This Year's Model of Humanity

( spoilers for the Numb3rs premiere )

( spoilers for Stargate: Atlantis 4x01 -- Adrift )

( Heroes 2x02 -- Lizards )

( Prison Break -- Season 3, episodes 1&2 )

Lastly, and more seriously, as anyone from popfandom already knows -- Lou Pearlman is a skeezy asshole who deserves to rot in prison for the rest of his life.

Goodbye Alice in Wonderland
by Jewel

Summary:
There's more than one kind of drug.
(spoilers up to Prison Break 1x22 -- Flight)

(divx file 37.0 MB; zipped
smaller zipped wmv file available here)

Many thanks to paraviondeux for lending space and to xenacryst and jic for beta work. Feedback is always appreciated.

( imeem stream )

I have been terribly (wonderfully?) distracted by Prison Break recently. Because! New episodes plus dvds equals giddy joy.

One thing that I really love about Prison Break (Supernatural and Numb3rs take note) is that the brothers hug. More than once. Whenever their high-stress situation warrants, actually. It is the nicest thing in the world. I can kinda understand why the other shows don't -- not all families are huggy and not all brothers are (I practically have to bribe my brother to hug him -- actually, I just tell him that I'm going to hug him and there's nothing he can do about it, and he deals with it but acts very put upon, as brothers tend to do). But it's still really, really nice to see it happen on Prison Break.

The first two episodes of the second season ( spoilers for 2x01: Manhunt and 2x02: Otis )

So, three of the returning shows that I'm watching this year feature pairs of brothers working together (Numb3rs, Prison Break, and Supernatural). A large part of why I'm watching the shows are because they're about strong, interesting sibling relationships.

Which brings me to a point -- where are the women? Where are the really good brother-sister or sister-sister shows? Joss Whedon should not be the only person in television capable of creating an interesting brother-sister relationship that drives the narrative forward (if you do know of any shows with strong, interesting b-s or s-s relationships, I would be thrilled to know about them).

The interesting thing (to me) is how Simon-River actually follows the 'format' of all three cited brother-brother dramatic relationships -- the younger sibling is the smarter of the two, the older starts out as/tries to be the physical protector of the two. The most straight-up example of this dynamic is Numb3rs, where Charlie and Don are pretty much set in their roles -- I doubt that we'll ever see Charlie shoot a bad guy to save Don, instead, he always uses his brain to help save his big brother (I admit to the possibility of being wrong). Supernatural also tends more toward this side of the scale -- Sam is the victim more often than not, the researcher more often than not, the one who went to college (each of the younger siblings is spot-lit in their series for 'having gone away to an important school' -- Charlie to Princeton at thirteen, Sam to Stanford, River to the Academy at a young age, Michael to Princeton).

Prison Break and Firefly each take a slightly different approach. While it's implied in Prison Break that Lincoln took care of the younger Michael, in the series itself, Michael is the rescuer of his older brother (who does still try to protect Michael, though Michael has, so far, always had it enough under control not to need Lincoln's help). In Firefly, we start out with an older brother-protector/younger sibling-protected dynamic but, by the end of the series (and into the movie), the roles have pretty much equalized, with River being the more proactive fighter.
( Spoilers for all four shows )