Geeking Up the Home

My new personalised doormat arrived today. Hands up who gets the reference?

Rediscovery

One of the many things I had to replace with my separation was my XBox - after all my Kinect was pretty useless without it! But I couldn't replace it before I moved and with the XBox only allowing you to transfer things to a storage device of more than 32G I lost all my save games.

In some cases, it's a real irritation. So close to 100%ing Lego: LotR and now I have to start from scratch. But in some cases it's given me a chance to enjoy replaying some things from the start. 

Typically, when something is not readily available that is what you want to have. Not having played it for ages, I wanted nothing more than to play LA Noire. And having picked it up again, I wonder why I never finished playing it the first time around.

I had forgotten how inovative the gameplay is. How fun it was to guess at whether someone is lying or telling the truth. How much I enjoyed chasing the bad guys committing street crimes. How satisfying it is to get a confession.

So I've found another positive of my separation. That's got to be a good thing, right?

Kidnapping, Arson and Murder

That seems to be the order of the day in Chester's Mill.  All of that occurs in the 48 hours following the arrival of the Dome.

The second and third episodes of Under the Dome mostly seem to be concerned with setting up the future conflicts that will escalate within the confines of the Dome. There are very few alliances formed (though city-kid Norrie and geeky Joe seem to have made a connection that results in synchronised fitting), but lots of suspicion and aggravation.

Reality and prejudice make themselves known fairly clearly. When Norrie disappears from her Moms' sight overnight, several people at the bar make comments including "how does that work" (on how the black Carolyn can be the white Norrie's mum) and "did you think they would posh the gay out of her?" (when told that they were on their way to drop Norrie off at a prestigious boarding school). As much as I'd hate to admit it, that attitude probably can still be found in some places in small town America. And it is great to see a same-sex couple with a teenage kid being depicted on prime-time TV. And Norrie herself acknowledges the possibility of prejudice in her total denial of it. She isn't afraid to stand up to the local bully, but covers up any possibility of her parents both being female.

Barbie also suffers from a different kind of prejudice: the outsider in a small town. Carolyn, Alice and Norrie are spared this - partly because they have a good reason for being stuck in the town and partly because they are just considered freaks. But Barbie is more mysterious. His "just passing through" doesn't seem to hold much water with folk. His taking down of an armed man is much commented on (though no one gives him credit for organising people to fight the fire). And both Big Jim and Julia seem inclined to believe the psychotic Junior's  acusations of an unprovoked assault.

We get no further on in discovering what Big Jim was doing with so many propane tanks and why the Sheriff was covering for him, though we get another conspiritor in the strung out reverend (who doubles as the town undertaker). And even though Big Jim tells Barbie the story of how he got the nickname "Big", a story which much be well known in the town, only Barbie and Junior (who gets the brunt of his fathers malice at home) seem to see past the upstanding citizen act to the untrustworthy and potentially violent man beneath.

I usually like character development episodes, and this early in they really are necessary to establish the people the audience need to bond with if the series is to survive. But, other than seeing the dynamic between Big Jim and Junior which may explain why Junior is such a psychopath, we don't really learn any more about the characters than we did in the pilot. And the story isn't moved forward at all either. The fire seems to be a big set piece hangover from the pilot, but other than that there isn't much real drama in either episode. 

I've been told that after a few slow character episodes, the show picks back up. I hope that happens soon - it is only a 13 episode season.

I couldn't resist...

So I indulged in a little retail therapy at the weekend (thanks, Ellis). As well as replacing some XBox games I lost in my separation, I bought some new items for my wardrobe.  I think they'll suit me, don't you?