Day 12 - "An episode you've watched more than 5 times"
This is weird for me, because I don't tend to rewatch episodes as much as shows. I'm sure I've seen every episode of Highlander, Torchwood, West Wing, Buffy and several other shows more than five times.
Going beyond that, the episode that comes most readily to mind is "Blink" from season 3 of Doctor Who. It's one of those episodes that surprises you -- after the previous year's "Doctor Lite" disaster (IMO) "Love & Monsters," and following the utterly brilliant "Human Nature"/"Family of Blood" and one week before the long-anticipated return of Captain Jack, I was not really expecting "Blink" to be any good, regardless of its Moffatt pedigree.
I was totally wrong. As off-format as it is, "Blink" is pretty much a perfect episode of TV in general and Doctor Who in particular. It has an unquestionably awesome heroine in Sally Sparrow, who is smart as all get out and has brilliant instincts. I also love it that when the Doctor tries to wave off giving her an explanation, Sally tells him to knock it off. Sally doesn't play second fiddle to any man -- not Larry, and not the Doctor. She is the one in charge, and it's great to watch.
There's also a genuine sense of jeopardy that you don't usually have in TV shows (except, like, Outer Limits or whatever) -- because Sally (and her friends) aren't our usual heroes, and it's not out of the realm of possibility that they might die. In fact, some of them do, and it's amazing how strongly we feel about it, given that we hardly knew these characters. Yet through Sally's eyes, they had become important and their loss was truly felt.
The angels are also genuinely fucking scary, helped along by a terrific Murray Gold score for this episode and top-notch directing and camera work. It doesn't matter that they don't kill you -- just their distorted, frozen faces are enough to put the fear of the Whatever High Atop the Thing into me. I may never look at a statue of a person the same way again.
It also doesn't hurt that the dialogue is sharp and hilarious, and full of fun geek moments, whether it's Scooby Doo's house, "it goes ding when there's stuff" (beware, hens), only owning 17 DVDs, wibbley wobbly timey wimey, the TARDIS having windows that are shaped wrong, "Angels have the phone box" on a t-shirt, and "the guys" being people on the Internet :)
Finally? I love "Blink" for using time travel in a way that doesn't give me a nose bleed. Things just happen in the wrong order. Even a physics ignoramus like me can wrap their head around that. Original post on Dreamwidth | Leave a comment on DW | read
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Going beyond that, the episode that comes most readily to mind is "Blink" from season 3 of Doctor Who. It's one of those episodes that surprises you -- after the previous year's "Doctor Lite" disaster (IMO) "Love & Monsters," and following the utterly brilliant "Human Nature"/"Family of Blood" and one week before the long-anticipated return of Captain Jack, I was not really expecting "Blink" to be any good, regardless of its Moffatt pedigree.
I was totally wrong. As off-format as it is, "Blink" is pretty much a perfect episode of TV in general and Doctor Who in particular. It has an unquestionably awesome heroine in Sally Sparrow, who is smart as all get out and has brilliant instincts. I also love it that when the Doctor tries to wave off giving her an explanation, Sally tells him to knock it off. Sally doesn't play second fiddle to any man -- not Larry, and not the Doctor. She is the one in charge, and it's great to watch.
There's also a genuine sense of jeopardy that you don't usually have in TV shows (except, like, Outer Limits or whatever) -- because Sally (and her friends) aren't our usual heroes, and it's not out of the realm of possibility that they might die. In fact, some of them do, and it's amazing how strongly we feel about it, given that we hardly knew these characters. Yet through Sally's eyes, they had become important and their loss was truly felt.
The angels are also genuinely fucking scary, helped along by a terrific Murray Gold score for this episode and top-notch directing and camera work. It doesn't matter that they don't kill you -- just their distorted, frozen faces are enough to put the fear of the Whatever High Atop the Thing into me. I may never look at a statue of a person the same way again.
It also doesn't hurt that the dialogue is sharp and hilarious, and full of fun geek moments, whether it's Scooby Doo's house, "it goes ding when there's stuff" (beware, hens), only owning 17 DVDs, wibbley wobbly timey wimey, the TARDIS having windows that are shaped wrong, "Angels have the phone box" on a t-shirt, and "the guys" being people on the Internet :)
Finally? I love "Blink" for using time travel in a way that doesn't give me a nose bleed. Things just happen in the wrong order. Even a physics ignoramus like me can wrap their head around that. Original post on Dreamwidth | Leave a comment on DW | read
comments on DW