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Post by K-Box on Jan 31, 2009 16:25:54 GMT -8
Who's your local station? I'm just thrilled if ANY station in this beknighted country is showing ClassiWho. KBTC in Western Washington. |
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Post by K-Box on Jan 31, 2009 17:52:41 GMT -8
I'm pleased that you're doing these analyses here, because I know I fell down on the job of doing my "The Doctor By Numbers". We just killed Jon last night and birthed Tom a few minutes later. I *cannot* watch the end of "Planet of the Spiders" anymore and just go to sleep.... I have to watch "Robot" immediately after, otherwise I get haunted by the speculation brought up in Virgin books that Jon was dying in the vortex for ten years before he made it back to UNIT HQ. Hard to dream sweet dreams with that nightmare scenario in your head. After doing my Classic!Who rewind review of Jon Pertwee as the Third Doctor in "The Sea Devils," I realized that I really do need to do a proper review of Tom Baker's time in service as the Fourth Doctor, especially since Four has always been my favorite Doctor. His character arc went through some genuine shifts, which I suppose is easier when you manage to clock in at something like seven seasons on air as the Doctor, but in some ways, the differences between early Four, middle Four and late Four are almost as pronounced as the differences between entirely different incarnations of the Doctor. In "Robot," Four starts out as an ADHD kid who's already clearly itching to ditch his Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru on Tatooine the Brig and UNIT on Earth (and even Sarah Jane, WTF) in favor of traveling solo, but Sarah Jane wins him over (as only she could), and he seems to sort of grudgingly accept Harry as her guest, but when Harry finally jumps ship, Four's obviously not exactly heartbroken over it. From there, with Sarah Jane now his only partner in crime, Four alternates between treating her with extraordinary tenderness (as far as I can recall, she's STILL the only person in the show he's ever referred to as "my best friend" - even the Master only rated a "We were very good friends, once" from Three) to taking her rather callously for granted (in "The Brain of Morbius," she's crying over being struck blind, and he threatens to BITE HER NOSE OFF! Little boy me was very upset with the Doctor for a short while after that). And when he's forced to leave Sarah Jane behind, there actually seems to be a glimmer of recognition of what he's lost, and indeed, what he never appreciated enough while he had it, because he was too busy showing off his 1337 Time Lord-ness to her, and declaring pompous BS like "I walk in eternity." Somebody, I believe it was on who_anon, compared Leela to Martha, and there's some truth to that, in terms of the treatment they received from their respective Doctors. Leela and Martha certainly received approval, on occasion (Martha actually got treated better by Ten, in this regard, than Leela did by Four), whereas Rose and Sarah Jane also got affection (although, once again, Martha still fared better on this score than Leela, since Martha got her share of Ten!hugs, whereas I'm hard-pressed to remember Leela ever receiving so much as a single Four!hug, while Sarah Jane got more than a few). Moreover, both Leela and Martha were conveniently dumped off with blandly nondescript Invisible Fiances (Tom Milligan and Andred both made their debut appearances in the very last episodes of Martha and Leela's runs as regular companions). Of course, by the time Leela met Four, he was no longer in any mood to deal with anybody in anything approaching a civil manner. Whereas Four's mercurial melancholy had once been that of a capriciously wandering trickster, his sudden mood swings became increasingly imperious, which was probably exacerbated by tutoring Leela in the ways of civilization, since while Leela was very quick to learn, she was also extremely uneducated, and Four's alternating amusement at, and annoyance with, her ignorance made his opinion clear, that she was not on equal footing with him. As harsh as it was for Ten to ask Martha to walk the Earth for him in "Last of the Time Lords," at least he did her the courtesy of asking; in "The Invasion of Time," Four pretty much just threw Leela to the wolves, without any explanations whatsoever, and expected that she'd find a way to survive and mind-read his plan, which would rate as a serious Dick Move by the standards of any Doctor (yes, even Six. Okay, maybe not by Seven's standards, but still ...). Romana brought Four's ego crashing back down, since she was the first companion since Susan or Zoe who could rival him on a book-smarts level, so since he couldn't win debates with his companion by pulling the "I'm a bigger genius than you" punk card anymore, he was forced to adopt the "Yeah, well, I have more life experience and creativity than you" counter-argument ... which was, to a large extent, a stance that their early adventures together wound up vindicating. Of course, once Romana regenerated, she no longer asserted that going "by the book" was more advisable than flying by the seat of your pants, and without anyone to challenge him, Four's previous dalliances with defending Time Lord tradition, instead of defying it, resumed anew. As one of my LiveJournal acquaintances pointed out, Four and Romana II were almost the inverse of Four and Romana I, by the end, because by "Warriors' Gate," Four was the one who was pleased at the prospect of returning to Gallifrey, while Romana was the one who was quietly but visibly thinking OMG I HAVE TO GET OUT OF THIS TRAP NOW So, the ex-wife Romana left, and she even took the dog with her, and who did she leave behind? Cousin Oliver Adric, the know-it-all kid that they'd been raising together, who had all the social cluelessness of Leela, but with none of the indefatigable fighting spirit, the well-honed cunning cleverness, or even the self-awareness regarding her own areas of ignorance, that made Leela such a valuable companion. It's no wonder that, by the time Four was stuck on his own with Adric, he looked like he was about to stick a gun in his own mouth; he'd been reduced to what Al Bundy would be like if Peg ever divorced him. From that standpoint, it's no wonder that Four shared none of Three's adversarial affection for the Master, even when the Master stopped entering Skeletor lookalike contests and started stroking his neatly-groomed goatee again. If Four, in his end phase, was morose over what his own life had become, then he probably saw Ainley!Master as even more pathetic, like that guy you knew from high school who still smokes weed in his parents' attic and listens to all the same music that he did when he was a teenager. Ainley!Master was desperately trying to recapture his youth, from when he was Delgado!Master, by dressing and acting the same way that he remembered himself doing back then, but the effect amounted to the same thing as that 38-year-old dude with the pot belly and the bald spot in the back of his mullet, who plays air guitar to AC/DC songs while he fixes the roofing on your house. YOU'RE NOT "HIP" OR "WITH-IT" ANYMORE, OLD DUDE, NO MATTER HOW OFTEN YOU STILL ROCK OUT TO MOTORHEAD'S "ACE OF SPADES" OR USE YOUR MINIATURIZER ON THE RELATIVES OF YOUR ARCHENEMY'S COMPANIONS. So, yeah, by the time the Watcher appeared, a part of Four had to have been relieved, because the hyperactive man-child was obviously worn out and ready for both a physical and a spiritual rebirth. Of course, he couldn't have minded acquiring two cute new girls as his companions in the process ... And wow, I think I just did my review of Four. |
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Post by Patty on Jan 31, 2009 19:05:42 GMT -8
Who's your local station? I'm just thrilled if ANY station in this beknighted country is showing ClassiWho. KBTC in Western Washington. Ah-ha! While I had guessed it was them, because Mike's Comics has been providing them with pledge drive merchandise for the last six months, I was almost hoping it was yet another station on the West Coast, just so that KBTC wasn't the last lonely light. |
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Post by jensaltmann on Feb 1, 2009 11:47:00 GMT -8
But, just for the sake of argument, doesn't this imply that the Twilight "universe" as a WHOLE is a META-Mary Sue, within the meta-universe of the vampire subgenre overall? After all, the Twilight universe's reimagining of vampires is, when compared to the vampires of any other fictional universe, just as much a Mary Sue on the CONCEPTUAL level as all those original character students of Hogwarts in fanfic are Mary Sues on the CHARACTER level, because Twilight basically transforms the vampiric condition from a compelling curse with rich dramatic potential into a deus ex machina device for turning people into weirdly idealized versions of themselves that they secretly fap or schlick to, without any of the negative consequences that should necessarily be associated with such a condition. That is one of the biggest problems I have with my own "romantic vampire" novel, which I just started writing this evening: I can't do a Mary Sue character, and the central character being a Mary Sue is a requirement for vampire romance novels. |
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Post by Anders on Feb 1, 2009 13:40:55 GMT -8
Isn't that true of all romance novels, vampire or not?
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Post by paulpogue on Feb 1, 2009 14:39:53 GMT -8
Rose is an astonishingly Mary Sue-ish Mary Sue, but Bella gets the win on general frakkin' principle. Rose is a Mary Sue inserted into a pre-existing universe that is, in and of itself, one of the goddamn coolest continuities ever conceived by nerddom. Bella is part of a brand-new world that is IN AND OF ITSELF a gigantic wish-fulfillment fantasy of every girl who ever wanted to have adventures with fairies and unicorns and vampires, but was a little leery of the vampires because vampires are so icky. So we get much-less-icky vampires. (And then, of course, with the pregnancy business, it gets icky on levels that make Buffy/Spike seem like a stable relationship.) But you get the idea. But, just for the sake of argument, doesn't this imply that the Twilight "universe" as a WHOLE is a META-Mary Sue, within the meta-universe of the vampire subgenre overall? After all, the Twilight universe's reimagining of vampires is, when compared to the vampires of any other fictional universe, just as much a Mary Sue on the CONCEPTUAL level as all those original character students of Hogwarts in fanfic are Mary Sues on the CHARACTER level, because Twilight basically transforms the vampiric condition from a compelling curse with rich dramatic potential into a deus ex machina device for turning people into weirdly idealized versions of themselves that they secretly fap or schlick to, without any of the negative consequences that should necessarily be associated with such a condition. That is, in fact, exactly my point  . Now, whether that makes whatserhame from Twilight a bigger Mary Sue than Rose is an interesting question, because do we have to spot her additional points, or dock her points, due to the fact her entire universe is Mary Sue Land and Rose's fictional universe is one of the most enduring in the history of the genre? |
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Post by jensaltmann on Feb 5, 2009 1:00:53 GMT -8
BTW, Kirk: I'm being deliberately provocative on your LJ comments.
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Post by jensaltmann on Feb 5, 2009 1:07:53 GMT -8
Anders: Don't know. I don't read romance.
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Post by Anders on Feb 5, 2009 8:24:30 GMT -8
I don't either (other than peripheral work), but I've seen enough parodies and heard enough about it to get sense of how the genre works.
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Post by jensaltmann on Feb 14, 2009 1:16:57 GMT -8
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Post by K-Box on Feb 18, 2009 18:14:45 GMT -8
By the way, I never thanked you for posting this. It really is awesome. |
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Post by K-Box on Feb 18, 2009 18:22:58 GMT -8
HOLY SHIT COUGAR COMPANION FOR REALS  MORBO IS PLEASED BUT STICKYSo, why should you think that this is SUPER AWESOME FANTASTIC news? Meet Lindsay Duncan:  O HAI ANCIENT ROMAN MILFDiscriminating viewers should recall Lindsay Duncan's compelling presence as Servilia of the Junii in the HBO miniseries Rome, in which she managed to deliver powerfully moving performances, even in the scenes when she wasn't stripping naked and snacking on younger chicks' snatches. So, in addition to everything I already said, why do I think that this casting decision is MADE OF WIN? Well, allow me to repost the following article: Matt Smith, in case any of you have forgotten, will be playing the Eleventh Doctor in 2010. PLZ LET LINDSAY'S CHARACTER BECOME ELEVEN'S COMPANION THX |
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Post by paulpogue on Feb 18, 2009 19:34:38 GMT -8
So let me get this straight -- in between this and "Secret Diary of a Call Girl," the Eleventh Doctor has already gotten it on with TWO companions?
For the love of god, somebody cast this kid in a play with Kylie Minogue and Elisabeth Sladen immediately.
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Post by K-Box on Feb 18, 2009 22:26:04 GMT -8
So let me get this straight -- in between this and "Secret Diary of a Call Girl," the Eleventh Doctor has already gotten it on with TWO companions? For the love of god, somebody cast this kid in a play with Kylie Minogue and Elisabeth Sladen immediately. Heh. Along those lines, one of the UK tabloids semi-seriously suggested that Daniel Radcliffe and Catherine Tate should be fucking, because a) he obviously doesn't mind fucking older women, since when he was still in his (possibly underaged) teens, he was already fucking his mid-20s "assistant," and b) as the tabloid said, "they're both so eager to be taken seriously as actors that they've gone naked on stage." |
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Post by K-Box on Feb 21, 2009 22:47:58 GMT -8
Watched The Godfather Parts 1 and 2 last night. Again.
Every time they run on TV, I try and resist, but I can't.
It occurs to me that the Corleone family is one of those collections of archetypes that maps out remarkably well onto any number of other teams or groups.
Even Doctor Who.
NuWho Seasons 1 and 2 = The Godfather Parts 1 and 2:
Nine = Vito
Ten = Michael
Rose = Kay
Jackie = Connie
Jack = Sonny
Mickey = Fredo
Harriet Jones = Tom Hagen
Yvonne Hartman = Senator Geary
What's interesting is, as the show progresses and adds new characters, most of the preexisting role assignments stay the same, but a few get shuffled around.
NuWho Seasons 3 and 4 = The Godfather Parts 2 and 3:
Martha = Apollonia
Donna = Vincent
Jack = Sonny Al Neri
Jackie Sarah Jane = Connie
The Master = Moe Greene
Davros = Hyman Roth
Do these characters correspond perfectly? No. Mickey, for instance, actually stops being the Fredo during Season 2, right around "School Reunion," which also sees Sarah Jane briefly usurping Jackie as the Connie, as a prelude to her roles in The Sarah Jane Adventures and Season 4 of NuWho. Likewise, Donna's ultimate fate smacks much more of Apollonia's than of Vincent's.
Still, the points of comparison are always interesting to me.
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. Now, whether that makes whatserhame from Twilight a bigger Mary Sue than Rose is an interesting question, because do we have to spot her additional points, or dock her points, due to the fact her entire universe is Mary Sue Land and Rose's fictional universe is one of the most enduring in the history of the genre?