Sasha and Ariel Experience ... All the Marvels!

Ariel: I. Am. So. Exhausted.

Sasha: That was an awful lot of movies and shows.

Ariel: What were we thinking?

Sasha: Well, it didn't sound like so much when we compared it to watching all the Star Warses. Those were like, 11 movies and a hundredish half-hour shows that we went through, so ... 70 or 80 plus hours? This was only 20 something movies and 16 shows that were half an hour to an hour each.

Ariel: Why would you add all that up?!? Together that's got to be a thousand hours of shows and movies! Now I'm even more tired!

Sasha: Pretty sure 70 or 80 plus another 50 or 60 doesn't equal a thousand, Aers.

Ariel: You expect me to do math when I'm this tired?

Sasha: I like how you put "when I'm this tired" on the end of that sentence.

Ariel: Hey!

Sasha: I'm kidding, I'm kidding! Math isn't my thing either. So ... the question is ...

Ariel: Go on, I'm waiting.

Sasha: No, I was leaving it open for you to finish the question.

Ariel: Oh.

Sasha: So ... the question is ...

Ariel:  ... do we need to tell people to put on their spoiler blankets?

Sasha: What? No, that's not the question, of course they need to put on their spoiler blankets if we're going to be able to talk about all these movies and shows!

Ariel: Um, that's the answer, but we still always ask the question, don't we?

Sasha: Okay, yes, fine. That was a question. But it wasn't the question. The question is ...

Ariel: How many times are you going to make me say I'm tired? I can't read your mind when I'm this tired! I mean, I can't ever read people's minds -- I don't want our readers to think I'm saying I can do that when I'm not tired. But I especially can't do it when I'm tired! I'm not even very good at guessing when I'm tired!

Sasha: Uh-huh. How is it you're always able to put so much work into telling me how tired you are?

Ariel: Is that "the" question? Because I'm feeling like you're just trying to dodge out of saying what "the" question is. You're not trying to trick me into doing all the work because you don't really have a "the" question, are you?

Sasha: Argh! The question is, "Was it worth it to spend all that time watching the Marvels?"

Ariel: That's "the" question?

Sasha: Of course it is!

Ariel: I mean, that's a pretty dumb question, Sash. If it wasn't worth it, why would we have kept it up through all those thousands of hours of shows and movies?

Sasha: ...

Ariel: What?

Sasha: I was about to get mad at you for saying my question was dumb, but I guess that's a pretty good point. We did give up on Space: 1999 after like, 4 or 5 hours.

Ariel: Exactly. Which wasn't remotely as much time as we spent watching the Marvels.

Sasha: Right, so clearly the Marvels were better than --

Ariel: Wait, did you notice my joke? I said it wasn't "remotely" as much time. Because we made so much fun of Space:1999 for having those remote-controlled doors.

Sasha: Are we going to talk about watching all the Marvels, or not?

Ariel: I dunno ... did you come up with a better "the" question yet? Here, I'll set you up. The question is ...

Sasha: ... So what did we think of the MCU?

Ariel: Wait, what? I thought we were talking about Marvels. What's this em-see-you thing?

Sasha: It's the short way of saying "the Marvel movies and shows."

Ariel: No it's not. "Marvels" is two syllables, and "em-see-you" is three. That's longer, not shorter.

Sasha: But it's fewer letters. An M, and a C, and a U. Three letters instead of seven.

Ariel: But it takes more work to say.

Sasha: But it takes less work to type.

Ariel: Well don't look at me! You're the one who's doing the posting this time, I'm just talking, not typing.

Sasha: Fine, I'll just say and type "Marvels" from now on.

Ariel: And what does that even mean, "MCU"? I'm guessing the "M" is for "Marvels" and "C" is because we saw them, but what's the "U"? Is it "University" because we spent so much time watching them we ought to get a degree in it?

Sasha: Why do you care? Do you even care? If you care, just look it up yourself.

Ariel: Okay, I will.

Sasha: Seriously?

Ariel: No. What was the question again?

Sasha: Oh, no, you're not getting off that easy.

Ariel: "That's what she said."

Sasha: Ugh. Seriously, I'm not going any further here until you look it up.

Ariel: Fine. M ... C ... U ... here we go, Wikipedia says, "The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is ..."

Sasha: Great, "Marvel Cinematic Universe." Now you know. So let's --

Ariel: Hang on, hang on, I'm still reading! The first sentence just talks about it being a series of films. It doesn't say "films and shows." Did we watch those two shows without needing to?

Sasha: We didn't need to watch any of --

Ariel: Oh my gosh.

Sasha: What?

Ariel: I shouldn't have kept reading.

Sasha: Why not?

Ariel: We only watched two shows, the ones on Disney And. This says there are ... a bunch more shows that aren't on Disney And. "Agents of SHIELD" and "Daredevil" and "Runaways" and -- oh my gosh, I'm not going to keep reading. We didn't watch all the Marvels at all. Not even close.

Sasha: Well ... we were probably going to have to break this up into parts anyway. This post is already pretty long and we haven't actually talked about any movies or shows at all yet. Let's just do a few posts about the Marvels we've watched so far, and then sometime in the future maybe we'll come back and post about those other shows after we watch them.

Ariel: No, I don't think we have any choice about it. We have to go back up and change our title to "Sasha and Ariel Experience Some of the Marvels."

Sasha: If we change it, we're going to have to change it to "Sasha and Ariel Experience Some of the Marvels But Don't Talk About Any of Them Yet." Because it's looking pretty obvious to me that we're not going to get around to talking about the movies or shows at all in this post.

Ariel: That's a terrible title for a post! No one will want to read that!

Sasha: Exactly. So let's just leave it, right? Path of least resistance and all.

Ariel: I can't argue with that.

Sasha: Really?

Ariel: I mean, I could, but I'm even tireder now than when we started.

Sasha: Gotcha. Okay, everybody, next time, we promise: "Sasha and Ariel Experience Some of the Marvels, Part One!"

Sasha and Ariel Experience ... Space: 1999!

Sasha: Okay, before we get started, do you think we need to tell people to put their spoiler blankets over their heads, or do you think this show is old enough we shouldn't bother.

Ariel: Well we told them to when we talked about all the Star Wars movies, and Star Wars Episode I: The Main Guy Dies was as old as this.

Sasha: Um ... no it wasn't?

Ariel: I'm pretty sure it was from 1999 too, Sash.

Sasha: ...

Ariel: Why are you looking at me like that?

Sasha: You don't ... you don't really think this show was made in 1999, do you?

Ariel: It's right there in the title!

Sasha: Aers, it's a sci-fi show. It's supposed to be about the future. They couldn't make a show about the future in 1999 and have it set in 1999.

Ariel: Sure they could. The subtitley thingy said it was like, September 9 at the start of the episode. So the show could have come out in January and it would still have been like, 8 whole months in the future.

Sasha: That's ... but ... we don't even have a moonbase now. If a show came out today that was about a moonbase, and it was set in December 2021, nobody would remotely believe they might actually build a moonbase and have all this stuff happen in 8 months!

Ariel: Duh. Of course they wouldn't.

Sasha: Well then why do you think they would have believed it in 1999?

Ariel: I never said they would believe it!

Sasha: So doesn't that make it obvious it had to be made before 1999?

Ariel: Uh, no. How old would it have to be for people to believe the things that happen in this show?

Sasha: What do you mean?

Ariel: Sash, they have these electric-powered doors that slide open without you touching them, and there's a panel with all kinds of buttons beside every door, but instead of just pushing one of the buttons, everybody carries a remote control on their belt that they take off their belt and point at the panel to make the door open. Why? Why doesn't one of the zillion buttons on the panel open the door? It's not to save wear and tear on your button-pushing finger, because you have to push a button on your remote control. Who would believe that, ever?

Sasha: Probably like, people in 1975, when the show was made.

Ariel: Were people that dumb in 1975?

Sasha: I don't know, I wasn't around then.

Ariel: Well, if they were that dumb, they could have just called it Space: 1975 and everybody would have believed it just as much.

Sasha: Yes, but they were trying to make it futuristic.

Ariel: Fail. Even in 1999, they had to know the future wasn't going to look like that.

Sasha: But it wasn't made in 1999, it was made in 1975. Look, you even said yourself that the Star Wars Episode I movie was from 1999. Do the special effects in this show look like they could have been made in the same year as the special effects in that movie?

Ariel: Sure, if they were made by someone who didn't have the money to even hire a door-opener-consultant to tell them, "Look, just have the people push one of those buttons."

Sasha: But they did have lots of money. This was a big-budget, expensive show in 1975.

Ariel: Really? You're sure?

Sasha: Do you not remember our boyfriend saying he watched it when he was a kid? He wasn't a kid in 1999, was he?

Ariel: No, you've got a point there. Wow. That's a bummer.

Sasha: A bummer? Why?

Ariel: I just think I liked this show better as a show made by somebody with absolutely no budget that they put out in 1999 aimed at people too dumb to figure out the easiest way to open a door.

Sasha: Oh. I ... guess that makes sense?

Ariel: Of course it makes sense. Why would you want to believe a whole generation of people would actually believe the things in this show might happen?

Sasha: I can't say I really would want to believe that, but they did.

Ariel: Wow. I'm just ... I'm totally shook right now. Like ... the scene where they were remote-controlling the spaceship to fly on the whole other side of the moon to see what was going on at the nuclear waste dump zone, and the commander was whispering his orders to the remote-controller dude, like if he talked too loud it would make the nuclear waste blow up ... people bought that?

Sasha: Apparently.

Ariel: And, they had a computer that could put words on a big giant screen and talk at the same time, so they obviously knew words could be put on a screen, but for all the work they're going around doing, they use paper on clipboards, or they have their desk printers print stuff out on grocery-store receipt paper. Why? I mean, it's like 2 plus 2. Words can go on a screen, so you would do your work on a screen, right?

Sasha: Maybe they liked having the receipts like people keep their receipts from the store.

Ariel: Uh-huh. Like, "I better keep my receipt of this information about the radiation levels in case it turns out the information is broken, or I don't like it and I want to return it." Boy would that have messed up their plot. Later in the episode, they'd just say, "Hey, computer, what kind of junk information are you giving us here? Here's my receipt, I want to exchange it for better information. Or at least give me my money back!"

Sasha: I don't even know how to respond to that.

Ariel: Jeepers. I really enjoyed the show when I was watching it and thought they just didn't have any money to make the show with. I could just imagine them building those doors and some guy on the crew says, "Hey, boss, about these remote-control doors, I was thinking --" and the boss was like, "Oh my god, no! We don't have any money for thinking! Are you trying to bankrupt the whole production?"

Sasha: Sorry, I didn't mean to ruin the show for you. You really thought it was from 1999?

Ariel: ... well, you know ... like ... early 1999.

Sasha: No, this was before any of the Star Wars movies and before most of the Star Trek shows we watched.

Ariel: You mean before all of the Star Trek shows, don't you?

Sasha: No, the first Star Trek show was in 1966.

Ariel: What?!? So almost ten years earlier they had doors that just swooshed open and these guys are thinking future doors would need remote controls to open them?

Sasha: Well, they didn't really have them. They just had a show that showed them.

Ariel: But the point is they knew it was a possibility, and they still went with the remote controls? And anyway, why didn't they have them? We've got them now, and they're not all that new, are they? How long after 1975 were swooshing doors invented?

Sasha: I don't know, probably --

Ariel: Okay, I have to look this up now.

Sasha: Whoa. You're going to look something up? You're really in a state about this.

Ariel: Oh. My. God.

Sasha: What?

Ariel: 1960. This says there were automatic sliding doors on the market in 1960.

Sasha: That's Wikipedia. You know you can't really trust that, right?

Ariel: I can't, huh? Well look at this: "Space: 1999 is a science-fiction television programme that ran for two series from 1975 to 1977." I mean, they spelled "program" wrong, but they got the 1975 right. Can't trust Wikipedia, can I?

Sasha: I mean, sometimes it's right about ... wait. You know what, Aers, Wikipedia is where I read about the show being from 1975 in the first place. So maybe that was wrong.

Ariel: You're just trying to shut me up, aren't you?

Sasha: No, seriously. Wikipedia is notorious for inaccurate stuff because just anybody can write or edit an article and get it on there. For all I know, Space: 1999 was really made in 1999.

Ariel: I -- but -- ugh. I'm just too exhausted to even figure this out.

Sasha: Okay. Anything else we should say about Space: 1999 before we call it a night?

Ariel: Ooh! GREAT theme song!

Sasha: It was pretty catchy, wasn't it?

Ariel: I guess they knew how to write 'em back in 1999.

Sasha: I ... sure.

Ariel and Sasha: Goodnight, Moonbase!

Sasha and Ariel Experience ... Freezing Our Patooties Off!

Ariel: S-s-s-should we t-t-t-tell everyb-b-body to put on their s-s-spoiler blankets?

Sasha: Aers, it's back to 70 degrees outside. Why are you acting like you're freezing? And why would anybody need a spoiler blanket for a story that's all about us that they're only going to get from reading this post?

Ariel: I'm just still cold, and blankets sound good right now.

Sasha: Well here. Wrap yourself up in this. And this. And this. Better?

Sasha: Aers?

Sasha: Well?

Ariel: Sorry, I couldn't type my part of the blog all wrapped up in blankets. Yes, it was better, but now I'm cold again.

Sasha: So put them back on and keep taking them off when it's your turn to type.

Ariel: That would be so much work!

Sasha: ...

Ariel: Anyway, I guess we should tell people how cold it got around here?

Sasha: Pretty cold!

Ariel: SUPER cold! I didn't even know it could get that cold.

Sasha: Hettie says it hasn't gotten that cold here in our part of Texas for over 30 years.

Ariel: I feel like it was colder than that. It felt more like it hadn't gotten that cold for over 60 or maybe even 903 years.

Sasha: That literally makes no sense. You haven't even been alive 30 years, much less 903.

Ariel: Exactly! So it feels like it hasn't ever gotten that cold before, meaning even 903 years ago. I was actually trying to sound like I wasn't exaggerating when I said 903 years.

Sasha: Okay, well, that didn't work.

Ariel: Well I figured the people who were living here 903 years ago didn't have thermometers, so if it got this cold back then, they wouldn't have known anyway.

Sasha: Your explanations are only making this more ridiculous.

Ariel: That's because it was so ridiculously cold! That's what I'm trying to say!

Sasha: Then why don't you just say that?

Ariel: It was ridiculously cold.

Sasha: See? That wasn't so hard, was it?

Ariel: No. But it seems pretty anti-climatic.

Sasha: Anti-climactic.

Ariel: No, I meant "climatic" like in "climate." And "anti" like in "Antarctica."

Sasha: There's no "anti" in "Antarctica."

Ariel: There is so, you just have to take out the "arct" and the "ca." Or you could take out the "tarc" and the "ca" I guess. So there's two ways there's an "anti" in "Antarctica."

Sasha: Well, we're not in Antarctica, and I'm pretty sure it gets way colder in Antarctica than it got here.

Ariel: Maybe. We'll never know, since I'm definitely never going there if it's colder than last week was here.

Sasha: Aers, Antarctica is the coldest place on Earth. We already know it gets colder there than it got here.

Ariel: I'm not admitting that until I go there and find out for myself. Which I'm not going to do because I don't want to risk getting that cold. Hey! What are you doing?

Sasha: I'm wrapping you back up in the blankets.

Ariel: I can see that, but --

Sasha: There. Problem solved. And you look very toasty now!

Sasha: Folks, Ariel can't type under all those blankets, and I'm signing off to get in there too. If it's cold where you are, be sure to wrap up with a cuddle-buddy, like us! Bye!

Ariel and Sasha Experience ... Jeff Wayne's War of the Worldses!

Ariel: Okay, I just want to make sure everybody who reads this knows right away that that title isn't a typo or other kinda mistake, we really are talking about more than one Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds.

Sasha: I'm going to go out on a limb here, Ariel, and say I bet anyone who was assuming it was a mistake is still going to think it's a mistake because they're going to think it should say, "Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds Albums."

Ariel: Well, they would still be wrong, because both of Jeff Wayne's War of the Worldses are double albums, so if I said "Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds Albums," some people who know that they're double albums might be confused about whether I'm talking about just two disks from one of Jeff Wayne's War of the Worldses, or if I'm talking about both Jeff Wayne's War of the Worldses, so the only way to be sure I was being clear was to say it the way I said it.

Sasha: Another way to say it might have been, "Both versions of Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds."

Ariel: No, because there was a vinyl version, and there was a CD version, and then there was a special CD version with extra stuff, and I think even a DVD version, and that's only for the first Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds. So if I said, "Both versions," people might still be confused.

Sasha: Except if people know there are all those different versions, won't they be confused into thinking we're going to talk about all those versions since you didn't specifically say this post is only about two?

Ariel: Maybe, but at that point I'm thinking they're putting too much work into being confused, so it's on them.

Sasha: Okay, I give up.

Ariel: Now it's time to tell our readers to put their spoiler blankets over their heads if they don't want things spoiled for them.

Sasha: Are you sure we need to do that? I mean, the story is from 1898, and the first album was from 1978 --

Ariel: The first albums. Double album, remember.

Sasha: -- and even the second version that we're talking about is like, seven or eight years old. Plus, what are you thinking we're going to give away?

Ariel: I don't know! Maybe we'll want to say the drums are way smashier on the second one we listened to, and then someone gets the albums and listens to them and is like, Oh, man, I wish it had been a surprise how much smashier the drums are on this album.

Sasha: Fine. So now they've been warned.

Ariel: I just thought they needed to be.

Sasha: I'm not arguing any more.

Ariel: Good. So ... now what are we going to say about Jeff Wayne's War of the Worldses besides the drums being much more smashy on the second one?

Sasha: I don't know. I was totally going to lead with the smashy drums thing because I love drums and hearing them being smashed on.

Ariel: Oh. Sorry. I didn't mean to rob you of that one.

Sasha: It's fine. It just means you have to start us off, since I don't have anything else ready.

Ariel: Should we tell everybody what Jeff Wayne's War of the Worldses are about, I guess?

Sasha: Sure.

Ariel: Well, the worlds in the title are Earth and Mars, and the war is where they fight, and Jeff Wayne is the guy who made the albums. I kind of went in reverse order there, so I hope nobody is too confused.

Sasha: Uh ... I dunno, Aers. Maybe you should dumb it down a little more in case some of our readers are just ordinary people and not intellectual giants like us.

Ariel: You're being sarcastic. I can tell, you know.

Sasha: I'm just thinking you should maybe give our audience more credit about what might be confusing to them. I like to think they're mostly pretty smart.

Ariel: Okay, I'll turn the whole "Explaining what Jeff Wayne's War of the Worldses are about" part over to you, then, since obviously you think you can do a much better job at it.

Sasha: Well, Jeff Wayne is this composer and record producer, and at some point in the 1970s he wrote a rock-and-roll musical version of H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds, and once he'd written it, he got this all-star cast of rock-and-roll people to perform it and released it as a double album. It was super-popular in England and sort of popular here in the U.S., and thirty-something years later, he decided to re-do it with updated music and all new singers and a different narrator.

Ariel: Oh.

Sasha: Oh, what?

Ariel: You actually did do a much better job at it. I was sort of hoping you wouldn't.

Sasha: Pfff. You totally could have done just as good a job as I did, if you just weren't so --

Ariel: Don't say it!

Sasha: -- lazy.

Ariel: You don't have to always call me lazy!

Sasha: Am I wrong?

Ariel: No. But that doesn't mean you have to call me it every single post!

Sasha: I don't do it every single post. Look back over our last few posts, and I'm sure you'll find several of them where I don't call you lazy. I mean, if it's not too much work for you to go back and look at them.

Ariel: I'm going to talk more about Jeff Wayne's War of the Worldses now.

Sasha: Great!

Ariel: Grr. Well ... so, people who read our last entry know that our boyfriend was talking about Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds, and then that led to us listening to a Thin Lizzy album because the lead singer of Thin Lizzy is one of the singers on the first Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds.

Sasha: Did I call you lazy in that post?

Ariel: Stop it!

Sasha: Sorry. Go on.

Ariel: Anyway, we really liked the Thin Lizzy album, and we thought that Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds sounded really cool, so we made him buy it on the impy three store and we listened to it and it was really really good.

Sasha: You're crushing it. Keep going.

Ariel: Just ... the sarcasm. So much sarcasm! Do you have to?

Sasha: I'm not, I promise! I'm maybe just exaggerating a little to tease you. Keep going.

Ariel: Um ... well, so, but while he was looking for the album on the impy three store --

Sasha: Albums you mean. Double album, right?

Ariel: Ooh! You!

Sasha: Sorry again. You're just so cute when you get the red face going and the steam coming out of your ears!

Ariel: I do not have a red face or steam coming out of my ears. And I'm always cute. I'm going to make you take over if you keep doing that.

Sasha: I won't, I promise.

Ariel: ...

Sasha: You don't have to give me those narrow eyes! I promise. Really.

Ariel: Fine. So when he was looking on the impy three store, that's when he found out there was a newer version of Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds from 2013. And after we all loved the first one from 1978, we kind of forced him to get the new one so we could listen to it too.

Sasha: Maybe before getting to the new one we could say some of the things we liked about the first one?

Ariel: Guitars. Guitars, guitars, guitars, guitars! Oh, man, there was so much great guitaring on this record. Lead guitars, and acoustic guitars, and wacka-wacka wah-wah guitars, and pretty much just all the guitars.

Sasha: There was a lot of good keyboard stuff too, and excellent singing.

Ariel: Hettie and Elle kept going on about the narration and the language in it, which Hettie said used a lot of words and phrases from the original H.G. Wells story. 

Sasha: That dude knew how to pick the right word. And the narrator guy, who apparently was some super famous actor, knew just how to say them all absolutely the perfect way. "Intolerably lonely." "Desolate." "Minds immeasurably superior to ours ..." Did you have a favorite language bit?

Ariel: I do, but it's kinda gruesome.

Sasha: Ooh, that's even better! What was it?

Ariel: Well I can't remember it all!

Sasha: So Google it or something. I'll wait.

Sasha: ...

Sasha: ...

Ariel: Whew. Found it. Thank heavens for copy-paste, because I would never want to retype all of this. "The six guns we had seen now fired simultaneously, decapitating a Fighting Machine. The Martian inside the hood was slain, splashed to the four winds, and the body, nothing now but an intricate device of metal, went whirling to destruction." I love that "splashed to the four winds" bit, and then the "whirling to destruction" bit.

Sasha: Wow. That really is very bloodthirsty for you.

Ariel: I know! But really, "whirling to destruction!" It's so exciting and vivid and, and ... whirly. You know?

Sasha: What else did we really like?

Ariel: Duh, the Thin Lizzy lead singer guy. He plays a crazy parson who thinks the Martians are all demons, and he's singing about how doomed everybody is, and his wife -- the parson's wife, not the singer guy's wife -- is singing back about how there has to be hope and something to live for, and he's like, "Nope, I'm not having it. World's doomed." He was amazing! And she was amazing! The whole song was just amazing.

Sasha: I agree. Which, I have to then compare it to the newer version.

Ariel: I liked them both!

Sasha: I did too ... but the new parson singer ... definitely no Phil Lynott of Thin Lizzy.

Ariel: I thought he sang pretty well.

Sasha: Yes, but oof, some of his dialogue lines where he wasn't singing ...

Ariel: Elle did a couple of groans and eye rolls, but honestly, I didn't really notice him being all that bad.

Sasha: Well, I was with Elle on that part.

Ariel: What about the two different Beth singers? Beth was the parson's wife. I thought they were both super-good too, but very different.

Sasha: It was kinda like they were playing two not-exactly the same characters. The first one -- she just totally nailed this lady being some incredibly good person who was completely sure that everything could turn out okay.

Ariel: Yeah. Too bad she got proved wrong about that by a Martian spaceship landeing on their house and squashing her.

Sasha: True, but even though she got squashed, she just really made you feel 100% that her character was right and the parson was wrong. In the new version, the singer puts all this passion and urgency into her voice, and I thought it made it seem like her character, I dunno, desperately needed to prove what she was saying to the parson. Which made her seem less certain she was right, which made her seem maybe less ... heroic?

Ariel: Still got just as squashed, though.

Sasha: Anything else we want to compare about the two versions?

Ariel: Yes! The biggest thing!

Sasha: Which is?

Ariel: The narrator in the new one was Cheats-at-Dice Guy from the first Star Wars movie. You know, that Jedi dude who sort of adopts the little slave kid and then gets killed by Mr. All-the Horns-and Face-Paint.

Sasha: Liam Neeson. He's a pretty famous actor, Aers. He's been in lots of other stuff. You didn't like him?

Ariel: As an actor, sure. He was fine, although maybe not as good as the guy from the 1978 version. But he was so distracting!

Sasha: Distracting how?

Ariel:You know ... like, every time something bad was happening, I kept thinking, Damn, Cheats-at-Dice Guy, why don't you use the Force on these Martians?

Sasha: I don't think I thought that even once.

Ariel: It was messing with my brain something fierce.

Sasha: Bummer.

Ariel: I still really liked the new version, though.

Sasha: Me too. Anything else?

Ariel: No, I think I'm Jeff Wayne's War of the Worldses-ed out at this point.

Sasha: Okay. Well, until next time then, readers ...

Ariel and Sasha: Bye!

Sasha and Ariel Experience ... Thin Lizzy!

Sasha: Okay, well, I think this one's just going to be a short one, what do you think?

Ariel: Maybe? Probably. I mean, we only listened to the album once, and I didn't take notes.

Sasha: When do you ever take notes?

Ariel: I don't. But I would have to if I wanted us to do a long post about one album we listened to once!

Sasha: Gotcha. Short and sweet it is then. Like me!

Ariel: And me ... I'm just not quite as short as you.

Sasha: You are pretty short, though -- wait. Stop. I see where this is going to turn into one of our never-getting-to-the-point posts that's way longer than it should be, and we already agreed this one's going to be short.

Ariel: It could still be short even then, because if we talk too long I'll forget everything I was going to say about ... what are we talking about again?

Sasha: Thin Lizzy.

Ariel: Right. And then the post would be short, it would just not be about Thin Lizzy.

Sasha: Which means we'd have to go back and change the title.

Ariel: Too much work! We'd better get going talking about this album.

Sasha: Should we start by telling people how Thin Lizzy even came up around our place?

Ariel: Not if we're trying to keep it short!

Sasha: Well, I wasn't saying we should try to keep it short, I was just predicting that it would be short.

Ariel: But if you're wrong about that, people will be like, "The very first thing she said in this post was wrong! Why should I believe anything these two say about Thin Lizzy if they start off being so wrong about their own blog post?"

Sasha: Yeah, but why should they believe anything we say about Thin Lizzy when we've only listened to one Thin Lizzy album once?

Ariel: That's a good point. I'd say we should give up, but then we'd still have to change the title.

Sasha: I'm just going to say, here's the kind of house we have. Somehow, something made our boyfriend think about Mars.

Ariel: It may have been a news story about some new Mars satellite.

Sasha: And that made him think about this old album he has.

Ariel: Don't jump to conclusions, though! It wasn't the Thin Lizzy album we listened to!

Sasha: No, it was a musical version of "War of the Worlds" that sounded really cool when he told us about it.

Ariel: Only he didn't play it for us.

Sasha: Nope, because before he could decide to do that, he remembered that one of the songs on it is sung by this guy named Phil Lynott, who was the lead singer of Thin Lizzy.

Ariel: Well, it was also because the War of the Worlds album he only has on vinyl and our record player is hard to get to. It's up on a shelf and it's very heavy and hard to get down.

Sasha: Except I don't think that excuse really works, because the Thin Lizzy album he also only had on vinyl. He had to go buy it from the Impy-Three store for us to listen to.

Ariel: The excuse does kind of work though, because the War of the Worlds album is a double album, so in addition to having to lift the record player down, he'd have had to lift twice as heavy an amount of vinyl getting that one down compared to getting the Thin Lizzy album down.

Sasha: Only someone as lazy as you would think that would make any difference. And anyway, the impy-three version would not be any heavier, so once he decided to get it online, he could've gotten either one just as easy.

Ariel: Okay, so now I'm thinking we got cheated by not getting to hear the War of the Worlds album.

Sasha: Sort of like our readers are probably feeling cheated right now over us not getting to the whole point of this post, which is supposed to be about Thin Lizzy?

Ariel: It might be very similar to that.

Sasha: Anyhow ... to make a long story short --

Ariel: I think we already blew that part.

Sasha: -- we listened to "Jailbreak" by Thin Lizzy in the car yesterday and this morning.

Ariel: And it was good! The End!

Sasha: ...

Ariel: Why are you looking at me like that?

Sasha: We don't want to make the long story that short. We have to at least say something about the album.

Ariel: Fine. Um ... it started off with a song that's the same title as the album, "Jailbreak." This was a song about a jailbreak. The End.

Sasha: No, no, I actually want to talk about the album. Can we just ... let's just forget about the whole "short" thing.

Ariel: Really? Because I kind of feel like we've been at this a while already, and I maybe need a nap.

Sasha: Stop it. Drink some coffee.

Ariel: Yuck. I hate coffee.

Sasha: I'm officially ignoring you now before this turns into a whole post about coffee and how you hate it. Instead, I'm just going to say, that "Jailbreak" song got the album off to a nice, rockin' start. 

Ariel: I like the siren part.

Sasha: Still, I was like, okay, this is really good, but what makes it so good we had to rush over to the Impy-Three store for it instead of the War of the Worlds album?

Ariel: Well, the next songs were also very good, although less rockin'.

Sasha: Really good lyrics, though, and great drumming!

Ariel: You were air-drumming a lot I noticed.

Sasha: Then we got to this song, "Warriors," and I was like, "Okay, I'm starting to get it."

Ariel: That was a cool-ass song, and I thought I was starting to get it too, until the next song started and I was all, "Oh, shit! This one is the bomb!"

Sasha: It was the bomb even though Elle tried to pooh-pooh it.

Ariel: What did she say, something like, "Oh god, this song is such a walking cliche." But I noticed she was tapping her foot pretty quick into it.

Sasha: Apparently, it's like, the Thin Lizzy song and it used to get played way too much and put in commercials and all kinds of stuff to the point where people couldn't take it seriously anymore.

Ariel: But holy moley, hearing it for the very first time! It was like, all the good stuff from all the previous songs showed how everybody in this band was really excellent, and then on this song they all just ... hit it. Pow! Guitar chord! Pow! Awesome bass line!

Sasha: Pow! Grooving beat and hi-hat hits on the drum kit! Pow! Song lyrics!

Ariel: What was that word Hettie used?

Sasha: "Infectious."

Ariel: Only that sounds bad, like a disease. Which these lyrics totally weren't. Phil Lynott just comes in smashing it with the vocals, like in the first two lines he's telling you about these guys coming back into town -- I think they were the guys who jailbroke in the first song -- and you can tell from his voice, he just loves these guys.

Sasha: His voice and the words ... all through the whole song, he just totally makes you think these guys are the greatest.

Ariel: I was convinced.

Sasha: Which is weird, because the more the song goes on, the more obvious it is they're kind of assholes.

Ariel: Yeah, but why would they have been in jail if they weren't assholes? And I think them being assholes makes it even more amazing how good a job he does making you think they're so great.

Sasha: I also think that's why Elle was tapping her foot so much. The song lets you feel like you know what it would be like to just have fun and enjoy being bad. Not like, super-bad, but just like, I'm going to break the rules and it will be cool.

Ariel: Ooh, you're right. Make-believe badness is totally Elle's deal.

Sasha: She probably had to pretend to not like the song because if she liked it she'd kind of be admitting her edgy act is just for show.

Ariel: She's so entertaining with it, though ... just like the song!

Sasha: It was definitely an amazing song.

Ariel: Followed by another good one, and then that cowboy song. What was it called again?

Sasha: "The Cowboy Song."

Ariel: That's the one! It was almost another home run song, but then the dude at the fence jumped up and caught the home-run ball just before it went over the top.

Sasha: What do you mean?

Ariel: I mean that line where he says, "Lord all these Southern girls, they seem the same!" What?!? Grr! We're all Southern girls around here and none of us is the same at all!

Sasha: Hettie's not Southern, I don't think.

Ariel: Where is Hettie from?

Sasha: We'll have to ask her.

Ariel: Anyway, it was a pretty great song except for that line.

Sasha: However, not as great as the last song on the album, "Emerald."

Ariel: Ho. Lee. Cow.

Sasha: CRRRAAAZZZY drums!

Ariel: Guitars all over the place, incredible bass, and whoo, that Phil Lynott guy. By the end of the song I totally understood why a Mars satellite that made our boyfriend think of War of the Worlds and then Phil Lynott would lead to him rushing to the Impy-Three store to get this album and let us hear it.

Sasha: Phil Lynott was obviously The Guy.

Ariel: Five stars out of four.

Sasha: Agreed.

Ariel: So what else should we say about "Jailbreak?"

Sasha: I think we're done.

Ariel: Are you sure?

Sasha: Yeah, really.

Ariel: I just don't want to cut this too short.

Sasha: ...

Ariel: ?

Sasha:You. Sheesh.

Ariel and Sasha: Okay, bye, everybody!

Ariel and Sasha Experience ... People Yelling at the TV Screen!

Ariel: Okay, so to start with, I didn't think this movie was bad for the reasons that got it yelled at, but it was pretty bad.

Sasha: Wait, wait, we haven't even said what the movie is, and we haven't warned anybody we'll be spoiling parts of it.

Ariel: Oh! Gosh, you're right. I'm just half asleep I guess from it being SO BORING.

Sasha: It was pretty boring, but we should still warn people, don't you think?

Ariel: Sure, I guess. People, listen, we're going to talk about "The Midnight Sky," and if you don't want to find out that it's full of dumb stuff and is super boring besides that, you should stop reading now. That's not a spoiler to tell them it's dumb and boring, is it?

Sasha: If it is, it's kind of too late, don't you think?

Ariel: Well, if they haven't watched the movie yet, it's not to late for them to not watch it!

Sasha: True. So where should we start?

Ariel: We should tell them if they know any science, they should apparently stay far, far away from this movie.

Sasha: Yeah, I don't even know all that much science, and even I was like, "Wait, what?" a couple of times.

Ariel: Really? I didn't hear you say that.

Sasha: They were the same times the boyfriend was saying things like, "You've got to be kidding" and Elle was saying, "Literally WTF." Really loudly.

Ariel: There was a lot of that. And I guess at the start I was sitting pretty cuddled up with Elle and could probably hear her a lot better than I could hear you.

Sasha: The two of you looked very cozy at the start.

Ariel: I know! I was all settled in for a nice snuggly movie watch and then pretty soon she was face-palming and pulling her hair out.

Sasha: I guess we should cut to the chase about why, or our readers are going to get as bored as we were watching the movie.

Ariel: Well, the first part where it started to go wrong, as far as undermining my cuddle time, was when the Vulcan guy from that one Star Trek with Captain Schoolmarm was saying goodbye to the main character, All Beard Dude.

Sasha: I thought it was a good sign there was a Star Trek person in the cast, but he didn't last very long.

Ariel: Which was probably good, since his whole purpose seemed to be telling All Beard Dude things the guy already knew.

Sasha: "Well, All Beard Dude, the whole crew of this astronomy station is leaving now, are you sure you're not going to go with us, seeing as how you're terminally ill and you'll die in less than a week if you don't keep up those infusion treatments?"

Ariel: On the one hand, it did tell us a lot of information quickly.

Sasha: Yeah, but we probably could have figured out a lot of it ourselves from all the coughing and taking pills and performing blood infusion treatments on himself that All Beard Dude did.

Ariel: ...

Sasha: What?

Ariel: You just stole my "On the other hand" point. Now I've told everybody on the one hand, and I don't have an other hand to follow it up with.

Sasha: Aers, this movie had so many other hands. Just pick a different one.

Ariel: Okay, give me a sec ... oh, got it. The on the other hand was, they told us this information right away, but they never actually told us any more information. Like, what exactly was he sick with? Why were all the other people leaving, other than there was an "event" three weeks earlier? There wasn't even one other person who was like, "You know, if All Beard Dude is staying, maybe I'll stay too, seeing as how it's going to take longer for the unspecific catastrophe to get up here to this unspecific place in the Arctic Circle where we've set up our astronomy station for unspecific reasons?"

Sasha: I knew you could do it.

Ariel: It was like, if they're giving us this little bit of information now, it must be because the real lots-of-detail information would come along here and there until we had the whole picture. But no.

Sasha: We did find out a little more about the unspecific catastrophe.

Ariel: I mean, if, "It was an accident from something else someone was trying to do," counts as more.

Sasha: Also that there was radiation and some problem with the air.

Ariel: Right, that spread out in perfect circles from all the major cities at once so that All Beard Dude could watch its progress on his astronomy-can-show-you-anything screen.

Sasha: That was a handy screen, all right.

Ariel: The more I'm thinking about this, the more I understand why Elle and the BF were yelling at the TV.

Sasha: Well, I kind of understood the thing about Jupiter having a previously undiscovered moon.

Ariel: I guess. Aren't they always discovering more moons of Jupiter?

Sasha: Yeah, but only itty bitty ones, I think. That's why the BF said, "Ooh, I guess Galileo just missed that one."

Ariel: I was going to ask what he meant about that, but I was trying to watch the movie right then. Galileo was some kinda satellite they sent to Jupiter, wasn't it?

Sasha: That's what I thought too, but I asked Hettie later and she said the satellite was named after the first dude who ever looked at Jupiter in a telescope, and even with his crappy-ass I-just-invented-this telescope, he could see all the big moons Jupiter had.

Ariel: That's what I like about Hettie. She has the scoop about those kindsa things, but she doesn't shout it at the TV during bad movies.

Sasha: She knows how to be annoyed better than Elle and the BF. Like, keeping it low-key.

Ariel: I think she and Claire are better TV watchers than Elle and the BF.

Sasha: Boy, did Claire ever have it right when she just said, "I think I'll go watch some old Star Treks in the other room" after the 4th or 5th time Elle said, "Oh. Come. On."

Ariel: Actually, I think it was right after Elle was like, "Is any of this supposed to be interesting?!? At all???" when the guy who played Mr. Pointy Ears on Star Trek: Very Disco got dumped by his girlfriend.

Sasha: Oh yeah, you're right. Hey! I just realized that's two different actors who played Vulcan dudes on Star Treks and also showed up in this movie.

Ariel: I guess that shows that just because you can play a Vulcan doesn't mean you make logical decisions in real life.

Sasha: Logic was not high on the list of anybody involved in this project.

Ariel: No, that's for sure.

Sasha: Or the people who designed the space mission in the movie, either, if all the yelling in our living room was any indication.

Ariel: "How have they been out of communications range for weeks and weeks? We can still talk to the Voyagers, and they're all the way out of the solar system!"

Sasha: "Why is the airlock the size of a bus when there are only five people in the crew and nothing bigger than a human could fit through either airlock door?"

Ariel: "Seriously? Three men and two women on a two-year mission and they didn't think to give them birth control?"

Sasha: "How did their radar get taken out by a meteor swarm without warning them they were approaching a meteor swarm first?"

Ariel: "If he was imagining the little girl the whole time, why were there scenes of her walking around looking at things when he wasn't even there?"

Sasha: Well, that one wasn't about the space mission.

Ariel: No, but it was one of the things they were yelling at the TV that I remembered. And even I knew All Beard Dude wouldn't be imagining a little girl poking around outside a plane wreck while he was busy shooting plane-wreck survivors. Or at least, I knew once Elle pointed it out after we found out he had been imagining her the whole movie.

Sasha: Traumatically having to put frostbitten plane-wrecked human beings out of their misery while also daydreaming about a cute little girl finding other bodies outside does seem like kind of a multi-tasking stretch.

Ariel: Were there any other interesting things they yelled about?

Sasha: There was that "Sweet Caroline" song the spaceship crew sang along with during the spacewalk.

Ariel: Oh yeah, one song and so many things to yell about about it!

Sasha: "It's 2049! Why would any of these people know the words to 'Sweet Caroline?' Much less all but one of them?"

Ariel: "And if the dude had it in his library and loved to play it, how could even one of them not know the 'bum-bum-baaah!' part after two years cooped up with him?"

Sasha: "How much of this song do we have to listen to before one of these people gets killed on this spacewalk?"

Ariel: "Is it really going to be the black girl who's never spacewalked before who gets killed on the spacewalk?"

Sasha: Again, that last one wasn't really about the song.

Ariel: I thought it was. When she started bleeding all over the place, I was like, "Welp, should have learned the words to the song, girl."

Sasha: Not sure that would have helped her, but okay.

Ariel: So do you think our readers have got the idea by now?

Sasha: Yeah, people around our house like to yell at the TV when movies get unbelievably dumb. I think we've gotten that across.

Ariel: And also that "The Midnight Sky" was really, really boring on top of unbelievably dumb.

Sasha: That too. So how do we want to wrap this one up?

Ariel: Maybe with an inappropriately cheerful song?

Sasha: Good call. One, two, three, four ...

Ariel and Sasha: Sweeeeet Caroline ... bum-bum-baaah ... !

Sasha and Ariel Experience ... More The Mandalorian!

Sasha: Okay, it's a whole new season, and we never even really talked about last season that much because you were too busy squealing over ... um, I'm not even going to say it.

Ariel: Don't worry, I'm not going to spend the whole post talking about Baby Yoda again!

Sasha: That's good, because --

Ariel: I mean, it turns out his name isn't even Baby Yoda!

Sasha: Yes, but we should tell people to put their spoiler blankets over their heads, right?

Ariel: Sure, definitely. Watch out, people, big spoilers ahead!

Sasha: Okay. So ... this is going pretty well so far. What do you think about this sea--

Ariel: BROWWRRRRRRRRR!

Sasha: Oh no. Come on, what are you --

Ariel: Better Bad Guy's ship from the second movie is back this season! And it didn't do it last week, but this latest episode ...  BROWWRRRRRRRRR!

Sasha: What? Oh, you mean those bombs it drops

Ariel: The ones that go,  BROWWRRRRRRRRR!

Sasha: Please tell me you're not going to spend this whole post making that sound.

Ariel: But it's the best sound ever! BROWWRRRRRRRRR! I figured when Better Bad Guy's Grown-Up Kid saw those ships chasing him, he was going to swing around and start shooting those same guns his dad used when Sexy Jesus was after them in that asteroid ring. But then, the back of the ship opens up and BROWWRRRRRRRRR! 

Sasha: Okay, but --

Ariel: I mean, we knew Better Bad Guy's Kid could use those guns that go VEEP!VEEP!VEEP!VEEP!VEEP! because we saw him shooting them at Sexy Jesus on that planet of matchstick-head aliens. But we didn't know he knew how to use the bombs that go  BROWWRRRRRRRRR!

Sasha: Aers, he's had like 40 years to read the instruction manual by now, hasn't he?

Ariel: Yep, so as soon as those fighter ships get on his tail, BROWWRRRRRRRRR!

Sasha: You have to stop doing that.

Ariel: No I don't! BROWWRRRRRRRRR! Come on! It's fun! You know you want to.

Sasha: I want to keep talking about The Mandalorian!

Ariel: BROWWRRRRRRRRR! Come onnnn, Sash! Just once. Then I'll stop.

Sasha: No you won't.

Ariel: BROWWRRRRRRRRR! I will! BROWWRRRRRRRRR!

Sasha: This is ridiculous.

Ariel: BROWWRRRRRRRRR! Just once.

Sasha: Fine ... Browrr.

Ariel: What??? No, the right way! BROWWRRRRRRRRR!

Sasha: ...

Ariel: Do it!  BROWWRRRRRRRRR!

Sasha: All right, all right, BROWWRRRRRRRRR!

Ariel: See? Wasn't that fun? BROWWRRRRRRRRR!

Sasha: You said you'd stop!

Ariel: I know, but it's hard! Seriously, do you want to stop making that sound?

Sasha: ...

Sasha: ...

Sasha: BROWWRRRRRRRRR!

Ariel: Yes!  BROWWRRRRRRRRR!

Sasha: BROWWRRRRRRRRR! 

Ariel: BROWWRRRRRRRRR! See you next time, folks! BROWWRRRRRRRRR!

Sasha: BROWWRRRRRRRRR!

Ariel: BROWWRRRRRRRRR!

Sasha and Ariel: BROWWRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!