To Mock a Killing Bird

My sister called me on Saturday night - "Are you watching SciFi?"

Of course I was.

It was The Lost Treasure of the Grand Canyon, starring Shannon Doherty (henceforth referred to as "That Talentless Whore" or "TTW") and none other than Michael Shanks, Stargate's Daniel Jackson.

When my sister and I lived together (for several years before she committed marriage last summer), one of our favorite things was watching Daniel Jackson getting the crud kicked out of him on SG1. Until he went off for a year and came back less nerdy and more butch. Liked him better nerdy. But even though Daniel changed, we still loved the Shanks.

So my sister and I indulged in at least a half hour of ranking on The Lost Treasure of the Grand Canyon. It was one of those made for SciFi movies that specialize in cheap location shots, one or two name stars, two or three vaguely recognizable supporting actors, lots of really bad production values, except for one really good CGI monster, and a script that I'm pretty sure is produced in a sweatshop somewhere outside of Toronto where dozens of teenage fanboys are forced to copy/past lines out of old Flash Gordon and Land of the Lost scripts. I mean there's just so much to mock. And my sister and I do it so well. "Do you suppose, as an actor, you find yourself playing second-fiddle to That Talentless Whore and suddenly find yourself thinking 'Gee, maybe Dad was right. I should have had a backup plan'?" "Who's the woman with the blond hair? It looks like she's wearing a hat made out of a giant Cinnabon." "Shanks is looking good. Very scruffy." "Yeah, the hanging suspenders look good, but the boots are a little precious. Nice Aztec accent though."

It was kind of nice to have a good old-fashioned mockery session with my sister. I don't think we've done it since she got married. But we're like two old vaudevillians. Once we start that old routine, we just fall right back into the old timing.