*cue excitement*
Peter Capaldi is the next Doctor!
*cue excitement*
I've only seen Capaldi in The Hour (okay, and "The Fires of Pompeii"), but I was really impressed.
I'm excited that they've chosen an older actor, just because it means it is going to be different dynamic to the Eleven and Ten. While the Doctor's apparent age doesn't make the Doctor himself any older or younger, it does change how others react to the Doctor. And so there is potential for the Twelfth Doctor's adventures to be quite different, and I am looking forward to that.
He also reminds me a bit of the Third Doctor, simply because he's a similar age to Jon Pertwee when the latter was the Doctor. The Third Doctor was my introduction to Doctor Who and he remains my favourite Classic Doctor. (I was very unimpressed when he regenerated and decided I was morally opposed - yep, those are the words I used - to a series where the main character was going to change on you like that and I refused to watch any more. That, however, didn't last very long - just the months until the Ninth Doctor's episodes began and I was forced to watch "The End of the World").
And Capaldi is Scottish, so there is the possibility that he will have something of a Scottish accent (please please please oh please let the Doctor have an interesting accent)!
(And there's a chance that all the Doctor Who fans will proceed to watch other things Capaldi's been in and fall in love with The Hour and proceed to pester the BBC for a third series...)
*
Excitement aside, sometimes I think it would be nice to live in a completely spoiler-free world, in which we wouldn't know when the Doctor was going to regenerate or who he was going to regenerate into until we saw it happening on our screens.
*
The Lizzie Bennet Diares people are doing a vlog adaptation of Emma next.
*cue excitement*
Although I'd be more excited if I had enjoyed Welcome to Sanditon more. Sanditon has been mildly diverting. I've watched it - except for the fortnightly "community" episodes, I tend to skip over those - and enjoyed it, but the only thing I loved was that one episode had a Day of the Triffids reference, and I've certainly been aware of all the Ways It Could Have Been Better.
Emma is a good choice for this medium - Emma is the sort of person who would love telling the internet exactly what she thinks.
And Knightley! Emma isn't my favourite of Jane Austen's novels, but Mr Knightley is my favourite of Austen's men.
No news on when Emma Approved begins, on who is playing Emma (if the main character is even going to be called Emma) and so on.
*
I was telling my brother about the Emma adaptation and my hopes that Knightley will be a constant presence throughout the series (hopefully muttering, "No, Emma, you can't say that on the internet!" and questioning the ethics of what she posts, or else frequently walking in on her when she's recording). Hence we have an excerpt from a conversation about Jane Austen's characters and their relationships:
Me: ... but Emma and Knightley have a different dynamic because they're good friends. In a way that Lizzy and Darcy never really are. I guess in The Lizzie Bennet Diaries they begin to develop a friendship when Lizzie's at Pemberley. But in the novel, they're acquaintances and things are -
My brother: Awkward?
Me: Awkward until then they sort it out and get engaged.
My brother: They sublime.
Me: Huh?
My brother: They sublime. They skip over being a liquid and go straight from being a solid to being a gas.
Me:
My brother: Like dry ice.
(I posted this on Tumblr. It is the most popular thing I think I have ever posted... which means more than a dozen people liked/reblogged it. I am not very Tumblr popular. I don't aspire to be Tumblr popular.)
*
Speaking of Tumblr, it was there that I saw reference to the film Before Sunrise. I had never heard of it before, because I am woefully ignorant of 1990s1 films. I was intrigued.
I loved it. I mean, it doesn't have a plot, it is just two people walking around and talking about themselves and their thoughts on life, but they're walking around Vienna. Vienna is a beautiful city for walking around.
Also, I don't object to stories without much of a plot.
The two main characters spoke English to each other, but they pass people speaking German, and they overhear conversations on the train or in a cafe.
And I love that the film doesn't worry that its audience might not understand the German, because that's what it is like to be in another country: maybe you understand the language, but it's likely you won't.
(This is a problem I have had with a couple of films I've seen recently - how am I supposed to believe this character is in France, or that character is German, if everyone is speaking English.)
It wouldn't have been Vienna without the sound of German being spoken.
I love the sound of German.
*
I once spent a jetlagged weekend walking around Vienna with a group of almost-strangers. It wasn't romantic and I didn't want it to be - and it would have just been awkward if it had tried to be - but it was a weekend of wonder and possibilities and the excitement of being somewhere new, and although my experience was really nothing like Before Sunrise, Before Sunrise reminded me of that weekend.
(I think I want to go and explore Europe now. Trains! I love long train journeys. And Europe apparently has trains you can take from one country to the next. Why hasn't this idea ever occurred to me before?
I mean, aside from the obvious I-can't-afford-to-do-that-right-now-and-feel-like-I-can't-complain-because-I-did-get-to-go-to-Europe-once.)
~ Herenya
1 Because at that age I was watching children's films. And I didn't even see many of those. (So I think I went to the cinema maybe eight times in the 90s. I definitely saw Babe, Hercules, 101 Dalmatians, James and the Giant Peach, Paulie, A Bug's Life, Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, and maybe Toy Story or Harriet the Spy. I saw a few other things at school or maybe a friend's house - Flubber, Honey I Shrunk the Kids, The Lion King. And I've seen a few more since.)
*cue excitement*
I've only seen Capaldi in The Hour (okay, and "The Fires of Pompeii"), but I was really impressed.
I'm excited that they've chosen an older actor, just because it means it is going to be different dynamic to the Eleven and Ten. While the Doctor's apparent age doesn't make the Doctor himself any older or younger, it does change how others react to the Doctor. And so there is potential for the Twelfth Doctor's adventures to be quite different, and I am looking forward to that.
He also reminds me a bit of the Third Doctor, simply because he's a similar age to Jon Pertwee when the latter was the Doctor. The Third Doctor was my introduction to Doctor Who and he remains my favourite Classic Doctor. (I was very unimpressed when he regenerated and decided I was morally opposed - yep, those are the words I used - to a series where the main character was going to change on you like that and I refused to watch any more. That, however, didn't last very long - just the months until the Ninth Doctor's episodes began and I was forced to watch "The End of the World").
And Capaldi is Scottish, so there is the possibility that he will have something of a Scottish accent (please please please oh please let the Doctor have an interesting accent)!
(And there's a chance that all the Doctor Who fans will proceed to watch other things Capaldi's been in and fall in love with The Hour and proceed to pester the BBC for a third series...)
*
Excitement aside, sometimes I think it would be nice to live in a completely spoiler-free world, in which we wouldn't know when the Doctor was going to regenerate or who he was going to regenerate into until we saw it happening on our screens.
*
The Lizzie Bennet Diares people are doing a vlog adaptation of Emma next.
*cue excitement*
Although I'd be more excited if I had enjoyed Welcome to Sanditon more. Sanditon has been mildly diverting. I've watched it - except for the fortnightly "community" episodes, I tend to skip over those - and enjoyed it, but the only thing I loved was that one episode had a Day of the Triffids reference, and I've certainly been aware of all the Ways It Could Have Been Better.
Emma is a good choice for this medium - Emma is the sort of person who would love telling the internet exactly what she thinks.
And Knightley! Emma isn't my favourite of Jane Austen's novels, but Mr Knightley is my favourite of Austen's men.
No news on when Emma Approved begins, on who is playing Emma (if the main character is even going to be called Emma) and so on.
*
I was telling my brother about the Emma adaptation and my hopes that Knightley will be a constant presence throughout the series (hopefully muttering, "No, Emma, you can't say that on the internet!" and questioning the ethics of what she posts, or else frequently walking in on her when she's recording). Hence we have an excerpt from a conversation about Jane Austen's characters and their relationships:
Me: ... but Emma and Knightley have a different dynamic because they're good friends. In a way that Lizzy and Darcy never really are. I guess in The Lizzie Bennet Diaries they begin to develop a friendship when Lizzie's at Pemberley. But in the novel, they're acquaintances and things are -
My brother: Awkward?
Me: Awkward until then they sort it out and get engaged.
My brother: They sublime.
Me: Huh?
My brother: They sublime. They skip over being a liquid and go straight from being a solid to being a gas.
Me:
My brother: Like dry ice.
(I posted this on Tumblr. It is the most popular thing I think I have ever posted... which means more than a dozen people liked/reblogged it. I am not very Tumblr popular. I don't aspire to be Tumblr popular.)
*
Speaking of Tumblr, it was there that I saw reference to the film Before Sunrise. I had never heard of it before, because I am woefully ignorant of 1990s1 films. I was intrigued.
I loved it. I mean, it doesn't have a plot, it is just two people walking around and talking about themselves and their thoughts on life, but they're walking around Vienna. Vienna is a beautiful city for walking around.
Also, I don't object to stories without much of a plot.
The two main characters spoke English to each other, but they pass people speaking German, and they overhear conversations on the train or in a cafe.
And I love that the film doesn't worry that its audience might not understand the German, because that's what it is like to be in another country: maybe you understand the language, but it's likely you won't.
(This is a problem I have had with a couple of films I've seen recently - how am I supposed to believe this character is in France, or that character is German, if everyone is speaking English.)
It wouldn't have been Vienna without the sound of German being spoken.
I love the sound of German.
*
I once spent a jetlagged weekend walking around Vienna with a group of almost-strangers. It wasn't romantic and I didn't want it to be - and it would have just been awkward if it had tried to be - but it was a weekend of wonder and possibilities and the excitement of being somewhere new, and although my experience was really nothing like Before Sunrise, Before Sunrise reminded me of that weekend.
(I think I want to go and explore Europe now. Trains! I love long train journeys. And Europe apparently has trains you can take from one country to the next. Why hasn't this idea ever occurred to me before?
I mean, aside from the obvious I-can't-afford-to-do-that-right-now-and-feel-like-I-can't-complain-because-I-did-get-to-go-to-Europe-once.)
~ Herenya
1 Because at that age I was watching children's films. And I didn't even see many of those. (So I think I went to the cinema maybe eight times in the 90s. I definitely saw Babe, Hercules, 101 Dalmatians, James and the Giant Peach, Paulie, A Bug's Life, Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, and maybe Toy Story or Harriet the Spy. I saw a few other things at school or maybe a friend's house - Flubber, Honey I Shrunk the Kids, The Lion King. And I've seen a few more since.)