Comments | bagheera

bagheera_san

Stuff

Aug 03, 2008 10:58

I eventually got over the cold-water shock that is watching Ashes To Ashes directly after Life on Mars and finished watching S1. The Eighties mostly suck. So does their fashion (there isn't a single episode where Alex doesn't dress like a hooker, although that might be a "theme"...), but the music occasionally doesn't suck. Alex isn't Sam (is it ( Read more... )

doctor who, fandom

Comments 8

frelling_tralk August 3 2008, 11:02:13 UTC

(is it just me, or do we all tend to react slightly different to "crazy" women than to "crazy" men? Like, is mental illness more accepted with male characters?)

I think that crazy Sam was generally a bit more plausible than Alex. Like when he first meets the team his odd behaviour is explained as being the result of a concussion from the car accident, and he has to cover up when that criminal reveals that Sam doesn't believe any of them exists and Sam belongs in a mental hospital. Even his infamous freak-out on Gene over Cumberland Green was explained by being him very ill with fever (or really on the wrong medication obv). Annie was the only one that knew how crazy Sam really was

Yet Alex is always going around calling them imaginary and constructs of her mind to their faces, and not much is said, which takes me out of it rather

bagheera_san August 3 2008, 11:24:16 UTC

It's also that Alex is so sure she knows what's going on and what she has to do - Sam always seemed to doubt himself, and he didn't rationalize it like Alex does. Paradoxically it makes it seem as if Alex is the crazier one. Also, the clown being her dad made it obvious that it was a psychological thing, whereas the TV girl was never explained like that. At the end of Life on Mars, I accepted Sam's 1973 as a sort of supernatural/spiritual place (which had the odd effect of making Gene in the beginning of Ashes to Ashes slightly creepy/mysterious) but by the end of the first season of Ashes to Ashes it looks as if Alex just imagines it all - but then how does that work together with the ending of LoM?

x_los August 3 2008, 14:51:39 UTC

Invasion of the Dinosaurs refuses to marry me and that's the only reason I'm not having that serials' babies even now. I mean dinos! Though it all works better, really, if you assume every time you see the T-rex is't actually the dino from this comic: http://qwantz.com/... )

bagheera_san August 3 2008, 16:52:43 UTC

Oh, you're right, The Bloody Chamber sounds like I'd love it. And my mother adores Lorca, I'm sure we have something by him on the shelves. Thanks a lot for that list :D

x_los August 8 2008, 20:24:42 UTC

Do tell me if Lorca's any good in German, if you get 'round to it--I haven't read it in translation, and I'm a little iffy, b/c it's so /Spanish/.

Speaking of translations, the Kusher's more a huge, dramatic rewrite than a translation, just fyi, so you don't accidentally waste your time on the Ansky or something and think 'huh, Erin's got awkward lame taste.' :p

gritsinmisery August 3 2008, 16:14:51 UTC

Do NOT get me started on Alex's wardrobe. It is very, very wrong for her occupation AND her personality. She should have been in exactly the same business suits as her mum by episode 3 -- she's a smart woman who would have known exactly what sort of shit women were going through to be treated equally in the early 80s, especially in occupations that were still male-dominated like policing. EPIC FAIL on the part of whomever on the show made that decision. Yes, I know Ray dresses more appropriately (he wears a tie) than Sam in LoM, too. I'd really like to have a word in the shell-like of whatever hipster 20-something -- no offense to my f-list -- decided it was more important for the leads in these shows to dress "interestingly" than in a manner befitting their job title, situation, and location ( ... )

bagheera_san August 3 2008, 17:02:32 UTC

In the first episode it's sort of awkward/funny that she's dressed as a prostitute. But it never stops! And she has exactly three different shirts all season: the red shoulder free, the blue shoulder free and the silky red one. And white leather is just wrong.

In Sam's case it didn't bother me as much, it felt more as if Sam woke up in those clothes and thought "Right, Seventies, people dress like this" and everyone else just thought it was normal in Hyde or something. But perhaps both Alex and Sam think it doesn't matter since they're mad anyways, but even if I was mad I wouldn't dress like Alex in my own hallucination!

I was convinced right up until the moment her dad was revealed as the clown that Evan was the killer. I want the Guv to punch him, at the very least.

snowgrouse August 3 2008, 17:42:56 UTC

The problem with A2A is that they're writing Alex as a woman. As opposed to, y'know, the way they wrote Sam as *a human*. I have way more issues with that aspect than I have with the clothes (if it's her idea of the 80s rather than the real 80s). The only way I can cope with A2A is to just see it as a completely different universe that just happens to have its own versions of the Guv, Chris and Ray in it. I know it's an 80s thing to have it all really brightly lit and have big cheesy OTT moments, but brr. Okay, and the writing isn't nearly as good. Don't let me get started on the way Alex's motivation comes and goes--yeah, right I believe you're FIGHTING when you're about to have another shag that serves no plot or character purpose (and let's not even go into the LOL AIDS gay ep). Which is a shame, because some of is good and enjoyable ( ... )