Since we're feeling so anaesthetised in our comfort zone
I should probably do myself a favour and stop watching the Sarah Jane Adventures before I blow a bloodvessel or break my monitor out of sheer irritation. So they should stop having fucking awesome guest stars that force me to fucking watch it. Grr, arrgh, grump, piss, moan.
I actually couldn't watch more than fifteen minutes of last season's The Gift. I could just about live with the Slitheen on Doctor Who, because there was Nine and Blon which was fucking awesome. There was serious characterisation and a genuine feeling of threat alongside the fart jokes and the not-very-subliminal "fat people are greedy liars with no table manners that make absurdly ineffectual villains you can kill with salad dressing" message. (The Gift may well have had more than that going on, but I will never know because the heavyhanded coded message was too much for even me to swallow. I still haven't gone back and watched it.)
Part of my problem is me rather than the show. I just don't like Sarah Jane. I never have. I don't find her attractive, her voice grates me like grit in the gonads, her smug middleclass sanctimony and her facial expressions make me want to punch her in the kidneys. And I watch her any-fucking-way because this is my best and oldest fandom and I don't want to miss out on any of it. I can't win and I feel like the only dissenting fan in the village, which is irksome in its own way. The only regular character I've ever liked even a little is Clyde, who in my personal headcanon is going to be a shit-hot Torchwood agent one day.
So this episode started with Sarah Jane's smug whiny pasty middle class son having jolly japes at university. Ho fucking hum. UNIT show up. Doctor's dead, bla bla bla. Sarah Jane immediately snaps into a ridiculously jolly-hockey-sticks kind of cheery denial that makes me nearly wish the Doctor actually IS going to be dead just so I could see that fucking look wiped off her face. They show us alien vultures who are immediately, obviously, villains because DUH, THEY'RE VULTURES.
I was so hoping they'd turn out to be good guys, but nah. If this had been Big Finish they might have been. If it had been Torchwood or Doctor Who they might ...nah, they'd probably still have been villains but they would have looked less 1970s-BBC production values and might have had a bit more backstory. Oh well.
Then of course SJ and Those Pesky Kids are the only ones in the whole canonverse smart enough to spot them for villains - on what grounds I'm not sure, except that they look like vultures and they don't want their friend to be dead. Is it wrong that I'd have liked the reason to make a bit more sense than this? Okay, fine, it's kids' TV, but SO WAS SHOW FOR MOST OF ITS LIFE, DAMN IT. It doesn't have to be shorthand for "aliens are bad and they don't need a reason."
Jo was fucking awesome though. I love her so damn much. Why didn't SHE get her own damn series? I'd watch hell out of that.
also, red berets? fucking cool.
I actually couldn't watch more than fifteen minutes of last season's The Gift. I could just about live with the Slitheen on Doctor Who, because there was Nine and Blon which was fucking awesome. There was serious characterisation and a genuine feeling of threat alongside the fart jokes and the not-very-subliminal "fat people are greedy liars with no table manners that make absurdly ineffectual villains you can kill with salad dressing" message. (The Gift may well have had more than that going on, but I will never know because the heavyhanded coded message was too much for even me to swallow. I still haven't gone back and watched it.)
Part of my problem is me rather than the show. I just don't like Sarah Jane. I never have. I don't find her attractive, her voice grates me like grit in the gonads, her smug middleclass sanctimony and her facial expressions make me want to punch her in the kidneys. And I watch her any-fucking-way because this is my best and oldest fandom and I don't want to miss out on any of it. I can't win and I feel like the only dissenting fan in the village, which is irksome in its own way. The only regular character I've ever liked even a little is Clyde, who in my personal headcanon is going to be a shit-hot Torchwood agent one day.
So this episode started with Sarah Jane's smug whiny pasty middle class son having jolly japes at university. Ho fucking hum. UNIT show up. Doctor's dead, bla bla bla. Sarah Jane immediately snaps into a ridiculously jolly-hockey-sticks kind of cheery denial that makes me nearly wish the Doctor actually IS going to be dead just so I could see that fucking look wiped off her face. They show us alien vultures who are immediately, obviously, villains because DUH, THEY'RE VULTURES.
I was so hoping they'd turn out to be good guys, but nah. If this had been Big Finish they might have been. If it had been Torchwood or Doctor Who they might ...nah, they'd probably still have been villains but they would have looked less 1970s-BBC production values and might have had a bit more backstory. Oh well.
Then of course SJ and Those Pesky Kids are the only ones in the whole canonverse smart enough to spot them for villains - on what grounds I'm not sure, except that they look like vultures and they don't want their friend to be dead. Is it wrong that I'd have liked the reason to make a bit more sense than this? Okay, fine, it's kids' TV, but SO WAS SHOW FOR MOST OF ITS LIFE, DAMN IT. It doesn't have to be shorthand for "aliens are bad and they don't need a reason."
Jo was fucking awesome though. I love her so damn much. Why didn't SHE get her own damn series? I'd watch hell out of that.
also, red berets? fucking cool.