"Blowing the occasional chunk out of the earth keeps them amused."
"Battlefield"! I've only watched the first episode, but it's the first one I've enjoyed this much in AGES. And maybe it is just because I had totally forgotten Lethbridge-Stewart was in it and I was just so delighted to see him again (and settled down with a nice girl - AW!, happily ever after and gardening for the Brig! At least until whatever awaits him in this serial...), but I also liked Ace (and her new friend, whose name I must have missed) a lot more than I have in the past, and it was quite nice to see Seven not hamming about* for once and just being The Doctor. It was so much more like 70s Who than anything we've gotten since maybe a couple of Davison serials, and I've definitely missed that. I've read a lot lately about how much people love "The Greatest Show in the Galaxy," but I thought it was more of a missed opportunity than an example of Doctor Who getting back to the quality of earlier seasons. It did have the unfortunate problem of getting watched in two very disjoint chunks - one while I was chopping vegetables and peeling shrimp for kebabs, and the other a couple of weeks later when I finally convinced Ianto's disc drive to start working again. But I am pretty sure I would have come away with basically the same opinion even if I had seen it under ideal conditions; it just didn't seem any better to me than any of the previous lackluster showings. One episode is hardly enough to really know how I will feel about "Battlefield," as "Paradise Towers" proved spectacularly, but I did quite like that first episode, and that's something at least.
And then there was the lovely coincidence that I happen to also be watching the first series of Merlin at the moment, and I just watched the first episode with Mysterious Evil Lady with Mystical/Technological Powers Monitoring Our Hero Through Some Manner of Scrying (TM) last night. I nearly snorted cranberry juice up my nose when the knight in "Battlefield" started insisting The Doctor was Merlin. Also adding to the trifecta of coincidence was yesterday's spontaneous viewing of "Quack of Ages." Considering last week I was finishing up a collection of Poe's short stories, listening to A Tale of Two Cities, and then rounding it all out with Sandman: Season of Mist - which has a panel in Morpheus' library showing a shelf of books that were never finished, including The Mystery of Edwin Drood - I'm starting to wonder what third thing will tie Middlemarch and the end of BS2 together. Weird stuff.
I have another Merlin cued up, so I should watch that and get some sleep. Hopefully, it will get my mind off of the mistake I made in watching "Drumroll, Please" a moment ago...
Oh, also, I am so very extraordinarily happy to have gotten this far without even knowing most of the episode titles for S5/31, and I'm terrified of ruining that by searching for information about a DVD release date. So, if anyone who has been keeping up with the series of Who that (I believe) just ended happens to see any information about when the box set will be available in the US, I would greatly appreciate your passing that information along to me. You know, without any spoilers.
Grazie mille.
* People can complain about Tennant being hammy all they like, but he is infinitely less stagey than McCoy, and so much more natural. And he makes a much more sympathetic Doctor for a number of reasons that I won't go into at the moment.
And then there was the lovely coincidence that I happen to also be watching the first series of Merlin at the moment, and I just watched the first episode with Mysterious Evil Lady with Mystical/Technological Powers Monitoring Our Hero Through Some Manner of Scrying (TM) last night. I nearly snorted cranberry juice up my nose when the knight in "Battlefield" started insisting The Doctor was Merlin. Also adding to the trifecta of coincidence was yesterday's spontaneous viewing of "Quack of Ages." Considering last week I was finishing up a collection of Poe's short stories, listening to A Tale of Two Cities, and then rounding it all out with Sandman: Season of Mist - which has a panel in Morpheus' library showing a shelf of books that were never finished, including The Mystery of Edwin Drood - I'm starting to wonder what third thing will tie Middlemarch and the end of BS2 together. Weird stuff.
I have another Merlin cued up, so I should watch that and get some sleep. Hopefully, it will get my mind off of the mistake I made in watching "Drumroll, Please" a moment ago...
Oh, also, I am so very extraordinarily happy to have gotten this far without even knowing most of the episode titles for S5/31, and I'm terrified of ruining that by searching for information about a DVD release date. So, if anyone who has been keeping up with the series of Who that (I believe) just ended happens to see any information about when the box set will be available in the US, I would greatly appreciate your passing that information along to me. You know, without any spoilers.
Grazie mille.
* People can complain about Tennant being hammy all they like, but he is infinitely less stagey than McCoy, and so much more natural. And he makes a much more sympathetic Doctor for a number of reasons that I won't go into at the moment.