Erik and His Pointless Blog

The Odyssey Reading Club -- Entry 5 -- Glossary & Cast of Characters for Book II

2012-01-30T17:28:00.000-08:00

Second verse, same as the first. Far fewer entries this time around, though, since we've already established the main characters and quite a few of the references. (Here's the post for Book I. Also, there are several characters named and introduced in this part that have no source except Homer, so you know as much as anyone else. Good feeling, isn't it?)

Rosy Fingered Dawn: Along with its variants, possibly the most commonly used and remembered phrase in Homer. Dawn was, well, the goddess of the Dawn, obviously enough. Mainly I just wanted to call out our first "rosy fingered dawn" reference.

Themis: A minor deity who was goddess of divine law, order, and custom. In this capacity, she was evoked in assemblies.

Tyro, Alcmene: Legendary beauties who bore sons to gods who disguised themselves as their husbands. Poseidon slept with Tyro while in her husband's form and she bore him twin sons. Impregnated by Zeus while in the guise of her husband, Alcmene bore his son Heracles. (We're using Greek here, not Latin--so no Hercules.)

Furies (Erinyes): Three (possibly more--sources differ) ancient, chthonic goddesses of retribution and vengeance. They pursued and tormented those who violated the most sacred natural laws, mainly dealing with family and the breaking of oaths. Interestingly, in Aeschylus' Orestia, they pursued Orestes after he killed his mother Clytemnestra until the newer Olympian gods intervened and instituted the justice of man.

Mentor: Probably should have included this one in Book I. Mentor was an old, dear friend of Odysseus who was given control of Odysseus' household in his absence. His name passed directly into English.

This book also contains the famous story of Penelope weaving the burial shroud and then picking it apart every night in order to delay the suitors.

The Odyssey Reading Club -- Entry 4 -- Thoughts Questions & Musings on Book I

2012-01-25T17:08:00.000-08:00

Now that you've finished (or nearly finished) Book I of The Odyssey, I thought I should post some questions and ideas here--maybe get a conversation going in the comments section, over on Twitter (#odysseyreadingclub) or on our new Facebook page (just search for the Odyssey Reading Club). So now, in no order except for that which they occur to me, my thoughts on Book I:

First of all, it positively flew by, didn't it? It's been so long since I've read Homer, and I've never had the leisure to read him in such discrete chunks. It was lovely. (Also fortunate, since I've read 3 translations just to make sure I could answer any questions anyone has. [Read: because I'm a huge nerd.])

Secondly, where the hell is Odysseus? This is the first work in the Western canon about one man as opposed to a situation or a group, and he can't even be bothered to show up for Book I? I raise it as a joke, but it is an interesting thing to ponder, especially considering (spoiler alert) it'll be around March before he finally enters the book proper. Obviously a classical audience (and even a modern one, to some extent) would be expected to know something of the Ithakan king before Homer starts telling his tale, so he doesn't need to start off by describing him in great detail. But he doesn't even pop in to say Hello! What we do get, though, is a lot of people (gods are people, too) talking about him, in glowing terms no less. I wonder if we're being set up here--"Come, listen to all the wonderful things everyone has to say about Odysseus so that I can catch you off guard when I introduce him later." Worth thinking about.

Zeus' focus on the Aegisthus/Clytemnestra/Agamemnon/Orestes story is rather instructive, I think. [Agamemnon, the greatest of the Greek kings, leader of the forces at Troy, comes home only to be killed by his long-suffering wife Clytemnestra and her lover, Aegisthus. His son Orestes then proceeds, after a few years, to kill his mother and step-father.] This story is one of the most famous in Greek myth and is part of a larger cycle of tragedy initiated by Agamemnon's grandfather. Essentially, the family is cursed. However, Zeus here focuses very explicitly on the elements of the story that parallel those of Odysseus' own life and family. Instead of taking a lover in his absence, as Clytemnestra does, Penelope remains devoted to her missing (presumed dead) husband. So, instead of Aegisthus, we have a bunch of suitors who hang around and won't go away. Instead of a vengeful Orestes, we have a mopey Telemachus. The scenario could be the same, but, as Zeus points out, it is the actions of the people involved that have created very different results. Penelope here is the center refusing to give way.

Athena and Zeus both praise Orestes' actions, however, as showing manliness of a sort, and Athena desperately wishes Telemachus weren't quite so passive. Her exhortation seems to have some effect on Telemachus, although by the end of Book I he hasn't quite resolved to go in search of news about his father. It's interesting to note that Telemachus apparently doubts his paternity (or, at least, doubts whether or not he's anything like his father--that's always been unclear to me), but his uncanny ability to see through Athena's disguise to the divinity underneath proves to us, that he truly is the son of the clever Odysseus. Whether he is truly able yet to take his rightful place as his father's successor as King of Ithaca seems somewhat doubtful, though he definitely starts on that journey.

So, just in Book I, we have possible themes of the power of storytelling versus reality, freedom of ethical choice versus character as fate, and the process of growing up and accepting both the powers and burdens of adulthood.

*******************************************************************************

Now for some random quotes I found pretty:

"Of these adventures, Muse, daughter of Zeus, / tell us in our time, lift the great song again." lines 17-18, Fitzgerald translation

I love this line in almost all translations, but this is my favorite, with its sense of being a story told since time immemorial and passed down even to us in this day.

"Who, on his own, / has ever really known who gave him life?" lines 250-1, Fagles translation

As true today as it was 2000+ years ago. We never really know our parents, do we? Not as people--and our children never really know us, in turn.

"It is always the latest song, the one that echoes last / in the listeners' ears, that people praise the most." lines 404-5, Fagles

And we moderns think we invented novelty and the constant need for something different and exciting. Silly us.

"Now the suitors turned to dance and song, / to the lovely beat and sway, / waiting for dusk to come upon the there... / and the dark night came upon them, lost in pleasure." lines 480-4, Fagles

I just think that's purty. Love the "beat and sway"--so musical and fitting.

********************************************************************************

So, what did you think? Did I miss your favorite line, or not pick up on some theme you thought important? Let me know--this book, like all books, great or modest, is better when discussed with friends.

#odysseyreadinclub on Twitter

Odyssey Reading Club on Facebook

The Odyssey Reading Club -- Entry 3 -- Gloss on Book I

2012-01-14T18:29:00.000-08:00

Okay, since many of you are (I hope) coming to this little project (#odysseyreadingclub on Twitter!) with minimal experience reading epic poetry, I thought doing something like a gloss on each book at the start of the reading period might not be a bad idea.¹ Epic poetry can be challenging even when read attentively, simply because it doesn't follow the same rules the we expect from modern narrative fiction. So, just in case you need a bit of a guide, here's what happens in Book I of Homer's Odyssey:²

Lines 1-21:³ The poem opens with an invocation to the Muse and a setting of the scene as it stands now.⁴ Here, Homer⁵ is asking the Muse to sing of Odysseus, who, after sacking Troy has been unable to get home and is currently (as of the poem's opening) stuck alone on an island with nymph Kalypso, his companions having been killed by the Sun God Helios for eating his sacred cattle. He's been unable to get home because Poseidon is angry with him, but all the other gods pity and admire him.

Lines 22-95: Fade in on Mt. Olympus. Poseidon is away receiving offerings from a far-flung people. Zeus is wondering aloud why humans blame the gods for their fates, when it is their own error which brings about their destruction. In the sea god's absence, Athene takes the opportunity to discuss Odysseus' plight, asking Zeus to intervene and allow Odysseus to go home. Zeus responds that it was all Poseidon's doing that Odysseus isn't home yet, including a reference to the slaying of Polyphemus, which is the deed that initially caused Poseidon to turn his wrath upon Odysseus. The scene ends with Athene asking, and receiving, permission to send Hermes to Odysseus and Kalypso to reveal the gods' intention that Odysseus be allowed to go home. She also resolves to go to Ithaca to inspire Odysseus' son, Telemachus, to go out and look for his father and find word of him.

Lines 96-324: Fade in on Ithaca. Athena disguises herself as a man and visits the palace at Ithaca to speak with Telemachus, claiming to know his father and to have seen him since the fall of Troy. There she finds the many suitors for the hand of Penelope, Odysseus' wife--Odysseus is presumed dead by almost everyone, and they want Penelope to choose among them for her new husband. In the meantime, they're generally feasting and abusing the rules of hospitality. Athena (in a disguise that Telemachus eventually sees through, though he doesn't say so) encourages Telemachus to become the man he can be and to go out into the world to find word of his father, naming people that he should visit first. He thanks her and she leaves. He then sits with the suitors, with a greater spirit that he had before.

Lines 323-364: Penelope, hearing the song the bard is singing of Troy, comes downstairs from her chamber to ask that he sing something that doesn't remind her of Odysseus. Telemachus, much to his mother's surprise, rebukes her for focusing on her own woes and reminds her that he is now head of the household. Penelope returns to her room and cries herself to sleep thinking of her lost husband.

Lines 365-440: Telemachus silences the suitors' competing claims to be with Penelope by telling that that tonight will be the last night they feast together under his roof. If they wish to continue doing so, they can do it at their own houses. The suitors, led by Antinous and Eurymachus talk with Telemachus and wonder where his new-found courage comes from, asking about the stranger (Athena) they saw him talking with earlier. Telemachus, not wanting to reveal that it was the goddess, lies and repeats the false information Athena had told him. He also withholds the fact that she had given him news of his father and encouraged him to seek him out. The suitors return to their revels and then go home to bed. Telemachus, assisted by his long-time nurse Eurykleia (originally purchased by Laertes, Odysseus' father), goes to bed as he ponders the mission Athena had encouraged him to take.

N.B.--Scholars refer to the first 4 books of the Odyssey as the Telemachy, because they generally tell the story of Telemachus' quest for news of his father.

1. I don't need to say that reading this is no substitute for actually reading it, do I? I mean, Homer's poetry is some of the greatest ever written. I'm just some guy typing in my pajamas.

2. I'm going to do my best to refrain from commenting on what I think about the text in these gloss posts. These are simply meant to help you follow the plot, as it were. My ideas and opinions will be included in separate posts.

3. A lot of footnotes in this post it seems. Anyway, this is one is to indicate that exact numbering may be difficult as these things vary by edition sometimes (though there is a general agreement), but also because I may simply be a little off in deciding when one section ends and another begins. As I said, this is a guide--a guide does not give truth, but rather opinion.

4. Invoking some sort of divine power to sing its song through the poet, with the poet as essentially a vessel of the muse, is a tradition that appears first (to my knowledge) in Homer (cf. "Sing, Goddess, the wrath of Peleus' son Achilles" in the Illiad), but is picked up by almost every major epic written thereafter, from Virgil's Aeneid all the way through Milton's Paradise Lost and beyond. One can even see it echoed in the title of Nabokov's autobiography, Speak, Memory. An interesting (well, to me at least) exception is Dante's Divine Comedy, which has no such invocation.

5. I'm going to call the poet Homer just for simplicity's sake. Whether or not Homer ever existed (he probably didn't), that name has been attached to this poem, along with several others, for some 2500 years. Let's not break with tradition merely for the sake of accuracy.

The Odyssey Reading Club -- Entry 2 -- Glossary & Cast of Characters for Book I

2012-01-09T18:07:00.001-08:00

If you're not totally immersed in the myths and legends of the Ancient Greeks, some references in Homer's Odyssey may be lost on you. Some editions come with notes, of either the end or foot variety, but to save a lot of flipping (and Googling), I'm going to list here some of the main characters and allusions that Homer employs in Book I. (N.B.: Since Homeric Greek has its own alphabet {similar, but not identical, to the alphabet of Modern Greek} all names listed are transliterations and my be spelled differently in your edition.)

Muse--One of nine sisters, daughters of Zeus, and goddesses of various arts. The Muse invoked by the poet is almost certainly Calliope, the Muse of Epic Poetry.

Odysseus--King of Ithaca, and our protagonist. He spent 10 years fighting alongside his Greek allies at the Siege of Troy, and then took 10 years trying to get home again. Homer's Odyssey is the story of that journey home. He is often referred to as the "man of many ways" or "the man of twists and turns" to emphasize that he is a man who lives by his wits.

Ithaca--An island in what is now called the Ionian Sea, on the west coast of Greece. It was one of many Greek city-states (some others being Mycenae and Sparta) that banded together to sack Troy.

Troy--A great city in Asia Minor, modern-day Turkey. It was besieged for 10 years by the collective Greece forces before finally falling.

Olympus--The highest mountain in Greece, and home of the Olympian Gods of the Ancient World.

Zeus--King of the Olympians. God of the sky and wielder of the thunderbolt.

Athena--Daughter of Zeus. Goddess of wisdom and craft and just war. Patron Goddess of Athens, and of Odysseus, whose skill, wisdom, and genius she admires most among all mortals. Often referred to as "grey-eyed" or as "the grey-eyed goddess." Also known as Pallas Athena, or just Pallas, an alternative name for her whose origins are murky, at best, but generally involve Athena accidentally killing a childhood friend, Pallas, and then taking his/her name as an honorific. (Homer possibly uses it when he does to fill out the meter of the particular line.)

Hermes--Son of Zeus. God of Travelers, Shepherds, Thieves, and Messenger of the Gods. Often given the epithet Argeiphontes, a reference to a time that he killed a giant named Argos. Some translations go for the simpler "giant-killer." He also escorts the souls of the dead to the Underworld.

Poseidon--Brother of Zeus. God of the Sea and of Earthquakes. Harbors a grudge against Odysseus and thus delays his return home to Ithaca.

Kalypso--Daughter of Atlas. A nymph/goddess who lives on the island Ogygia and who delays Odysseus for several years, wanting to keep him as a companion in her solitary life.

Agamemnon--King of Mycenae, greatest of the Greek city-states. Leader of the Greek forces at Troy. Murdered upon his homecoming by his wife Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus.

Orestes--Son of Agamemnon. He avenged the killing of his father by murdering both his mother and her lover.

Polyphemus--Greatest and most fearsome of the Cyclops, sons of Poseidon. He is blinded by Odysseus, who then incurs Poseidon's wrath.

Helios--The charioteer of the sun. He kept a special flock of cows with Odysseus' men foolishly killed and ate, incurring his anger.

Achaeans--A general terms for the various Greeks. Also called the Argives.

Telemachus--Son of Odysseus. He's grown from birth to manhood in his father's absence.

Penelope--Queen of Ithaca, mother of Telemachus, and wife of Odysseus. Many suitors have come to try to marry Penelope, hoping to inherit the throne of Ithaca, but Penelope has remained faithful to Odysseus. In the meantime, the suitors have been essentially abusing the laws of hospitality (very important in the Ancient world) by lying about all day and eating and drinking everything in sight.

Laertes--Father of Odysseus, and former King of Ithaca.

Menelaus--King of Sparta, brother of Agamemnon, and husband of Helen. It was Helen's abduction by the Trojan prince Paris that led to the Trojan War.

Nestor--King of Pylos, one of the oldest and wisest of the Greek kings who fought at Troy.

Hellas--Greece.

Antinous--One of the leading suitors for Penelope's hand.

Eurymachus--The other leading suitor.

The Odyssey Reading Club -- Entry 1 -- Beginnings

2012-01-04T15:38:00.000-08:00

Glenn Sumi (@glennsumi on Twitter) is a Toronto-based entertainment reporter/critic that I follow on Twitter. He and I have been known to have exchanges about Sondheim and, well, mainly Sondheim. Point is, though, today he made a comment wondering if 2012 would be the year that he finished The Odyssey, one of the two founding works of the Western canon (and, to my mind, the single greatest piece of literature ever). Being the classics nerd that I am, I immediately jumped it and said that I would read it with him, which, due to my inability to do such things by halves, has evolved into what we're calling The Odyssey Reading Club. (#OdysseyReadingClub).

The structure is simple. Beginning January 15th (or now, if you're impatient), we read one book (or chapter, if you're so inclined) of The Odyssey every two weeks, wrapping up with Book XXIV in mid-December. Yes, the pace is a bit slow, but that's what makes it manageable for everyone--even if you've never read any Homer, any epic poetry, or any classics at all, ~15 pages of Homer in 14 days is definitely manageable. So, I'm inviting you now to join in. Grab a copy, and read along. The schedule and a few translation options are below, but, I firmly believe that the power of this book is so great, that it's more important that you read it than how you read it. I will be updating my blog (I promise) with thoughts, questions, and guideposts as we progress, and I encourage you to do the same, whether on Facebook, in the comments here, on your own blog, on Twitter, or, God forbid, on Google Plus.

I encourage you to to listen to the Muse sing of the man of many ways who encountered many hardships and adventures as he returned home from the siege and destruction of Troy.

Schedule

For those of you who really like to plan, here's a schedule of which books are to be finished by what dates:

Book I January 29th

Book II February 12th

Book III February 26th

Book IV March 11th

Book V March 25th

Book VI April 8th

Book VII April 22nd

Book VIII May 6th

Book IX May 20th

Book X June 3rd

Book XI June 17th

Book XII July 1st

Book XIII July 15th

Book XIV July 29th

Book XV August 12th

Book XVI August 26th

Book XVII September 9th

Book XVIII September 23rd

Book XIV October 7th

Book XX October 21st

Book XXI November 4th

Book XXII November 18th

Book XXIII December 2nd

Book XXIV December 16th

And we're done!

A Note on Translation

Classics students and scholars have very strong opinions on translations.* Indeed, some view all translations as inherently inferior to the original. They may have a point, but let's not concern ourselves with that. Ger yourself a decent translation, preferably in poetry as opposed to prose, and dive in.

Some good choices are:

The translation done by Richmond Lattimore published by Harper Perennial is often cited as the most accurate, though that debate will always rage.
Robert Fitzgerald's translation, published by Vintage Classics, has sold over 2 million copies and is praised for its sense of Homer's poetry.
Penguin publishes Robert Fagles' excellent translation that reads like modern English poetry, bringing Homer's world alive for the modern reader.

Here you can find the opening passage of The Odyssey in all three translations. Check it out--maybe one speaks to you in a way that the others don't.

There are other poetical translations, but I think these three are considered to be the main choices. I'll be reading the Fitzgerald to start with, as that's the version I own from my days in college, but I shall very likely be consulting all three of them come December, because I am a huge effing nerd. Prose translations, however accurate they may be, just don't really work for me, though they may for you. There are free prose translations available online and as e-books, so if you're trying to save $10, you could consider those. Turning poetry into prose, however, always strikes me as similar to watching a film made in color in black & white--all the action may be the same, but you lose a great deal of the atmosphere.

Whatever translation you choose, however, the important thing is to read the book. It's survived essentially as is for 2500 years--and there is a reason for that. It's bloody amazing.

*One translation of Homer's Iliad which came out while I was in college, which sought to modernize some of Homer's archaic phrasings, was viewed as having gone too far and was dubbed by several of my professors as the "Yo, Achilles!" translation. They did not mean this as a compliment.

Questions Left Unanswered

2011-05-01T10:21:00.000-07:00

Season 5 (and parts of 4) of the revived Doctor Who raised many questions that we're told Season 6 will pay off. Two episodes in, we've (maybe) gotten some answers, but many more questions have been asked that answered. What follows is nothing more than my subjective compilation of those questions, some of which are probably merely my brain trying to find answers to questions that only I have ever asked. Please feel free to add more in the comments or to shoot them to me via Twitter (@sjcaustenite).

Left over from 4:
1) Who is River Song? Companion? Wife? Other? The Rani? (God, do I wish--I have a soft spot for the Rani.)
2) When did she learn the Doctor's name?
3) When did she receive her sonic screwdriver? [This is one that may never be answered on-screen, as we've only seen her with it near the end of her life, but the next earliest time we see her (judging from the purely reverse chronology--"Time of Angel"/"Flesh & Stone"), she doesn't appear to have it yet.]
4) Is the Silence in "Silence in the Library" meant to refer in any way to the Silents? (Probably coincidence, but you never know.)

New in Season 5:
5) Who is the "good man" that River Song killed to get sent to the Storm Cage? (And if she can leave essentially whenever she wants, why does she stay? She says that she promised someone she would--was it the Doctor?)
6) Does all the blather about "our dreams not needing us" and "the time of angels" actually amount to anything more than atmosphere? (Probably not, but it's always bothered me.)
7) Who built the abandoned TARDIS-like spaceship in "The Lodger?" (6x02 implies that it belongs to the Silence, but they don't build things, they get others to build things for them. Or am I over-thinking this?)
8) Who guided the TARDIS to Amy & Rory's wedding day and caused it to explode?
9) Who's voice was that saying "silence will fall" in the TARDIS?
10) Incidentally, was dealing with the Weeping Angels what earned River her pardon from Storm Cage?

New in Season 6:
11) Who, if anyone, is in the spacesuit that shoots the Doctor? (One assumes that someone is in there since the Doctor says "I know who you are," but that could be wrong.)
12) Why did he/she/it kill the Doctor?
13) Why did the Doctor acquiesce in his own murder and invite Amy, Rory, River, and Canton?
14) What did the Doctor and his murdered discuss when we couldn't hear their conversation?
15) Are the Silents the same as "the silence" from Season 5--if so, what exactly does "Silence will fall" mean? (Grammatically speaking, it doesn't make much sense if the Silents are the silence--plus, it doesn't really fit with the Rosanna's description or the actual silence experienced in "Vampire in Venice.' Or am I nitpicking?)
16) Do the Silents rule other planets through suggestion they way they ruled Earth? (Possibly irrelevant--but not if they are the same as "the silence" and not given the 20 different kinds of alien tech used in the space suit.)
17) Why did the Silent in the bathroom that Amy must tell the Doctor "what he must know and what he must never know?" (What does that even mean? If it's about his death in 2011, how do they know unless they have time travel?)
18) What is the very important role that the Silents appear to be preparing Amy for when the TARDIS arrives to rescue her?
19) Who is the little girl--is she Amy's daughter, as the picture Amy found at the orphanage suggests, or is it more complicated than that?
20) Does the scanner's reading of Amy's pregnancy reflect a sort of quantum pregnancy due to her time traveling? Or was it caused by the Silents?
21) If the Silents are purged from the Earth beginning in 1969, then why does Amy see one in the desert in 2011?
22) Why are the Silents apparently raising the little girl?
23) Why is the little girl living inside a spacesuit? (Is it necessary for her life support, or is it simply an easier way to take care of her?)
24) How can the little girl regenerate? (And is it the first time she has done so? Is she a Time Lord of some sort?)
25) What the hell was going on with the weirdness in the orphanage, i.e. the weird woman who says that "she's dreaming"--the sliding window in the door that vanishes--and Amy disappearing from a locked room, etc., etc.?
26) How did the Doctor get captured and sent to Area 51 and what really happened between the cliffhanger to parts 1 & 2? (There's a lot that seems to be deliberately left out for reasons other than time compression.)

Any others?

Update: As of the airing of "A Good Man Goes to War," we seem to have answers to some of these. River Song, aka Melody Pond, has stated affirmatively that she is Amy & Rory's daughter. The Doctor seems to have surmised that Melody/River is also the girl in spacesuit that the Silence were raising, perhaps on Kovarian's behalf--she's almost certainly being raised to be a weapon in the endless war against the Doctor. She can regenerate due to her having been conceived while the TARDIS was in the time vortex Why Melody/River would need a spacesuit is still unclear. Amy was seeing "eye-patch lady", now named Madame Kovarian, because Amy wasn't actually Amy--only a flesh doppelganger. Hence, when the scanner tried to determine whether or not Amy was pregnant, it came back with a mixed result.

The Covers & The Pictures: Why You Knew About the Doctor's Death

2011-04-28T16:24:00.000-07:00

First, a warning: this post will contain vital plot details for the Doctor Who episode "The Impossible Astronaut," as well as utterly uninformed, though potentially spoilerish speculation for the rest of Season 6, including "Day of the Moon," which I have not seen.

Second, I'm not going to engage in the on-going debate about whether or not officially released promo materials can be considered spoilers, per se--I generally subscribe to the school that holds that no deliberately released material can be considered a "spoiler," but I hope that people who totally disagree with me on that point will be able to see what I'm trying to suggest.

Now that that's out of the way, let's get on with the show...

This is a story of two "official spoilers," to use a term that's been floating about: The Cover & The Pictures. You know the ones. Doctor Who Magazine did four special covers, one with each of the 4 leads, with the headline "Marked for Death?: One of them WILL die in the amazing season opener*" that came out a few weeks before the premier. Then, released on the day of the UK, US, and Canadian airings, came the pictures released by the BBC, two of which showed what seemed to be impossible--the Eleventh Doctor regenerating.

These two pieces of promotional material led to much sturm and drang in fandom, and I would grant understandably so. Taken together, they led many fans to the stark conclusion that the Doctor would die in the first episode of Season 6. Sure enough, not even 10 minutes in to "The Impossible Astronaut," the Doctor dies. Not just regenerates--dies. Dead. Cremated in a weird version of a Viking funeral on a lake in the American West in 2011. End of story, right? Well, timey-wimeyness rears its head again, and the episode quickly shifts focus to DC and the Silence--but a major plot twist had been ruined for many fans. But you don't destroy a major plot twist like that with released information unless you want it to be known.

Now, here's where I start trying to divine the mind of Moffat--always a dangerous business, so bear with me if NONE of this turns out to have been the case.

I would postulate that Steven Moffat deliberately orchestrated the release of information leading many fans, and I'd imagine not a small number of more causal viewers, to arrive at the conclusion that the Doctor died in the opening episode. Why would he want to ruin the biggest surprise of the opening episode? Why lessen, perhaps even negate, what could have been a tremendously powerful emotional beat in the story? Indeed, an emotional beat that could have been the story?

Because the Doctor's death isn't the point of the story. Watching the episode, I was struck by how quickly the plot moved on from the emotional beat of the Doctor's death. The Moff also gave us a clear indication that his death was not imminent by having the future Doctor be 200 years older than our Doctor. By "spoiling" the Doctor's death with promotional materials, placing it near the very beginning of the story, and stressing that the 11th Doctor still has a few centuries before he had to pack it in, Moffat was telling us, in ways large and small, that the story of the season opener wasn't about the Doctor's death.

It was, rather, essentially a MacGuffin to gather the team together and propel them into their adventure. Sure, it spurs their actions and creates dramatic tension and irony, but it is not what the story is actually about. If the Doctor's death had come as a total surprise, it would have utterly overshadowed everything else about the episode. Rather, I think Moffat wanted to set up the Doctor's death as (and here I speculate) a season-long arc right from the get go, and then quickly shift our focus to the real plot of the episode--a little girl astronaut and some creepy-ass aliens. The Doctor's death is the crack of Season 6--more dramatic and more confusing, hanging like a ghost over the whole series, but it shouldn't be our immediate focus unless Moffat wants it to be. Everything he's done so far has let us know that now is not the time to focus on an event that, given the vagaries of Doctor Who, may never "actually" happen.

*Random thought: generally, British English uses "series" where Americans would use "season," yet DWM here uses "season." I didn't say it was an interesting thought.

Why Every Film Jane Eyre Sucks

2011-04-27T17:15:00.000-07:00

Another Jane Eyre? There have already been, by my very rough count, 3,485 filmed versions of the Charlotte Bronte classic made since the Lumiere brothers first put moving shadows up on a screen--and now director Cary Fukunaga (who apparently saw an over-crowded market and thought, "Me, too!) has added his version to the list. Still, I wanted to see this latest interpretation of the proto-feminist classic, if only to see how badly the screenwriter and director screwed it up.

Does that sound harsh? Let me explain by repeating what almost every film critic (and literary scholar) has said about the book: it is unfilmable. The greatest of Jane Eyre (and it is great, though I wonder sometimes if it's actually good--but that's an essay for another day), almost exclusively arises from two sources: the unique voice of its narrator, Jane; and the enigmatic charm of Mr. Rochester. These two strengths of the novel simply don't translate well to screen, because both are essentially about interiority.

Showing the inner workings of an outwardly placid personality isn't an area in which film often excels. Viewed externally, Jane Eyre is hardly a romantic heroine. Repeatedly described as plain, she is also seen as sullen, self-righteous, and cold--hardly qualities we associate with a romantic (or Romantic) heroine. Yet, because Jane tells us her own story, because we are allowed to glimpse the inner workings of her mind and heart, she is imbued with life, passion, and fire. Jane is possessed of a keen mind and insightful voice which makes her a wonderful first-person narrator--it is the contrast between who we know her to be and how others perceive her that create much of the book's dramatic tension. However, short of just resorting to voice-over every 30 seconds, most of her insight and wit simply doesn't translate from page to screen. In fact, in a rather clumsy attempt to capture that voice, the classic 1944 version, with Orson Welles horribly miscast as Rochester, actually shows pages of the book on screen to supplement the action. Needless to say, it's not 100% effective.

Film would seem more conducive to capturing Mr. Rochester's allure, except for one major point: he's ugly and weird. Well, at least not handsome. His lack of physical beauty is commented on again and again--and yet almost every movie adaptation fills his role with, well, a movie star. Even when he's played by a character actor, he's still far more handsome than written, leading to ridiculous scenes in which Michael Fassbender is told that he's not handsome. Puh-lease. Added to his relative ugliness is Rochester's intense strangeness--he's distant and moody and deeply weird. My favorite scene in the book, where Rochester dresses up as a Gypsy fortune teller for the sole purpose of trying to find out whether Jane likes him, has never been filmed--never. It's simply too bizarre an needy an act, but that's who Rochester is. He's sad and ugly and desperately lonely. Through Jane's eyes as the narrator, his faults are transformed into mysteries. Viewed impartially and unmediated, he's a rather unappealing figure.

An unappealing hero and an unknowable heroine--these are not the makings of romantic cinema. And yet. And yet. The story has spoken to people for generations, precisely because it is such a vivid depiction of the inner workings of the human spirit. It's only natural that filmmakers for generations have tried to capture the book's magic on film. But it's the nature of Jane Eyre's magic that it can't be watched--it has to be experienced.

Oh, how was the movie? Eh, it wasn't bad...but nowhere near as good as the book.

Things I saw at Gallifrey 2011

2011-02-22T14:04:00.000-08:00

I just returned from my second Gallifrey One convention in Los Angeles and boy are my arms tired. Wait...that's not how the joke works, is it? Never mind...

The days blur and the laughs seem to echo endlessly into one great big cacophony of good will, but some things stick in the mind:

Janet Fielding offering to pose for a picture with a Tegan cosplayer and making the girl's convention. * A genuine CBS camera crew (!!!) filming a Dalek attack. * Peter Davison recreating the most iconic moment from "Castrovalva" with a specially made Tom Baker scarf. * A charming and intelligent man dressed as Sarah Jane from "The Hand of Fear" and almost pulling it off...maybe if he had shaved the beard. * An endless sea of girls in long red sweaters. * Fezzes and bow ties. * A toddler dressed as the 11th Doctor, complete with sonic. * A brilliant video wherein Davison blows off Freema Agyeman's request for an autograph. * Old friends who remind me of where I come from and why they are old friends. * A panel of brilliant female Joss Whedon fans publicly scolding me for not liking Firefly. * Apparently, in L.A. a "pint" isn't so much a fixed unit of measurement as it is a ill-defined amount roughly equal to whatever size glass the bartender has on hand. * Jane Espenson proving once again why she's the coolest fangirl in the universe. * A packed conference room laughing at my jokes about the Third Doctor and the Delgado Master having had a a one night stand that ended badly. * More fezzes and bow ties. * Matthew Waterhouse doing the exact same gallumphing walk that Adric did back in the day. * A lobby full of inebriated nerds becoming a giant family, only without the bitter resentment and layers of judgment. * Grown women laughing so hard that they snort their sparkling white wine--you know who you are. * Many discussions concerning the proper collective noun for a group of Amy Ponds. Is it a gaggle of Ponds? An oxbow lake of Ponds? Me, I say a group of Ponds should be called a Minnesota. * New friends who show me what I can be in the future and who had become old friends by Monday morning. * Still more bowties and fezzes...seriously a lot of fezzes. *The brilliant concept of the TARDIS not so much as a time-space machine as a genre machine. I mean, how clever is that? (Thanks, Emily!) * An Ironside Dalek offering a little boy jelly babies. * Loads of Tom Baker scarves, including one made just for me! (I have a Tom Baker scarf now! Tom Baker scarves are cool!) * Both first time and returning visitors to the U.S. getting way excited about root beer. * 1o podcasters and friends huddled around one mic taking the piss out of the 1996 TV movie. * Over 100 people crowded into a room to listen to a group of folks talk about gay issues in DW instead of going to the BTVS sing-along. That's commitment, my friends. * Sarah Sutton wearing some seriously fabulous boots. * Intelligent people arguing the relative merits of "The Web Planet," "The Power of Kroll" and "Timelash." * Having a discussion over extra-cheesy nachos about why there are so few female DW writers...with a woman who wrote an Eighth Doctor novel. Seriously awesome. The convo, not the nachos. * Did I mention the fezzes? Is there a collective noun for fezzes? If not, I suggest "a shriner," as in "a shriner of fezzes." * Joy in human form--all because of a silly family British sci-fi show.

As a new/old friend said, "I have always been at Gally. I am always at Gally. I will always be at Gally." Truer words were never tweeted.

___________________________________________________________

Addendum: On a sad related note, news of the death of long-time DW actor Nicholas Courtney has just broken. Having played Brigadier, initially Colonel, Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart for 40 years, Courtney was a fixture in the world of DW. He will be sorely missed by millions, but he leaves us a legacy of which anyone would be proud.

Gleefully Finding Your Voice

2010-01-19T16:40:00.000-08:00

What's the deal with Glee? And no, this is not the beginning of a Seinfeld-ian riff. I'm genuinely interested. I love the show and have had the cast albums on repeat recently. But I can't quite fathom why it's so popular with people who aren't me and my friends--namely dorky, drama-club hairbrush singers. I mean, we were always going to love it--but, somehow, a lot of other folks are singing right along with us. So, what's the deal with Glee?

While I'm not a professor of cultural studies, I'm all alone on this thing, so here goes: I think the success of Glee stems from the merging of two disparate, yet intertwined, cultural trends. First, there's what I'm going to call the American Idol factor. Secondly, and just as important, is the Great Geeking Out.

First, the AI factor. The hugely popular singing competition has spawned many imitators and has also revived an appreciation for really, really cheesy singing. Before AI, it was rather hard to imagine that whole families--grandma, parents, and little Billie and Susie--would sit around the TV two nights a week to watch a bunch of squeaky-clean 20-somethings sing the hits of the BeeGees. AI made music fun again--and pretty much everyone came along for the ride. The message was clear: Americans like watching (fairly) good singers sing fun songs. It was only a matter of time before someone realized that if a reality show about a bunch of 20-somethings singing pop hits could make for a colossal hit, why not a scripted show about a bunch of 20-something high schoolers singing pop hits?

The Great Geeking Out is the other cultural trend that makes now the perfect time for Glee. Clearly, my own appellation for it makes it rather self-explanatory, but let's draw it out a bit, shall we? Over the past ten years or so, it's become cool to be a geek--it's been the rise of the outsider. Arguably, this started with the popularization of the internets, but it doesn't really matter where it started--what matters is where it is now. Now it's not uncommon to know people who openly and proudly admit being geeks: theater geeks, political geeks, music geeks, sci-fi geeks, comic book geeks. There's even the charming name "Gleeks" for Glee geeks. When I was in high school--let's just say things were different.

And that's the beauty of Glee--and the secret behind it's success. The format is stolen from AI and traditional musicals, but the spirit is outsider geek all the way. In fact, the show makes a point of showing us again and again how uncool and even reviled its protagonists are--and we identify with them. We are the geeks--we are the outsiders. And then, they sing--and we are them. We are talented and wonderful and brilliant and special--and we're happy.

P.S.--Not familiar with the music? Consider these:

Two outcasts share a dream

The girls and the boys do competing mash-ups

And the song that started it all

I don't want to go...

2010-01-03T16:23:00.000-08:00

I gotta start by saying that Russel T. Davies, Julie Gardner, David Tennant, and everyone else in Cardiff deserve a great deal of admiration and respect for the past 4 years of Doctor Who. Sure, I didn't love all of it, but I at least liked almost all of it and I did feel even more strongly about a good chunk of it. So, before any criticism creeps in, good job to them--and I wish them well. They did a great deal for a show that many of us love and turned it into an international phenomenon--again. Bravo.

Now, on to "The End of Time" itself...see what I did there? Funny! Anywho, on to the episodes, which I'm going to treat together. As a whole, the episodes were a nice, if self-indulgent, send-off to David Tennant and the RTD era of Who. Everything else was, at best, secondary--many of the plot felt even less important--they felt tertiary. The Master's return, Donna's subconscious starting to awaken, even Galifrey's return--they were all just so much sideshow. The real thrust of the story was the 10th Doctor's imminent regeneration, which, amusingly enough, came about almost totally removed from all the other plot devices--it almost felt like an odd retred of The Caves of Androzani in that respect. There was plenty of drama--mainly of the valedictory kind, but millions of tears were shed, and Tennant's last line must certainly be one of the most poignant in the show's history. The episodes wanted us to weep for David Tennant and for his Doctor--and in this, they were an almost unqualified success. Viewed by the standards by which I would judge any other episodes of Who, however, I think they were something of a failure. We had almost 2 hours and 15 minutes of Who over the course of two weeks, but, when compared against other large finales of the new era, there really wasn't much there there, as it were.

But here's where I come to the crux of my problem with "The End of Time"--viewed as a Who story, I really think it was kind of pants. However, viewed emotionally, it was almost perfection. The ever-wonderful Bernard Cribbins made Wilf an emotional centerpiece for the story without drawing too much attention to himself. It is often said (I think slightly incorrectly) that the companion is the audience's representative on screen--here, that was utterly true. Wilf's faith in the Doctor, his love for him, his fear of his death--these are the audience's feelings, and Cribbins made us feel them like we hardly have ever done before. Tennant, too, gave an amazing performance--his last as the Doctor (although, in a quirk of scheduling, not the last filmed).

And that is the entire point and only reason for "The End of Time"--it is to say goodbye to David Tennant and the 10th Doctor. I suspect that one's views on these episodes will hinge on the simple question: is this just another regeneration, or is it something special? For me, I can't quite decide yet. Maybe I never will--and until I do, I don't think I'll ever be able to decide how I feel about "The End of Time."

The Other Baker Boy: The Sixth Doctor and His Times

2009-12-07T19:46:00.000-08:00

General note for this entire series: this will, obviously, be a terribly subjective analysis. Firstly, because I'm me, and my ideas of good and bad will certainly vary differently from those of others. Secondly, because I will be basing my musings on an incomplete assemblage of sources. This includes all of the classic serials on DVD, but no others--I know, I know, but I'm fairly new to Who fandom, and I am not buying VHS tapes that won't even fit anywhere in a year or so. It also includes selected Big Finish audios, which are delightful on the whole. A parting note before I dive in to Doctor number 6: I love the new series, I love the old series, I love all the Doctors, and I love pretty much every companion, so, any criticism or picking which follows, comes from a place of love.

I have been stalling on writing this post for ages--months, literally. I adore Colin Baker's Doctor; I really do. But his era on the show...let's just say that it has some serious problems. For these, I blame quite a few folks, most notably the producer, John-Nathan Turner, and, more importantly, the script editor, Eric Saward. Saward's influence was starting to show itself strongly by Peter Davison's last season--the stories were darker, the violence more pervasive. Doctor Who has always had death--during Saward's tenure, however, violence came to be a way of being. In my opinion, Colin Baker and his Doctor suffered mightily because of it.

For almost his entire reign, THE Colin Baker was paired with Peri (Ha! paired with Peri...um, played by Nicola Bryant with an occasionally dodgy American accent), one of the lesser Doctor Who companions, I feel. She's generally written to be rather shrill and disagreeable which, paired with the 6th Doctor's pomposity and arrogance, makes the whole Doctor/companion pairing rather unpleasant at times. His time with Mel is so short as to almost be unable to judge; for my part, I actually prefer this pairing--to be fair, though, the Trial of a Time Lord season has much better dynamics between the Doctor and his companions troughout.

And so Colin Baker may never have had the chance truly to shine the 6th Doctor if it were not for the wonderful performance that he gives on the Big Finish audios. I've heard several of the 6th Doctor stories, and they range from rather good to quite delightful. It's still very much the 6th Doctor, but with more the feel of Trial than of The Twin Dilemma. Special notice must be payed to Maggie Stables as Evelyn Smythe, who is such a perfect foil for the 6th Doctor that it makes one wish that she had been his companion in the series.

It was a very interesting, and I think worthy, experiment to have a disagreeable Doctor who harkened back to the 1st Doctor in his rough edges and fussy demeanor. Unfortunately, though, the show has changed in the 21 years since it had debuted--the public no longer had an interest in a crotchety man--gruff was no longer suitable for the Doctor. It's a pity, really, especially as his characterization had toned down markedly by the time his tenure was abruptly ended. After just two full seasons and one episode, the Doctor was forcibly regenerated--but this time, it wasn't the Time Lords who forced the change; it was the BBC. I can't say I blame Colin for his decision not to come back and film a regeneration sequence, though I imagine that, if asked today about it, he might give a different answer. However, for the last time in the classic series, the time for a new Doctor had come and the show was preparing to enter what turned out to be its final flowering. But oh, what a flowering McCoy and his Doctor gave us.

As for recommendations, I say go for The Mark of the Rani, which I think is a lovely little story--and The Two Doctors which is much better than it has any business being, but I think a lot of that is down to Troughton's 2nd Doctor and the legendary Robert Holmes. The Trial season is very ambitious and occasionally quite good, but rather uneven and, I fear, mainly interesting as a curiosity. If you want to really experience how great the 6th Doctor can be, go for the audios. Sure they're not canon, but they're ripping stories. The One Doctor is a must-listen, and Doctor Who and the Pirates is one of the most gripping, interesting, profound, and moving stories I think Who has ever done in any format. Go listen to it. Now.

An Attempt at a Theatrical Review

2009-11-21T13:17:00.000-08:00

Thursday evening, I was fortunate enough to attend a work-sponsored trip to see Shakespeare's As You Like It. I'd studied the play in college, so I was more than passingly familiar, but, just to make sure, I reread the play Wednesday evening. Having heard that the production was going to emphasize the numerous songs and do a sort of "Old Hollywood" thing, I was really looking forward to it. Boy, were my hopes misplaced.

I can understand modern directors of Shakespeare and other classic playwrights wanting to modernize, update or otherwise interpret classic and well-known pieces. Generally speaking, a new twist, period, or setting can make a familiar or seemingly inaccessible classic fresh and alive to a modern audience. There has been a Hamlet set in a modern corporation, an Oedipus Rex set in an African tribe, and just about every classic ever set in Nazi Germany. Sometimes this production succeed brilliantly--they show us how alive and pertinent these classics are. Other times, they fail--not only do they not open the modern mind to familiar wisdom, the actually muddle and diminish the brilliance of the original work.

Unfortunately, the Washington, DC Shakespeare Theater's production of As You Like It falls squarely into this latter category. Directed by Maria Aitken, everything about this production--sets, costumes, performances--is wonderful, except for its overwrought conceits. I say "conceits," plural, because there are two main ones in this production. Like almost all great works of art, As You Like It has multiple themes at work--two of which are the value of liberty and the almost magical nature of the Forest of Arden. I won't profess to know why these two themes popped out most strongly to the director, but such decisions are difficult to understand from the outside, so I won't presume to question them.

The liberty theme was highlighted by transposing most of the action of the play to America; the magic theme, by using the making of a film version of the play as a sort of framing device. Neither of these techniques come off perfectly, and together, they simply muddy the waters. To my mind, the transference of much of the play to America was actually quite clever--in the end, the Hollywood trope serves as little more than an excuse to keep the curtain up as the stagehands shuffle through numerous sets. Even the American motif falls under its own weight, however, as the director decided to use almost every other scene as an excuse to jump forward in American history. I generally consider myself an intelligent man, but I cannot for the life of me determine what reason there was for such a device except to facilitate many set and costume changes and bring the final scene into the Golden Age of Hollywood. Maybe it's something about the ultimate expression of American freedom being classic 1930's Hollywood, finally pairing the two themes of the play? That might be an interesting suggestion, but it casts no light whatsoever on William Shakespeare's As You Like It.

This Is a Really Stupid Post but I Just Need to Write Something

2009-10-05T18:00:00.000-07:00

I don't think I have a favorite movie. Does anyone really? There are plenty of movies that I simply adore--that I think are perfect in every way, but I can't imagine choosing a favorite. How do you compare Airplane and A Streetcar Named Desire? When I was growing up, I watched two movies obsessively: Amadeus and Clue. Both of them influenced me tremendously--one is total silliness, and one is absolute genius; but I could never say that one was my favorite. So, without further ado, here are 7 movies that I love. Why 7? Because I feel like it and it's my damn blog.

1) The Hours--I adore this film, even though, or perhaps because, it's more depressing than a puppy's funeral. Beautiful performances, an intricate story structure, and a serious, well-explored theme makes for a stunning film.

2) Scrooge (1951)--Alistair Simm provides the definitive performance of Charles Dickens' great Yuletide hero. As a Christmas fanatic, this movie is an annual ritual and never fails to make me cry like the little boy I really am.

3) Bringing Up Baby--Cary Grant. Katherine Hepburn. A lost leopard. An escaped killer leopard. Hi-jinks ensue. I quote this movie constantly.

4) Night of the Living Dead--Claustrophobic setting with wave after wave of the undead. The archetypal zombie movie--and still creepy as hell 40 years later.

5) Persuasion--If you haven't seen this gorgeous take on Austen's autumnal romance, do it right now. Seriously.

6) Beautiful Thing--Young gay British teenagers find love under the watchful eye of a proud lioness of a mother. Lovely.

7) Waiting for Guffman--The funniest of the Christopher Guest mockumentaries. I'm sure you're seen it--awesome right?

What do these movies have in common, aside from a general high standard of quality? Absolutely nothing. Isn't that brilliant?

A Round, Pleasant, Open Face: The Fifth Doctor's Times

2009-09-14T18:42:00.000-07:00

General note for this entire series: this will, obviously, be a terribly subjective analysis. Firstly, because I'm me, and my ideas of good and bad will certainly vary differently from those of others. Secondly, because I will be basing my musings on an incomplete assemblage of sources. This includes all of the classic serials on DVD, but no others--I know, I know, but I'm fairly new to Who fandom, and I am not buying VHS tapes that won't even fit anywhere in a year or so. It also includes selected Big Finish audios, which are delightful on the whole. A parting note before I dive in to Doctor number 5: I love the new series, I love the old series, I love all the Doctors, and I love pretty much every companion, so, any criticism or picking which follows, comes from a place of love.

The TARDIS may essentially be endless, but that's no excuse for having far too many companions. This is in no way Peter Davison's fault, and he's repeatedly expressed his own frustrations about the surplus of people milling about the place, but that can't change the fact that there are simply too many companions, and that affects how we think about the Fifth Doctor. To my mind, I would say that the Fifth Doctor is almost more the head of a roving gang than a restless time traveler.

So, before I say my bit about the Doctor, let's talk about the companions. The Fifth Doctor starts his run literally surrounded by three companions, all of whom were fairly new: Adric (Matthew Waterhouse) who joined the 4th Doctor and Romana II in Full Circle, Nyssa (Sarah Sutton) who we first met in The Keeper of Traken, and Tegan Jovanka who wandered into the TARDIS in Logopolis. Adric, the annoying boy genius met an untimely but not necessarily unwelcome end in Earthshock. In the very next story, the Doctor leaves behind Tegan, the mouthy Australian air hostess, but she's back in the story following.

The Doctor thus briefly had only one companion--Nyssa, the orphaned royal/scientific genius. (Incidentally, Nyssa was to have died much earlier, but she was Davison's favorite, so she was kept on until Terminus.) While Davison always envisioned himself and Nyssa as the right pairing for his Doctor, he wouldn't have only one companion again until Planet of Fire--at which point his companion would be the odd and mysterious alien schoolboy Vislor Turlough (Mark Strickson). His last companion was the pseudo-American botany student Perpugilliam Brown (Nicola Bryant). In three seasons, the Fifth Doctor had five companions, and only in his final serial was he left alone with only one companion.

This is not to say that Peter Davison gets lost amongst all those companions. In fact, it's a credit to the strength of Davison's abilities that the Fifth Doctor becomes such a vivid character. At the same time, though, he's not a terribly dynamic or active character. For me, the Fifth Doctor always remains something of a pleasant chap who gets caught up and overwhelmed by events more frequently than he either takes command of them or orchestrates them. It doesn't help matters that several of his companions have such strong personalities--in fact, to quote Janet Fielding, they had personalities, but no characters. Still, the Fifth Doctor manifests himself as the quiet force at the center of the storm--he was the rock upon which waves of chaos crashed.

Sometimes, though, the waves won. Earthshock and Warriors of the Deep have unarguably tragic endings, and several other stories, notably Resurrection of the Daleks and Caves of Androzani, have strong undercurrent of darkness. More than any other Doctor, the Fifth Doctor was a human Doctor who went through most (though not all) of the human emotions; as a result, he felt these losses, for they were losses. They were not shrugged off and they were not forgotten. It is these human emotions that make him a favorite of many fans and which, in the end, leads to his decision to sacrifice his own life for that of his companion.

Recommendations? Well, to be honest, this is rather tricky because, as much as I like the Fifth Doctor, I don't love a lot of his stories, but I highly recommend any story that has a commentary with Davison and Fielding. In fact, the worse the story is, the more entertaining it is to watch with the commentary--Time Flight and Black Orchid are personal favorites for laugh out loud viewing. For actual quality, I'd go with Castrovalva and Caves of Androzani, the recently named best serial ever--an opinion I disagree with, but, whatever.

Oops...forgot to add these

2009-09-14T18:21:00.000-07:00

My recommendations for the 4th Doctor's era, in order of broadcast:

Robot (rather fun and Baker gets of to a flying start)
The Ark in Space (a brilliant first episode and great supporting performances)
Genesis of the Daleks (the best of the Baker era, I think)
Pyramids of Mars (not my personal favorite, but it has some great stuff and is a milestone)
The Hand of Fear (Liz Sladen says goodbye, and she does it in style)
The Robots of Death (one of the other contenders for best in era)
The Talons of Weng-Chiang (again, a real winner, though with an awful giant rat)
City of Death (the funniest Who ever, hands down)
Logopolis (a ho-hum story, perhaps, but you gotta watch Tom's farewell)

The Three-Fold Man: The Fouth Doctor, Part III

2009-09-02T17:53:00.000-07:00

The Three-Fold Man: The Fouth Doctor, Part II

2009-08-24T19:18:00.000-07:00

General note for this entire series: this will, obviously, be a terribly subjective analysis. Firstly, because I'm me, and my ideas of good and bad will certainly vary differently from those of others. Secondly, because I will be basing my musings on an incomplete assemblage of sources. This includes all of the classic serials on DVD, but no others--I know, I know, but I'm fairly new to Who fandom, and I am not buying VHS tapes that won't even fit anywhere in a year or so. It also includes selected Big Finish audios, which are delightful on the whole. A parting note before I dive in to Doctor number 4: I love the new series, I love the old series, I love all the Doctors, and I love pretty much every companion, so, any criticism or picking which follows, comes from a place of love.

(go here for the first part of my Tom Baker scribblings)

If pressed, I would say that the episode The Invisible Enemy marks the beginning of the second phase of the Fourth Doctor's era, because it features the first appearance of everyone's favorite tin dog, K-9. Certainly, K-9's presence coincides with a rise in, well, silliness in the show and in the Doctor's character. It doesn't really truly take hold, however, until Leela leaves and Romana comes aboard as the Doctor's companion.* The Romana I era, which is completely encapsulated by the Key to Time season, gives the first real glimpses of the Fourth Doctor's almost flippant attitude toward, well, everything. Romana I, the ever glamorous Mary Tamm, has to constantly remind the Doctor that they're not just frolicking about--rather, they're on a mission from the White Guardian that is of vital import to the universe. The Doctor at times, though, seems more interested in playing with K-9.

This new tone was a conscious choice by new producer Graham Williams, who sought to bring the show more in-line with the idea of it being a family program. A good way to do this, to his mind at least, was to tone down the darkness and tone up the humor quotient. The flippancy really kicks into high gear when Romana I pointlessly regenerates into Romana II, played by (future Mrs. Tom Baker) Lalla Ward in Destiny of the Daleks. Aside from the amusing but tremendously confusing regeneration sequence, we also get the Doctor teasing Davros, who's not been seen since the masterpiece of serious Who, Genesis of the Daleks. This is a far cry from the relationship they shared in Genesis and is emblematic of the dynamics that the Doctor and his foes often shared in this era. It's been joked that this Doctor would offer a monster a jelly baby as soon as he would run away from it, and, in a way, that's not too far off.

To be fair, this is rather understandable for a variety of reasons, from producer changes, to star popularity, to scriptwriters--and in some of these episodes the Doctor's light-heartedness is used to very good advantage, most notably in City of Death a truly hilarious serial where the Doctor and Romana get to run around Paris. One of only two aired stories written by then-script editor Douglas Adams, it really is something special and the best example of what this version of the Doctor can do for a story. Unfortunately, very few stories in this era reach the heights of City of Death.

The unaired serial Shada marks the end of this era, when both a new producer and a new script editor came in with something of the express purpose of killing this version of the Doctor, and, in the end, killing the 4th Doctor completely. As it has recently with the 10th Doctor, the end lingers in the air when we see the 4th Doctor again.

*Though Tom Baker's (in?)famous fourth-wall breaking, "Even the sonic screwdriver won't get me out of this one!" in The Invasion of Time is certainly a harbinger of things to come.

On a Few Words from Edmund Burke

2009-08-20T17:39:00.000-07:00

Read this. Seriously, read it. I'll wait.

Done yet? Okay, good. Then we'll continue.

I've been circling around this passage for a few days now--I've tweeted it, and I've posted it to my Facebook page. (Friend me if you haven't!) I originally heard a small quotation from it years ago, when I was just a wee Erik, in the movie musical (yes) 1776. Set during the Second Continental Congress and centered around the writing and adoption of the Declaration of Independence, this was one of my favorite movies as a child and continues to be so to this day. John Adams is trying to wrangle a unanimous vote in favor of American independence, and he needs the new delegate from Georgia, Dr. Lyman Hall, to vote his way if he's to carry the day. Dr. Hall is for independence, but his constituents, the people of the colony of Georgia, are against it. Initially, Dr. Hall is unsure of how to exercise his power; while he figures it out, he decides he should cast his vote they way he thinks the people would wish him to, and he initially votes against the resolution declaring independence. It's nothing Adams says, though, that changes the Georgian's mind--instead, in the privacy of his cloister, Dr. Hall is thinking, and he decides to take the advice of a very wise man: Edmund Burke, then a member of the British Parliament. Lyman slightly misquotes, I believe, but the line deserves to be quoted in full: "Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion." Lyman chooses his judgment over that of his constituents, changes his vote, and, well, you know how the story ends.

Even as a child, the power of Burke's words struck me. Edmund Burke is credited with being the father of modern political conservatism, and, reading the speech that the quotation comes from, it's not hard to see why. See, conservatism in this sense is not the modern American conservatism of lower taxes and no abortions. Rather, it's conservatism as opposed to radicalism. It's conservatism that has a belief in a natural aristocracy that, through elections, will be chosen to rule over the masses. In essence, Burke is saying, "You should vote me in to office not because you trust that I will make the decision that you would; rather you trust that I will make the right decision for you." He's claiming, not even subtly, that his judgment is superior to that of his constituents. If that's not an argument for some sort of natural aristocracy, I'll eat my Chucks.

We Americans have a serious problem with this sort of conservatism. Due, I think, at least in part, to the American ethos of self-reliance and individual liberty, we're loathe as a nation to accept that certain people are more informed, more rational, more foresighted, and generally better at making decisions on complex matters than others. It's actually a rather fascinating phenomenon: let's say I gather ten random Americans, and asked them to decide a few matters about, let's say, engineering. The first question they would ask would almost certainly be, "is anyone here a engineer?" However, if I get ten Americans in a room and ask them about the best way to provide health care to poor Americans, suddenly everyone's an expert.

America is not a democracy. Somewhere in elementary school, we all learn that, but I think most of us forget it. We like to think we're a democracy, because it sounds nice. In reality, though, we're a republic. Except for a very few cases, we don't make governmental decisions.* Instead of making the decisions ourselves, we elect people to make decisions for us. There are about a zillion good reasons for this, but the most salient one is that governing, as much as we like to disparage it, is not easy. It is an art form, and requires skilled practitioners. As such, we hold elections during which we vote for people who we think will make the right choice.

However, as soon as the questions they are called to decide become controversial, we become adamant that "we pay their salaries" and that they should do what we want them to do, not what they think is best. We scream, we shout, we picket and we fume. We can't believe that those idiots in Washington have done something that we don't agree with, forgetting that we've made an arrangement: we send them to Washington, Richmond, and the county commissioners' office to make the hard decisions; if we choose, we can remove them at the next election. Until then, we can delve into the issue, talk to our representatives, and find out what they were thinking. In the end, they may just say that they did what they thought was best. And it's at these moments that I suggest we all take a step back, take a deep breath, and think of the fictionalized Dr. Lyman Hall from Georgia, while never forgetting the very real and powerful words of Edmund Burke.

*In small New England communities, town meetings are still held, and these work well since the issues are generally extremely local and understandable. Just look to the insanity of California's ballot initiative system to see what happens when direct democracy is attempted on a larger scale with vastly more complicated issues.

Why Do I Love Alton Brown?

2009-08-18T18:52:00.000-07:00

I have never made one of Alton Brown's recipes. I never intend to make one of his recipes, though I certainly wouldn't bet much money on it. In fact, I don't even like a good number of his recipes. Still, I DVR Good Eats and watch it whenever I want to pass 30 enjoyable minutes. What gives?

Alton Brown is my very favorite sort of TV cook--he makes things seem easy as opposed to difficult. Even when he makes his own coconut extract, he makes me think, "yeah, I can do that--I never will, but I could." Many TV cooks do that, though--Alton's genius, and it is a form of genius, lies in his personality. He is witty, funny, goofy, knowledgeable, and resourceful--Lord, is he resourceful. He has an absolute fetish about kitchen implements being multi-taskers, and quite an admirable obsession it is when people have more things in their kitchen then they know what to do with. Plus, he has a weird fixation with using things from the hardware store for culinary purposes, perhaps most notably using a bandsaw blade for slicing a cake into layers. Along with his recurring guest stars (my favorite is "W," the acid-tongued equipment expert), he treats cooking with just the right amount of seriousness, but also simply and with a touch of whimsy. I mean, what other cooking show uses old sock puppets to illustrate yeast or has an occasional villain--the French Chef? He easily reminds us why cooking is fun and that you don't have to have thousands of dollars of equipment to make a yummy cake. Even if you never use his recipes.

Who fans: the rest of my Doctor by Doctor assessments are coming. So, to all one of you, I urge patience. :-)

The Three-Fold Man: The Fourth Doctor, part 1

2009-08-17T09:56:00.000-07:00

(The last LJ posting I ever did. I disliked it so much, I stopped in the middle of a series.)

General note for this entire series: this will, obviously, be a terribly subjective analysis. Firstly, because I'm me, and my ideas of good and bad will certainly vary differently from those of others. Secondly, because I will be basing my musings on an incomplete assemblage of sources. This includes all of the classic serials on DVD, but no others--I know, I know, but I'm fairly new to Who fandom, and I am not buying VHS tapes that won't even fit anywhere in a year or so. It also includes selected Big Finish audios, which are delightful on the whole. A parting note before I dive in to Doctor number 4: I love the new series, I love the old series, I love all the Doctors, and I love pretty much every companion, so, any criticism or picking which follows, comes from a place of love.

Tom Baker. THE Tom Baker. His reputation as the most popular and longest serving actor ever to play the Doctor is well-established and essentially immutable. However, I would contend that Tom Baker played three distinct characters during his time as the Doctor: his first period begins with his first story, "Robot," and ends, in my opinion, with "The Horror of Fang Rock," over 3 years later. The second period overlaps roughly with K-9's tenure on the TARDIS and begins with "The Invisible Enemy" and ends with "The Horns of Nimon" (or "Shada" if you count it). The last period is Baker's last series as the Doctor, series 18, starting with "The Leisure Hive" and ending with his regeneration in "Logopolis." In a way, the length of Baker's tenure allowed there to be development in the Doctor's character, something we hadn't ever really seen before and wouldn't really see again until David Tennant's tenure as the Doctor. Note: these three periods roughly coincide with changes in producer and story style, so I'll touch on those as well.

Now, on the Doctor 4.1: the early Tom Baker. Doctor 4.1 is my favorite of the Baker Doctors by far, and a contender for my favorite Doctor, period. Debuting in "Robot," we immediately get the sense of this Doctor as something "other." Whereas Pertwee comes across as a very suave, very brilliant human, Tom Baker immediately brings a genuine alien-ness to his performance. The scene where he picks his costume is tremendously over the top, but Baker pulls it off, and makes us eager to see what he comes up with for an encore. As soon as he says, "I am THE Doctor, the definite article, you might say," we believe him.

The production team for this first era is the amazing pairing of producer Phillip Hinchcliffe and script editor Robert Holmes. Now, I'm not as in love with this pairing as many other fans are, but they did create a pretty amazing run of episodes. (Note: Baker was cast and his first series of stories were commissioned by the outgoing team of Terrance Dicks and Barry Letts--so at least some of the credit for this era should go to them.) The balancing act was tremendous: the Doctor was alien, but not so alien as to seem distant; the companions were believable and wonderful, but never stole attention away from the Doctor; the villains and stories were familiar, but were given a fresh feel; the show was darker and more mature, but it never felt gratuitous.

The most impressive balance of all was Baker's as the Doctor: still new in the role and trying to differentiate himself from Pertwee, he comes across almost like an idiot savant. There's something almost off-putting about him, yet engaging at the same time. Most importantly, while he loved his comedic touches, he never let them interfere with the seriousness of the situation--stories like "Genesis of the Daleks" and "The Pyramids of Mars" are possible only with this version of this Doctor. That's not to say these adventures would have been rubbish with McCoy or even later Baker--they merely wouldn't be the stories we know and love.

Much of the credit for the early Baker years must be given to the companions: Liz Sladen as Sarah Jane Smith, Ian Marter as Harry Sullivan, and Louise Jameson as Leela. Of the three, Leela is my least favorite, but that's mainly because she was dragged down by her later appearances. In episodes like "Robots of Death," she is truly wonderful, and a brilliant departure for the show. Harry Sullivan was a wonderful force in Baker's first season, and letting him go was almost certainly the biggest mistake made in this era (except, perhaps, for "Revenge of the Cybermen" which I haven't seen but do not expect good things from). The chemistry between Sarah, the Doctor, and him is magical. Lastly, a few words need to be said for Sarah Jane Smith, according to some fans, the Doctor's greatest companion--ever. Firstly, she got along well with Jon Pertwee, working well with him in his last season (and in "The Five Doctors); the character blossomed, however, with the Baker Doctor. The two of them together are perfect--don't believe me? Rewatch the last few minutes of "The Hand of Fear"--Robert Holmes wrote the scene in outline, and Baker and Sladen rewrote the scene. It's simply brilliant, and one of the best companion exits in the classic series.

The departure of Sarah, in a way, marks the end of an era, and it could be used as a break-off point for the Baker Doctor. However, he didn't really start to change drastically until K-9 came aboard, and that happened in "The Invisible Enemy."

And now for something Completely Different: The Petwee Era

2009-08-17T09:45:00.000-07:00

(From LJ.)

General note for this entire series: this will, obviously, be a terribly subjective analysis. Firstly, because I'm me, and my ideas of good and bad will certainly vary differently from those of others. Secondly, because I will be basing my musings on an incomplete assemblage of sources. This includes all of the classic serials on DVD, but no others--I know, I know, but I'm fairly new to Who fandom, and I am not buying VHS tapes that won't even fit anywhere in a year or so. It also includes selected Big Finish audios, which are delightful on the whole. A parting note before I dive in to Doctor number 3: I love the new series, I love the old series, I love all the Doctors, and I love pretty much every companion, so, any criticism or picking which follows, comes from a place of love.

Okay, I have to admit a little personal bias here. While I enjoy every single Doctor, and I enjoy the contrasts that they give us, Jon Pertwee as the Third Doctor is my least favorite of the bunch, and this includes the short-shrifted Paul McGann. This is not just fan sniping, however, because my relative coolness toward the Third Doctor stems almost entirely from the very nature of his character. In a complete and rather surprising departure from who we thought the Doctor was, Jon Pertwee gives us a compelling portrait of the Doctor as action hero (that is merely not my ideal version of the Doctor--matter of taste). If it weren’t for the strength of the underlying moral and ethical elements of the character and Jon Pertwee’s multi-layered performance, we’d almost think we were watching a completely different show.

Following on from “The War Games,” where the Second Doctor was forcibly regenerated, we see Jon Pertwee fall out of the TARDIS in living color. While it takes “Spearhead from Space” a while to warm up, it has some lovely moments early one establishing just what sort of chap this new Doctor is. In fact, several of his biggest tropes are on full display right there in the first serial: the love of cars, the action sequences, the co-operation with UNIT, the attempt to reason with invading aliens, and, most memorably, perhaps, the clothes. The action hero dandy with a healthy disrespect for authority: that’s the Third Doctor in a nutshell.

As I said, this is the Doctor as action hero. This is not at all to say that the Third Doctor is some sort of fight first, think later kind of hero. He is emphatically not. However, he is remarkable for his willingness and ability to use physical violence in a pinch. His “Venusian aikido” has got to be one of the most memorable fake fighting styles ever created. (It’s also, especially in “The Three Doctors,” one of the silliest.) He also loves anything with a motor: cars, helicopters, motor boats, you name it. Much of this apparently came from Pertwee himself, who was something of an action man. According to lore, the producers stuffed his last story, “Planet of the Spiders” with as many forms of transport as possible to send their leading man away happy.

The Third Doctor’s era, though, will always be remembered as the UNIT years: we have the Brigadier, Capt. Yates, Sgt. Benton, Liz Shaw (my favorite under-rated companion), Jo Grant and a slew of stories centered around the UNIT crew trying to repel the latest alien invasion of Earth. Not until Sarah Jane Smith came on as companion, in Pertwee’s last season, did the show have a permanent cast member who wasn't in UNIT, even though he had regained his ability to travel in the TARDIS at the end of “The Three Doctors.” (Technically, though, he never resigned from UNIT, as we were reminded in “The Sontaran Stratagem.”)

The other striking feature of the Third Doctor’s era is the expansion of the myths of Gallifrey. Indeed, it’s in “The Time Warrior” that we finally hear the name of the Doctor’s home planet. We also see more of the Time Lords, along with our first multi-Doctor story. Most importantly, however, we finally get the one person in the universe who is a match for the Doctor: the Master. While almost certainly over-used in his first season, the Master provides a wonderful counterbalance to the Doctor and went on to become the third in the trinity of the Doctor’s enduring foes, joining the Daleks and the Cybermen.

My favorite Third Doctor moment is also one of his most unusual. At the end of “The Green Death,” after Jo Grant leaves to marry the very groovy Welshman Professor Jones, the Doctor walks away, quietly, with a tear in his eye and drives off alone in Bessie. For a Doctor who is largely defined by his outsized personality and flamboyant tastes, it’s that moment that I find the most affecting and the most genuine. It’s this Doctor at his most human and down-to-earth, two things which the next Doctor could rarely be accused of being.

Favorite episodes? Watch “Inferno,” if only because everyone raves about it so, the flawed yet still wonderful “The Green Death,” and the brilliant “The Time Monster.”

When I say run, run! The Second Doctor

2009-08-17T09:42:00.000-07:00

(Part 2 from LJ)

General note for this entire series: this will, obviously, be a terribly subjective analysis. Firstly, because I'm me, and my ideas of good and bad will certainly vary differently from those of others. Secondly, because I will be basing my musings on an incomplete assemblage of sources. This includes all of the classic serials on DVD, but no others--I know, I know, but I'm fairly new to Who fandom, and I am not buying VHS tapes that won't even fit anywhere in a year or so. It also includes selected Big Finish audios, which are delightful on the whole. A parting note before I dive in to Doctor number 2: I love the new series, I love the old series, I love all the Doctors, and I love pretty much every companion, so, any criticism or picking which follows, comes from a place of love.

When talking about Patrick Troughton’s time as the Second Doctor, one quickly has to acknowledge the biggest travesty in Who history: the lost episodes. The details are well-known, so I’ll skip them, but, due to the BBC’s ridiculously stupid and short-sighted wiping of master tapes, huge swaths of the show’s history are simply missing. The First Doctor’s era is marred by the loss of several milestone serials, including most of the epic “Dalek Master Plan,” but it is Troughton’s era that bears the brunt. The Second Doctor featured in 23 serials over 3 years. 6 survive in their entirety. Repeat…6. Sure there are episodes here and there and serials, like “The Invasion” which are almost complete, but only 6 survive intact. His first year, where he first met Jamie and traveled with Ben and Polly has no complete serials. His second series has one complete story, “The Tomb of the Cybermen,” the only complete story to feature Victoria Waterfield. From his last season, it is a miracle that five stories survive intact, plus a sixth “The Invasion,” which has had its two missing episodes animated. The loss to future Who fans is almost incalculable. Complaining over.

I love, love, love Pat Troughton's Doctor. Take the First Doctor, lower the crankiness factor and the pretentiousness know-it-all-ness, add a higher level of comic genius, plus a splash more anarchic spirit, and you get the Second Doctor in broad stokes. Like the First Doctor, the Second is largely a man of mystery--there is still no Gallifrey, no Time Lords. Only in his last story does the mystery start to be explained. More than the First Doctor, though, the Second is a bit of a schemer, the one who keeps his eyes open and his mouth shut. There are often occasions where the Second Doctor seems to grasp the full scope of a situation well ahead of anyone else and proceeds subtly to influence events, all the while hiding behind his clownish image. Usually, though, he is caught up by events, stumbling into them in much the same manner as the First Doctor. Whereas the First Doctor fought the Daleks four times, the Second Doctor's most recurring and enduring foe is the Cybermen. In many ways, he was the perfect Doctor to struggle with these human monstrosities. The Cybermen represent many of the worst elements of humanity--the quest for survival at any costs, the callousness, the trend toward to conformity. The Second Doctor, with a seemingly perpetual glint in his eye, is slapdash, non-conformist, possessed by a spirit of zaniness and an intense compassion for life. The Second Doctor is a modern and alien reinterpretation of the Shakesperean Fool. The clown. The cosmic hobo. He's the most human of the Doctors, often prizing gut instinct over logic, even telling Zoe that logic merely enables one to be wrong with authority. Moreso than any Doctor (perhaps save Peter Davison,) he's easy not only to respect and admire but also to love as a person, not as a hero.

No discussion of the Second Doctor, however brief, would be complete without mentioning his companions, especially Jamie, played wonderfully by Frazier Hines. After the show shifted focus during Hartnell's era away from the ensemble and strongly onto the Doctor himself, the companions became much less memorable. No offense to Vicki, Steve, Dodo (poor Dodo), Ben, or Polly, but they were almost non-entities compared to the three first companions, especially Ian and Barbara. Jamie McCrimmon, however, is a Doctor Who legend, the first superstar conpanion. Joining the show in "The Highlanders," the Second Doctor's second story, and the last historical for many years, Jamie remained with the Doctor until sent home at the end of "The War Games." Only a few other Doctor/companion pairings even enter the same realm as that of Jamie and the Doctor. They work wonderfully together and share a great chemistry. Honorable mention must be made of Zoe Herriot. While Victoria Waterfield worked well with the Doctor and Jamie, it's in Zoe that the pair finds the third that really completes the set. The three of them together are sheer magic.

Finally, I have to touch on Troughton's appearances in the multi-Doctor stories. Discounting, the tragically/comically awful "Dimensions in Time," and the new special "Time Crash," Pat Troughton appeared in every multi-Doctor story: "The Three Doctors," "The Five Doctors," and "The Two Doctors," all of which are far better for featuring him. The perpetual rivalry between him and the Third Doctor is a sheer delight. No two Doctors have less in common that the Second and the Third, one of the many the many things that makes the transition between "The War Games" and "Spearhead from Space" such a massive one.

More on that anon...

P.S. -- I just realized that I hadn't mentioned my favorite stories of each era: for Hartnell, I think it's currently "The Time Meddler," though I also strongly encourage that everyone watch the first three serials, packaged together in "The Beginning" boxed set. For Pat Troughton, my personal favorite is "The Mind Robber," though it's such a bizarre story that it's rather unrepresentative. For something more mainstream, watch the restored version of "The Invasion." I also have VERY high hopes for the epic "The War Games" which is coming out on DVD in the USA this year. Yay!

How many of me are there? The Life and Times of the First Doctor

2009-08-17T09:38:00.000-07:00

(Also taken from LJ, though I actually quite liked this little series I had going.)

General note for this entire series: this will, obviously, be a terribly subjective analysis. Firstly, because I'm me, and my ideas of good and bad will certainly vary differently from those of others. Secondly, because I will be basing my musings on an incomplete assemblage of sources. This includes all of the classic serials on DVD, but no others--I know, I know, but I'm fairly new to Who fandom, and I am not buying VHS tapes that won't even fit anywhere in a year or so. It also includes selected Big Finish audios, which are delightful on the whole. A parting note before I dive in to Doctor number 1: I love the new series, I love the old series, I love all the Doctors, and I love pretty much every companion, so, any criticism or picking which follows, comes from a place of love.

An old man, wearing a rather bizarre hat, wanders into a junk yard and finds two nosy school teachers. This is our first introduction to the character of the Doctor, though, at the time, of course, the viewer didn't know that he was the Doctor, let alone that he would be the first in a long lone of actors. The First Doctor presents a rather striking figure immediately. Enigmatic, irascible, and decidedly chilly to the interlopers, the First Doctor was not immediately likable. Indeed, for the first several serials, Ian Chesterton, a dashing science teacher, is the hero of the show, with the Doctor being a trouble-making genius with an unpredictable personality. With time, however, the Doctor emerges to be the central figure of the show, though the first Doctor's era is especially notable, in my opinion, for giving the companions and guest stars quite a bit to do, with the notable exception of Susan, whom the writers seemed to have no idea how to treat. In all, the First Doctor had 8 companions, and was only paired with one companion for the very brief period between Steve's departure and Ben and Polly's arrival. This created a lot of interesting studies in group dynamics and allowed for a flourishing of subplots, which were necessary to fill the 6, 8, and even 12 part stories which filled his time. However, back to the First Doctor.

William Hartnell deserves a great amount of kudos for creating such an iconic role with style and panache. If he had been tentative or uncertain, the show would have failed. However, he gave us a brilliantly realized character who actually evolved. Starting as a completely xenophobic misanthrope, he grows into the warm, grandfatherly character that we remember. He fluttered his fingers, he paused at odd moments, inserting lots of "hmms," and asked himself "I wonder" with regularity. Indeed, if Tom Baker had never played the role, I think Hartnell's would be remembered as being the most unpredictable and eccentric characterization of the Doctor. Watch him in "The Aztecs" or "The Time Meddler" and see how many facets he shows to his character. He rages, he lectures, he comforts, he jokes, he teases, he even flirts. It's a brilliant performance and laid the groundwork for everything that was to come.

There a couple of odd peculiarities about the First Doctor that I would be remiss in not addressing. First of all, the fluffing of the lines. Now, this is understandable given the sheer number of lines and the pace of production. He *usually* manages to get himself back on track; however, it does lead to some rather amusing moments. My personal favorite is "I can scent" it for "I can sense it" in "The War Machines." (The even use it on a loop in the DVD menu!) Second, there's the rather sad appearance in "The The Three Doctors." Hartnell was very ill at the time, and it shows--he does get off one great line, though, forever naming the Second and Third Doctors "a dandy and a clown." Brilliant, and it comes perfectly from this incarnation. Lastly, there's the odd business of Richard Hurndal in "The Five Doctors." Now, don't get me wrong, he gives a pretty good performance, but he is not William Hartnell, and, while it gives a flavor of Hartnell's Doctor, it simply can't capture the magic of the original.

So, all told, I encourage all two of you who read this to go back and watch, or rewatch, the First Doctor's stories. In a way, every subsequent Doctor has been playing a version of William Hartnell, adding shadings or emphasis, highlighting some aspects, limiting others, but always rooted in something that Billy did first. The Doctor has changed 9 times, and he's about to change for a tenth, but, in the end, we always come back to the solitary mysterious figure with his wonderful machine.

Tournament of Sad Doctor Who Companion Exits, Part 2

2009-08-17T09:31:00.000-07:00

(Skip this unless you've read Part 1--which I doubt you have. Or want to. Also from LJ.)

Now we come to the...."Elegiac Eight!"

Match-up one: Dodo v. Jamie & Zoe -- So, we have the most shabbily treated companion in terms of exit up against the most beloved companion pairing ever, whose storyline first demonstrated the memory wipe technique. In the end, though, the terrific twosome get a decent exit with some, though not too much, emotional resonance. Dodo's exit is neigh-unto unforgivable. While I love Jamie and Zoe, Dodo's shafting is so intense, it tilts the battle in her favor. Dodo advances.

Match-up two: Sarah Jane v. Tegan -- Like Jamie and Zoe's exit, Sarah Jane's exit is genuinely sad. She's abandoned by the Doctor in Aberdeen and wastes years of her life hoping he would return. However, she's now received one special, and appearance in "The Five Doctors," several appearances in the new series, and a spin-off which gives her the child she never had. In the end, it's worked out quite well for her. I just get the feeling that Tegan's life did not go well after she left the TARDIS. "Brave heart, Tegan" can only do so much when you've seen what she has and lost what she has -- remember Aunt Vanessa? Tegan advances.

Match-up three: Peri v. Ace -- Ace's exit is non-existent; that was enough to get her through to the second round. However, in the face of the dead, but not dead, married to Brian Blessed (!) departure of Peri, it seems like it might sometimes be better to ride of into the sunset in the TARDIS than to have a definitive exit. Peri advances.

Match-up four: Rose v. Donna -- To many fans of the new series, this is the only match-up that matters. Rose, the lover, lost forever, but not -- Donna, the best friend who doesn't miss her life with the Doctor because she has no idea it ever existed. In a way, this question boils down to a test of "'Tis better to have loved and lost..." The power of "Doomsday," though immense at the time, was so altered by the Doctor 10(b) resolution, that, in essence, Rose gets a happy ending. Donna, on the other hand, has lost nothing, at least as far as she knows. We know, though; the Doctor knows; Wilf and Sylvia know. The universe knows -- in Ancient Rome she is worshiped as a goddess. The Ood sing songs of the Doctor-Donna. The loss of all that is so unbelievably tragic that it makes this bout a little one-sided. Donna advances.

So, the "Funereal Four" are set: Dodo v. Tegan! Peri v. Donna! Who will make it through to the final match-up? And who will become the Final Champion of the Tournament of Sad Companion Exits? Tune in later...actually, just keep reading, it's right below...

"The Funereal Four"

First match: Dodo v. Tegan -- We've gone through the pros and cons of both of these companions, so I'm just going to come out and announce the winner. Tegan's exit is sad and unsettling, but at least she gets to say good-bye. DODO advances to the final pairing.

Second match: Peri v. Donna -- Again, since I've been through these details, it comes down to a simple call of which is worse. For me, it's got to be the rueful fate of Donna Noble. DONNA advances to the final pairing.

THE FINAL MATCH-UP -- DODO v DONNA

So, at last, we're final for the final pairing, and what a pairing it is. Dodo "My last scene is in episode three of the story before I'm written out off-screen like a secondary character" Chaplet going up against Donna "All those wonderful things mean nothing to me because I'm just a loudmouthed annoyance again" Noble. So, we've got the most pathetic leaving and the saddest. For me, it all comes down to the future. There's nothing preventing some future ingenious writer from bring back poor Dodo. True, sci-fi would allow for the return of Donna, but her departure echoes strikingly one of the best scenes of her era: in "The Forest of the Dead," after the Doctor and Donna lie to each other about being fine, they walk away, while we see a scene of her supposedly imaginary husband walk onto the transmat. Just before he dematerialized, he tried to call her name. Her loves her, and she loves him, but he's unable to call out in time because of his stutter. He vanishes, and she believes he never existed. Nothing is worse than knowing that the best thing in the world is just beyond your fingertips, yet you cannot reach it. Wilf wants the better Donna. The Doctor wants the better Donna. Hell, even Sylvia probably does. However, she can never be brought back. If that's not the definition of tragic, I don't know what is, and the tragic always beats out the pathetic. Which means, we have a champion!

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you....

DONNA NOBLE, Winner of the Title of Companion with the Saddest Exit in all Who History.

Tournament of Sad Doctor Who Companion Exits, Part 1

2009-08-17T09:25:00.000-07:00

(Also from LJ--unless you are as big, or even bigger, of a geek as I am, I suggest you skip it. Seriously--it reeks of geek.)

So, I've been listening to the Murray Gold soundtracks for Doctor Who a lot recently, and, after hearing "Rose's Theme," "Doomsday," "Martha's Theme," "The Rueful Fate of Donna Noble," etc. ad nauseum, it got me wondering about all the companions who've left the TARDIS over the years: some willingly, some unwillingly, some really unwillingly (goodbye, Adric!). So, who had the worst exit ever? [Note: worst here will mean both most tragic or sad or merely pathetic (hello, Dodo!).] Let's start with a few ground rules: first, some companions both get decent exits and are happy to be where they are, so, we're going to ignore them. By my reckoning, this eliminates Ian, Barbara, Vicki, Steven, Polly, Ben, Victoria (though she's debatable), Jo Grant (another debatable one, but it seems to be the best explained of the "convenient marriage" exits), all the UNIT staff, Harry, K-9, Romana, Nyssa, Turlough, Mickey Smith, and Martha Jones. Second, in classifying companion, I'm using what I'm going to call the "one plus some" rule which means simply that, to be a true companion, a person or entity (hello, Kamelion!), has to join the Doctor, go through an entire adventure with him and then at least start a second, or, alternately, join at the end of one story and go through the entire next story. "Companions" struck by this rule include the late, lamented Katrina, Sara Kingdom, and Astrid Peth, plus other pseudo-companions like Madame de Pompadour, Dr. Grace Holloway, Professor River Song, and Lynda (with a "y"). So, with the rules established, it's time to get started.

In a nod to March Madness, we're going to deal with this bracket style--a tournament of bad companion exits! Yippee!!!!

"The Sad Sixteen"

Susan Foreman v. Dodo Chaplet -- In the "Dalek Invasion of Earth," Susan's sudden desire to get married and abandon her grandfather (!) is a bit far-fetched; she, at least, is given a future mission of sorts and the Doctor gets a nice farewell speech to her, one of the First Doctor's best scenes. Dodo's off-screen exit in "The War Games," on the other hand, is pathetic. She's hypnotized by a computer, sent off to the country, and then her exit is done in the third person by Polly. Pitiful. Dodo advances.

Jamie & Zoe (they have the same exit, so they're taken together) v. Liz Shaw -- I love Liz Shaw, and her abrupt, no farewell scene departure irks me. She's there in "Inferno," then gone in "Terror of the Autons." While it's supposedly her choice to leave the Doctor, it just feels, well, stupid and poorly explained; it reeks of being the behind the scene decision that is was. However, Jamie and Zoe's exit in "The War Games," with their memories partially wiped by the Time Lords (foreshadowing Donna's exit), is both sad for both the Doctor and the fans and problematic for continuity, giving rise to the whole fan-inspired insanity of Season 6(b). Jaime & Zoe advance.

Sarah Jane Smith v. Leela -- Ah, Leela, victim of another convenient marriage. Why on Earth the most independent and savage of all the Doctor's companions would choose to marry Andred and settle down on stuffy Gallifrey at the end of "The Invasion of Time" is simply beyond me, but at least she gets a leaving scene. Sarah Jane Smith, too, gets a leaving scene, arguably the most emotional one in the classic series. The last few minutes of "The Hand of Fear" are truly touching. She is the first companion since Jamie and Zoe who gets booted from the TARDIS. Unlike them, though, she both wishes to remain and retains all of her memories. The new series episode "School Reunion" serves to make her departure even sadder in retrospect. This one's easy. Sarah Jane Smith advances.

Adric v. Tegan Jovanka -- Okay, this one should be easy. I mean, Adric dies at the end of "Earthshock" for crying out loud. No "real" companion had died--ever. (Sorry Sara and Katarina.) While it's dealt with fairly honestly at the end of the story, that gets quickly forgotten in the silliness that is "Time-Flight." Tegan's departure, though, coming as it does at the end of the truly depressing "Resurrection of the Daleks," is a beautifully sad grace note. She's perhaps the first companion to see the Doctor as the man who leaves death in his wake wherever he goes, and it's simply too much for her. You get the impression that her experiences with the Doctor have scarred her. That is truly sad. Adric's being an annoying teen-aged jerk doesn't help his case. This one's close, but Tegan advances.

Kamelion v. Peri Brown -- Poor Kamelion. A shape-changing robot seems like a good idea, unless your budget is diddly squat. A nice idea, poorly executed, Kamelion is something like the robot version of Dodo, more pathetic than sad. The stories between his first and last appearance don't even mention him. I mean, what was the point? At the end of "Planet of Fire," he is destroyed by the Doctor in a weird sort of mercy killing. Peri, on the other hand, gets two departures. First, in "Mindwarp," she gets a truly awful exit when her mind is surgically removed and the nasty Kiv takes over her body. The Doctor is told that the Peri he knew is dead. Bad enough, right? Turns out, that was one of the Valyard's lies. In apparent reality, it is revealed in "The Ultimate Foe," she suffers another convenient marriage, this one to the bombastic King Ycarnos. Talk about adding insult to injury! While Kamelion is pathetic, Peri's duel fate is both genuinely upsetting and, later, ridiculous. Peri advances.

Melanie Bush v. Ace -- This one's really tricky. At the end of "Dragonfire," Melanie "no introduction" Bush falls victim to the convenient marriage syndrome, this time with the intergalactic ruffian Sabalom Glitz. It's just random as all get-out. As they say in The Discontinuity Guide, maybe she fancies a bit of rough. She and the Doctor get a great leaving scene, though, and the character is truly annoying--the female Adric, if you will, so her departure is a relatively welcome occurrence. (No offense to Bonnie Langford, who is brilliant on the Big Finish productions.) Ace, on the other hand, is the only televised companion whose departure is never explained at all in the series. She's there at the end of "Survival" but gone for the TV movie when the 7th Doctor regenerates. What happened to her? The last great classic companion, one of the greatest ever, is just lost in time. While other media state that she went to Gallifrey after traveling with the Doctor for a while longer, this isn't canon. As a result, Ace's future, her leaving, the circumstances of her departure, is a total mystery. On that count alone, on the sheer fact that this great show has left such a wonderful character dangling in the vortex, Ace advances.

Rose Tyler v. Adam Mitchell -- Easiest one in the bracket. Though Rose's eventual fate in "Journey's End" somewhat undercuts her initial, terribly tragic fate in "Doomsday," the idiot Adam doesn't stand a chance. He barely qualifies as a companion, and his forced exit in "The Long Game" is only just and fair. Rose advances, handily.

Captain Jack Harkness v. Donna Noble -- This one is really close to my heart. These two are both just brilliant characters and watching both of them leave the series was upsetting for me on a personal level. Examine it more dispassionately, though, and the situation changes. Though the regenerating Doctor's abandonment of Captain Jack at the end of "Parting of the Ways" is a sad moment not terribly well treated, his appearance as the lead character in Torchwood does much to mitigate it, as does his appearances in the finales for both series 3 and 4. Donna, however, is not coming back, barring some crazy sci-fi mumbo-jumbo. From "The Runaway Bride" to "Journey's End" we watched her go from being a shrill one-dimensional character to the Doctor's true equal and "most faithful companion." Her memory wipe, her reversion to the obnoxious Donna we all disliked, the knowledge of how wonderful Catherine Tate had been in the role, the 10th Doctor's palpable grief at losing his best mate; all combine to make Donna's departure sad in the extreme. Wilf just makes it worse. Argh. The rueful fate of Donna Noble indeed. Donna advances easily.

Well, we're all set for the second round, where we'll have the following match-ups:

Dodo v. Jamie & Zoe! Sarah Jane v. Tegan! Peri v. Ace! Rose v. Donna!

Coming soon, "The Elegiac Eight!" Watch this space...

The New What Now?

2009-08-17T09:23:00.000-07:00

(The only "personal" piece I posted on LJ--a very, very little bit of cultural criticism.)

So, I was reading an article in the Washington Post the other day about a website that was trying to provide a different kind of place for gay guys (and the occasional token lesbian) to get together. Not a hook-up site--they won't even take ads from hook-up sites. They pride themselves on being a place for gays who are not all about wearing great clothes, going to the gym, and dancing the night away before bedding random hotties. A place for everyone who feels like they don't fit in with the rest of gay society. As a gay male who doesn't buy great clothes, never goes to the gym and rarely dances the night away, (never mind the random hottie bit), I was, needless to say, intrigued. So, I read on.

This group calls itself the New Gay, and apparently it organizes concerts of the latest, hippest music, plus all sorts of other activities--none of which are of any interest to me whatsoever. No Doctor Who discussion groups. No "Dress as Your Favorite Jane Austen Character" costume party. No stroll around the lesser-known historical sites of DC. No, instead, another party--with the hippest music. True, they claim the party is a chance to hang out, have fun--no pressure, no meat market vibe. Still...another party with the hippest music. What if I don't like the music? (I almost certainly won't.) Is it because I'm not gay enough? Because I'm not hip enough? Isn't this just another way of making some gays feel like they don't belong?

This in turn got me thinking about the reason that gay guys (and gay girls) hang around together at all. Now, there are not nearly as many universal similarities amongst all gay men as the most narrow-minded straight majority might think. In fact, aside from being a) men and 2) gay, many gay men have very little in common with each other . I think that's why any gay-dominated social event, chat room, or community gets so obsessed with sex--like it or not, it's the only thing that binds us together. Which means a premium is put on a good face, a great body, and nice clothes. As disgusting as it is, that's simply the state of things, and it will continue to be so until a really new way of being gay is found.

War! Hunh! Good God, y'all!...Doctor Who, 2008 Series

2009-08-17T09:15:00.000-07:00

(Yes, another post pinched from LJ.)

So, we've seen the Doctor as a guilt-ridden, melancholic survivor of a double genocide; a happy, joyful, exuberant young man who seems unaware of the consequences of his actions, and as a chastened, mature man who inspires such awe, and keeps such distance, that he is comparable to a living God. Moving forward, however, the Doctor finds himself again and again in the role of a general, waging war after war, usually against his own wishes. In a way we have come full circle, or, rather, we see the Doctor as he might have been before the ravages of the Time War. By the end, the light has gone from the 10th Doctor's eyes, and he is essentially ready to die. True, there are some specials before the 10th Doctor regenerates into the 11th, but, essentially, his story has been told.

The story of the Doctor intervening in wars and uprisings and insurrections and every other form of conflict is a familiar trope that classic Who returned to again and again, beginning in just the second serial ever broadcast, "The Daleks." True, the Doctor's desire to insinuate himself in these conflicts was never great, and it certainly lessened over time, but even the 7th Doctor wasn't against committing breathtakingly violent acts of war--cripes, he tricks Davros into blowing up Skaro itself in "Remembrance of the Daleks." The new series, however, has largely avoided the war tropes that were prevalent in the classic series, instead focusing on the main characters in smaller-scale, more emotional stories ("Father's Day," "The Girl in the Fireplace," "42") or dealing with the threat of sneaky alien invasions ("Aliens of London"/"World War II" or "The Idiot's Lantern") instead of full-on armed conflict. Even when the Doctor does have something of the old insurrectionist surface, it's often framed in the notion of "correcting" history ("The Long Game"). The closest we came to the old model was probably in the Cybermen storylines, though there it fell to the Daleks to really take them on in "Doomsday." (Remember how shocking the few scenes of war we did get were, such as the ones in "Human Nature?" That was mainly because there were so few of them.) Even with WWII as a backdrop, in the 2005 series two-parter, we see almost nothing of the war.

The 2008 series, though, address the ideas of war and insurrection head-on. True, it starts small enough, with a couple of stories which flesh out the character of Donna, mercifully, and understandably, evolved from her appearance in "The Runaway Bride." We start with another "sneaky alien" story in "Partners in Crime," then move on to a nicely structured "correcting history" episode in "Fires of Pompeii." By the third episode, though, we are plunged headlong into nothing short of an all-out slave rebellion. So, let's start there:

"Planet of the Ood": This is a good old fashioned "Doctor lands on alien planet and helps free a repressed populace" storyline, the first one we've really had since the new series began. In an initially violent uprising, the Doctor is witness and ally in the Ood throwing off the shackles of human slavery. Plus, we get lots of guns. It is directed by Graeme Harper, after all.

"The Sontaran Stratagem"/"The Poison Sky": UNIT's back--the military force that the Doctor used to work for! Well, technically, he still does work for them... Plus the Sontarans, the most warlike race in the Whoniverse. (The Daleks aren't warlike so much as genocidal. There is a difference.) There's an alien invasion (albeit a rather sneaky one at first), plus lots of guns, and the aforementioned UNIT in a storyline that harks back in many ways to the 3rd Doctor's era.

"The Doctor's Daughter": From a classic 3rd Doctor story we lead directly into a story that could plausibly have featured any of the 9 previous Doctors. The Doctor and his companions land on a alien planet and immediately have to contend with two opposing armies. Even the whole Jenny storyline merely highlights the notion of the Doctor as a (somewhat reluctant) warrior. (Incidentally, one of her better comebacks, about the desire of every soldier being to stop the fighting, appears questionable when uttered just a week after we've had an experience with the Sontarans.)

Clearly, "The Unicorn and the Wasp" is a feather-light episode meant to be a breather before we enter the truly heavy second half of the series. It simply can't support a lot of scrutiny, so I'm not even gonna bother. (But isn't it fun?) Also, while I adore the Stephen Moffatt two-parter "Silence in the Library"/"Forest of the Dead" it doesn't feel quite right in this series. It feels more like a lead-in to what the new Executive Producer wants to do with the show once RTD leaves. By a similar notion, "Midnight" is a story that RTD himself admitted that he had always wanted to do, so he took his last chance to do it. It does deal with inter-personal conflict in an interesting manner, however, so it's not completely off-topic.

[As an extended side note, any readers I may have (Hello Gillen & Lizzie!) may wonder how I can blithely cast aside episodes that don't seem to me to fit what I've decided RTD's themes are. Well, put bluntly, I just do. Mainly, I remind myself that the brilliance of Doctor Who lies in the fact that every week is a new start and that a truly extended overarching theme would make the show rather tedious.]

With the last three episodes, we quickly tumble along towards the culmination of everything that's been implied along the way. "Turn Left" is truly a story about war, but with a twist. We see life as it might be during or just after a devastating conflict. Military control, forced relocation, and in a terrifying analogy to WWII in the "labor camps"--a whole world in chaos is implied through the domestic plight of the Noble family. This brings us to the end: the end of the 2008 series, the end of (almost) every dangling plotline, the end of the DoctorDonna, and, indeed, the end of the 10th Doctor as we have come to know him. This Doctor, who was born from the guilt of war will both die and be reborn in its flames. The finale sees oppression, resistance, armed conflict, and cries of war across the galaxies.

We begin with the Daleks' conquest of Earth. (Total geek moment: The Doctor mentions that someone once tried to steal the Earth before--this was the Daleks in "The Dalek Invasion of Earth," which, in Earth historical terms, won't happen for another 50 years or so. Okay, geek moment over.) We get UNIT, Torchwood, shooting, guns, explosions, the whole war movie shebang. It is not until the multi-directional stand-off, however, that the costs of war become apparent. The Doctor, the purveyor of peace, the man who never would, is not only a general, but he turns those around him into soldiers. Sarah Jane, Martha, Rose...all of them are not only willing to die for the Doctor, they are willing to kill for him. Worst of all, the Doctor's alter-ego, Doctor 11b let's call him, becomes the man the Doctor once was and never wanted to be again. In the end, the Doctor, or Doctor 11b at least, commits genocide. This is a series steeped in war, blood, and death.

In the end the 10th Doctor's actions, and his inactions, leave him where he was when we first encountered the 9th Doctor: alone, battle-scarred, and guilt-ridden. The light is gone from his eyes. The 10th Doctor was defined by his energy. His experiences have taken everything from him. It is time for him to pass away...and for the 11th Doctor to come to be.

If the Doctor is God, is Susan the female Jesus once-removed?...Doctor Who, 2007 Series

2009-08-17T09:09:00.000-07:00

(Stolen again from my LJ page.)

So, back in the last days of classic Who, a new script editor was hired, Andrew Cartmel, who was at least partially responsible the the shows last Golden Era. Working to a vague set of ideas, later dubbed (by fanboys) the "Cartmel Master Plan," he and his chosen writers sought to return the mystery to the Doctor's character. Some of these ideas were implemented in the series, many more were flushed out in the Virgin New Adventure series of novels, and some were left by the wayside, to be picked over when Who returned 16 years later. One of these last group was the concept of the Doctor as a truly godlike-figure...well, you don't get much more godlike than the Doctor we see in the 2007 Series. Indeed, this whole series is so tied up with images from the Religions of the Book as to the closest Doctor Who has ever come to addressing religion on its own terms.

While it could be considered part of the 2006 Series, "The Runaway Bride" feels much closer thematically to the following series. It is a prelude to the Martha Jones era, as opposed to the last coda to the Rose era, if you will. While the Doctor had previously been referred to as the Lonely God ("New Earth"), that image didn't quite compliment he and Rose's youthful exuberance. Instead, we have to wait until "The Runaway Bride" and the 2007 Series to see how this might be this Doctor.

So, how is the Doctor (a) god? Well, let 's see...

"The Runaway Bride": He shows absolute control over life and death--he shows no mercy. The Doctor is God, and he shall judge the living and the dead.

"Smith and Jones": The Doctor poses as a human and sacrifices his life, only to return to life to save veryone--hell, his blood is even drunk.

"The Shakespeare Code": More than any other, perhaps, this points to the season finale. Here, we explore the power of words to create and control. It doesn't really get much more blatant than this. We have Genesis (Let there be...), the Gospel According to John (In the beginning was the Word...), Adam naming the animals and having dominion. Truly, this is old magic. (Note: this episode, along with the series finale, seem to imply that, if God exists, he is a very powerful, very old, and very wise scientist.)

"Gridlock": Another clue to the series finale: the power of faith to sustain the human spirit even in the darkest times. The Face of Boe, the Doctor's mirror image, sacrificing his life to "Let there be light." Indeed, the whole concept of being trapped underground and then rising into the sun has a very purgatorial, Dantesque feel to it.

Aside from the Biblical allusions of "Solomon" and "Lazarus," the next four episodes don't really feature much in the way of the ongoing theme, although they certainly contribute heavily to the ongoing plot line about Mr. Saxon, which features some elements of religious imagery, as Mr. Saxon (the Master) can easily be compared to the Antichrist. It's not the most interesting comparison, sure, but, there it is. It is worth considering that these four episodes are almost universally agreed to be the weakest of this series, and of the new series as a whole. Coincidence?

"Human Nature"/"Family of Blood": Again, we have the Doctor becoming human, this time literally, before he once again re-emerges to save the day. Also, this is the first time since "The Runaway Bride" that we see the 10th Doctor's rage--the "rage of the Time Lord." This is very reminiscent of the wrath of a vengeful God from the Old Testament. In fact, this two-parter was based on a novel originally written for the very godlike 7th Doctor.

"Blink": Aside from the fact that the Weeping Angels are, well, Angels, we get the very clever use of the Doctor as major character who hardly appears, but intervenes and must be trusted implicitly and obeted, just like a certain deity in certain ancient texts...

"Utopia"/"The Sound of Drums"/"Last of the Time Lords": Lordy, Lordy, lou...where does one start? Rose once referred to the Dalek Emperor as "the False God." Really, the Master is the False God, and this entire trilogy is about two godlike beings, (God v Satan, Christ v Anti-Christ) battling over the hearts, bodies, and minds of the human species. Throw in the (literal) spreading of the word, the Doctor's resurrection, and his beatific pose as he flies toward the Master -- plus the fact that the whole deal ends in forgiveness--and you have a trilogy so steeped in religiosity that it almost abandons science fiction completely to become out-and-out allegory.

All this from an avowed atheist, Russel T. Davies.

As an almost afterthought, I'm going to throw in "Voyage of the Damned," which certainly doesn't thematically connect with the 2008 series, but does rather nicely with this once, in some respects. Aside from the title ("Damned" being originally a religious term), we have the Angels (even called the Host), a sense of an afterlife (with Astrid out among the stars), and even a scene of the Doctor's Ascension that could come straight from the brush of a very forward thinking Old Master. I mention this as an afterthought because, more than any other special, this one feels disconnected from everything around it. The whole thing is really just "The Poseidon Adventure" in space and doesn't really go anywhere interesting dramatically or thematically.

So, discounting that as a one off, where did we leave the Doctor? Well, we left him alone (again), but, more importantly, we left him having barely averted a major interplanetary war. The Master wanted to build a new Time Lord Empire--and the Daleks are still out there (well, at least, one Dalek), trying to rebuild the Dalek empire. Of course, this would lead inexorably to the next "Great Time War." (Ties in nicely with "Human Nature"/"Family of Blood", set just before WWI, or, as it was called then, the "Great War." Who would be surprised if we eventually had "Time War II" as we do "World War II?") In essence, we have a Doctor who almost certainly is thinking of, and being consumed by, the seeming inevitability of subjugation, conflict, and war. This is the Doctor we find when we return to the TARDIS in 2008. In many ways, the series is about to come full circle...

No comeuppance! Do you hear me? No comueppace?...Doctor Who, 2006 Series

2009-08-17T09:05:00.000-07:00

(Another import from LJ. If you've already read it, then you're one of three very special people.)

Isn't there some old saw that goes something like, "Pride goeth before the fall?"

When we last saw our hero, he'd just grown a bunch of hair, lost a considerable amount of weight, and gained a different accent. In short, the Doctor had regenerated before the eyes of a rather confused and frightened Rose (Billie Piper). The 10th Doctor (David Tennant) is a very different sort of man. His long speech on the Syccorax ship certainly establishes himself as his own man, and, although a hint of the 9th Doctor emerges when he kills the Syccorax leader, by the time the Doctor joins the Tylers (and Mickey) for Christmas lunch, we know that the 9th Doctor is long gone, as are his issues of guilt, isolation, and loneliness.

So, what sort of man is this new Doctor--how does his relationship with Rose change--and, to get to our topic, what sort of theme do they play out over the course of the series? Well, in many ways, the 2006 Series is about the smugness of young lovers and the eventual death of all relationships. Chirpy, right? Seriously, though, this series deals with the self-involvement of young lovers, and with self-involvement generally, and the unintended consequences that arise from being solely focused on yourself and your needs. And, as a gentle leitmotif almost, we get the idea that everything ends, quite often because the larger world intrudes.

So, let's examine this meme and it's repetitions and variations:

"The Christmas Invasion": Unintended consequences, as The Doctor's speech causes Harriet to order the ship shot down; PLUS, in a bonus that wouldn't become apparent until the following year, deposing her allowed the Master to become PM. Nifty, no?)
"New Earth": Self-absorption, thy name is Cassandra. Plus, just a nice touch, we get the Doctor and Rose leading Chip/Cassandra back to the olden times, creating Cassandra's own myth about herself. So, yeah, unintended consequences.
"Tooth and Claw": Well, clearly...hello, um...Torchwood, anyone?
"School Reunion": Okay, this one's a bit tricky, but I think Sarah Jane & Rose's jealousies and conversations tie in nicely with the young love and everything dies motifs. Plus, we get the constant reminder of the eventual and unavoidable separation of the Doctor and Rose.
"The Girl in the Fireplace": It seems as if the Doctor and Rose are parted forever, an event which MUST happen, though not today. In a way, we get the unintended consequences idea, also, since, by having a ship named after her in the 51st century, Madame de Pompadour is put in danger in the 18th.
"Rise of the Cybermen"/"Age of Steel": Everything dies. Unless you transfer its brain into a cyber-suit. We also get hints of the unintended consequences/smugness thing with Lumic. Plus, of course, Mickey leaving leans toward the eventual separation.

From here on out, ALL of the Doctor/Rose episodes center on the two of them getting separated in rather extreme ways. While they continue to rescue one another, the writers are all pointing very strongly toward the season's end. We also get unintended consequences ("The Impossible Planet"/"Satan Pit") and a generous helping of smugness.

Of course, all this was leading toward the climax of the season, the greatest example in the NuWho of the sheer destruction that the Doctor's intervention can cause: "Army of Ghosts"/ "Doomsday." Here, all of the chickens come home to roost and the Doctor and Rose finally get their comeuppance. Their actions led to the establishment of Torchwood. Without Torchwood, the story doesn't happen. Period. Just as Rose became the Bad Wolf at the end of the 2005 series, so to do Rose and the Doctor become the creators of their own fate--their (supposedly) permanent separation.

Mind you, none of this is to say that they shouldn't have saved Queen Victoria from a werewolf or fought against the Cybermen on Pete's world. Rather, it is merely to say that actions, all actions, have consequences--and that two young, smug lovers are the worst judges in the world of the effect they have on the people around them.

So, at the end, we have the Doctor, alone, sad, and with a crazy, angry bride in his Tardis. Ignoring the Catherine Tate teaser, the Doctor has yet again become "The Lonely God," which leads nicely to series 2007...or, as I call it, to quote the great Andrew Cartmel, "The Doctor is God."

See, it's not just for kids! It has THEMES...Doctor Who, 2005 series

2009-08-17T08:43:00.001-07:00

(I'm bringing this over from my LiveJounral page. Only my second day on this blog, and I'm already plagiarizing myself. This doesn't bode well.)

2005: While it took me a few years to catch on, many people, on both sides of the Atlantic (and Pacific), awaited the return of Doctor Who baited breath. Many others, perhaps a larger group, mocked it as being that dumb kids' show.
2010: Doctor Who is once again the phenomenon it once was, popular in its native land, and exported to dozens of countries. Even many of the naysayers came around to the sheer quality of the new series. This kids' show was the most popular non-soap on British TV, and its spin-off was the most popular show on BBC America.

So, aside from the amazing affects, acting, and general glossiness of the new show, what makes it so special? Well, I would argue that it's not just a kids show--if anyone even believes that out there anymore. Indeed, I think outgoing Executive Producer Russell T. Davies knew that adults wanted an escapist show with emotional content, full of ideas and themes. In an ongoing series, I'm going to do my best to try to flesh out those themes to see why NuWho, as fans call it, resonates even deeper with adults than it does with the kiddies.

The 9th Doctor (Christopher Eccleston, one of the best, and, unfortunately, shortest-lived, Doctors) comes into our televisions quietly enough at the start. The entire first episode of the revived series, "Rose," is told from Rose's point of view, played here by pop sensation Billie Piper, who immediately creates an authentic, believable and sympathetic character. But I digress. The Doctor saves Rose, defeats the Autons, etc., etc, but also expresses a rather moody, isolationist vibe. Unusual for the Doctor, he at first tries to get rid of Rose--classically, the Doctor tended to gather people wherever he landed. There are some obscure references to many planets or peoples having been destroyed, perhaps by the Doctor, or certainly with his knowledge. Even though there is a joy in Eccleston's Doctor, we sense there is something deep, dark, and painful lurking beneath the smile and Northern accent. As, indeed, there is.

The 9th Doctor is alone, guilty, and damaged goods. In essence, he is suffering from survivor's guilt and PTSD, and the thematic stream of the 2005 series is that this Doctor, no matter what, can never be truly happy. So, we have an entire series focusing on guilt, isolation, and loneliness. The hints and references begin early and last through the entirety of the 2005 series. The Nestene Consciousness. Cassandra, the Last Human. The Earth being engulfed in a fireball. Finally, at the end of "End of the World," the Doctor tells Rose the truth: his planet (Gallifrey) has been destroyed. He is (in a phrase which would become iconic in the show) the "last of the Time Lords." This much is merely backstory, but it continues. We have the Gelph, with a similar plight to the Nestenes. We have the encounter with the lone Dalek, where we finally learn (if we hadn't already guessed) what race the Time Lords fault in the Last Great Time War. We have Rose's encounter with her dead father. We have "The Empty Child"/"The Doctor Dances" which are entirely about guilt and accepting responsibility for one's actions. We have "Boomtown," which is conversations about the mind of a killer and the possibility of redemption through new life. Sometimes guilt and isolation are main thrusts, sometime just hints, but they are the driving forces of Series '05.

And they are the reasons for the 9th Doctor's regeneration. After Rose's famous pronouncement, "The Time War ends," the Doctor sacrifices himself in order to save Rose, just as she had done to save him. In doing so, the Doctor's faith in himself and his ability to connect with another spirit is restored. The Doctor releases his guilt; he did what he could. He abandons his isolation; he has found Rose. And he will once again truly enjoy his travels in the Tardis, but the price is his face. The 9th Doctor, full of gloom, and blood, and guilt, must die; in his place, we have an utterly guilt free Doctor, the 10th Doctor (David Tennant). Indeed, he overcomes his guilt so well that he forgets its lessons, which will lead us to the 2006 Series...

At heart, I'm an unemplyed British person

2009-08-16T17:31:00.000-07:00

My favorite television shows these days are mainly on BBC America. Aside from the obvious choices, Doctor Who and Torchwood, I've also developed a taste for shows that are, apparently, only watched in the UK by housewives, retirees, and the unemployed: You Are What You Eat, How Clean is Your House?, Cash in the Attic, and Bargain Hunt.

These are distinctly daytime style shows--even here, BBCA mainly airs them during the daytime, so I have to DVR them so I can watch them in the evening, which seems a somewhat odd time to watch them. Personal/home makeover shows and shows about selling (valuable?) antiques at auction just seem right for the daytime, sitting in your bathrobe with a nice cup of tea--not so much for the evening.

My (brief) reviews of the shows:

You Are What You Eat: This is sort of like a British-style personalized version of The Biggest Loser, produced by Channel 4, where tremendously bossy and abrasive "holistic nutritionist" Gillian McKeith barges into the lives of obese British people (see--Americans aren't the only fat ones) and, after insulting them and examining their stool samples (seriously), puts them on a strict diet that they invariably hate, and harasses them when they don't exercise enough. Eight weeks later, we're shown the results: the people have invariably lost weight, look better, and say they feel better. I always wonder if they continue on their weight-loss path after the cameras have gone (a question I have about most weight-loss shows), but it makes for an enjoyable 30 minutes. Solid beta+.

How Clean is Your House?: Apparently, the UK is full of really, really dirty houses. I mean nauseatingly, disgustingly, appallingly dirty--full of germs and insects and, not infrequently, rodents. So, Channel 4 brings us this lovely little show where the "Queens of Clean," Kim Woodburn and Aggie McKenzie, invade some of the most slovenly hovels you've ever seen. Some of them even here in the States, though it's the episodes in the UK that are the best. Essentially, it's a home makeover show where the makeover is simply cleaning the filthy place. Kim and Aggie have brilliant chemistry, and the show's always good for a laugh and a bit of good-natured schadenfreude. An alpha-.

Cash in the Attic: I know there's an American version of this, but I've never seen it, and I doubt it's half as fun. The premise is simple: a host (a rotating cast of BBC presenter types, with the dreamy Alistair Appleton being my favorite) and an expert (usually one of two in-house types) rummage through someone's house in attempt to find things to sell at auction for a specific goal that the owner's have. The first half is the rummage--the second half, the vastly superior half, is the auction. There's something very dramatic about auctions--watching things crash and burn or rise and rise and rise in value until all sense of proportion is lost. I've only once seen an episode where the team didn't raise enough to meet the full goal the family had. Yes, they use terribly painful puns, and the contestants can sometimes be a bit stiff, but it's rather addictive fun. An alpha.

Bargain Hunt: I first encountered this show on various PBS stations, and I was quite pleased when it turned up BBCA. Of these shows, this is the "gamiest" (not that it tastes like goat) in that it has two teams and winners and losers, and, usually, an amazingly obnoxious, yet oddly likable host, David Dickinson. Goal: but things at an antiques fair and resell them at auction for a profit. The two teams are given money and an expert, whose advice they almost always ignore, with disastrous results, except for when they listen to him, with disastrous results. Generally the contestants fail miserably to produce a profit, and the winning team is simply the one that lost the least amount of money. Great fun, and incidentally informative. An alpha.

It's Official...

2009-08-16T16:01:00.000-07:00

Y.E. Yang has just made a birdie on 18 to win the PGA over Tiger Woods by 3 shots. That means Tiger is 0-4 in Majors this year, the first time since 2004 that Tiger hasn't won a major. Better still, 3 of the 4 Major winners this year where first time Major champions: Lucas Glover, Stewart Cink, and now Y.E. Yang. This is drama--this is possibility. It very well may be that the Tiger era of golf is over.

BTW, this will almost certainly be my last golf-related post in a while, so relax.

Is It Wrong to Root for Someone to Lose?

2009-08-16T15:46:00.000-07:00

I'm currently watching the PGA Championship and Tiger Woods is (surprisingly) not leading. Tee South Korean Y.E. Yang currently has a one-shot lead going to 18 and, while it's too early to call it, it looks like, for the first time ever, Tiger will have lost the lead that he had going into the Sunday of a major.

I have to admit, this fills me with glee. Tiger is *too* good--when he's on, which is at least half the time these days, he's in a different league from everyone else. His ability to make that tiny spheroid do what he wants it to is already legendary--and he's still in his early 30's. This has been, undeniably, good for the game. But it's bad for the drama. Goliath crushing David under his boot heel doesn't make for an interesting story; tiny, unknown David defeating the giant Goliath--now that's a story.

So, as the two leaders walk down the 18th fairway, both just having struck solid tee shots, I must admit I'm rooting for the giant to fall and for our Korean David to have his moment. Tiger will almost certainly win more majors--it's just better when he doesn't win them frequently.