Seriously MI-5?!?!

Good ol' Netflix suggested MI-5 to me, and since I'm going to London soon (have I really not posted about that?) I decided to give the BBC show a go.

I don't have the most discerning taste in entertainment- as in I don't usually care about the plot holes or blatantly repeated themes in shows. I mean, the more I watch a show the more I pick up on them but they don't usually bother me and/or make me stop watching the show-which is still half true in this case.

Basically it's your run-of-the-mill spy show- a five-ish person team made up of the boss, a couple of actual field operatives, a tech guy or two and a person who does the behind-the-scenes deep research are all working together to keep Britain safe.

Spoiler Alert
So, if you ever plan to watch the show or just don't want to know a huge plot point for it, don't continue reading.

They kill everyone off- seriously. No, seriously; and not just the red shirts (which is kinda what we've all come to expect). I'm in Volume (Season) 8, episode 4 (thank goodness there are only 12 episodes left) and they have killed off in one way or another at least 15 main characters. Some of these have actually died-been shot and whatnot-but a few of them have retired, burned out, gone rogue, or have been outed by a conspiracy and basically burned by their own government. The only original person from the first episode is the main boss guy- who is okay, I guess, but not really who I would've chosen as the sole survivor for eight seasons.

I mean, I get that spying is hard- people die and get burned out every day and there's high turnover. But how in the heck are you supposed to connect with a show if they keep changing the dad-gum characters seriously every episode? Especially when you just get used to the new main character and then he gets killed off and you're left with a chick you hate who the writers suddenly try to make likable.

I feel bad for the guys who have to make the title sequence- although it's more revealing for who's dead and who's alive than any other show I've ever watched. Just a side note about that- they tried to change the name of the show about Volume 4 to Spooks before they thankfully realized that that at least was just too far.

It does change things as far as suspense goes-truly wondering if the heroes really are going to live or die. However, it brings things to the other end of the scale to where, instead of saying: "They can't die. They're a main character" to "They'll probably die. They're a main character". It's an odd paradox- one I'm glad I'm almost done with in another 12 episodes.

Why am I finishing it? Because I've come this far and although I'm not really invested in the people per say- because they've pretty much all left- I have this strange compulsion to finish the show.

So maybe they know what they're doing after all?

Seriously.

I need a vacation...companion?

Even though my 5th grade teacher told me at my brother's wedding reception in December that I need to do more writing it took until today to actually write another post. This is probably mostly because I just got a subscription to Netflix...like two months ago. And I haven't written a blog post in like 8 months...I'll possibly do the calculations to what stopped me 8 months ago and let you all know what I discover. Or probably not, honestly. Thanks for reading this post anyway.

So I've been at my job a year now and lately I've been thinking about going on a hardcore vacation- I mean like a week or two to Florida or a cruise or to Europe or SOMEthing.

Can I just say that it's really hard to do when you're single and don't have a go-to person for vacations? I mean, there are people who you would love to go on vacation with, but they're too poor or don't have any time or have children or school. And you can't really pull them into it with the "You're married to me and we're going" phrase.

Especially when the person who would most likely go with you started doing pre-reqs for her master's program in January just as you started considering taking a vacation, meaning you can't go if it's during the days she has classes. And now she's poorer than she was before because she has to pay tuition and such. Sigh.

And then, of course, there has to be crazy staff changes at work, leaving you the only veteran to take the front lines for getting everything done and your boss gets crazy eyes when you ask her if you can take a week off. Or any time right now, for that matter.

Now, I know some of you independent types are saying, "Well, why don't you just go by yourself? You can do it!" To that I say: I definitely could but that's not a vacation for me. I don't want to go somewhere just to go somewhere-to explore something by myself. I want to be able to share it with someone- to talk about it- to experience it with another person.

Bottom line is I'm going to have to push my burned-out mind a little further- until we can get new people sufficiently trained and I can either find someone to go with me or just brave it and go by myself.

Or maybe become a traveling companion like Jo is in Little Women to her aunt. And then when she dies she'll leave me her giant house and I can turn it into a school with my German professor husband.

I need a vacation.