TV Nostalgia
Someone said I should post more. Since I have a feeling that I may be depressed, I am going to do just that. I'm going to rabble, rant or just be silly and nostalgic, as the mood takes me. So apologies to my flisties and love love love. You might just want to wince and close your eyes!
For tonight, I'm going to look at one of my favourite TV shows...Dr Who.
I vaguely remember the 'old' Who...Sylvester McCoy was the doctor of my childhood, with his brolly and scarf, helped by Ace and hindered by Bonnie Langford (my God, that woman can scream). I remember especially a Langford ep to do with towers and monsters that lived inside tanks or something, and one that lived in a swimming pool. I liked that one.
But it was when Who returned a few years back that I really took an interest. Up until then, my only experience of Christopher Eccleston as an actor had been as the DCI in Cracker, and as the Messiah. But from the first episode, showing up to save Rose at her department store, I could feel the excitement and energy crackling through the show. This was a new Doctor...no more raincoat and funny hat and scarf. No more dithering. This was a man made of purpose and certainty and darkness. So sure of himself. Why not? He was a Timelord, the last of his kind - his scene with Jabe in 1x02 was heartbreaking.
The series certaintly didn't scrimp or avoid emotion and confrontation...the events of Father's Day, which I made myself watch for the first time last year, and I found very painful due to my circumstances at the time, all the way to the end of that series.
But as much as I loved the show, it was when Jack appeared in The Empty Child that it got even better. Such stubborn vulnerability (like when he was in the hospital ward with the Doctor and Rose, and rubbed his hands together because he was cold - don't know why that bit stood out but it did). And when they came back to rescue him from his ship, like he couldn't quite believe it.
I would have liked there to have been more episodes with Jack in them. But I still rage when I think of The Parting of the Ways, and his abandonment. I actually hate Ten over it, rather than Nine. For some reason, it's Ten I see as leaving him behind...I think it's the whole Saxon/Master arc that did that. It's there that we see Jack running at the TARDIS, desperate to see the Doctor again...and Ten saw him coming and still left with that big grin on his face.
And later, once again sending Jack to his death in the power room...how callous was he, telling Jack how wrong he was, while Jack was fixing the power cells. But what really got me was when they finally beat the Master, the Doctor held him in his arms as he died. Now I know that he felt a responsibility to the Master, and that his death meant the Doctor was truly, finally the last of his kind. But let's put it in perspective...the Master had killed millions. He'd tortured the Doctor. Jack, trusting Ten (again), let Martha escape using his wrist device, and then ended up chained up (and presumably tortured himself since the Master clearly had the same objections to his vortex-status as Ten did). Jack planned and plotted to overthrow the master, and was instrumental in his eventual defeat, but at the end the Doctor didn't even see if he was okay, offer him any gratitude or comfort. All Jack got, upon being taken back to Cardiff, was a grudged offer from Ten to travel with him again. No wonder Jack refused. It seemed like he didn't hate Ten, but I think some of the hero-worship was gone for him; he'd seen The Doctor as a flawed God, capable of anger, and vindictiveness and cowardice and stupidity just as much as the 'human apes' Nine used to half-lovingly criticise.
No wonder he chose to go back to the Hub. I think it says a lot that he chose to return to a team who had murdered him only rather than travel with the Doctor. They at least had the defence that Abaddon had affected their minds.
Wow...this was going to be a 'why I love Who' post and it turned into 'why I think Ten is a total bastard over how he treated Jack' post. And does anybody think RTD has something against the internet based fandom? Almost every interview I'd read about him has him referring to us pretty much as rabid, rigid and generally unappreciative of his 'genius' as well as being only a minority of the fans.
Whether this is because we're more vocal in our criticism, and our support of the programme, whether it's because we don't just say I liked that ep and instead look in-depth at them, I don't know. But just because we get together on line to love or loathe, I don't think that gives him the right to insult us. Just how I feel.
Anyway, that's it for me. Tomorrow I'll probably feel completely different. Can't seem to hold an opinion for long these days.
For tonight, I'm going to look at one of my favourite TV shows...Dr Who.
I vaguely remember the 'old' Who...Sylvester McCoy was the doctor of my childhood, with his brolly and scarf, helped by Ace and hindered by Bonnie Langford (my God, that woman can scream). I remember especially a Langford ep to do with towers and monsters that lived inside tanks or something, and one that lived in a swimming pool. I liked that one.
But it was when Who returned a few years back that I really took an interest. Up until then, my only experience of Christopher Eccleston as an actor had been as the DCI in Cracker, and as the Messiah. But from the first episode, showing up to save Rose at her department store, I could feel the excitement and energy crackling through the show. This was a new Doctor...no more raincoat and funny hat and scarf. No more dithering. This was a man made of purpose and certainty and darkness. So sure of himself. Why not? He was a Timelord, the last of his kind - his scene with Jabe in 1x02 was heartbreaking.
The series certaintly didn't scrimp or avoid emotion and confrontation...the events of Father's Day, which I made myself watch for the first time last year, and I found very painful due to my circumstances at the time, all the way to the end of that series.
But as much as I loved the show, it was when Jack appeared in The Empty Child that it got even better. Such stubborn vulnerability (like when he was in the hospital ward with the Doctor and Rose, and rubbed his hands together because he was cold - don't know why that bit stood out but it did). And when they came back to rescue him from his ship, like he couldn't quite believe it.
I would have liked there to have been more episodes with Jack in them. But I still rage when I think of The Parting of the Ways, and his abandonment. I actually hate Ten over it, rather than Nine. For some reason, it's Ten I see as leaving him behind...I think it's the whole Saxon/Master arc that did that. It's there that we see Jack running at the TARDIS, desperate to see the Doctor again...and Ten saw him coming and still left with that big grin on his face.
And later, once again sending Jack to his death in the power room...how callous was he, telling Jack how wrong he was, while Jack was fixing the power cells. But what really got me was when they finally beat the Master, the Doctor held him in his arms as he died. Now I know that he felt a responsibility to the Master, and that his death meant the Doctor was truly, finally the last of his kind. But let's put it in perspective...the Master had killed millions. He'd tortured the Doctor. Jack, trusting Ten (again), let Martha escape using his wrist device, and then ended up chained up (and presumably tortured himself since the Master clearly had the same objections to his vortex-status as Ten did). Jack planned and plotted to overthrow the master, and was instrumental in his eventual defeat, but at the end the Doctor didn't even see if he was okay, offer him any gratitude or comfort. All Jack got, upon being taken back to Cardiff, was a grudged offer from Ten to travel with him again. No wonder Jack refused. It seemed like he didn't hate Ten, but I think some of the hero-worship was gone for him; he'd seen The Doctor as a flawed God, capable of anger, and vindictiveness and cowardice and stupidity just as much as the 'human apes' Nine used to half-lovingly criticise.
No wonder he chose to go back to the Hub. I think it says a lot that he chose to return to a team who had murdered him only rather than travel with the Doctor. They at least had the defence that Abaddon had affected their minds.
Wow...this was going to be a 'why I love Who' post and it turned into 'why I think Ten is a total bastard over how he treated Jack' post. And does anybody think RTD has something against the internet based fandom? Almost every interview I'd read about him has him referring to us pretty much as rabid, rigid and generally unappreciative of his 'genius' as well as being only a minority of the fans.
Whether this is because we're more vocal in our criticism, and our support of the programme, whether it's because we don't just say I liked that ep and instead look in-depth at them, I don't know. But just because we get together on line to love or loathe, I don't think that gives him the right to insult us. Just how I feel.
Anyway, that's it for me. Tomorrow I'll probably feel completely different. Can't seem to hold an opinion for long these days.