AURGH!

So I got another Ellery Queen disc out because Victor Buono is in an episode and I thought that would be great fun. Unfortunately, they underused him, only featuring him in one short scene, and with a great talent such as his, that is totally a crime.

Overall, though, I've liked this disc way more than I liked the other one. Even though it's supposed to be a period piece, they don't hit you over the head with that fact. It felt like they were doing that on the other disc I saw, especially in the episode where Ellery had a girl helping him who was basically a ditz in the style that 1940s women were written when they were used for comic relief. I did not like that and found it annoying. I also didn't like one of the other episodes on that first disc, so after only liking two, I hadn't been impressed and hadn't ever planned to try the show again. I'm glad I did.

I think shows work the best when they don't drill it into you that it's a certain time period. If the mentions just come naturally, it's easy to slip into the feel of things. For this show, though, it never really feels like it's the 1940s for some reason, even when it's hitting you over the head with it and even though the hair and clothes and cars are all very accurate. I'm not sure why it really feels more like the 1970s, since there are period pieces made in the present day that really make it feel like the time period they're depicting.

I'll be seeing a little more of the show, since William Schallert is on yet another disc, and then I'll probably just say What the heck and see the others, too. I've even thought of buying it, which is certainly something I hadn't considered before.

One thing I always liked was the theme song. It totally rocks. Sooo jazzy and noir-ish and mysterious. I ended up picturing in my mind a story with Lieutenant Drumm that is noir-ish in nature, including him in his office and a mysterious woman coming to him for help and dark alleys and weird nightclubs and intriguing investigations. Steve is the most hard-boiled of the three Perry Mason Lieutenants, which is why I immediately pictured him. Sergeant Brice would be there too, I imagine.

One amusing thing: I don't think Steve ever wore a fedora on the show. All the other police did, including Sergeant Brice. I'm trying to remember if Steve possibly wore one during the train scene in The 12th Wildcat, one of the few episodes I really don't like. I'll have to double-check that scene.

Fedoras look sooo good on people. I saw Ken Swofford wear one on Ellery Queen and it even looked good on him. His characters generally seem to be purposely obnoxious, and this one was too, but he wasn't as bad as the Rockford characters and I found him just a little bit endearing.

And Microsoft Word totally borked on me tonight. I had big plans, and it ruined them by giving me a horrible thing called a file permissions error when I tried to save and then it deleted my file. At least, it certainly seems to be gone. It's nowhere to be found, not in the Recycle Bin or under complex searches. I have never had this happen in all the years I've used the blasted thing. Thank goodness I emailed myself a copy of the fic as it stood a couple of hours before I got back on. I only had to retype a couple of pages, and they're probably better the second time, but I am furious. I figure the original document must exist somewhere, but hidden files are visible and it's not there. The chapter went up two hours later than it was supposed to.

It's a chapter for my unbelievably long and twisting Perry fic, too. I figured out that I could move the plot along better by condensing the time Amory is tortured by the bad guys. The original plan was several weeks to enact their latest scheme, but I can't really do a timeskip at this point, especially since I had to do one before they could start this latest plot. He's already been through so much, so I think if the torment goes on for a much shorter period before doing the thing that tips him over the edge in both outlines, it will still be too much for him to deal with. It's supposed to lead up to a squeeable scene I have planned for him and his wife Edith, one I already did in blurb form. But I might end up changing those plans, even though some form of the squee will remain.

Fic musings.

I do think I'll probably need to do a little altering of my plans for what happens to Amory in The Malevolent Mugging. Basically, the idea was for the bad guys to culminate their weeks of torturing him by making him think they've abducted and killed his wife. Ugh. And that pushes him to the point of a nervous breakdown and he goes into a catatonic state.

The blurb I did several years ago has his wife, Edith, coming to him in the hospital and managing to bring him out of it. I read it over, and have been thinking over the idea, and I think I'm slightly uncomfortable going ahead with the original plan, probably mainly because of the hospital setting. I remember how I burned myself out on writing any hurt/comfort stuff for Carmen Sandiego when I took one fic too far for comfort. I have the sense that I may feel the same sort of discomfort if I proceed with the Amory plan as originally intended.

I'm thinking instead that maybe I'll alter it so that Amory will be needed to solve the mystery and he'll be shell-shocked and catatonic, alright, but maybe not running a fever as in the blurb and not in the hospital. Maybe he'll be with some of the characters instead, with them trying to bring him out of it, and maybe he'll manage to snap out of it when they're confronted by some of the bad guys. And Edith will be found alive, of course, and there can still be the squee reunion with them.

I wrote a little bit of the Riptide fic again, finally. It doesn't seem like there's a very big fanbase for Riptide multi-chapters, at least not if the focus includes characters from a particular episode, and apparently not if there's some hint of possible supernatural activity (and maybe not if it's gen; it seems like so much of the active fanbase prefers slash), so I've mostly had that fic on the back burner lately. I still intend to finish it, though, just for myself if no one else. But it could take a while.

I also keep wanting to do an Equestria Girls scenario based on the Magical Mystery Cure Pony episode, where the characters' memories get switched and each thinks they're supposed to have a different talent/destiny than they do (but they totally flub everything since they don't really have those talents). There are some fun songs as they sing about that and as Twilight tries to help all of them regain their true memories. I would like to see an Equestria Girls scenario where something similar happens, but with Sunset Shimmer trying to help everyone get back to normal. I'd definitely have to think and plan on what would happen to cause such a thing, though, since there isn't the same level of magic in the human world as there is in the Pony world.

Also, I had a weird dream where we were watching a live performance of something or other and at different intervals they'd do these five-minute Talespin plays. There was some screwy thing with Don Karnage undercover as a ship's captain and then a fun big reveal scene complete with him cackling. Maybe that was brought on by my thinking about my OC Karnage (who, yes, started out as the Talespin character but eventually became someone else instead). I can't think of any other Talespin-related stuff I've done lately.

It was an odd dream, but so much nicer than the creepy dream where we went back to the old house, apparently to fix it up to sell, and discovered it was haunted by a malevolent spirit. Freaky. And some animals were hanging out in the house, including the cat that we took care of out there (and brought out here to live with a family member, though he didn't last long here before he died).