Thoughts, Audios, Quotes, and More Thoughts
Today was annoyingly boring. Work was annoying, and I think gave me this stress neckache I only get when I'm hiding some anxiety in my body, and boring because good gods I wanted to do anything but my work. Instead, I roamed around LJ and Twitter, buying a new CD of Bear McCreary's, and listened to one piece of the Big Finish audio "The Mutant Phase" over and over again.
First of all, Bear McCreary: awesome composer. He was promoting on Twitter his recent CD release for "The Cape," a show from NBC that never took off, but he had signed 150 copies and said this was his most "epic album" ever. And, well, he's made some really epic shit (all of Battlestar Galactica, Caprica, Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles is amazing) so if he says this is his most epic album I believe him. I waited on the publisher's website for a few minutes after his tweet, bought the album within minutes, and I'm desperately hoping for a signed copy. I replied to his tweet, saying I believed him and was hoping for the best, and he tweeted me back. Yes, alright, that completely made my afternoon, I will admit, but...yeah, he's epic.
Just listen to what he does on the piano with his music (and without the amazing Gaelic lyrics to accompany it):
Epic. *sniffs* EPIC. (So is this one, btw.)
Other than that, I was reading over a "spoiler free" review of the series finale of Doctor Who coming up this Saturday from io9 and started to think....
So, io9 says that the series finale will be:
But is it a perfect episode? Well, no. It honestly depends how you felt about the last two Moffat "arc" episodes, "A Good Man Goes to War" and "Let's Kill Hitler." If you feel, as I do, that those two episodes had some serious flaws, then you'll notice the same flaws in [the finale]. Once again, Moffat is trying to tell a huge, far-reaching story about the Doctor's complex relationships with Amy Pond and her daughter, River Song, and he takes some shortcuts along the way. Davies, for all his weaknesses as a storyteller, tended to take a lot more care in setting up character arcs that were far less ambitious.
So...not gonna like it, am I? Oh, well, no terrible loss there. I have a feeling that, once all is said and done, I'll buy/rent the Blu-Ray, bubble wrap my TV, and watch the whole series from beginning to end with a bunch of paper towels in my hand to throw at the TV. I have most of the eps on my computer but I'm not sure if I can deal with them right now. Sure, some of them may have the emotional impact I want from this show, or have come to expect it from watching various Doctors/producers, but the overall thematic elements that I need in a show are just left aside. Even in this article they point out the thing I want explored the most: stupid River Song!
Honestly, I wanted that woman to be awesome when I first saw her in SitL/FotD, but what's come out since then has just made me sad. I really wanted to like her yet the only thing that's left of her character is a plot device for others. That doesn't come across as a strong female character/companion to me. Tegan had more guts than her for crying out loud (although not a lot of companions have more guts, or a louder voice, than Tegan).
Maybe I'm judging too early, going off of other people's opinions and reviews, but that's how I feel so far. To me, River was great until about the end of Series 5, which still gives me an upset stomach for the disturbing amount of timey wimey, and after that it all went downhill, tbh. So, that's why I go back and watch Classic Who!
Which then brings me to my next point: timey wimey and what the hell happened Who?
I know this has been brought up as a thread point before on another comm, but the Doctor never seemed to be the type who just changed time because he could, at least fixed points. I won't even get into WoM, which will just make this post ten-times longer than it needs to be, and focus on the one audio chapter I listened to from Five's "The Mutant Phase."
I've listened to a total of four BF audios, one an adaptation of a novelization read by Peter Davison that I don't count, and they all had their merits. Although I listened to the first Eight audio, I've stuck with Five and Nyssa right now because they are so amazingly adorkable. Nyssa is such a smart character that she compliments Five so well that, even if she left in a rather awkward way in the series, Sarah Sutton's voice hasn't changed one bit that I can easily relive her character in the audios. And Five...well, I love him.
Anyway, in this one audio the two talk about time and changing it, even a small amount, with just words. This is how I think Who has, and always should, handle the aspect of changing time:
Nyssa: Morning. ...Don't tell me you haven't been to bed yet.
Doctor: Alright, let's go through it again.
Nyssa: Again?
Doctor: Again.
Nyssa: How many times have you reviewed that data crystal?
Doctor: Um....five-hundred and fifteen times.
Nyssa: Precisely. And you know what means?
Doctor: Time for another cup of tea, probably.
Nyssa: No. It means you should go to bed.
Doctor: So....[lots of talk about the plot]
....
Nyssa: Doctor.
Doctor (heading off to bed, comes back): Yes? ...Nyssa what is it?
Nyssa: Why are you doing this?
Doctor: Oh, well, we have to-
Nyssa: When Adric died-
Doctor: Ah.
Nyssa: You said we should never ask you to go back in time and change things.
Doctor: Yes. Yes and I meant it
Nyssa: But you're going to go back now [in time]...aren't you?
Doctor: If there's no other way, yes. Look, there's some secrets of time that I can't risk divulging.
Nyssa: You mean you don't trust me.
Doctor: No, of course I trust you Nyssa but...I don't know what lies ahead for you.
Nyssa: What...what are you saying, Doctor?
Doctor: You see, there will come a time when you and I will part company and neither of us has any way of knowing what you will do, or-or who you will meet, or what you may tell them, or what they may force you to tell them. Nyssa, there are some secrets that a Time Lord must never, ever reveal.
Nyssa: [Plot things] ...but you stopped yourself from saying what. Doctor, I need to understand!
Doctor: Nyssa. I'll say this much: it has to do with the nature of the universe and the fabric of time itself. Somehow, there's an unpredictable reaction between the two. You've heard of temporal paradoxes?
Nyssa: Yes, when someone in the future travels back to alter the past but finds that their actions in the past were the very actions that caused their future to be the way it is.
Doctor: That's one example and, as it happens, a very pertinent one. And that's all I'm prepared to say. Goodnight!
First of all, Time Lords sleep? I find it so funny that, in the section I took out, Nyssa asks the Doctor if Time Lords do need sleep. *snickers* It's so very amusing. I wonder what Five's room would look like... Does he have a spare cup of celery growing in water? Hmm...probably.
Second, I love it whenever Adric is mentioned because I can see all the haters cringing at the thought of his name while I perk up and laugh at the same time. Haters are gonna hate....
Third, ah, paradoxes! Now, what Nyssa just explained was pretty much all of the Series 5 ending. A paradox. What happened to New Who canon that temporal paradoxes needed a "red" whatever TARDIS to sustain because time was so freaking delicate? I mean, the Doctor even saw his current self (ie, not a previous incarnation which is a rather established Who phenomenon going by how many times they had "The N Doctors") in TBB so how could this even hold up (not that I expect much of canon anyway)? What happened to time being a fragile entity, even in this pseudo-canon audio?
But, it isn't just this audio that keeps me annoyed at this, imho, obscene use of "timey wimey," it's Classic and New canon that makes me think Moffat really is trying to do his own deal here. (And, for the record, I did enjoy "Blink", however with each passing rewatch it keeps losing its power, unlike Midnight for example.) There were many times, going back to the first Doctor in "The Romans," where time was too delicate of a thing that they had to let things play out or all of time may break in two. Five couldn't go back and save Adric, Eight could never stop himself from creating that Time Lock, Nine couldn't save Rose's dad, Ten couldn't save Rose, Donna, or the Master (twice on his account). Sure, each and every time the Doctor could have gone back and changed time (although for Nine he certainly had a serious issue to deal with which was never brought up again), except he didn't. Time, even for a time traveler, is a precious thing, particularly to a Time Lord, to the Doctor. Sure, he is a runaway and a renegade, except he has enough common sense to keep time as it is supposed to be.
Yes, Ten screwed up in WoM but he was stopped by the one thing he can never, ever anticipate: free will. I'm sure that in that moment, when Ten heard Adelaide kill herself, he must have felt what a god would have felt when he lost to such a simple and overlooked thing as free will. Or entropy as that happens too.
Either way, when you think about all of these examples, a small sampling as I'm still working my way through Classic Who, what do you think Eleven would have done with his whole "time can be rewritten" motto (which, btw, Ten only said in a Moffat episode, iirc)? Change it? Would he have forced Adelaide to remain alive? Would he have gone back to save the Master at the end of Series 3/EoT? Would he have saved Rose's dad or possibly even Adric? I can see all of those possibilities with Eleven because, for all his hoopla and spectacle, he appears to have no respect for time at all. River isn't so much something to be respected because of her timeline but a mystery to be torn apart, and, if taken literally, I can only imagine that if I thought it than Moffat would have thought of something far worse. What about poor Kazran in "A Christmas Carol?" And what has Eleven done for/to the Ponds? There's my whole case right there, even if I've only watched bits of it all.
It just confuses me that something that seemed so important for every other Doctor would be so irrelevant for Eleven. I just...don't get it. Maybe someone with a better grasp of Eleven could make me understand why he can play the Time Lord Victorious card and win, every bloody time, when no other Doctor could. Come to think of it, even the Brigadier couldn't escape time in "Mawdryn Undead" when he saw his younger self. Time sure isn't what it used to be....
Either way, if I were to come back around to the audio and have a go at what I thought of it, so far "The Mutant Phase" was the best one I've heard. I kept fist-pumping the air, in a very dignified manner as I walked along the street and passed normal people, and repeating this one chapter just to hear the Doctor's explanation about time (and Peter and Sarah have a good argument :P). Otherwise, the audio was...well, I hear there are better ones coming up. Now that I can actually carry on with one without my brain going out on me, I think I'll stick with Five. Paul McGann has a lovely voice, I won't deny that, and Eight is a great Doctor, but I'm gonna stick with good ol' Fivey for a while longer.
Still not watching "Caves" again for the time being. I've been traumatized.
Wow, so sorry, that turned into a much longer post than I had anticipated. Writing out a transcript isn't so much fun after all. Still...love that audio.
And I'm now 15 minutes away from mandatory bedtime. Sometimes I wish I didn't have to go to bed at a certain time so I got eight hours of sleep but the alternative is so much worse. Ugh.
(Oh, and LOL @ TV Tropes on timey wimey. L.O.L.)
First of all, Bear McCreary: awesome composer. He was promoting on Twitter his recent CD release for "The Cape," a show from NBC that never took off, but he had signed 150 copies and said this was his most "epic album" ever. And, well, he's made some really epic shit (all of Battlestar Galactica, Caprica, Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles is amazing) so if he says this is his most epic album I believe him. I waited on the publisher's website for a few minutes after his tweet, bought the album within minutes, and I'm desperately hoping for a signed copy. I replied to his tweet, saying I believed him and was hoping for the best, and he tweeted me back. Yes, alright, that completely made my afternoon, I will admit, but...yeah, he's epic.
Just listen to what he does on the piano with his music (and without the amazing Gaelic lyrics to accompany it):
Click to viewEpic. *sniffs* EPIC. (So is this one, btw.)
Other than that, I was reading over a "spoiler free" review of the series finale of Doctor Who coming up this Saturday from io9 and started to think....
So, io9 says that the series finale will be:
But is it a perfect episode? Well, no. It honestly depends how you felt about the last two Moffat "arc" episodes, "A Good Man Goes to War" and "Let's Kill Hitler." If you feel, as I do, that those two episodes had some serious flaws, then you'll notice the same flaws in [the finale]. Once again, Moffat is trying to tell a huge, far-reaching story about the Doctor's complex relationships with Amy Pond and her daughter, River Song, and he takes some shortcuts along the way. Davies, for all his weaknesses as a storyteller, tended to take a lot more care in setting up character arcs that were far less ambitious.
So...not gonna like it, am I? Oh, well, no terrible loss there. I have a feeling that, once all is said and done, I'll buy/rent the Blu-Ray, bubble wrap my TV, and watch the whole series from beginning to end with a bunch of paper towels in my hand to throw at the TV. I have most of the eps on my computer but I'm not sure if I can deal with them right now. Sure, some of them may have the emotional impact I want from this show, or have come to expect it from watching various Doctors/producers, but the overall thematic elements that I need in a show are just left aside. Even in this article they point out the thing I want explored the most: stupid River Song!
Honestly, I wanted that woman to be awesome when I first saw her in SitL/FotD, but what's come out since then has just made me sad. I really wanted to like her yet the only thing that's left of her character is a plot device for others. That doesn't come across as a strong female character/companion to me. Tegan had more guts than her for crying out loud (although not a lot of companions have more guts, or a louder voice, than Tegan).
Maybe I'm judging too early, going off of other people's opinions and reviews, but that's how I feel so far. To me, River was great until about the end of Series 5, which still gives me an upset stomach for the disturbing amount of timey wimey, and after that it all went downhill, tbh. So, that's why I go back and watch Classic Who!
Which then brings me to my next point: timey wimey and what the hell happened Who?
I know this has been brought up as a thread point before on another comm, but the Doctor never seemed to be the type who just changed time because he could, at least fixed points. I won't even get into WoM, which will just make this post ten-times longer than it needs to be, and focus on the one audio chapter I listened to from Five's "The Mutant Phase."
I've listened to a total of four BF audios, one an adaptation of a novelization read by Peter Davison that I don't count, and they all had their merits. Although I listened to the first Eight audio, I've stuck with Five and Nyssa right now because they are so amazingly adorkable. Nyssa is such a smart character that she compliments Five so well that, even if she left in a rather awkward way in the series, Sarah Sutton's voice hasn't changed one bit that I can easily relive her character in the audios. And Five...well, I love him.
Anyway, in this one audio the two talk about time and changing it, even a small amount, with just words. This is how I think Who has, and always should, handle the aspect of changing time:
Nyssa: Morning. ...Don't tell me you haven't been to bed yet.
Doctor: Alright, let's go through it again.
Nyssa: Again?
Doctor: Again.
Nyssa: How many times have you reviewed that data crystal?
Doctor: Um....five-hundred and fifteen times.
Nyssa: Precisely. And you know what means?
Doctor: Time for another cup of tea, probably.
Nyssa: No. It means you should go to bed.
Doctor: So....[lots of talk about the plot]
....
Nyssa: Doctor.
Doctor (heading off to bed, comes back): Yes? ...Nyssa what is it?
Nyssa: Why are you doing this?
Doctor: Oh, well, we have to-
Nyssa: When Adric died-
Doctor: Ah.
Nyssa: You said we should never ask you to go back in time and change things.
Doctor: Yes. Yes and I meant it
Nyssa: But you're going to go back now [in time]...aren't you?
Doctor: If there's no other way, yes. Look, there's some secrets of time that I can't risk divulging.
Nyssa: You mean you don't trust me.
Doctor: No, of course I trust you Nyssa but...I don't know what lies ahead for you.
Nyssa: What...what are you saying, Doctor?
Doctor: You see, there will come a time when you and I will part company and neither of us has any way of knowing what you will do, or-or who you will meet, or what you may tell them, or what they may force you to tell them. Nyssa, there are some secrets that a Time Lord must never, ever reveal.
Nyssa: [Plot things] ...but you stopped yourself from saying what. Doctor, I need to understand!
Doctor: Nyssa. I'll say this much: it has to do with the nature of the universe and the fabric of time itself. Somehow, there's an unpredictable reaction between the two. You've heard of temporal paradoxes?
Nyssa: Yes, when someone in the future travels back to alter the past but finds that their actions in the past were the very actions that caused their future to be the way it is.
Doctor: That's one example and, as it happens, a very pertinent one. And that's all I'm prepared to say. Goodnight!
First of all, Time Lords sleep? I find it so funny that, in the section I took out, Nyssa asks the Doctor if Time Lords do need sleep. *snickers* It's so very amusing. I wonder what Five's room would look like... Does he have a spare cup of celery growing in water? Hmm...probably.
Second, I love it whenever Adric is mentioned because I can see all the haters cringing at the thought of his name while I perk up and laugh at the same time. Haters are gonna hate....
Third, ah, paradoxes! Now, what Nyssa just explained was pretty much all of the Series 5 ending. A paradox. What happened to New Who canon that temporal paradoxes needed a "red" whatever TARDIS to sustain because time was so freaking delicate? I mean, the Doctor even saw his current self (ie, not a previous incarnation which is a rather established Who phenomenon going by how many times they had "The N Doctors") in TBB so how could this even hold up (not that I expect much of canon anyway)? What happened to time being a fragile entity, even in this pseudo-canon audio?
But, it isn't just this audio that keeps me annoyed at this, imho, obscene use of "timey wimey," it's Classic and New canon that makes me think Moffat really is trying to do his own deal here. (And, for the record, I did enjoy "Blink", however with each passing rewatch it keeps losing its power, unlike Midnight for example.) There were many times, going back to the first Doctor in "The Romans," where time was too delicate of a thing that they had to let things play out or all of time may break in two. Five couldn't go back and save Adric, Eight could never stop himself from creating that Time Lock, Nine couldn't save Rose's dad, Ten couldn't save Rose, Donna, or the Master (twice on his account). Sure, each and every time the Doctor could have gone back and changed time (although for Nine he certainly had a serious issue to deal with which was never brought up again), except he didn't. Time, even for a time traveler, is a precious thing, particularly to a Time Lord, to the Doctor. Sure, he is a runaway and a renegade, except he has enough common sense to keep time as it is supposed to be.
Yes, Ten screwed up in WoM but he was stopped by the one thing he can never, ever anticipate: free will. I'm sure that in that moment, when Ten heard Adelaide kill herself, he must have felt what a god would have felt when he lost to such a simple and overlooked thing as free will. Or entropy as that happens too.
Either way, when you think about all of these examples, a small sampling as I'm still working my way through Classic Who, what do you think Eleven would have done with his whole "time can be rewritten" motto (which, btw, Ten only said in a Moffat episode, iirc)? Change it? Would he have forced Adelaide to remain alive? Would he have gone back to save the Master at the end of Series 3/EoT? Would he have saved Rose's dad or possibly even Adric? I can see all of those possibilities with Eleven because, for all his hoopla and spectacle, he appears to have no respect for time at all. River isn't so much something to be respected because of her timeline but a mystery to be torn apart, and, if taken literally, I can only imagine that if I thought it than Moffat would have thought of something far worse. What about poor Kazran in "A Christmas Carol?" And what has Eleven done for/to the Ponds? There's my whole case right there, even if I've only watched bits of it all.
It just confuses me that something that seemed so important for every other Doctor would be so irrelevant for Eleven. I just...don't get it. Maybe someone with a better grasp of Eleven could make me understand why he can play the Time Lord Victorious card and win, every bloody time, when no other Doctor could. Come to think of it, even the Brigadier couldn't escape time in "Mawdryn Undead" when he saw his younger self. Time sure isn't what it used to be....
Either way, if I were to come back around to the audio and have a go at what I thought of it, so far "The Mutant Phase" was the best one I've heard. I kept fist-pumping the air, in a very dignified manner as I walked along the street and passed normal people, and repeating this one chapter just to hear the Doctor's explanation about time (and Peter and Sarah have a good argument :P). Otherwise, the audio was...well, I hear there are better ones coming up. Now that I can actually carry on with one without my brain going out on me, I think I'll stick with Five. Paul McGann has a lovely voice, I won't deny that, and Eight is a great Doctor, but I'm gonna stick with good ol' Fivey for a while longer.
Still not watching "Caves" again for the time being. I've been traumatized.
Wow, so sorry, that turned into a much longer post than I had anticipated. Writing out a transcript isn't so much fun after all. Still...love that audio.
And I'm now 15 minutes away from mandatory bedtime. Sometimes I wish I didn't have to go to bed at a certain time so I got eight hours of sleep but the alternative is so much worse. Ugh.
(Oh, and LOL @ TV Tropes on timey wimey. L.O.L.)