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...namely, registering for my classes.
Naturally I've still got a bunch of other stuff to do, but here, have some time-wasting discussion.
Naturally I've still got a bunch of other stuff to do, but here, have some time-wasting discussion.
I’ve not the time to write seven-page meta on every single Who serial I’ve been watching (though I’ve been dedicating quite a lot of text to “The Impossible Planet”/“The Satan Pit” and Pyramids of Mars), so here be a few quick thoughts on what I’ve been watching thus far. Covers Doctors One through Five and bits of New School.
Things I've yet to do: shower and dress, practice my poem for tonight, work on my English presentation on I don't know what, edit Chapter 1 of "The Memory Always Lies", work on Church On Time fic, possibly get a bit of sleep.
On a non-fannish note, I should really try to branch out into music that is not weird electronica what no one's ever heard of. It makes the construction of fanmixes much harder and one's musical crack habit much more expensive.
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------ Six serials in and I still don’t hate Adric the way I thought I was supposed to. (The fact that I’m generally ignoring the existence of Four to Doomsday helps, I think.) I mean, yeah, Adric’s a bit whiny and a bit needy, and he’s very much the attention-seeker, but he’s also, you know, fifteen-ish. His behavior’s understandable, considering his age and origins, and a bit of my own experience tells that high intelligence does not equal emotional maturity. And considering that he practically adopts the Doctor and Romana as parents, why wouldn’t he be approval-seeking?
I strongly suspect that, like the “companions do nothing but scream” trope and the Brigadier’s efficacy, some of the Adric-hate is the doing of old fanboys who I should have stopped listening to long ago. This also might have something to do with my tendency to see the potential in a character, and fault the material for not living up to that potential, rather than faulting the character him/herself (see: general attitude towards the CSI franchise). Ah well.
A related point: Warrior’s Gate is actually a bit good, and yet I never hear anyone talk about it. Hmm. Also the presence of cloisters in the TARDIS makes no sense whatsoever to me and harks uncomfortably to the TV Movie TARDIS, which I was not fond of no matter what anyone says. But I don’t know if I want to or even am able to argue that point, especially since I’m pretty sure the cloisters are never mentioned again except in the form of the Cloister Bell (which I find equally nonsensical, but whatever).
- Claws of Axos becomes much better once I’ve seen more Three, Jo, Benton, and Yates. It’s still not perfect by a long shot, but at least I can tell where their behavior fits in to their general character continuum. Also, after lots and lots of grainy videos I’m really coming to appreciate the sharpness of the DVD image. :D
- Speaking of Axos (and The Silurians), nobody in television in the seventies apparently knew jack about nuclear power and how it functions. But then, nobody in television today knows jack about nuclear power and how it functions, so this doesn’t really surprise me. Yes, 24, I am looking very strongly at you.
- Sarah Jane is the only companion that Three failed to get in go-go boots. I’ll forgive him since he did get her in a swimsuit, but I believe it is Ten’s solemn duty to rectify his predecessor’s oversight. Get crackin’, Martian boy.
- You know, I was going to make a snide comment about how this series consistently fails to deal with decompression when a character is in outer space (which came to mind during Five’s spacewalk in Four to Doomsday, where he wore only a helmet), and how that’s the one bit of Skience that irks me even though I can deal with most of the others, but apparently a little research tells me that explosive decompression is a myth and someone ejected into space would die primarily of asphyxia. There’s also the risks of deoxygenation of the blood and tissue, lung collapse, ice in the respiratory tract and non-explosive decompression sickness, but not explosive decompression. Huh. Learn something new every day.
Of course, that doesn’t make Five’s spacewalk any more plausible, though you could probably work something out with the respiratory bypass system mentioned in Pyramids of Mars to account for the lack of deoxygenation, unconsciousness, et al. But it makes that scene at the end of “The Satan Pit” a bit less problematic, given that the cabin window was probably open for less than thirty seconds.
- It is ridiculous how in love I am with Evil of the Daleks. I’ve been spending an inordinate amount of time with the reconstructions, and while it does suck a bit not to have a visual to go with the audio, the script is just so excellent that I can content myself with listening to the actors speak it.
- While I was very fond of The Deadly Assassin when I first saw it, and I still like it to an extent, the portrayal of Gallifrey really, really seems odd now that I’ve seen things like The War Games and The Three Doctors (the former more than the latter). Considering how afraid the Doctor and the War Chief were of the Time Lords, and how emphatic the other Doctors were that they Were Not Ever Going Back, the sheer ineffectuality of Gallifrey seems off. It would have worked well if we’d never seen Gallifrey before, but as it is, it feels inconsistent.
- I really, really want there to be Third Doctor/Section Leader Elizabeth Shaw fic. With a really, really domme-ish Liz. I don’t know if I’d want to read it. I definitely don’t want to write it. I just…want very badly for it to exist. Someone please tell me I am not alone in this.
- I keep trying to make it through The Time Monster and then getting bored and going to go do something else. I mean, I know it’s got the Master in it and Jo Being Awesome and Benton engaged in Thrilling Heroics and subtext and such, but…I don’t know. It’s just not doing anything for me.
I’m very amused, however, that by Episode 3 the Doctor has already flirted with Dr. Ingram enough that she tells him to call her Ruth. Three, you frilly little slutboi, you. (I maintain that all this flirting is due to emotional damage from that time the Time Lords stole the Doctor’s husband, yes.)
- Castrovalva is made of awesome, if only for the moment where Peter Davison channels Patrick Troughton. Of course, there’s also the Doctor getting hauled around in a box and generally being panicky and confused, and Tegan being all bossy and protective, and secondary characters that I actually like/care about even if their hats are very silly.
Also Ainley!Master is a bit camp but that’s okay. And for some reason the ending, with Castrovalva collapsing around him and the Castrovalvans dragging him back into the wreckage, really freaks me out.
- Sutekh has climbed up there with the Celestial Toymaker, the Vocs, and the War Lord on the list of favorite old-school villains and ones which I would very much like to bring back. This is almost entirely due to his voice, which makes lines that would normally be very kitschy sound good.
- “Human Nature”/“Family of Blood”, “Blink”, and “Utopia” may get all the press and fandom love, but my S3 re-viewings still point to “Gridlock” as one of the high points of the series. The script’s sharp, the far-future Earth culture seems distinctive, there’s a refreshing lack of godhood on the Doctor’s part, and there are Macra. Any shout-out, however passing, to Two’s era is a good thing. I’d say ‘any time the script writers remember there was an old series is a good thing’, but then I start thinking about “School Reunion” again and I get all sulky and irritated.
- Curse of Peladon is to Three/Jo what City of Death is to Four/Romana, in that they spend the entire serial being adorable and playing off one another beautifully and generally making it really difficult for me to think of them in a strictly platonic context. This is the last I’m going to ramble about the Third Doctor era at the moment, really I promise.
- I think one of the reasons I love Doctor Who so much, especially the old school, is that stories like The Mind Robber can exist and make complete sense in the show’s universe. And it can actually be taken seriously, rather than being straight outta the crackpipe. That first episode, with Jamie and Zoe lost in “nowhere” and the Doctor trying not to venture outside, is flat-out chilling.
- I still haven’t seen The War Machines. This bothers me.
Things I've yet to do: shower and dress, practice my poem for tonight, work on my English presentation on I don't know what, edit Chapter 1 of "The Memory Always Lies", work on Church On Time fic, possibly get a bit of sleep.
On a non-fannish note, I should really try to branch out into music that is not weird electronica what no one's ever heard of. It makes the construction of fanmixes much harder and one's musical crack habit much more expensive.
anxious
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