(no subject)
Happy birthday poshcat!
Your talent and humor and kindness make livejournal, and the world, a better place.
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This weekend on the teevee (well, it was on the teevee somewhere):
Doctor Who 29.02 - "The Shakespeare Code"
There were two things I liked very much about this episode. One was that Martha immediately wondered, on learning that they were in Shakespearean England, whether her race would make her stand out; and in the end, it wasn't a huge issue, but it also wasn't handled anachronistically, as if it didn't exist. The other was that the show chose to illustrate Shakespeare's genius through his ability to observe people and grasp fundamental truths and motivations-the qualities that are at the heart of his works' resonance, the reason we still read them today. The Doctor and he traded quips, and he liked some better than others, and was obviously constantly turning words over in his mind, but what he was really thinking about was people and why they do the things they do.
Doctor Who 29.03 - "Gridlock"
Russell T. Davies seems to like to poke at absurdities in his episodes. I haven't seen mention of this elsewhere on my flist, but I read this episode very much as a tongue-in-cheek poke at American car culture, or at least British perceptions of American car culture. It was set in New New York, but beyond that, the first car inhabitants we meet, the ones who pull the Doctor out of the killer smog, seemed to be deliberately dressed and made up to look like the old farm couple in American Gothic. The people on the beltway had settled into their cars for the long haul, accepting the traffic and smog as a natural part of life, planning for a brighter future at a destination just a few exits further along, and in the meantime becoming one with their vehicles (which were all personalized with care), living and loving and having children in them. And they couldn't see far enough out their windows to realize that the city above them had died or that there were monsters below them, feeding off their exhaust and trying to destroy them. I was glad to see the Face of Bo again, and really liked the Doctor's description of Gallifrey, fond and wondering and full of loss, because he doesn't seem as shell-shocked anymore about the war, and the fact that he can talk about it at all is, I think, a good sign. I could do with less of Martha and the Doctor flirting, because I don't think it's going anywhere, and I don't want it to go anywhere (Tennant and Ayeman have good chemistry, but I don't particularly want to see the new Doctor settling into predictable will-they-won't-they with each successive female companion), but I'm mostly able to roll my eyes and ignore it. I also like that Martha is off on her own, forming her own connections with the people they meet and playing her own part in the adventures.
Drive 1.01 - 1.02
It's possible that my antipathy toward the race premise is part of the problem, but I'm nervous that it's a tough thing for an episodic show to pull off. The season of 24 I watched had that problem-there was a natural arc to the story, which probably topped out at 6 hours, and extending it meant burying the real story in filler that spun off on increasingly implausible tangents. This secret race that so many people have heard of, and the mysterious and evil cabal that runs it, runs the risk of collapsing in on itself if the writers have to add more twists. The parts of these two episodes that focused more on the characters, and on developing connections between racing teams, worked better, and hopefully that's where the focus will shift after the teams are more established.
Nathan Fillion was pretty riveting, though. He gives really good desperate and angry and so bitter that hope is a luxury he almost doesn't dare allow himself. I also liked the teenage girl and her dying father. Most of the rest of the characters didn't make much of an impression, but the two episodes were trying to cover a lot of ground.
But damn, does Florida ever look like Southern California. And the theme song reminded me of a Keckler Enterprise recap in which she wrote something like, "I sprayed Song-Be-Gone on my television, and then I set it on fire." It's tempting!
Hopefully, the show will get a few episodes to find its footing. However, Minear + Fillion + FOX + these ratings is not a good equation.
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molly_may has alerted me to the existence of Dickens World. I am flabbergasted! And I totally agree with her that "experience the smells of Victorian London" is not necessary a selling point.
But there does seem to be a market for that sort of thing. True story: Amazon once shipped me a scratch and sniff book about the Vikings by mistake. And the scratch and sniff panels were for things like dried fish and unwashed wool. Sadly, though, I sent it back, and it appears to have disappeared from their listings, so coming generations of American children will be deprived of the pivotal Viking smell experience. At least Dickens World is picking up some of the slack.
Your talent and humor and kindness make livejournal, and the world, a better place.
* * * * *
This weekend on the teevee (well, it was on the teevee somewhere):
Doctor Who 29.02 - "The Shakespeare Code"
There were two things I liked very much about this episode. One was that Martha immediately wondered, on learning that they were in Shakespearean England, whether her race would make her stand out; and in the end, it wasn't a huge issue, but it also wasn't handled anachronistically, as if it didn't exist. The other was that the show chose to illustrate Shakespeare's genius through his ability to observe people and grasp fundamental truths and motivations-the qualities that are at the heart of his works' resonance, the reason we still read them today. The Doctor and he traded quips, and he liked some better than others, and was obviously constantly turning words over in his mind, but what he was really thinking about was people and why they do the things they do.
Doctor Who 29.03 - "Gridlock"
Russell T. Davies seems to like to poke at absurdities in his episodes. I haven't seen mention of this elsewhere on my flist, but I read this episode very much as a tongue-in-cheek poke at American car culture, or at least British perceptions of American car culture. It was set in New New York, but beyond that, the first car inhabitants we meet, the ones who pull the Doctor out of the killer smog, seemed to be deliberately dressed and made up to look like the old farm couple in American Gothic. The people on the beltway had settled into their cars for the long haul, accepting the traffic and smog as a natural part of life, planning for a brighter future at a destination just a few exits further along, and in the meantime becoming one with their vehicles (which were all personalized with care), living and loving and having children in them. And they couldn't see far enough out their windows to realize that the city above them had died or that there were monsters below them, feeding off their exhaust and trying to destroy them. I was glad to see the Face of Bo again, and really liked the Doctor's description of Gallifrey, fond and wondering and full of loss, because he doesn't seem as shell-shocked anymore about the war, and the fact that he can talk about it at all is, I think, a good sign. I could do with less of Martha and the Doctor flirting, because I don't think it's going anywhere, and I don't want it to go anywhere (Tennant and Ayeman have good chemistry, but I don't particularly want to see the new Doctor settling into predictable will-they-won't-they with each successive female companion), but I'm mostly able to roll my eyes and ignore it. I also like that Martha is off on her own, forming her own connections with the people they meet and playing her own part in the adventures.
Drive 1.01 - 1.02
It's possible that my antipathy toward the race premise is part of the problem, but I'm nervous that it's a tough thing for an episodic show to pull off. The season of 24 I watched had that problem-there was a natural arc to the story, which probably topped out at 6 hours, and extending it meant burying the real story in filler that spun off on increasingly implausible tangents. This secret race that so many people have heard of, and the mysterious and evil cabal that runs it, runs the risk of collapsing in on itself if the writers have to add more twists. The parts of these two episodes that focused more on the characters, and on developing connections between racing teams, worked better, and hopefully that's where the focus will shift after the teams are more established.
Nathan Fillion was pretty riveting, though. He gives really good desperate and angry and so bitter that hope is a luxury he almost doesn't dare allow himself. I also liked the teenage girl and her dying father. Most of the rest of the characters didn't make much of an impression, but the two episodes were trying to cover a lot of ground.
But damn, does Florida ever look like Southern California. And the theme song reminded me of a Keckler Enterprise recap in which she wrote something like, "I sprayed Song-Be-Gone on my television, and then I set it on fire." It's tempting!
Hopefully, the show will get a few episodes to find its footing. However, Minear + Fillion + FOX + these ratings is not a good equation.
* * * * *
molly_may has alerted me to the existence of Dickens World. I am flabbergasted! And I totally agree with her that "experience the smells of Victorian London" is not necessary a selling point.
But there does seem to be a market for that sort of thing. True story: Amazon once shipped me a scratch and sniff book about the Vikings by mistake. And the scratch and sniff panels were for things like dried fish and unwashed wool. Sadly, though, I sent it back, and it appears to have disappeared from their listings, so coming generations of American children will be deprived of the pivotal Viking smell experience. At least Dickens World is picking up some of the slack.