 will be my year.
♣ Once I'd finished The Swamp Thing, I started on Hellblazer, which I'm enjoying a lot more and hope to get caught up on in the new year. I really enjoy Constantine as a protagonist, and he's frequently surrounded with interesting side characters. ("On The Beach" was rather nightmare inducing, though.)
♣ I didn't keep records of new-to-me music consumed this year.
♣ According to Last.FM, which isn't the most reliable source but is Good Enough, my top 16 artists of the year were The Pogues (292 plays), Taylor Swift (243), Once (226), The Mystery Of Edwin Drood (219), bare: the musical (187), Into The Woods (176), Next To Normal (162), Original Broadway Cast (157), Rent (143), Godspell (140), Wicked (130), Newsies (122), John Barrowman (114), Michael Giacchino (111), and Now. Here. This. (111)
♣ I feel like I should point out that I changed my labeling method halfway through the year, which is why Original Broadway Cast (the old method) is stuck in there amidst various show names (my new method).
♣ I also feel like owning up to the fact that that's less a list of my top music artists and more a list of my most-listened to stage musicals. I'm sorry. If we pick the next 11 non-theatre artists on the most-played list, it's Endway (102), The Muppets (70), Flogging Molly (64), Jonathan Coulton (61), The Plough And The Stars (50), Hitoshi Sakimoto (49), Boys Like Girls (47), MC Frontalot (46), Laura Osnes (46), My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (42), and Dropkick Murphys (41).
♣ What can I say, I listen to a lot of showtunes.
♣ Otherwise I have no explanation for why those lists include The Pogues, Taylor Swift, John Barrowman, The Muppets, Hitoshi Sakimot, and My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, all at the same time. I love my iTunes library but somehow doubt anyone else would.
♣ My baby Once opened on Broadway in March and did spectacularly. I'm so proud and happy and hope it has a long and healthy life on stage, because it is a beautiful piece of theatre that deserves to be seen.
♣ Newsies also opened on Broadway in March and also did spectacularly! One of those cult hits that people have been spending ages wondering why Disney never brought it to the stage; finally they did and were rewarded for it. Well done!
♣ Leap Of Faith opened on Broadway and then closed on Broadway in no time at all; disappointing but not surprising, as the production team apparently took in all the criticism made from out-of-town tryouts and decided to ignore it and screw with what worked instead. Brilliant cast, though, all of whom need to get more Broadway work now.
♣ Peter And The Starcatcher opened on Broadway in April and was a critical hit, which was very much deserved; it's a charming, inventive piece of stagecraft, and Adam Chanler-Berat, Celia Keenan-Bolger, and Christian Borle were brilliant together. Hoping for an Off-Broadway transfer in the future, as it would probably do better commercially in a smaller house.
♣ The Mystery Of Edwin Drood was revived on Broadway with a great cast, and I sincerely hope it does super well at the 2013 Tonys; it's a fun, engrossing show done ably.
♣ bare: a pop opera made its long-awaited return to NYC, now retooled as "Bare: The Musical" and stripped of everything that made it good. Yes, I'm still mad about that; bare definitely needed a lot of work, but it didn't need to be ripped apart and turned into something completely different. They didn't fix the biggest problems with the show, they just introduced new ones and made all the characters blander.
♣ The 2012 Tony Awards were great, though, and I'm not just saying that because Once won 8 awards; for once, they recognized genuine artistic merit across the board, and there are few-to-no wins I'd seriously argue with.
Personal:
♣ To continue the housecleaning, language-learning, and exercise routines that I started late this year.
♣ To finish editing "The Stranger Now" and start getting other people's opinions on it.
Fannish:
♣ To watch at least 350 new-to-me episodes of TV.
♣ To watch at least 50 new-to-me movies.
♣ To read at least 250 new-to-me books.
♣ To take at least 4 series off my "Shows I Haven't Watched Yet" list.
♣ To post an entry to my LJ at least four times per week.
♣ To get back into the habit of regular episode reviews for the first-run shows I watch; additionally, for the older-but-new-to-me shows I watch, I want to start posting reviews by season or series, depending on length. I may or may not start reviewing movies I watch or books I read, but if I do those will be more sporadic and depending on quality.
♣ To comment more often on my friends' LJ entries.
♣ To write, complete, and post at least three fics this year. I don't have to magically become a prolific author but I can do better than the one-fic-a-year I have been doing.
♣ To original-fic!NaNo once and only once, and to either not sign up for Camp or to use Camp to work on other things.
Happy New Year to everyone; let's hope it's better than 2012 was.