Birdwings

Last night I finally watched the Doctor Who movie with Paul McGann, which I've had on my watch pile for a while and postponed because I needed a break after the exhausted end of the Moffat era. I was also expecting it to be of questionable merit, and it was, but it was also very fun. Mostly because it was so stupidly over the top. The whole Frankenstein-intercut regeneration and resulting mirror scene was so try-hard it was rather cute.

The script was clunky. I know the basic lore, and was still astonished by all the drab info-dumps cluttering the script. I can't imagine what a fresh audience was supposed to take away from this, but obviously it didn't work.

The TARDIS set was cool beyond cool. Absolutely the best it has ever looked of what I've seen. Also, compared to the modern show playing coy with the interior, this one just dove right into the place. It also made sense of why the Doctor, finding trouble as he does, didn't burn through all his lives in about 100 years, because this version is an actual vast ship one can picture him living in very contentedly. Wonderful use of 90s TV movie budget.

Also looking great was Paul McGann, the most beautiful Doctor ever. The pre-Raphaelite curls, the sad eyes, the Michelangelo's Next Top Model semi-shirtlessness, the dressy attire. He made the perfect objet d'art, and more seriously, tried his darnedest to sell the script. ( I'll cut the rest for old spoilers and for length )

To do list, for reference...

Two more episodes of Doctor Who to finish out series 9. I'm gonna pace myself through that.

Meanwhile, breaking that up with a rewatch of Teen Wolf, 3B. I'm pretty much writing this installment in order, so I watch an episode, sketch it out, and then move forward. While keeping an eye out for dropped plot threads and vanishing characters.

Four scenes of Sidelined, chapter two, are waiting to get finished. It'll be a lot shorter than the first chapter. Gotta cobble that together when the motivation hits.

There was a copy of Highlander: The Raven on YouTube, and I was planning to get to it next, but it appears to have been taken down since. This is a shame, as I am seeking a reentry point to the distracting cheer of fannish conversation (here or on Discord). Sigh. I will have to strategize.

Viewing: The original 1940 film Gaslight has been uploaded to YouTube so I watched that this week. It would have been better with a more subtle and charismatic actor playing the husband, because he was too villainous even when he was supposed to be persuasive. However, the core concept was very frightening to watch, and lent the film greater suspense than I expected.

Meanwhile, it took until Series Eight, which has a weak reputation, for me to get the version of Doctor Who I always secretly wanted, with the towering toxicity of a Doctor/companion dynamic on overdrive. Twelve and Clara are insane about each other, and every second is riveting. I am eager to see how it all shakes out and am enjoying Capaldi's Doctor so much. The Doctor being older just works so well for me. It's like the story has finally clicked for me. This is also the first time in watching where I have felt really keen to go back and check out the classic run to get all the lore that feeds into this.

Cooking: I have a lot of random ingredients in my pantry, so as I reorganized everything I have decided to select one item at a time and figure out what to use it in. So one randomly regifted cup of red rice got made into Cajun red rice. Honestly, I see no meaningful difference between red and brown rice, so that part was a little whatever, but the dish was tasty.

Reading: I was in an antique shop this week which had old paperbacks for 50 cents each, and I scooped up a few. I'm extremely done with literary fiction for the moment, as every damn one published seems to require a downer ending to prove its worthiness or something. So I grabbed two pulpy romantic suspense (also called gothic) novels, one Inspector Finch mystery (which is apparently gothic-adjacent), one historical novel by Daphne Du Maurier (The Glass-Blowers) and two works of science fiction (2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke and Dragonsdawn by Anne McCaffrey).

I read Dragonflight when I was about fourteen, and was so impressed by the time travel portion that I forgave it all else. I also never read another Pern novel because I didn't want to spoil the effect with subpar sequels (I was very nervous about sequels growing up, which I think carried forward into my enjoyment of cancelled TV - you can't screw up the ending if there isn't one). I have no idea if it would hold up.

But at least I have a stack of books which might qualify as escapist in some way or another.

Rory is a continuous delight, as is the Amy/Rory relationship. I was super-happy with 'The God Complex.' My first introduction to the Doctor was 'The Curse of Fenric' when I was thirteen, and the closer the Doctor gets to that alien quality - devious, manipulative, cold enough to tear his companion down when necessary and with enough genuine goodness to build her back up again and earn her forgiveness afterward - the happier I am.

Also, 'The Girl Who Waited' was an all-around tragedy which actually followed through on its logic. I was so sure warrior!Amy was going to perish helping the "real" Amy and Rory return to the TARDIS, handily solving the problem of having two Amys, but no, they really went there. The Doctor closed the door in her face and it was brutal and amazing. Matt Smith is a pleasure to watch even in the weaker episodes, and is closer to my ideal of the Doctor than Tennant ever was.

I am gonna say that 12 Monkeys has spoiled me for a lot of stuff on this show: Time travel twistiness and heroic sacrifice to restore the timeline? Time travelers discovering they are related to each other and learning to be a family? I found it all more resonant on that show. The entire River Song plotline did not work for me at all. Not her, her relationship and chemistry with the Doctor, and not her backstory and the fallout from it, or her motivations for anything. Really antiquated spoilers to follow.

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Pretty enjoyable. Liked Matt Smith a lot, and I think I prefer him to Tennant overall. He's more low key and that makes him believably eccentric. Tennant did an amazing job with the Doctor's tragic and alien sides, but when playing comedy he tended to be more manic and hammy than I like. So that's an upside here, as is Moffat being way more interested in fitting time travel into the narrative. Grand finale was still an overload of deus ex machina but I'm starting to accept that as just how it goes with this show.

I deeply appreciate the fact that Moffat seems to actually like England as a landscape. With Davies, I got the impression he was fond of London and couldn't care less about what might take place in rural environs unless alien planets were involved. I liked the use of small villages, the ever present greenery and the fairytale elements, the visit to Stonehenge with River Song on a white horse. Visually, this was right up my street.

For some reason, I never quite connected with Amy. I liked her, but right to the end I struggled to get any sense of what her inner life was like - which might have been deliberate, given the reveal about her memories, but since her imagination was integral to the entire season I wish I had felt more strongly about her, with more of a Labyrinth vibe to her introduction. Actually, now I want fic where Amy Pond meets Sarah Williams.

*Goes to check tags*

No such luck.

Rory fared better despite having less screentime, and two companions going steady made for an interesting dynamic with the Doctor, especially since there was no love triangle. I do wish Rory had been played less for comedy, because he was given some fantastic dramatic scenes, but c'est la vie. I still liked him.

There was only one total faceplant of an episode, that being 'Victory of the Daleks.' Balderdash, I say (and will probably never have the opportunity to say again). Otherwise the season was quite solid. Some things I would have wanted to see get more development (like the entire Pandorica scenario, and Vincent Van Gogh having visions - oh for a historical companion!) but in general I was satisfied. There was a happy increase in time traveling concepts, pretty much every episode landed squarely in the fun category and I now know who the Ponds are. Plus, it's always a pleasure to have Iain Glen on screen.

I think I'm basically done with Stargate Atlantis for now. It's maintaining its entertainment quality and showing a willingness to mess with the status quo and I actually care about the characters a great deal - what they've done with Ford has given him a very interesting and sad arc, and if there's one thing I've discovered from the current discourse about Doctor Who, it's that I really enjoy tragic-heroic storytelling, where doing great things comes with a terrible price and yet those things are done anyway. I like doomed soldiers, ergo I actually liked the Donna storyline even to its former conclusion, and liked the Rose storyline until RTD decided to paste on a happy ending and am now fascinated by poor broken Ford trying to prove himself even as he descends into madness. It's not really a right or wrong reaction, and it feels pointless to elaborate because it's like preferring chocolate or vanilla and here I am choosing coffee over both.

I'm looking forward to continuing SGA, but since I don't want to be paying for Hulu forever (which at the pace I watch TV, is all too likely), I'm adding it to my DVD wishlist instead and turning my focus to other stuff which I haven't made up my mind about yet.

Another expiring notice, this time for White Collar, whose first episode was extremely rote and failed to keep my interest. So I finally watched the second half of the two parter and it was a lot better. Liked both leads more, appreciated the happy marriage, the Kate storyline looks a little more interesting than first glance and the jokes were less over the top and better integrated into the world. I want to compare it to The Blacklist, only for white collar crime - and actually good, though being better than The Blacklist is a low bar to clear.

Went Christmas shopping and discovered my local used bookstore has a well hidden DVD shelf, which is an exciting development. I grabbed a nice copy of Roman Holiday for myself and will hope for some nice TV shows to get liquidated there as well.

I was mostly impressed with this season. It was certainly the most consistent of the ones I've seen. ( Read more... )

I'm five posts away from a hundred posts, so any excuse is a good one. ( Read more... )