a scrabbling together of various things
This city never stops changing;this morning I found that the buses no longer run along the pleasant garden-nursery-lined road close to home, but instead are a good (not-so-good) long walk away, and...there has been much foot-slogging and only minor getting things done today. The fair trade shop has vanished, too, despite their website saying they're still there, grump, grump. I was hoping to make more progress in getting and sending presents today.
So I got home tired, and revived myself in watching the latest episode of Doctor Who. Here are some thoughts on that, and on the last few episodes, cut because they're long, and so that non-Who followers can skip them.
The last one I wrote about was 'The Zygon Invasion'. The hiatus is partly because I came to a full stop in 'TheZygon Inversion' when it felt like we were being invited to feel relieved that two main characters had survived a plane crash, when pretty plainly everyone else couldn't. I couldn't shake my recoiling from that, and I think that, despite the seriousness of some of the themes which that episode and succeeding ones have come up with, it's a real problem in the series overall - the willingness to invite dismissal of deaths of 'unimportant' people.
Then again, in that same episode, the pay-off to the whole thing, the anti-war speech, was good and gripping, but lost me utterly at "do you call this a war? This funny little thing? This is not a war! I fought in a bigger war than you will ever know...." and so on and on self-aggrandising, in a way which was making it all about The Doctor's Pain. Yes, actually, we do call these things wars, and those lines (and what followed) was idiotically astray. I would despise (who would not despise?) someone who said "you call this a war?" about a "little" war like, say, the Rwandan Civil War, while boasting about how big and bad was, say, the World War they themselves had fought in. But that's what was put in the mouth of the Doctor. Real and close-to-unforgiveable failure of intelligence and imagination on the part of the writer/Moffat, that bit.
I did like the Osgoods being very clever, but those two negatives pulled me away from taking the time to check out the 'Sleep no more' episode. I saw that it wasn't well received; possibly though (such was the weight of this 'Heaven Sent' episode) I've missed something important by not seeing it.
'Face the Raven' is a great, great title, and the episode was a good one. I did find the direction of the actual scene of Clara's death a bit self-indulgent - the again and again aspect, as if slowing it down was the only way the director etc could think of to impress us with the seriousness of what was going on. actually, director, I got it without that, in Capaldi's face in the moments of realisation, registering the inevitability, and the pity, and the folly of it. He can do great things with his face, that man. It went over the top later, I thought (not his fault - it was in the writing) but those first moments were brilliant. Jenna Coleman also played it wonderfully, and I liked very much that hubris and recklessness actually led to real conclusion. Yes, things can go wrong, and irretrievably wrong, for stupid, avoidable reasons. (I was reminded of a short story - SF- girl stows away on a medical relief flight to see her brother - does that sound familiar to anyone?)
and so to 'Heaven Sent', which was Capaldi in spades (heh), and brilliant again, this time the writing and the direction and the cinematography as well as the acting. Clever, clever, and clever. also, the whole episode was showing a bit of faith in the audience, which is always heartening - I loved the Doctor's mind working at top speed. Two minor points I noted - how uncannily like Missy the Doctor looked, just for an instant at the beginning, and is it 'me' or 'Me' there, at the end? I hope I get to see the conclusion, to find out where it's all going.
I saw a local production of Hamlet recently, too. My, but that play's a knockout. always, always something new to shine out. This time what hit me was the pity of Polonius' story. How much love and desire to protect and foster up his children there was (the scene of the three of them together was terrific) , and how hopelessly inadequate he is for the task of making any sort of safety for any of them (himself, his children) in the stinking quagmire that Denmark has become, thanks to the brutally reckless crashing about of the powerful.
and two Russianish links to finish with:
In the Pirmosky Safari Park, a tiger has unexpectedly struck up a friendship with a goat offered him as food. (Youtube video, about a minute.)
In australia's Northern Territory, Boxing Nick, the last of the Romanovs in my country (I expect) has died. It's such an NT story: the long trip going nowhere much, the car breaking down, and five years in Katherine, and spending his time teaching his dog to balance a can of beer on his head. :) Not a sad story, really. The Russian representative in the NT called his death a "tragic end", but there are worse ways to die than of a heart attack, under a tree, with your dog alongside.
This entry was originally posted at http://heliopausa.dreamwidth.org/47335.html. Please comment here or there.
So I got home tired, and revived myself in watching the latest episode of Doctor Who. Here are some thoughts on that, and on the last few episodes, cut because they're long, and so that non-Who followers can skip them.
The last one I wrote about was 'The Zygon Invasion'. The hiatus is partly because I came to a full stop in 'TheZygon Inversion' when it felt like we were being invited to feel relieved that two main characters had survived a plane crash, when pretty plainly everyone else couldn't. I couldn't shake my recoiling from that, and I think that, despite the seriousness of some of the themes which that episode and succeeding ones have come up with, it's a real problem in the series overall - the willingness to invite dismissal of deaths of 'unimportant' people.
Then again, in that same episode, the pay-off to the whole thing, the anti-war speech, was good and gripping, but lost me utterly at "do you call this a war? This funny little thing? This is not a war! I fought in a bigger war than you will ever know...." and so on and on self-aggrandising, in a way which was making it all about The Doctor's Pain. Yes, actually, we do call these things wars, and those lines (and what followed) was idiotically astray. I would despise (who would not despise?) someone who said "you call this a war?" about a "little" war like, say, the Rwandan Civil War, while boasting about how big and bad was, say, the World War they themselves had fought in. But that's what was put in the mouth of the Doctor. Real and close-to-unforgiveable failure of intelligence and imagination on the part of the writer/Moffat, that bit.
I did like the Osgoods being very clever, but those two negatives pulled me away from taking the time to check out the 'Sleep no more' episode. I saw that it wasn't well received; possibly though (such was the weight of this 'Heaven Sent' episode) I've missed something important by not seeing it.
'Face the Raven' is a great, great title, and the episode was a good one. I did find the direction of the actual scene of Clara's death a bit self-indulgent - the again and again aspect, as if slowing it down was the only way the director etc could think of to impress us with the seriousness of what was going on. actually, director, I got it without that, in Capaldi's face in the moments of realisation, registering the inevitability, and the pity, and the folly of it. He can do great things with his face, that man. It went over the top later, I thought (not his fault - it was in the writing) but those first moments were brilliant. Jenna Coleman also played it wonderfully, and I liked very much that hubris and recklessness actually led to real conclusion. Yes, things can go wrong, and irretrievably wrong, for stupid, avoidable reasons. (I was reminded of a short story - SF- girl stows away on a medical relief flight to see her brother - does that sound familiar to anyone?)
and so to 'Heaven Sent', which was Capaldi in spades (heh), and brilliant again, this time the writing and the direction and the cinematography as well as the acting. Clever, clever, and clever. also, the whole episode was showing a bit of faith in the audience, which is always heartening - I loved the Doctor's mind working at top speed. Two minor points I noted - how uncannily like Missy the Doctor looked, just for an instant at the beginning, and is it 'me' or 'Me' there, at the end? I hope I get to see the conclusion, to find out where it's all going.
I saw a local production of Hamlet recently, too. My, but that play's a knockout. always, always something new to shine out. This time what hit me was the pity of Polonius' story. How much love and desire to protect and foster up his children there was (the scene of the three of them together was terrific) , and how hopelessly inadequate he is for the task of making any sort of safety for any of them (himself, his children) in the stinking quagmire that Denmark has become, thanks to the brutally reckless crashing about of the powerful.
and two Russianish links to finish with:
In the Pirmosky Safari Park, a tiger has unexpectedly struck up a friendship with a goat offered him as food. (Youtube video, about a minute.)
In australia's Northern Territory, Boxing Nick, the last of the Romanovs in my country (I expect) has died. It's such an NT story: the long trip going nowhere much, the car breaking down, and five years in Katherine, and spending his time teaching his dog to balance a can of beer on his head. :) Not a sad story, really. The Russian representative in the NT called his death a "tragic end", but there are worse ways to die than of a heart attack, under a tree, with your dog alongside.
This entry was originally posted at http://heliopausa.dreamwidth.org/47335.html. Please comment here or there.