TV Meme Day Fourteen: Malcolm Tucker

[meddow]

Day 14: Favorite male character

Surprisingly, this wasn't a hard pick, which I've chalked down to the fact that as I overwhelmingly identify with female character more than male character, my favourite characters tend to be female. Tomorrow shall be the hard one.

Comments

[airie_fairy]

"well, a metaphorical career death but dude is freaking Gandalf"

He's fucking self-raising Gandalf. ...wait.

"he's just so incredibly charming and charismatic"

XD But...but he's so not. He ends up dissolving into yelling at someone even when he tries. XD He's sort of disarming for it, sure, and not just disarming as a synonym for scary. And sort of entertaining for it, probably even to some in his life rather than just viewers. But, like, charming and charismatic imply trying to get your way via subtler ways than frothing at the mouth.

The rants are poetry, though.

[meddow]

Yes, Gandalf. There's little behind the scenes things that are sadly not on youtube, but notice how Malcolm goes from wearing a grey fleece to a white fleece at about the time Steve Flemming goes down. Yeah...Armando much like Phil likes his LotR metaphors.

Aw, he doesn't end up frothing in the mouth at the end of most of his scenes with Julius - he just plain flirts with Julius to get his way.

[airie_fairy]

"Malcolm goes from wearing a grey fleece to a white fleece at about the time Steve Flemming goes down"

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

"he just plain flirts with Julius to get his way"

In between all the insults and the food-throwing. XD

[calapine]

THAT WAS AWESOME READING.

Srsly, that was really, really interesting metaness and makes me want to do go do a rewatch right this very second.

[meddow]

Aww, thank you :)

[grenadine]

Ooh, excellent choice!

I love that split second of Malcolm going "OH MY GOD" with relief after he finds out Dan Miller was actually the correct answer. Peter Capaldi: king of acting.

I love that even from the beginning, the show makes sure you know that Malcolm isn't infallible, is nearly always walking a very, very thin line between triumph and absolute catastrophe that depends on his being smarter and faster than everyone else in the room. And I love Malcolm for the insults and the bravado, but I think mostly I love him for that terrifyingly diamantine mind of his. It's the difference between Malcolm and, for example, Olly, who tries for the bluster and the maneuvering without having the brainpower to back it up, or between him and Nicola, who's clever enough but doesn't really know how to use it.

[meddow]

Yes, I love that moment. Capaldi is amazing.

It does seem that half the time Malcolm actually manages to make things worse. He is just as capable of messing up, the real difference though is that when he messes up, he's usually the one to also fix things (although, usually somebody gets screwed over in the process).

And gods yes, watching his mind work, that's so much fun and also wonderfully tension filled. He's got to keep one step ahead of the pack at all times or he is gone, and it's excruciating in 3x07 when for one moment he's not onto it, and that's when Steve Flemming get him.

[meddow]

Yeah, I love how they resisted the temptation to do the easy thing, and instead did what was best for the show by keeping it focused on DoSAC - and they do always seem to somehow find new aspects of Malcolm which keeps him so, so interesting.