@bluesqueakpip — my unreserved apologies. Snippiness absolutely not intentional.

I’ve seen the William/Liam link made before. Quite like that ‘lack of will’ idea. The connection between the two characters is definitely marked. (Although they did have to ret-con it majorly. Whatever happened to ‘you were my sire, man. You were my Yoda.’)

Never…[Read more]

@pedant — also very good. Unpleasant old crone and massive, massive hypocrite.

I did mention that I hate her, right?

@pedant — that’s very funny. Good find. Man, I hate Ayn Rand.

@bluesqueakpip — you also had a good point about William/Spike. There’s a clear relationship in personality and character there that doesn’t seem to be all that present between Angel/Angelus.

@bluesqueakpip — no worries. Hope I didn’t come across snippy. And it was my bad. I should have been clearer in my earlier posts and it’s a good point that was well worth making.

@purofilion — RE. Shelley. That’s probably a hangover from how the Victorians tried to rehabilitate him — focus on Ode to the West Wind and On A Skylark but at no…[Read more]

 he was born a bit too late to be part of the Romantic era. He might have aspired to be one of the Aesthetics

Yeah, I was aware of that actually. Probably should have made that clear in previous posts on the subject. But you’r right. The poetical period fits quite well with, as you say, William’s repression. What was the Aesthetic/Victorian era b…[Read more]

@pedant and @purofilion—

I have rarely been as shocked at a single scene as the flaying of Warren Mears.

Have to agree. That, the shooting of Tara and the atttempted rape of Buffy, all within a few episodes of each other showed an incredible fearlessness on the part of the writing team.

And Amy. As I think we talked about in the s1 blog, Amy…[Read more]

@purofilion — that’s a terrific post. Love your interpretation of Spike’s and Angel’s character. Your idea of Spike’s Classical personality is extremely interesting. I’d still argue that Spike is textbook Romantic though — I don’t know from music really and I’m coming more from poetry/prose (specialised in the Romantics for pretty much all my…[Read more]

@pedant — yeah, we’ve still got a ways to go with Spike’s arc so too much speculation at this point might end up being a bit misleading. But I’d definitely agree that his actions are far from selfless — but I’d also argue that for a large amount of the time the same is true of Angel.

Spike’s actions have been and continue to be (up to and…[Read more]

@pedant

he had no hesitation or qualms and did all he could to pull her into the dark and away from her friends. And yet William’s tone of self-pity is still there

I think that’s slightly unfair. He was always just evil on a leash, for sure, but I think he definitely had some qualms. And he was as shocked as anyone when he went too far.  To the ex…[Read more]

@pedant — yeah, As You Were is bad. But I’d say it’s generic Petrie bad. But all in all, it’s no worse than any other handful of the Initiative episodes, which this is kind of a throwback to. Mrs Riley is kind of cardboard cutout — but is she really any more so than Forrest or replacement commander dude whose name I now can’t even remember?

As…[Read more]

@purofilion — Dead things is a fine episode I think and the real darkness is the “shit just getting real” for The Trio. For all their previously geek-shtick, the Bond/Star Wars/Star Trek chatter, the boys just graduated from adolescent comic-book fantasies of power to becoming rapists and then murderers in pretty sharp succession. And this being…[Read more]

@adt1957 — actually there really isn’t. Political issues, social issues. It’s all the same thing. They’re both manifestations of the human condition in relation to the others around it. There’s absolutely no reason why there can’t be a non-causasian, non-male Doctor. It’s entirely dependent on the stories that the showrunner of the time wants to…[Read more]

@adt1957 — Sorry, you’re wrong. Doctor Who is choc-full of social themes. Always has been, always will be. The show’s second ever show is clearly an anti-nuclear parable and has a few things to say on pacifism too. The Peladon stories are very specific satires on British industrial relations of the time. You could argue that the portrayal of Time…[Read more]

@pedant — Dead Things very dark indeed. But utterly vital arc-wise.

Gotta admit I’m totally bemused by your W.E.E.

@purofilion — is the writer in question Drew Z Greenberg? If so, yeah, he’s quite annoying and Hollywood self-obsessed, although personally it’s Doug Petrie that grinds my gears the most.

Yeah, in terms of design the show has gone really dark. The clear contrast between light and dark, the sunlit world and the demon-filled night seem to have…[Read more]