A Little More Sonic.
INT: the Sixth Form Lobby at Riona’s school. Riona is talking to reipan.
Riona: I just have ridiculously awful taste in men. I mean, Mr Tumnus is half-goat, and then there's Macbeth - Barty Crouch Junior... I’m attracted to serial killers! (this said rather more loudly than she had intended.)
Mr Casley, Head of Sixth Form: (from his office around the corner) Who said that?
Riona and reipan: *crack up*
A FEW MINUTES LATER:
Mr Casley: (again 'offscreen') Saskia, are you the person who’s attracted to serial killers?
Now, I must ask you to take a moment to picture this. It’s the first day of term. You walk into the office of your Head of Year for some innocent work-related reason, and he immediately asks you whether you find serial killers sexy.
...I only wish that I could have seen her expression.
Anyway! You know what I'd really love to read? Tenth Doctor/Barty Crouch Junior fanfiction. Somebody should really write that.
Now, I can’t help noticing that some of you haven’t actually watched Doctor Who. This is absolutely unacceptable, and so I am now going to list just a few of the many thousands of reasons you have to watch it. This applies to the 2005 series, because that’s the only one I’ve seen, and that’s the one it’s especially important for you to watch so that I will be able to understand all the lovely lovely fanfic that you are of course going to write about it.
It’s fun to watch! This is the really important one, of course. I was feeling incredibly listless and depressed a couple of days ago, and then I watched a few episodes of Doctor Who and bam! Totally cured! It's just so difficult to be listless when the Doctor is leaping all over the screen and running about like a mad thing and chasing danger for no good reason.
It destroys landmarks! It’s not really an episode of Doctor Who unless something gets blown up, and so far Big Ben
(...not actually blown up, but it had a spaceship crashed into it, which is really even better, although not as good as sticking the words 'assless freak' in spoilertext boxes), 10 Downing Street and the Gherkin have fallen prey to the writers. Also, the Millennium Wheel has been used as part of an alien invasion. Fantastic stuff.
It doesn’t take itself too seriously! Even though there’s plenty of seriousness in there, the show delights in the ridiculous. The Doctor talking to baby!Rose as the world falls apart is both hilarious and adorable
("Now, Rose, you're not going to bring about the end of the world, are you?"). The back-of-the-DVD summary of one of the episodes contains the unforgettable sentence ‘The time travellers team up with Charles Dickens to investigate Mr Sneed, the local undertaker’. In the same episode, there’s a lovely scene in which Rose has been abducted and the Doctor gets distracted from trying to save her because he’s too busy being a total fangirl over Dickens.
When Rose is locked in a room and about to burn to death, the Doctor comes running up and calls through the door, “Anyone in there?” When he realises who it is, he says, “Oh, well, it would be you.” Also, it plays Toxic and Jingle Bells (although not, I hasten to add, at the same time) during life-or-death situations. This alone is reason enough to watch it.
That said, it can create tension and tug at the heartstrings very well indeed when it wants to. Father’s Day. Oh, God, Father’s Day. Nothing on television has ever made me cry like that did. And I knew it was trying its hardest to make me cry, and I tried to resist, but it won easily. And then there’s the end of Parting of the Ways, with Jack’s expression. OW MY HEART.
It has a wonderfully enthusiastic character who flirts with men, women, aliens, spaceships and robots. And isn’t that what we all look for in a series? Seriously, if you are not charmed by Captain Jack Harkness, you have no soul.
The main female character, although she does seem to need rescuing rather a lot, is actually likeable. A non-annoying female lead is something so very hard to come by. I really like Rose - she may not be the most physically strong of the main characters, but she’s interesting and the relationship between her and the Doctor is absolutely lovely. Doctor/Rose is a fantastic pairing, beaten only by Doctor/Rose/Jack, because Jack makes everything better.
In fact, I love every single one of the major characters, and that includes Mickey, Jackie and the TARDIS as well as Jack, Rose and the Doctor. Let me repeat that: I love all of the major characters, and indeed most of the minor ones (Jabe! Pete!). There is not a single major character that I do not like. How many series can that be said for?
Although I don’t care for them myself, zombies seem to be one of those things that automatically make something ten times better in many people’s esteem. So, uh, one of the episodes has zombies!
Even though each episode (apart from the two-parters) stands alone, they’re often subtly tied to previous episodes! kadrin sent me a lovely e-mail about his thoughts on the series (that I never replied to because I am awful and also because my reply would simply have been ‘I TOTALLY AGREE WITH YOU ON EVERYTHING’) in which he mentioned the continuity - how the eleventh episode is affected by events in the fifth and the third (set more than a hundred years before), the twelfth would never have happened were it not for the seventh. It’s really rather neat that, because the Doctor can travel through time, he can be affected by the far-future consequences of his earlier actions.
The e-mail also mentioned how it would be very difficult to argue that Captain Jack was either Straighty the Heterosexual or Mansleep McSleepswithmen. That’s not really relevant to anything; I just mention it because it made me giggle for hours.
There’s banter! There’s a lot of banter! And flirting and teasing and snarkiness and angst and general awesomeness! It is grand.
There’s moral ambiguity! My God, in Dalek the Doctor is really freaking scary. He really would MAKE-A-GOOD-DA-LEK. And then there's Father’s Day,
in which Rose completely screws up the world but who the hell could blame her? Seriously. I'd probably have done the same thing - I think that almost anyone would have. And the Doctor just couldn't understand why she did it, because in the end he really isn't human.
If you do not watch it, I will cry.
It will make you say ‘fantastic!’ far too much. I’m not sure whether this is actually a reason to watch it, but I’m listing it anyway. Because I can assure you, it will.
EDIT: Also, a rather late Happy New Year! I love you all! Now to write '2005' whenever I need to put the date for half the year, and '2007' for the other half, because I am useless!
Riona: I just have ridiculously awful taste in men. I mean, Mr Tumnus is half-goat, and then there's Macbeth - Barty Crouch Junior... I’m attracted to serial killers! (this said rather more loudly than she had intended.)
Mr Casley, Head of Sixth Form: (from his office around the corner) Who said that?
Riona and reipan: *crack up*
A FEW MINUTES LATER:
Mr Casley: (again 'offscreen') Saskia, are you the person who’s attracted to serial killers?
Now, I must ask you to take a moment to picture this. It’s the first day of term. You walk into the office of your Head of Year for some innocent work-related reason, and he immediately asks you whether you find serial killers sexy.
...I only wish that I could have seen her expression.
Anyway! You know what I'd really love to read? Tenth Doctor/Barty Crouch Junior fanfiction. Somebody should really write that.
Now, I can’t help noticing that some of you haven’t actually watched Doctor Who. This is absolutely unacceptable, and so I am now going to list just a few of the many thousands of reasons you have to watch it. This applies to the 2005 series, because that’s the only one I’ve seen, and that’s the one it’s especially important for you to watch so that I will be able to understand all the lovely lovely fanfic that you are of course going to write about it.
It’s fun to watch! This is the really important one, of course. I was feeling incredibly listless and depressed a couple of days ago, and then I watched a few episodes of Doctor Who and bam! Totally cured! It's just so difficult to be listless when the Doctor is leaping all over the screen and running about like a mad thing and chasing danger for no good reason.
It destroys landmarks! It’s not really an episode of Doctor Who unless something gets blown up, and so far Big Ben
(...not actually blown up, but it had a spaceship crashed into it, which is really even better, although not as good as sticking the words 'assless freak' in spoilertext boxes), 10 Downing Street and the Gherkin have fallen prey to the writers. Also, the Millennium Wheel has been used as part of an alien invasion. Fantastic stuff.
It doesn’t take itself too seriously! Even though there’s plenty of seriousness in there, the show delights in the ridiculous. The Doctor talking to baby!Rose as the world falls apart is both hilarious and adorable
("Now, Rose, you're not going to bring about the end of the world, are you?"). The back-of-the-DVD summary of one of the episodes contains the unforgettable sentence ‘The time travellers team up with Charles Dickens to investigate Mr Sneed, the local undertaker’. In the same episode, there’s a lovely scene in which Rose has been abducted and the Doctor gets distracted from trying to save her because he’s too busy being a total fangirl over Dickens.
When Rose is locked in a room and about to burn to death, the Doctor comes running up and calls through the door, “Anyone in there?” When he realises who it is, he says, “Oh, well, it would be you.” Also, it plays Toxic and Jingle Bells (although not, I hasten to add, at the same time) during life-or-death situations. This alone is reason enough to watch it.
That said, it can create tension and tug at the heartstrings very well indeed when it wants to. Father’s Day. Oh, God, Father’s Day. Nothing on television has ever made me cry like that did. And I knew it was trying its hardest to make me cry, and I tried to resist, but it won easily. And then there’s the end of Parting of the Ways, with Jack’s expression. OW MY HEART.
It has a wonderfully enthusiastic character who flirts with men, women, aliens, spaceships and robots. And isn’t that what we all look for in a series? Seriously, if you are not charmed by Captain Jack Harkness, you have no soul.
The main female character, although she does seem to need rescuing rather a lot, is actually likeable. A non-annoying female lead is something so very hard to come by. I really like Rose - she may not be the most physically strong of the main characters, but she’s interesting and the relationship between her and the Doctor is absolutely lovely. Doctor/Rose is a fantastic pairing, beaten only by Doctor/Rose/Jack, because Jack makes everything better.
In fact, I love every single one of the major characters, and that includes Mickey, Jackie and the TARDIS as well as Jack, Rose and the Doctor. Let me repeat that: I love all of the major characters, and indeed most of the minor ones (Jabe! Pete!). There is not a single major character that I do not like. How many series can that be said for?
Although I don’t care for them myself, zombies seem to be one of those things that automatically make something ten times better in many people’s esteem. So, uh, one of the episodes has zombies!
Even though each episode (apart from the two-parters) stands alone, they’re often subtly tied to previous episodes! kadrin sent me a lovely e-mail about his thoughts on the series (that I never replied to because I am awful and also because my reply would simply have been ‘I TOTALLY AGREE WITH YOU ON EVERYTHING’) in which he mentioned the continuity - how the eleventh episode is affected by events in the fifth and the third (set more than a hundred years before), the twelfth would never have happened were it not for the seventh. It’s really rather neat that, because the Doctor can travel through time, he can be affected by the far-future consequences of his earlier actions.
The e-mail also mentioned how it would be very difficult to argue that Captain Jack was either Straighty the Heterosexual or Mansleep McSleepswithmen. That’s not really relevant to anything; I just mention it because it made me giggle for hours.
There’s banter! There’s a lot of banter! And flirting and teasing and snarkiness and angst and general awesomeness! It is grand.
There’s moral ambiguity! My God, in Dalek the Doctor is really freaking scary. He really would MAKE-A-GOOD-DA-LEK. And then there's Father’s Day,
in which Rose completely screws up the world but who the hell could blame her? Seriously. I'd probably have done the same thing - I think that almost anyone would have. And the Doctor just couldn't understand why she did it, because in the end he really isn't human.
If you do not watch it, I will cry.
It will make you say ‘fantastic!’ far too much. I’m not sure whether this is actually a reason to watch it, but I’m listing it anyway. Because I can assure you, it will.
EDIT: Also, a rather late Happy New Year! I love you all! Now to write '2005' whenever I need to put the date for half the year, and '2007' for the other half, because I am useless!