Reason #3,457 why I love Doctor Who (SPOILERS for 3.02, plus some screen caps)
Why do I love the new Who? Because of little conversations like the following. Let's say that Shakespeare -- yes, THE Shakespeare, they've met him -- is flirting mightily with Martha Jones:
Martha: Whoa, nelly! I know for a fact you've got a wife in the country.
WS: But Martha, this is town.
Doctor: Come ON! We can all have a good flirt later.
WS: Is that a promise, Doctor?
Doctor: Oh . . . fifty-seven academics just punched the air. Now MOVE!
*punches the air* Dear Doctor Who PTB: Marry me? Please?
A few quick screen caps before bed:
Martha Jones continues to be a delight: smart, sensible, funny, and oh yeah, hot:
Shakespeare saves the world with words, while bathed in a flattering rose-colored light:
At one point Shakespeare demanded to know why the Doctor's eyes were so old; David Tennant can pull off that look -- old soul, incongruously and somewhat freakishly youthful appearance -- in episode after episode:
I enjoyed the scenery, which made London look a bit like Hogsmeade (rather fitting in an episode with so many references to Harry Potter).
All in all, a promising second episode. The witches were a good idea, I thought, despite their silly masks. Doctor Who continued to deliver the science fiction goods with this concept of language as a dangerous alternate technology virtually indistinguishable from magic.
The episode did leave me wondering, though: if good writing can save the world, what can bad writing do? Would a careless public reading of [insert your least favorite writer here] release the demons and send the world into a flaming pit?
And, erm, did my ears deceive me, or was the world saved by a cross-temporal collaboration between William Shakespeare and J.K. Rowling? I guess the Doctor Who PTB are HP fans. BIG fans. There's something strangely cosy about that, but not really all that outlandish if you take the episode completely on its own terms. The Shakespeare in this episode was to some extent Tourist!Shakespeare -- all warm amber light and half-timbered houses and serving wenches. The Hogwarts/Hogsmeade/Nocturne Alley atmosphere is half-inspired by that slightly Disnified version of England's past and half a wickedly funny parody of it, so the Rowling/Shakespeare fusion in this ep did make a slightly deranged sense to me.
Martha: Whoa, nelly! I know for a fact you've got a wife in the country.
WS: But Martha, this is town.
Doctor: Come ON! We can all have a good flirt later.
WS: Is that a promise, Doctor?
Doctor: Oh . . . fifty-seven academics just punched the air. Now MOVE!
*punches the air* Dear Doctor Who PTB: Marry me? Please?
A few quick screen caps before bed:
Martha Jones continues to be a delight: smart, sensible, funny, and oh yeah, hot:
Shakespeare saves the world with words, while bathed in a flattering rose-colored light:
At one point Shakespeare demanded to know why the Doctor's eyes were so old; David Tennant can pull off that look -- old soul, incongruously and somewhat freakishly youthful appearance -- in episode after episode:
I enjoyed the scenery, which made London look a bit like Hogsmeade (rather fitting in an episode with so many references to Harry Potter).
All in all, a promising second episode. The witches were a good idea, I thought, despite their silly masks. Doctor Who continued to deliver the science fiction goods with this concept of language as a dangerous alternate technology virtually indistinguishable from magic.
The episode did leave me wondering, though: if good writing can save the world, what can bad writing do? Would a careless public reading of [insert your least favorite writer here] release the demons and send the world into a flaming pit?
And, erm, did my ears deceive me, or was the world saved by a cross-temporal collaboration between William Shakespeare and J.K. Rowling? I guess the Doctor Who PTB are HP fans. BIG fans. There's something strangely cosy about that, but not really all that outlandish if you take the episode completely on its own terms. The Shakespeare in this episode was to some extent Tourist!Shakespeare -- all warm amber light and half-timbered houses and serving wenches. The Hogwarts/Hogsmeade/Nocturne Alley atmosphere is half-inspired by that slightly Disnified version of England's past and half a wickedly funny parody of it, so the Rowling/Shakespeare fusion in this ep did make a slightly deranged sense to me.