I point and laugh at archeologists
This is a public service announcement. Gratuitous fangirling will follow. May cause dizziness, disorientation, disbelief and retching in extreme cases. Void where prohibited by notional academic dignity.
So, Doctor Who. The fourth season has been enjoyable, but my socks have remained firmly un-knocked-off until the other night, when I and the houseguests, nicely buzzed on too much food and the EL's wine stash, sat down to watch "The Unicorn and the Wasp", followed in quick succession by "Silence in the Library" and "Forest of the Dead".
The Agatha Christie episode was brilliant: jo and I sat there going "It's a LARP!" with unholy glee at frequent intervals. It was beautifully constructed, magnificently and playfully self-conscious, and completely immersed in its period. I loved the tongue-in-cheek games with dissolves, and the deliberate artificiality of the setting and of the traditional detective-holding-forth approach to the problem-solving. Also, bonus subtextual homoeroticism and vaguely Cthulhoid elements! And the actress who played Agatha Christie was superbly cast.
However, that was no more than the tasty starter to the main course, which was the delirious joy of a two-parter constructed by my favourite scriptwriter, Steven Moffat (fangirlfangirlfangirl). As I've gratuitously fangirled before, Moffat gets both narrative construction and time travel itself: his plots are always tightly wound, elegant and considerably above the triteness of the Interesting Historical Time Period/Historical Figure Du Jour which seems to be the default setting on most of the other scriptwriters. He also, unlike Russell Davies and others, gets right to the heart of the Doctor's personal situation as someone dislocated from the ordinary timelines of everyone else he meets.
Apart from being a freewheeling time-and-space romp, the Doctor's life is also a tragedy of isolation and loss, and in its darker moments ought to get him - and us - by the guts with both hands, and twist. No-one does this as well as Moffat: no-one else gets as succinctly to the heart of paradox, both emotional and literal. River Song, the archaeologist who is probably a future companion if not more (and there was considerable speculation in the ranks as we watched) is the kind of figure who ought to turn up a lot more often in the series - someone who knows a future version of the Doctor, and who has to deal with all the resulting poignancy and loss consequent upon meeting someone you know and care for but who doesn't know you. The Doctor's line, "I'm a time traveller - I point and laugh at archaeologists!" is possibly my second favourite in the series so far, but it works doubly to underline the cruelty of River's experience. She's invested, he's detached, he may as well be pointing and laughing; even worse, he'll go through his entire relationship with her knowing how it ended. His vastly superior knowledge here is horribly unkind.
I think that the power of the emotional interaction sustained the episodes, actually. Drooling Moffat fan or not, I have to say that the plot didn't quite have the elegance of "Girl in the Fireplace" or "Blink", possibly because it tried to do too much. The virtual reality idea and the computer's notion of "saving" were neat and nicely done, but the vashta nerada were somehow too much. In themselves an elegant monstrosity along the lines of "Blink"'s stone angels, the library's frightening shadows didn't ever quite jell with the virtual or the emotional, and I'd have been happier to see them tied into the computer theme in a more logical way. I think I'm quibbling, though, and the slight lack of connection didn't at all detract from a watching experience that was mesmerising and absorbing.
Now, of course, we do the usual sudden, dizzy descent into the season finale à la Russell Davies. Phooey.
So, Doctor Who. The fourth season has been enjoyable, but my socks have remained firmly un-knocked-off until the other night, when I and the houseguests, nicely buzzed on too much food and the EL's wine stash, sat down to watch "The Unicorn and the Wasp", followed in quick succession by "Silence in the Library" and "Forest of the Dead".
The Agatha Christie episode was brilliant: jo and I sat there going "It's a LARP!" with unholy glee at frequent intervals. It was beautifully constructed, magnificently and playfully self-conscious, and completely immersed in its period. I loved the tongue-in-cheek games with dissolves, and the deliberate artificiality of the setting and of the traditional detective-holding-forth approach to the problem-solving. Also, bonus subtextual homoeroticism and vaguely Cthulhoid elements! And the actress who played Agatha Christie was superbly cast.
However, that was no more than the tasty starter to the main course, which was the delirious joy of a two-parter constructed by my favourite scriptwriter, Steven Moffat (fangirlfangirlfangirl). As I've gratuitously fangirled before, Moffat gets both narrative construction and time travel itself: his plots are always tightly wound, elegant and considerably above the triteness of the Interesting Historical Time Period/Historical Figure Du Jour which seems to be the default setting on most of the other scriptwriters. He also, unlike Russell Davies and others, gets right to the heart of the Doctor's personal situation as someone dislocated from the ordinary timelines of everyone else he meets.
Apart from being a freewheeling time-and-space romp, the Doctor's life is also a tragedy of isolation and loss, and in its darker moments ought to get him - and us - by the guts with both hands, and twist. No-one does this as well as Moffat: no-one else gets as succinctly to the heart of paradox, both emotional and literal. River Song, the archaeologist who is probably a future companion if not more (and there was considerable speculation in the ranks as we watched) is the kind of figure who ought to turn up a lot more often in the series - someone who knows a future version of the Doctor, and who has to deal with all the resulting poignancy and loss consequent upon meeting someone you know and care for but who doesn't know you. The Doctor's line, "I'm a time traveller - I point and laugh at archaeologists!" is possibly my second favourite in the series so far, but it works doubly to underline the cruelty of River's experience. She's invested, he's detached, he may as well be pointing and laughing; even worse, he'll go through his entire relationship with her knowing how it ended. His vastly superior knowledge here is horribly unkind.
I think that the power of the emotional interaction sustained the episodes, actually. Drooling Moffat fan or not, I have to say that the plot didn't quite have the elegance of "Girl in the Fireplace" or "Blink", possibly because it tried to do too much. The virtual reality idea and the computer's notion of "saving" were neat and nicely done, but the vashta nerada were somehow too much. In themselves an elegant monstrosity along the lines of "Blink"'s stone angels, the library's frightening shadows didn't ever quite jell with the virtual or the emotional, and I'd have been happier to see them tied into the computer theme in a more logical way. I think I'm quibbling, though, and the slight lack of connection didn't at all detract from a watching experience that was mesmerising and absorbing.
Now, of course, we do the usual sudden, dizzy descent into the season finale à la Russell Davies. Phooey.