(no subject)
Long post warning (edit: yes, I know its not actually that long...extended a bit from the original though)
This weekend, on Sunday morning, my brother Greg's wife, Erin, gave birth to a baby girl. Her name is Claire. Visited them yesterday in the hospital. I would say she is cute, but I don't really have standards to compare her with, as I've never really held or seen a newborn in person before.
This makes me an uncle, which sounds weird to me. Since I'm the youngest in my family, I never really got to see anyone growing up. I find it funny to think that the tiny bundle I held yesterday will be going to school before I am thirty, probably in university by the time I'm forty.
The last few weeks I've been spending mostly watching Doctor Who. I started out by seeing the new series, all 3 seasons. I tried watching Torchwood (a spin-off), but I don't really like it. Now I've been going back and watching epsiodes from the classic series, and its become a bit of an obsession.
I'd recommend the new series to anyone. It's generally fantastic. I say generally because there are episodes that are of much lower quality than the rest. Its very episodic for the most part, although each season has a bit of a story arc and a climactic two or three part-ending. Even bad episodes are worth watching. And I discovered a very curious thing. Even though some of the episodes are bad, and I knew they were bad while I was watching them, I didn't really care. The inconsistancies, the silliness, the somewhat illogical storylines...all washed away by the fact that it is Doctor Who. This is a show that is meant to be children-friendly, so there is really no blood or gore, and many of the plots are very simple. At the same time, the actors are excellent, especially the Doctors. Both Nine and Ten are very good.
To watch the new series, I recommend going to stage6.com. All of the episodes are there, in high quality, even if they take a bit of finding.
As for the classic episodes, I tried watching from the beginning (or at least as beginning as I could find). However, I found the episodes of the first two doctors too difficult to sit through. The special effects are virtually non-existant, since it starts in 1963, and is black and white. It's not just that though. I found the quality overall to be fairly poor. To me, it looks as though the budget allowed no time for rehearsal or extra takes. There seem to be acting problems. One scene I saw had a swordfight that was pathetically slow, and looked exactly like two kids playing (you know, where they seem to be aiming at each others swords, and not bodies). The pace of the episodes are very slow, and when each serial (Classic Doctor Who is divided into serials, each one an independant story, broadcast through between 4 and 6 25 minute episodes) is at least 1 1/2 hours, slow pacing hurts a lot.
The Third Doctor is much better. Shot in colour, the pacing is much better, there are decent special effects, at least for the early seventies. To me, it is comparable in effects to the original Star Trek.
The Fourth Doctor, played by Tom Baker, is, in my opinion, magnitudes better. His characterization of the Doctor is classic. The writing and direction of the series also improves greatly by this time. I'm currently working my way through his episodes, of which there are a lot (41 serials, which is similar to 41 movies in length).
This weekend, on Sunday morning, my brother Greg's wife, Erin, gave birth to a baby girl. Her name is Claire. Visited them yesterday in the hospital. I would say she is cute, but I don't really have standards to compare her with, as I've never really held or seen a newborn in person before.
This makes me an uncle, which sounds weird to me. Since I'm the youngest in my family, I never really got to see anyone growing up. I find it funny to think that the tiny bundle I held yesterday will be going to school before I am thirty, probably in university by the time I'm forty.
The last few weeks I've been spending mostly watching Doctor Who. I started out by seeing the new series, all 3 seasons. I tried watching Torchwood (a spin-off), but I don't really like it. Now I've been going back and watching epsiodes from the classic series, and its become a bit of an obsession.
I'd recommend the new series to anyone. It's generally fantastic. I say generally because there are episodes that are of much lower quality than the rest. Its very episodic for the most part, although each season has a bit of a story arc and a climactic two or three part-ending. Even bad episodes are worth watching. And I discovered a very curious thing. Even though some of the episodes are bad, and I knew they were bad while I was watching them, I didn't really care. The inconsistancies, the silliness, the somewhat illogical storylines...all washed away by the fact that it is Doctor Who. This is a show that is meant to be children-friendly, so there is really no blood or gore, and many of the plots are very simple. At the same time, the actors are excellent, especially the Doctors. Both Nine and Ten are very good.
To watch the new series, I recommend going to stage6.com. All of the episodes are there, in high quality, even if they take a bit of finding.
As for the classic episodes, I tried watching from the beginning (or at least as beginning as I could find). However, I found the episodes of the first two doctors too difficult to sit through. The special effects are virtually non-existant, since it starts in 1963, and is black and white. It's not just that though. I found the quality overall to be fairly poor. To me, it looks as though the budget allowed no time for rehearsal or extra takes. There seem to be acting problems. One scene I saw had a swordfight that was pathetically slow, and looked exactly like two kids playing (you know, where they seem to be aiming at each others swords, and not bodies). The pace of the episodes are very slow, and when each serial (Classic Doctor Who is divided into serials, each one an independant story, broadcast through between 4 and 6 25 minute episodes) is at least 1 1/2 hours, slow pacing hurts a lot.
The Third Doctor is much better. Shot in colour, the pacing is much better, there are decent special effects, at least for the early seventies. To me, it is comparable in effects to the original Star Trek.
The Fourth Doctor, played by Tom Baker, is, in my opinion, magnitudes better. His characterization of the Doctor is classic. The writing and direction of the series also improves greatly by this time. I'm currently working my way through his episodes, of which there are a lot (41 serials, which is similar to 41 movies in length).