42, Dead Man Walking (heck of a tag-team)
I've had an essay deadline pushed back a couple of weeks, which means, knowing me, I will probably give in to the terrible temptation to procrastinate. On that, anyway. I've already finished one class's readings for the semester, because I really, really hate that book...
That compounded with the habit I have of overestimating the time it'll take me to do things means I have plenty of time to gripe about "42". Unfortunately for the Internet. Though it's not exactly a novel opinion, I hear? Thank god...
(My original cut-tag was "Dare to be Stupid". Upon reflection, I decided that was a bit impolitic for the front of the page. Still right though.) Between 42 and Torchwood, this week... it's a lot to take. I missed the first ten minutes of 42-- extrapolating, I'd guess it wasn't much of a loss. And I'm pretty sure most of the abuse that could be hurled at this episode has been hurled already, which is kind of nice, saves me having to relive too much of it.
Points I will mention: Most useless escape pods ever. Even the Titanic lifeboats had supplies. These things don't have engines of any sort-- guidance systems-- supplies? Isn't the entire point of an escape pod to preserve your life until rescue can come? Was it supposed to be some "oh, we're too close to the sun for that" thing? Kya.
Ten's spacewalk: ...What? For god's sake, man, you've got a timeship! That can materialize around anything you so choose! Don't try to weasel around it, it worked in PotW and there's no reason it couldn't have worked here. All "can't change the timeline now I'm involved" arguments are invalidated by the same argument. As are "didn't have time". Not easy to put on a spacesuit. And after he got out into space... *sigh* He had to press a button to... what? Was it some sort of tractor beam? Why wouldn't that be accessible from inside? Illogic that enables bad melodrama is the worst kind of illogic...
Mrs. Jones: Still useless, poor woman. Hell, even my mother commented on it, and she's a casual viewer at best. She's just not interesting, not sympathetic. Her distrust of Ten is knee-jerk, based on deception, and ultimately irrational, because that's the only reason anyone could have to distrust Ten, ne?
And miscellaneous: I still don't like that damn suit on him, god help me; I couldn't help commenting during the random deep-freeze thing (right, because human body temperature isn't as significant a drop from the temperature of the sun as -500 or whatever the hell it was would be) how much more elegant a solution it would be to chuck him out in space; I totally missed the explanation of what the random sun creature was, because it took all of fifteen seconds at fifteen hundred words per minute; that poor star must have been seduced by the Lone Power, Fred would be so ashamed; and I didn't even think The Lazarus Experiment was any worse than usual, but this was just crap. And they dare to title it 42? With that sort of title, you either need to have some serious existential angst as to the meaning of life or some seriously good crack; either would be valid... As it is, you're just inviting mutterings of "Here I am, brain the size of a planet and I'm watching this dreck..."
Which, oddly, segues into Torchwood, because I've had much the same issue with their new opening. "The 21st century is when everything changes, and Torchwood is ready." If you are a heartless cynic like myself, that just begs for a retort-- but it's tricky, and I still haven't found the perfect one. The framework that comes to my mind is a "They aren't ready for a ____!" Examples include "Oh, they aren't ready for a tea party!"; "They aren't ready for rush-hour traffic!"; and "They aren't ready for the Y2K bug!". There's a much better one somewhere, but I can't quite put my finger on it... "They aren't ready to own their own flats!", maybe. Or "They aren't ready to be left alone without a sitter!" The search continues...
And to the actual episode: like Lazarus and 42, I spent most of the introduction accusing the main character of having severe cognitive impairments at great volume and in highly impolitic terminology. Also interspersed were "Right, because that didn't cause any problems the last time. Oh wait, hang on..." and "So mysteriously drawn to the thing you're searching for are a large group of vicious aliens. See, I'm no fan of superstition-- it ain't the way-- but some things should really be taken as omens." There is just no excuse for Jack to be that stupid. Just as there was no excuse for Owen to open the rift. I don't expect them to be perfect; I just expect that anyone entrusted with the fate of the world should, when faced with a possible threat to it, stop to consider their motivations and options, with the assumption that they should sacrifice what they want if it means putting others (especially when "others" covers "all mankind [and possibly the universe]") in significant mortal peril. Apparently this is unreasonable of me.
Owen's a nasty emo bitch for most of the episode, but he's got a damned good excuse. I wouldn't even mention it if he hadn't been a nasty emo bitch for half the other episodes too. Still, in spite of itself, that last scene with Owen v. Death was actually almost moving toward the beginning there. (Half-ass and anticlimatic toward the end.) Owen and the chemo kid? Didn't work. Too rushed to add meaning, too horrifically cliched. Activates all the Cynic Circuits instantly.
Way to still be a douchebag to Toshiko, Owen! I knew you wouldn't let me down. Just, for the love of God, let the bodily-functions vein of "humor" be officially tapped out. PLEASE. In the name of everything considered holy. Sex if you must, god knows you couldn't be stopped from having him angst about the lack of sex (if you're keeping that twist), but if you ever toy with the projectile vomiting again, I WILL become your personal Ann Coulter, and then you shall know the true meaning of hell, I swear it.
I hate vacations. My sleep schedule goes instantly to hell, I waste half my time on pointless efforts to get to bed earlier, and I get disturbingly listless disturbingly quickly. Not to mention that I wanted to have more done by now.
But. I was accosted by a fic.
Fic: *taps shoulder*
Me: GAH! Who the hell are you?
Fic: I'm a fic idea.
Me: How the hell did you get here?
Fic: Sleep deprivation just opens the door, child. One stray thought...
Me: Yeah, but what was the stray thought?
Fic: Wasn't very coherent. "Why the hell are all amnesia episodes called 'Tabula Rasa'?" jumped to "Hmm, is there an Anno Domini fic I'd call Tabula Rasa?"
Me: You tricksy bastard.
Fic: Shut up and start writing. You know you'll never finish it if you wait.
Me: Fine, fine! *writes* Oh good lord. Good Lord. That's not right. You bastard!
Fic: Excuse me? How the hell is it my fault the Master's a sadistic bastard?
Me: This is a little bit more sadistic than we saw on the show!
Fic: It's just a little blood! For god's sake, he had Jack in a torture chamber and put Martha's family in maid uniforms! Mopping up a little blood doesn't come with the territory?
Me: But... damn it. *keeps writing* But I'm not doing Stockholm Syndrome.
Fic: Fine by me. But don't forget that page in your Social Psychology textbook...
Me: All right... oh dear god. That's almost worse.
Fic: Oh it is not, you great wuss. You know the Stockholm Syndrome would've been worse.
Me: Yeah, but, but, the knife!
Fic: You're the one who gave her PTSD! Next you're going to be blaming me for the Palestinians!
Me: You can't prove that's Israel and Palestine! It could be any wartorn region! With grocery stores!
Fic: Yeah, well, you and me know the truth. Now write. You're almost done.
Me: *writes* ...She hates Ten more than I do!! I can't get away with that!
Fic: It's perfectly canonical and you know it! Besides! PTSD!
Me: But I can't actually get away with the ice cream metaphor! I'm taking it out!
Fic: Oh you are NOT! Keep writing! Now!
Me: ...The parallel's not clear enough and the ending's way more calm than the last part was.
Fic: It'll be clear with the summary. And you're the one who can't write a miserable ending. Would you rather keep going till you find a better place to leave off at?
Me: Hell, no!
Fic: You're the one who liked the promise of hope. *studies ending* Or suicide. That one could go either way. You really like that device, don't you?
Me: It couldn't go that way 'cos it'd contradict Anno Domini. Now will you go away?
Fic: You still have to type me up.
Me: X_X
Fic: Oh, yeah, and I don't think my name's Tabula Rasa.
Me: *lunges*
...yeah. *sigh* Mixed productivity this week. That damned research paper--! *hurries off to figure out what the topic is*
That compounded with the habit I have of overestimating the time it'll take me to do things means I have plenty of time to gripe about "42". Unfortunately for the Internet. Though it's not exactly a novel opinion, I hear? Thank god...
(My original cut-tag was "Dare to be Stupid". Upon reflection, I decided that was a bit impolitic for the front of the page. Still right though.) Between 42 and Torchwood, this week... it's a lot to take. I missed the first ten minutes of 42-- extrapolating, I'd guess it wasn't much of a loss. And I'm pretty sure most of the abuse that could be hurled at this episode has been hurled already, which is kind of nice, saves me having to relive too much of it.
Points I will mention: Most useless escape pods ever. Even the Titanic lifeboats had supplies. These things don't have engines of any sort-- guidance systems-- supplies? Isn't the entire point of an escape pod to preserve your life until rescue can come? Was it supposed to be some "oh, we're too close to the sun for that" thing? Kya.
Ten's spacewalk: ...What? For god's sake, man, you've got a timeship! That can materialize around anything you so choose! Don't try to weasel around it, it worked in PotW and there's no reason it couldn't have worked here. All "can't change the timeline now I'm involved" arguments are invalidated by the same argument. As are "didn't have time". Not easy to put on a spacesuit. And after he got out into space... *sigh* He had to press a button to... what? Was it some sort of tractor beam? Why wouldn't that be accessible from inside? Illogic that enables bad melodrama is the worst kind of illogic...
Mrs. Jones: Still useless, poor woman. Hell, even my mother commented on it, and she's a casual viewer at best. She's just not interesting, not sympathetic. Her distrust of Ten is knee-jerk, based on deception, and ultimately irrational, because that's the only reason anyone could have to distrust Ten, ne?
And miscellaneous: I still don't like that damn suit on him, god help me; I couldn't help commenting during the random deep-freeze thing (right, because human body temperature isn't as significant a drop from the temperature of the sun as -500 or whatever the hell it was would be) how much more elegant a solution it would be to chuck him out in space; I totally missed the explanation of what the random sun creature was, because it took all of fifteen seconds at fifteen hundred words per minute; that poor star must have been seduced by the Lone Power, Fred would be so ashamed; and I didn't even think The Lazarus Experiment was any worse than usual, but this was just crap. And they dare to title it 42? With that sort of title, you either need to have some serious existential angst as to the meaning of life or some seriously good crack; either would be valid... As it is, you're just inviting mutterings of "Here I am, brain the size of a planet and I'm watching this dreck..."
Which, oddly, segues into Torchwood, because I've had much the same issue with their new opening. "The 21st century is when everything changes, and Torchwood is ready." If you are a heartless cynic like myself, that just begs for a retort-- but it's tricky, and I still haven't found the perfect one. The framework that comes to my mind is a "They aren't ready for a ____!" Examples include "Oh, they aren't ready for a tea party!"; "They aren't ready for rush-hour traffic!"; and "They aren't ready for the Y2K bug!". There's a much better one somewhere, but I can't quite put my finger on it... "They aren't ready to own their own flats!", maybe. Or "They aren't ready to be left alone without a sitter!" The search continues...
And to the actual episode: like Lazarus and 42, I spent most of the introduction accusing the main character of having severe cognitive impairments at great volume and in highly impolitic terminology. Also interspersed were "Right, because that didn't cause any problems the last time. Oh wait, hang on..." and "So mysteriously drawn to the thing you're searching for are a large group of vicious aliens. See, I'm no fan of superstition-- it ain't the way-- but some things should really be taken as omens." There is just no excuse for Jack to be that stupid. Just as there was no excuse for Owen to open the rift. I don't expect them to be perfect; I just expect that anyone entrusted with the fate of the world should, when faced with a possible threat to it, stop to consider their motivations and options, with the assumption that they should sacrifice what they want if it means putting others (especially when "others" covers "all mankind [and possibly the universe]") in significant mortal peril. Apparently this is unreasonable of me.
Owen's a nasty emo bitch for most of the episode, but he's got a damned good excuse. I wouldn't even mention it if he hadn't been a nasty emo bitch for half the other episodes too. Still, in spite of itself, that last scene with Owen v. Death was actually almost moving toward the beginning there. (Half-ass and anticlimatic toward the end.) Owen and the chemo kid? Didn't work. Too rushed to add meaning, too horrifically cliched. Activates all the Cynic Circuits instantly.
Way to still be a douchebag to Toshiko, Owen! I knew you wouldn't let me down. Just, for the love of God, let the bodily-functions vein of "humor" be officially tapped out. PLEASE. In the name of everything considered holy. Sex if you must, god knows you couldn't be stopped from having him angst about the lack of sex (if you're keeping that twist), but if you ever toy with the projectile vomiting again, I WILL become your personal Ann Coulter, and then you shall know the true meaning of hell, I swear it.
I hate vacations. My sleep schedule goes instantly to hell, I waste half my time on pointless efforts to get to bed earlier, and I get disturbingly listless disturbingly quickly. Not to mention that I wanted to have more done by now.
But. I was accosted by a fic.
Fic: *taps shoulder*
Me: GAH! Who the hell are you?
Fic: I'm a fic idea.
Me: How the hell did you get here?
Fic: Sleep deprivation just opens the door, child. One stray thought...
Me: Yeah, but what was the stray thought?
Fic: Wasn't very coherent. "Why the hell are all amnesia episodes called 'Tabula Rasa'?" jumped to "Hmm, is there an Anno Domini fic I'd call Tabula Rasa?"
Me: You tricksy bastard.
Fic: Shut up and start writing. You know you'll never finish it if you wait.
Me: Fine, fine! *writes* Oh good lord. Good Lord. That's not right. You bastard!
Fic: Excuse me? How the hell is it my fault the Master's a sadistic bastard?
Me: This is a little bit more sadistic than we saw on the show!
Fic: It's just a little blood! For god's sake, he had Jack in a torture chamber and put Martha's family in maid uniforms! Mopping up a little blood doesn't come with the territory?
Me: But... damn it. *keeps writing* But I'm not doing Stockholm Syndrome.
Fic: Fine by me. But don't forget that page in your Social Psychology textbook...
Me: All right... oh dear god. That's almost worse.
Fic: Oh it is not, you great wuss. You know the Stockholm Syndrome would've been worse.
Me: Yeah, but, but, the knife!
Fic: You're the one who gave her PTSD! Next you're going to be blaming me for the Palestinians!
Me: You can't prove that's Israel and Palestine! It could be any wartorn region! With grocery stores!
Fic: Yeah, well, you and me know the truth. Now write. You're almost done.
Me: *writes* ...She hates Ten more than I do!! I can't get away with that!
Fic: It's perfectly canonical and you know it! Besides! PTSD!
Me: But I can't actually get away with the ice cream metaphor! I'm taking it out!
Fic: Oh you are NOT! Keep writing! Now!
Me: ...The parallel's not clear enough and the ending's way more calm than the last part was.
Fic: It'll be clear with the summary. And you're the one who can't write a miserable ending. Would you rather keep going till you find a better place to leave off at?
Me: Hell, no!
Fic: You're the one who liked the promise of hope. *studies ending* Or suicide. That one could go either way. You really like that device, don't you?
Me: It couldn't go that way 'cos it'd contradict Anno Domini. Now will you go away?
Fic: You still have to type me up.
Me: X_X
Fic: Oh, yeah, and I don't think my name's Tabula Rasa.
Me: *lunges*
...yeah. *sigh* Mixed productivity this week. That damned research paper--! *hurries off to figure out what the topic is*