(no subject)

[solitary_summer]

Not to let my backlog of potential/sketched-out/half-written lj-entries get too long, and why do I have to be such a slow, lazy writer who obsessively thinks everything over (or over-thinks everything) until I get bored and finally lose interest?

Also, the first two S3 DVDs have already been dispatched.




To start at the end, I was a bit under-whelmed with the S2 finale at first, because Daleks vs. Cybermen seemed something of an over-kill, but, god, the ending. That must be the most heart-wrenching season finale I've seen since B5's Sleeping in Light, even if it only made me sniff a bit, and not outright cry.

What I really liked is how the relationship between the Doctor and Rose is developed (mostly) outside the usual parameters of a romantic sexual relationship. Nice for a change to have all the love without the traditional relationship conflicts.

I also loved the warmth, idealism, enthusiasm and lack of cynicism of the show, which probably is due to the fact that it's partly targeted at children, and I don't know what that says about me, but still.

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I think I prefer Christopher Ecclestone. Or at least thought I did well into S2. David Tennant is certainly cute, and this makes it all the more striking when he does this angry immortal time-lord thing, but..... hm. Not sure. I really liked CE's rapid switches between (occasionally manic) smiling child-like playfulness and bouts darkness...

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Jack's hair is weird and plastic-y in the last two episodes.

Speaking of whom, though.

I guess it'll take another decade or so before we'll have someone like Jack in a major USian SF tv show, or a phrase like 'Relax - he's a 51st century guy, he's just a little more flexible when it comes to dancing' in one with an audience at least partly made up of children (one can just imagine the outraged screaming about OMG!evilgaypropaganda!), but it's so very refreshing and generally very awesome. Especially if you're old enough to have endured that horribly awkward Star Trek TNG episode with the woman (not even bothering with quotation marks here, since she was obviously and for obvious reasons played by a female actress) from that androgynous planet falling in love with Riker and the general non-existence of other-than-straight-sexuality in the whole Star Tek verse. (Granted, there's the DS9 episode with Dax, where I can never quite decide whether I should love the creators for showing the kiss, or resent them for having a lesbian kiss that is not really a lesbian kiss, and breaking them up in the end, although carefully and politically correctly for reasons nothing to do with sexual orientation...) Or SG-1/SGA, sub-text aside. And MJS, much as I love B5, doesn't exactly earn points here either for getting Susan and Thalia together just before reveiling Thalia to be a PSI-corps spy with a hidden personality.

I'd really like to believe that RTD and JB managed to permanently change & shake up things a bit here.

(On this note, I found it really annoying when people already started whining about how it wasn't realistic that everyone on TW was bisexual (not that there is any real canon evidence for either Owen or Gwen in S1...). Just, shut up. It's not as if there's a lack of heterosexuality on tv otherwise.


Also, it becomes more understandable that Jack tends to be rather forgiving of his team's really big mistakes, considering he'd almost wiped out the human race by accident himself.


And speaking of whom (still!), on a silly fandom-crossover-y note, I had this sudden flash of Jack's return to Torchwood like that other Captain Jack's return to Tortuga in the first PotC movie... ;)


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I just love the visuals. And the imagination.

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Minor quibbles: The Girl In The Fireplace: The Doctor leaving Rose and Mickey effectively stranded on that space-ship to save Reinette. Admittedly the whole thing was very touchingly done, and granted, he's a bit impetuous and rude at times, and just not very good dealing with human emotions, but keeping Rose safe and alive has always been a big concern...

The Idiot's Lantern and Fear Her: Didn't really like them. A bit unsubtle and too heavy on the message.

Boom Town: Did back-in-time Jack come to TW Cardiff only after the opening of the rift in this episode? Was he already there, but knew he couldn't meet himself for fear of a time paradox? Or was Jack's TW arc simply not thought out then? At the same time, Jack handling the surf-board thingy with which Margaret had intended to escape from the planet she'd been stuck on almost seems like a bit of foreshadowing...

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School Reunion: Giles Anthony Steward Head! I knew I recognised the voice in the preview, but I couldn't pinpoint it, he looked a bit different... So fabulous & delightfully creepy! Trying to seduce the Doctor into godhood was a great moment, and really kind of hot, too.

I've never seen any of the older DW series, but Sarah Jane's story was very touchingly done, and even if it was impossible to tell at the time, a good foreshadowing of the finale and the end of Rose's arc.

Brilliant episode.

Rise of the Cybermen: The first 'conversion', when Crane calls for a song, and the screams and whirring of the machines are overlaid with The Lion Sleeps Tonight. There's nothing really graphic there, but all the same it's the most horrifying and shocking scenes I've seen in a while.

Really loved how they resolved Mickey's arc in the double episode (and the finale), finally giving him a life beyond waiting for Rose and the Tardis to turn up again. I've always rather liked the character, and that was very decent closure.

That'd be Mrs. Moore after A Passage To India, I assume?

Love & Monsters: Like TW's Random Shoes, I love these kind of normal-person narrator episodes, even if clearly not everyone does.

Loved getting the Torchwood backstory.


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Favourite episodes (at the moment): S1: Dalek, Father's Day, The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances; S2 School Reunion, Rise of the Cybermen/The Age of Steel, The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit