Christmas report and reviews
I keep meaning to say something about what I did over Christmas, apart from the food, and I'd better get it out of the way before New Year...
Contrary to what you may have heard, there were parts of the country where the weather wasn't calamitous. Monday was wet and windy, but we mostly kept inside having tea and Christmas cake, and then we watched Jane Eyre (the one with Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender).
Christmas Eve - Disley The next day we took the train to Disley, my father's home village, to lay a Christmas wreath on his family grave and branches of berries on the three other graves I keep an eye on (relatives by marriage, and Traute's husband Derrick's family). The weather was very bright - I changed into dark glasses because of the low sun - except when we were in the graveyard, when it clouded over and we even had a few drops of rain.
In the evening, we watched Notorious.
Christmas Day - the Bender Bench There being no public transport, we were limited to places in walking distance, so we walked to Fletcher Moss Gardens at the other end of the village. Here we discovered a newish bench, or at any rate one I hadn't seen before:
This appeared to combine characters from various children's books or TV programmes, not all of whom I could identify. I believe the central character riding an owl is Bender from Futurama.
And this seems to be an armoured bear from His Dark Materials.
There were various other figures I didn't know (who were the mice riding flying fish?) and a formula on the seat:
Doctor Who - The Time of the Doctor And then there was Doctor Who.
If I'd been Matt Smith, I'd have been a bit disappointed to get that as my send-off, but I suppose it was hard on the heels of the grand spectacle of The Day of the Doctor, and maybe Moffat was thinking of The Browning Version (Matt Smith might make a good Crocker-Harris when he's older): "I am of the opinion that occasionally an anticlimax can be surprisingly effective."
Anyway, I've read a lot of good and thoughtful posts about it - I particularly like sensiblecat's review, in which she admits to being underwhelmed but goes on to make some very interesting comparisons with Tennant's departure in The End of Time. And I nearly always enjoy episodes more a second time, when I know how the plot works and can appreciate how this line here is setting up that scene there, so I have just rewatched it and as expected got more out of it.
One thing I did like first time round, and was surprised that none of the reviews I've read mentioned, was Smith ageing into William Hartnell in the closing scenes - which had an extra resonance because of his brief appearance at the moment David Bradley as Hartnell prepared for the original regeneration scene in An Adventure in Space and Time. Was it too obvious to mention, or not obvious enough, or did people not like the idea as much as I did? I began to suspect they were going there when we first saw him visibly older, and when Clara returned for his final day the hairstyle was unmistakeable. It reminded me that, at the end of The Day of the Doctor, the Curator told the Doctor that he might revisit some favourite faces in his future - and if he believes this to be his final incarnation, that implied it would happen without regeneration, as part of the ageing process. So on rewatching I was looking out for more hints of earlier Doctors. I didn't notice any physical resemblances beyond Hartnell, but I thought there were other echoes. The cloak he wore in the opening scene had a touch of Pertwee about it, and being stuck for years on one planet also suggested the Third Doctor. Handles reminded me of K9, and were the sweets in the box provided by Tasha Lem jelly babies? I originally thought they were smarties, as he complained that there weren't any pink ones, but what he was throwing over his shoulder looked too big for smarties - possibly too big for jelly babies too. Not sure. But "Kill her!" was definitely a shout out to the Seventh Doctor. There were probably others that I missed.
And I particularly liked the wooden Cyberman (because of course the sonic screwdriver "doesn't do wood"), and the fact that, although we got the now-customary fireworks when the Doctor was granted a new lease of regenerative energy, the actual change from Smith to Capaldi was a quick, unfussy flip.
I'd always thought, incidentally, that the running out of regenerations would be a significant plot point, but I think it would have worked better had it been established some time in advance. Ideally, the Doctor should have let it slip early on in the relevant season, so that the companion could be worrying about it every time he was in danger, but that couldn't be done as we'd only just found out about the interstitial Doctor (and even that wouldn't have knocked the score up to thirteen without giving the partial regeneration of Journey's End full status). It was frustrating, however, to bring it up only minutes before it was resolved.
And, though I've come to accept the idea of Christmas specials, I wish they didn't have to be so bloody Christmassy. Oddly enough, I didn't mind the village on Trenzalore being called Christmas (despite the villagers' accents, I just accepted it as the sort of American settlement that has a silly name and a sheriff); it's the Christmas dinner that alienates me. It's obviously supposed to be something familiar to viewers, but I don't think I ever had that sort of dinner, even before I was vegetarian. I think the turkey either being done or laying eggs was to do with non-regeneration v regeneration, but it wasn't entirely clear.
You know what I had for Christmas dinner, as I posted photos.
And then there was Neverwhere, and cricket.
Boxing Day - The Hobbit
legionseagle came round for some Christmas cake, and then gave us a lift to the cinema, where we saw part two of The Hobbit. We managed to get a 2D screening, fortunately. It was very loud, and I don't think there was quite enough of Bilbo - this middle section should be where he really reinvents himself as a hero, and the dwarves start to look to him for answers. I could probably have done with less Legolas in order to get more Bilbo... But it was enjoyable enough in its own way. I kept thinking how much redecorating the dwarves were going to have to do inside Erebor when it was all over. There might be a short fic in that, though I'm beginning to wonder whether it will be Dain who gets to do the clearing up - suppose Jackson is planning to keep Kili alive?
In the evening, we rewatched The Reichenbach Fall.
Friday - War Horse And on Friday, we had a short walk round Fog Lane Park, watched Hangover Square, and went to the Lowry to see the National Theatre production of War Horse. Which was expensive, but definitely worth doing. We were pleased that the actors operating the horses got the top billing, ahead of the human characters, because they're very much the stars - you can catch some glimpses of them here. I was quite surprised that the lead character made it through to the end of the play, as I was expecting a tragic denouement, but I suppose if he's the narrator of the original book he'd have to survive... At an emotional level, not being into horses, I was thinking of them as giant cats, and subconsciously wondering why anyone would take cats to a battlefield - but of course most battlefields before the Great War did feature horses, if not cats. Would the play work as well if set in an earlier era with no barbed wire or tanks? Probably being a war horse was always very grim.
It really is wonderful being able to go to and from the Lowry by tram: cheaper and faster than by bus-plus-tram.
And that was Christmas week. Since then I've been trying to catch up on shopping and work, and I still need to prepare for my sister's arrival on New Year's Eve, so I'd better get back to that now.
Also posted on Dreamwidth, with
comments.
Contrary to what you may have heard, there were parts of the country where the weather wasn't calamitous. Monday was wet and windy, but we mostly kept inside having tea and Christmas cake, and then we watched Jane Eyre (the one with Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender).
Christmas Eve - Disley The next day we took the train to Disley, my father's home village, to lay a Christmas wreath on his family grave and branches of berries on the three other graves I keep an eye on (relatives by marriage, and Traute's husband Derrick's family). The weather was very bright - I changed into dark glasses because of the low sun - except when we were in the graveyard, when it clouded over and we even had a few drops of rain.
In the evening, we watched Notorious.
Christmas Day - the Bender Bench There being no public transport, we were limited to places in walking distance, so we walked to Fletcher Moss Gardens at the other end of the village. Here we discovered a newish bench, or at any rate one I hadn't seen before:
This appeared to combine characters from various children's books or TV programmes, not all of whom I could identify. I believe the central character riding an owl is Bender from Futurama.
And this seems to be an armoured bear from His Dark Materials.
There were various other figures I didn't know (who were the mice riding flying fish?) and a formula on the seat:
Doctor Who - The Time of the Doctor And then there was Doctor Who.
If I'd been Matt Smith, I'd have been a bit disappointed to get that as my send-off, but I suppose it was hard on the heels of the grand spectacle of The Day of the Doctor, and maybe Moffat was thinking of The Browning Version (Matt Smith might make a good Crocker-Harris when he's older): "I am of the opinion that occasionally an anticlimax can be surprisingly effective."
Anyway, I've read a lot of good and thoughtful posts about it - I particularly like sensiblecat's review, in which she admits to being underwhelmed but goes on to make some very interesting comparisons with Tennant's departure in The End of Time. And I nearly always enjoy episodes more a second time, when I know how the plot works and can appreciate how this line here is setting up that scene there, so I have just rewatched it and as expected got more out of it.
One thing I did like first time round, and was surprised that none of the reviews I've read mentioned, was Smith ageing into William Hartnell in the closing scenes - which had an extra resonance because of his brief appearance at the moment David Bradley as Hartnell prepared for the original regeneration scene in An Adventure in Space and Time. Was it too obvious to mention, or not obvious enough, or did people not like the idea as much as I did? I began to suspect they were going there when we first saw him visibly older, and when Clara returned for his final day the hairstyle was unmistakeable. It reminded me that, at the end of The Day of the Doctor, the Curator told the Doctor that he might revisit some favourite faces in his future - and if he believes this to be his final incarnation, that implied it would happen without regeneration, as part of the ageing process. So on rewatching I was looking out for more hints of earlier Doctors. I didn't notice any physical resemblances beyond Hartnell, but I thought there were other echoes. The cloak he wore in the opening scene had a touch of Pertwee about it, and being stuck for years on one planet also suggested the Third Doctor. Handles reminded me of K9, and were the sweets in the box provided by Tasha Lem jelly babies? I originally thought they were smarties, as he complained that there weren't any pink ones, but what he was throwing over his shoulder looked too big for smarties - possibly too big for jelly babies too. Not sure. But "Kill her!" was definitely a shout out to the Seventh Doctor. There were probably others that I missed.
And I particularly liked the wooden Cyberman (because of course the sonic screwdriver "doesn't do wood"), and the fact that, although we got the now-customary fireworks when the Doctor was granted a new lease of regenerative energy, the actual change from Smith to Capaldi was a quick, unfussy flip.
I'd always thought, incidentally, that the running out of regenerations would be a significant plot point, but I think it would have worked better had it been established some time in advance. Ideally, the Doctor should have let it slip early on in the relevant season, so that the companion could be worrying about it every time he was in danger, but that couldn't be done as we'd only just found out about the interstitial Doctor (and even that wouldn't have knocked the score up to thirteen without giving the partial regeneration of Journey's End full status). It was frustrating, however, to bring it up only minutes before it was resolved.
And, though I've come to accept the idea of Christmas specials, I wish they didn't have to be so bloody Christmassy. Oddly enough, I didn't mind the village on Trenzalore being called Christmas (despite the villagers' accents, I just accepted it as the sort of American settlement that has a silly name and a sheriff); it's the Christmas dinner that alienates me. It's obviously supposed to be something familiar to viewers, but I don't think I ever had that sort of dinner, even before I was vegetarian. I think the turkey either being done or laying eggs was to do with non-regeneration v regeneration, but it wasn't entirely clear.
You know what I had for Christmas dinner, as I posted photos.
And then there was Neverwhere, and cricket.
Boxing Day - The Hobbit
legionseagle came round for some Christmas cake, and then gave us a lift to the cinema, where we saw part two of The Hobbit. We managed to get a 2D screening, fortunately. It was very loud, and I don't think there was quite enough of Bilbo - this middle section should be where he really reinvents himself as a hero, and the dwarves start to look to him for answers. I could probably have done with less Legolas in order to get more Bilbo... But it was enjoyable enough in its own way. I kept thinking how much redecorating the dwarves were going to have to do inside Erebor when it was all over. There might be a short fic in that, though I'm beginning to wonder whether it will be Dain who gets to do the clearing up - suppose Jackson is planning to keep Kili alive?
In the evening, we rewatched The Reichenbach Fall.
Friday - War Horse And on Friday, we had a short walk round Fog Lane Park, watched Hangover Square, and went to the Lowry to see the National Theatre production of War Horse. Which was expensive, but definitely worth doing. We were pleased that the actors operating the horses got the top billing, ahead of the human characters, because they're very much the stars - you can catch some glimpses of them here. I was quite surprised that the lead character made it through to the end of the play, as I was expecting a tragic denouement, but I suppose if he's the narrator of the original book he'd have to survive... At an emotional level, not being into horses, I was thinking of them as giant cats, and subconsciously wondering why anyone would take cats to a battlefield - but of course most battlefields before the Great War did feature horses, if not cats. Would the play work as well if set in an earlier era with no barbed wire or tanks? Probably being a war horse was always very grim.
It really is wonderful being able to go to and from the Lowry by tram: cheaper and faster than by bus-plus-tram.
And that was Christmas week. Since then I've been trying to catch up on shopping and work, and I still need to prepare for my sister's arrival on New Year's Eve, so I'd better get back to that now.
Also posted on Dreamwidth, with
comments.