It’s funny how you don’t hear about short story submissions for weeks at a time and then a couple of responses come back within an hour of each other. It’s like they’re conspiring or something. In this case, though, it was a rejection followed by an acceptance, so that’s okay. Better than the other way around. I don’t have a contract for the acceptance yet, so I won’t mention what and where it is for the time being.
One of our cars had a close encounter with a small waddling animal that came out of nowhere late at night. I suspect the car fared better than the critter did, but the splash guards under the bumper were discombobulated. So I did what any good Canadian familiar with Red Green would do: I fixed it with duct tape. Or Monster Tape, in this case, since that’s what I had on hand. The alarming noise that emanated from the front end of the car stopped and it tided us over for a few days until we could get the car into the dealership. I suspect the repairs won’t involve tape.
An interesting episode of The Mentalist this week. It involved the investigation into the death of a gay teenager who was bullied or abused by just about every adult male in his life. The suspects piled up. The side story involved a drag club near the crime scene. It had one cleverly executed bit of sleight-of-hand that should have been transparently obvious but wasn’t. Nicely done.
I saw at least one person who thought Fringe jumped the shark with last week’s flash-forward episode, but this week’s show was fantastic. It was emotional and featured excellent performances by John Noble and Anna Torv. Noble is always great, but he had an amazing scene playing both Walter and Walternate. (Ditto for Torv as Olivia and Fauxlivia.) And the flash forward, despite the dire circumstances of that future, should reassure us that the world survives.
I’m delighted Fringe has been picked up for one final season, because that means it can go out on its own terms. Apparently they shot two versions of the two-part finale that begins next week in case they weren’t renewed. Fortunately they won’t have to go with the cobbled together wrap-up. I wonder if we’ll see anything more about the other side now that they’re separated again. Olivia, at least, should still have the ability to go back and forth if she puts her mind to it. I’d love, some day, to go back to the beginning and watch the entire series straight through to see how the mythology evolved. It seemed for a while that it was drifting and then it embraced its own story and flourished. Not, alas, as much as it might have. For some reason the series never caught on the way it might have.
