Forum Replies Created
-
AuthorPosts
-
22 January 2013 at 20:39 #1823
Just caught up with this, rather lovely, thread – I’m sure Richard Curtis would be moved and delighted that the episode has prompted shared moments of empathy, as above, as well as discussions about living with depression, or caring about people who do. I suspect it probably did so up and down the country after the episode first aired. The fact that Vincent and the Doctor created a space for discussions with children about the issue is particularly moving.
A moment which stays with me is Amy skipping up the stairs of the museum, singing “Oh, the long life of Vincent Van Gogh!” and the Doctor, just watching her, because he cherishes that she is young and hopeful, but he knows, he just knows, it won’t be that easy.
@phaseshift yes that slice of dialogue made me laugh too – the Doctor was being so fidgety and inappropriate and I really loved the way Smith played that 🙂
I’d agree with @jimthefish – bring on the guest writers, based on their sucess so far!
@jimthefish and @scaryb – regarding the glorious “two Doctors” theory… well, y’know, if this isn’t an actual thing. then it’s a bloody good idea, which should be an actual thing in the future 🙂
Imagine how creepy it could be – the Doctor, our Doctor, dematerialises from episode to episode in the TARDIS as usual, but in some episodes his behaviour is just… off. Eventually, to our horror, we realise two versions have been gadding about the universe, Dr Jekyll and Mr, Hyde style. Of course Hyde-Doctor has done some terrible things which poor Jekyll-Doctor gets blamed for and somehow has to try and fix….
Hmmn, this is sounding a lot like the big, actual, arc again….
I keep coming back to Demon’s Run. What has future-Doctor done which prompted that alliance; Papal Mainframe, spitting contempt of Kovarian and all? I mean, he gads about the universe saving people, planets, and occasionally the universe itself, but, apart from Time Lord genocide, what has he done that would convince a bunch of religious factions that he was a rogue “God” who needed to be defeated?
Apart from the Time Lord genocide… <cue dramatic music>
22 January 2013 at 20:12 #1821Whoa, the sofa was busy last night – love our sofa.
Why are all the best remaining blue police boxes in Scotland? I saw one myself in Edinburgh recently. It was serving as a tiny curry and coffee stand – good disguise – I know that was you, Doctor!
22 January 2013 at 12:28 #1819@craig – thankyou so much 🙂 <sighs with literary relief>
21 January 2013 at 21:08 #1797Swimming by here to give a quick “Praise Him!” to @craig again for the timely hosting (and all that diligent backing up too) 🙂
Sliding Doors huh? From trying to fix scripts to building interweb palaces of Who…
I have a teensy request (honestly, I am not a high maintenance sort of fish!). I missed the “edit” window on my Bond post in the Films thread and it has a typo (an unnecessary “our”) in the first sentence which, now I’ve spotted it, is bugging the nice clean lines out of that opener. If you have time, would you mind deleting it from the universe?
<hides under a fez with pernickety other self> I spend too long arm-wrestling the written word 🙂
21 January 2013 at 20:54 #1795Welcome new members to this genteel corner of the extended Whoniverse!
@scaryb points out that the collective crew of avatars on display look a bit well, scary 🙂 No one has actually hidden sobbing behind the sofa yet tho’ <has a quick peek>.
Who has ever played that game of “If the TARDIS materialised here right now, would you run for those doors without hesitation (deviation or repetition)?” I used to play it a lot as a child, almost certain that blue box would be there on the next street, just around the next corner…
20 January 2013 at 22:47 #1789@janetteb Good post
I many ways the earlier years of Who were more confident about the future of humanity than our current age and that is reflected in the stories. In 1963 people were still wary due to the war and development of atomic energy but by the end of the decade, Pertwee era, the moon landings were bathing science and scientists in a euphoric aura.
Yes absolutely – we are living in times less optimistic than the ’60s without a doubt. I do wonder what The Doctor might look like in another fifty years, should he survive. I’d love to jump in the TARDIS and take a look! Europe will, I suspect, have further declined as a “great power” in the world. Will US popular culture still dominate world markets? If not, there will be fewer trips to Manhattan for the Doc.
By then, he will have been a woman, sometimes. Perhaps he will have married two people at once, as we move towards an acceptance of polyamory.
A future show-runner will, after a couple of decades, revive the character of River Song in a new body. They will meet, not knowing at first who the other is, in an emotional scene which uses archive documentary footage recreate the Earth as-it-was, before the polar ice-caps melted. The TARDIS will still be blue. The Doctor will speak Mandarin…
20 January 2013 at 14:05 #1779Skyfall Meets the Time Vortex – Bond and Who: The Fiftieth Anniversaries
SPOILERS FOR SKYFALL
………………………………………………….
Isn’t it interesting that two of Britain’s biggest fictional character exports, James Bond and The Doctor, both reach their 50th anniversaries this year?As characters, they could not be more different. Or could they? Both are styled iconoclastic rule-breakers with their own fierce codes of morality; head and shoulders above most of their fellow agents/ Time Lords because of their creative individualism. That’s how the British like to see themselves; eccentric, honourable, brilliant rule-breakers with a strong sense of duty. National myths are often most visible in national fiction.
Skyfall is better than Quantum of Solace by an incalculable mile, but then Quantum was a truly turgid and lacklustre affair. Skyfall has been nominated for all the awards and it’s done extremely well at the box office too. I think the uneven but enduring franchise has finally realised that what carries a movie cannot be incredible stunts and stunning sultry women alone (although we expect them in Bond) but a half-decent script, a great director and some wholly decent actors.
Daniel Craig plays an older and more vulnerable Bond and it suits him. Judi Dench is allowed by this script to be a more complex character, ruthless, fond and mistaken. She does it beautifully. I can never resist Ralph Fiennes in anything. He brings his oft-played icy yet fragile majesty to this film. And Naomie Harris, as MoneyPenny, turns in the most actually seductive seduction scene with 007 I think I’ve ever seen. A flirtatious but tender exchange by Shanghai city lights which leaves more than it reveals to the imagination. I really like Ms. Harris.
The script trailed off in its latter half, unfortunately, although shots of the desolate loveliness of Scotland were almost worth it.
My major gripe was the character of Javier Bardem; not Bardem himself I hasten to add, who is an accomplished actor with a pantherian quality. No, I was deeply disappointed that the old trope of an effete and mentally unstable Bond villain (because “homosexuality is creepy, folks!”) could still, so lazily, be written in 2012. However, Bond’s response was a sign of changing times, because, far from being homophobic, it hinted at a bisexual past for 007.
Here, we can tie Bond and Who in their fiftieth years together again, because, in the half century since their inception, one of the most significant changes in British society has been the changing acceptance of homosexuality/ bisexuality; from Joe Orton’s adventures in cottaging at the cusp of decriminalisation, to a Conservative PM (however opportunistically) proposing to legislate for same-sex marriage.
These national narratives of ours, Ian Fleming’s James Bond, and Sydney Newman, Verity Lambert and others’ Doctor Who, reflect those changes. A bisexual Bond (however hinted at, off-camera and one-upon-a-time) and a Doctor with a lesbian lizard woman from the dawn of time and her Victorian maid wife as (occasional) TARDIS companions? Our most well-known fictional icons of Britishness have, along with the rest of British society, stepped some way out of the closet in time for the new century.
I have to say that Doctor Who has been doing it better, for longer, with thanks to Russell T. Davis, Moffat and the reboot. But then, when it comes to The Doctor vs Bond, the former has always been an infinitely preferable iteration of British fantasy masculinity; patrician and arrogant maybe, but endearingly shambolic, fiercely bright, and more concerned with a shared chat, a great day out and a cup of tea and biscuits than a license to kill. Some might say, given our colonial past, that both are highly idealised versions of British interactions with other nations! And so they are, but that I think, is a subject for another day.
@craig and @phaseshift – if you thing this would be better as a blog post because it’s too long as a general post, by all means convert it…
20 January 2013 at 11:44 #1773@blenkinsopthebrave and @scaryb (on the Dr. Who Memories thread) – lovely posts about being there right at the start for the First Doctor.
I do hope the BBC is having the sense to research and record some such memories for the 50th Anniversary (“Growing up with the Doctor through the decades”).
I wish Matt Smith could read your post @Blenkinsop. I’m sure he’d be very moved – and I doubt it’s an accident that you see a flavour of the First in the Eleventh, given the threads of the storyline which seem to be shaping up (wherein the Doctor must contact all his past selves/ “re-set” himself and so go back to the start). Someone else mentioned that we have seen images of the First Doctor here and there during Eleven’s reign (I think briefly during the encounter with the sad Krafayis in Vincent and the Doctor) – so, no, not an accident…
19 January 2013 at 22:06 #1769@phaseshift – wow that’s a lot of Saturday Who!
Yes, this episode was magical and the lighting to go with, oh the lighting; the warm light in River’s hair as she flirted with her unknowing husband, by the TARDIS, the blue light of Amelia’s weed-filled garden, the harsh light in the corridor as River and the Dalek had their chilling confrontation; the greenish eerie light on the Doctor’s face as he strapped himself into the Pandorica.
I noticed that not only was the Doctor wearing appropriate wedding attire when he stepped from the TARDIS following Amy’s “something blue” speech, but he was wearing a red rose-bud which exactly matched the red rose-bud theme of the wedding (Amy had a paper garland of them in her hair and Rory had a real one in his button-hole). How could he have known that? Unless River had already told him?
It’s snowy here too and I’ve just watched Skyfall, the latest Bond – it is also the 50th Anniversary of Bond this year – actually another British character who has very successfully “regenerated” over time. Anyway – I’ll go and post about that in the more appropriate “films” thread at some point!
19 January 2013 at 20:32 #1765I love this episode. I know a lot of folk were disappointed because the big promise of the Alliance from The Pandorica Opens melted away, but this, the core of Team TARDIS (the Doctor, Rory, Amy and River) running around in and out of time paradoxes – satisfyingly zany and deeply emotional both.
I remain convinced this two-parter consists of pivotal episodes, mysteries from which will be returned to!
Why, when River said that the Doctor’s reboot would result in all of them waking up where they were “supposed to be” and not remembering, does River “wake up” on Earth at her parents’ wedding? Moreover, she clearly does remember, as she gives Amy her own blank TARDIS diary, which sets off Amy’s memory chain, which brings the Doctor back.
Surely the fact that River remembers, means she has somehow crossed from the universe-that-was to the new-universe-that-is, un-rebooted? Amy is rebooted, in that she has parents now and Rory is rebooted in that he becomes human again (rather than Auton-Rory) but River? River arrives in order to engineer her own conception (the second “big bang” of the episode as we find out at Demon’s Run).
Moreover, this River is already married to the Doctor (as their delightful exchange at the door of the TARDIS makes clear to us, now) so for this version of River who appears at Amy and Rory’s wedding, The Wedding of River Song has already happened…
Who really “made” River for the Doctor? Madame Kovarian and the Alliance, or the Doctor himself, up-time-stream?
NB – on my “soul” theme from The Faces of the Doctor thread, Eleven says in this episode that when the Alliance used Amy to clone Rory, they got “more than they bargained for” because they also got his “heart and soul”. More evidence for an ensouled universe in Moffat’s Eleventh Doctor imaginings.
Oooh – live re-watch – it’s the marvellous wedding speech coming up…
19 January 2013 at 12:12 #1721Now the dream outlives the dreamer and can never die. Once I was the puppet, now I pull the strings.”
My hopes for the return of the DreamLord are raised 🙂
This idea of dreams coming to life (and mirrroring) is interesting in the bigger Moffat arc, as the Doctor has been struggling for a long time with his mirror self – his mythic self, his own mythography.
Because he became “so big” he caused Kovarian (and persons unknown) to fear him so much that they regarded themselves as being in an “endless bitter war” with him (or his future self) and they stole baby Melody. His mythography, according to River’s speech at the end of A Good Man Goes to War is actually responsible for her “creation” as a weapon; his “own bespoke psychopath”.
And now, as I’ve said elsewhere, the Doctor is reacting (over reacting) to his over-blown mythic self (double?) by attempting to erase all traces of it/ him from the universe.
I don’t know how this ties in with the messed-up time-streams the eagle-eyed among you have spotted in The Snowmen, but it does seem that “realities”, or “dreams” and “realities”, are bleeding together – so it may indeed be the case (as @jimthefish and I were discussing in another time-stream on the board) that the Big Bang, the Doctor’s re-boot of the Universe, had a “code error” of some sort in it which has “jumbled up” time-streams.
Great spot on Cy Lent btw!
18 January 2013 at 19:24 #1675I wasn’t around for the First Doctor, so I’ve only seen him in YouTube clips really <true confession>.
I found this enthusiastic “Geek Crash Course” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7nkf0rDiJo
What amazed me is just how many young women companions he had – all in lovely black-and-white and that far away ’60s style. Where are they all now I wonder?
18 January 2013 at 18:38 #1669@sarahhawke I don’t know much about anime but Lelouche looks interesting!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_Geass in case anyone else is curious.
@scaryb and @sarahhawke
I always felt Moff could have explored the “whatever captures the image of an angel becomes and angel” trope more. It’s brilliant and scary.
Does it mean, for instance, that if you were foolish enough to take a photo of a Weeping Angel and upload it to your Facebook page, that the pic would gradually become animated and send all your FB friends into the past, one by one via webcam, in a snarky consumption of “what I had for breakfast” trivia?
Although the Statue of Liberty Angel was a great gag, it is the creepy and invasive; those things potentially transformative of the borders of the body, which really terrify – like Cronenberg’s The Fly.
18 January 2013 at 18:21 #1667Yay – I’m on the sofa after an epic journey through the snow by train.
Ha ha @phaseshift re the nesting comment. Thanks @jimthefish for posting – also a LOL moment for me 🙂
I love seeing the forest frosted in snow – each stark branch of winter lip-kissed by a moustache of white. The entire woods have “got milk”. But urgh it’s cold. Anyone in the current snow-path quaint enough to still have milk on their doorstep will probably find the flip-side – it’s “got wood”.
@scaryb It’s two fish rolled into one – so sometimes I disagree with myself 🙂
17 January 2013 at 19:39 #1621@phaseshift – Yes, we are talking about a magical “quality” rather than actual casting spells magic, of course… because some “wand” the sonic makes – it doesn’t even work on wood!
This “fairytale magic”, I absolutely agree, is inscribed visually in the Smith era (I also love it). The lighting crew alone should get awards – little Amelia’s ramshakle garden in the Eleventh Hour for instance; frosted blue and lonely and enticing.
The spiral staircase up to the TARDIS in The Snowmen was a perfect example of steampunk-ish whimsy, shot gloriously for “magical” effect. I also really liked, incidentally, the way in which the Doctor’s grief was actualised as a retreat up a perilous staircase; a clinging to the Earth in mourning, hiding at the top of a turret, in a flurry of snow as cold as the cold in his sorrowing hearts… magic 🙂
The question of “the soul” in Who is rather different. However, it is interesting that the Doctor perhaps most at ease with an “ensouled” vision of the universe, is also the one most bedecked in fairytale magic. I like to think that Eleven, after the devastation of the Time War and the slow trauma recovery of Nine and Ten, has come to believe, just a little bit, in miracles again. He mentions Rory’s auton-resurrection as a “miracle” in The Pandorica Opens.
17 January 2013 at 19:22 #1619@craig – you are a star! Possibly even a small supernova 🙂
Right, can we also have – a three dimensional chess board (like the alarming electrified game the Doctor was playing before he found decapitated Dorium), a jukebox and a, uhm, an unlimited supply of jammy dodgers?
Ok, kidding! <slopes under a rock and waits hopefully for biscuits :-)>
17 January 2013 at 18:11 #1587@phaseshift (@jimthefish and @craig) – thank you 🙂
May we have a picture link on the front page under “Current Topics” for this thread “The Faces of the Doctor” please <puleeeeeese with cherries ontop> ?
Otherwise no-one will ever find it and I love the idea of looking at a Doctor per month over the next eleven months of the 50th Anniversary year…
Your demanding multiple time-lines fish-friend…
17 January 2013 at 16:33 #1581Hi @sarahhawke – welcome to the blog! Your avatar looks a little bit scary too – who is it? 🙂
17 January 2013 at 16:31 #1579I am such a softie!
Thanks for being so 🙂 I promise not to make any more unreasonable demands (for a while!)
My posts on The Doctor and magic and @jimthefish ‘s too, have vanished, so I assume they will be re-posted in the soon-to-be “Faces of the Doctor” thread?
Yes – I could indeed turn my “great thoughts” 🙂 into a blog post, but not right now as I’m up to my ears in work deadlines – so maybe repost the discussion thread as is for now?
Many, many thanks to you and @phaseshift for dedication, work and sleepless nights (!)
17 January 2013 at 00:25 #1529<zaps here simultaneously from three other locations in The Doctor Who Forum multi-verse, thanks to strangely accurate teleport>
Curls up on the sofa, determined to stay up really late and catch the new episode of Supernatural via live-stream.
17 January 2013 at 00:06 #1525@phaseshift Cruelly separated from my other self – it’ll be Ten/ Rose all over again 🙂
17 January 2013 at 00:00 #1521Well, I watched the first episode of C4’s new drama Utopia last night <spoiler free mini-review>
If you have seen the episode, there is a thread for the discussion of it over on The Guardian http://www.thedoctorwhoforum.com/forums/topic/general-open-thread-tv-shows/
I wanted to like it – a bunch of geeks who met on the internet are our “heroes” 🙂
The coloring and visual tone of the show were arresting, but bad things (shot however beautifully) happening to people we hardly knew, made for a disjointed and emotionally premature spaghetti soap.
Utopia felt like a mash-up of Shameless, Fresh Meat and Pulp Fiction – stereotyped, awkward and shock-tastically violent.
It may settle into something threaded together by believable intimacies – I’ll stick with it for another episode and see.
16 January 2013 at 23:37 #1517Dear orange-fish @juniperfish – mwwwa ha ha <regenerates via spontaneous parthenogenesis into clone-duplicate>
16 January 2013 at 23:31 #1515Dear blue-fish @juniperfish who do you think the pseudo-TARDIS at the top of Craig’s house belongs to?
16 January 2013 at 23:29 #1513@craig – yes I second the above idea of @phaseshift‘s <flips four fins in supplication?>
Also – ahem – there are two threads for The Lodger?? One started by @craig with about 10 posts in it (which you arrive at via the picture on the front page) and one started by @phaseshift in which @phaseshift and @JanettB only have posted, which you can arrive in by clicking @janetteb‘s last post link on the right side of the blog?
I love parallel universes and was tempted to start having a conversation with my parallel universe self by conversing across the two spaces 🙂 <goes off to implement spacey wacey-ness>
15 January 2013 at 21:44 #1475@phaseshift and @rob and @jimthefish
Sorry if the discussion is not right for the “memory” thread. It’s about a memory (faulty or otherwise!) of the depiction of the Doctor in Old Who vs his depiction today – so it kind of fits!? Feel free to move elsewhere if you can come up with a suitable “elsewhere”.
@phaseshift I don’t know Davidson’s Mara stories – I was so distressed by the departure of Tom Baker that I confess I only watched Davidson sporadically, hence my need for the 50th Anniversary complete-as-can-be Who fantasy full box-set!
I take your point about the smattering of Eastern philosophies in some Old Who stories. Parallel universes and “other realities” are staples of sci-fi however and need not indicate a “spiritual” universe.
Like a lot of Who (of whichever flavour) you can cherry pick storylines and plot elements to pretty much demonstrate any argument because it has such a rich history. I’m not really sure if nu-Who is more “magical” than old really, but I don’t think the old series ever felt the need to run away from a more metaphysical approach to the universe.
Welllll – it’s Moffat’s Who in particular in which I’ve noticed a resurgence of “the soul” (I didn’t know Hartnell’s Doctor had mentioned “the soul” – thanks). It interests me in cultural context because, whilst organised religion in the UK has been losing adherents, there has been a surge of interest in “the spiritual” (as documented by contemporary scholars of spirituality and religion) including, but not limited to, new paganisms, a belief in some kind of connection with the dead, etc. And the “soul” was referred to very explicitly by Eleven in the Almost People two parter, as “evidence” of intelligent sentience, whereas “Science” (although not individual scientists) has not tended to apply that test.
I will keep my ears open for further Eleventh Doctor “soul pronouncements”!
15 January 2013 at 20:57 #1471@craig – thank you! <Yin Yang fish looks extra pleased in your honour>
@bluesqueakpip – that sounds fun, if it really does all link together!
I think this way is fine at the moment <thanks so much for everything @craig our Overlord>
The side-bar which tells you about recent posts is great for navigating. Nice pic for “On the Sofa” 🙂
15 January 2013 at 20:53 #1469Hi folks!
Wwell I’m happily on the sofa, currently with R4 in the background and work on my lap.
If you are one of our more post-shy members this is where you can drop in and say “hello” 🙂
Frequent posters welcome too!
I’m going to give C4’s Utopia a go at 10pm.
@scaryb – this is where we can hide from MPs’ salary increases (cheeky s****s) and other nasties lurking in the world out there in these brave new millenial times.
The Who monster most likely to have got me hiding behind the sofa in the old days? Morbius, definitely – I had nightmares about that claw!
15 January 2013 at 19:24 #1447Hi @craig <waves>
Can we just have one more thread – “On the Sofa”? A general drop in/ hang out space?
This would be a place people can just congregate to say “hello” to one another. If no one posts in it, we can get rid of it, but I have the sense it might be a comfortable spot – somewhere for us to “hang out” with one another, even if we are not burning to dissect something particular at the time?
Thanks (and pretty please?) @juniperfish
15 January 2013 at 00:29 #1433I’m still convinced we will revisit the Moff mysteries as yet unsolved, some of them apparent in this episode.
Amy is trapped in a time-loop in the TARDIS with a count-down. This mirrors the way in which River is trapped in a time-loop inside the exploding TARDIS later on in The Pandorica Opens/ The Big Bang. It also mirrors the count-down which Amy is forced to go through by the Weeping Angels during the Crash of the Byzantium. Pretty sure both count-downs are from Eleven… 10, 9, 8 etc…
The same entity probably trapped Amy and River in the TARDIS on each occasion – the one with the “silence will fall” hissing voice would be my guess. And “it” (my theory is perhaps that it’s The Valeyard) is responsible for the strange TARDIS at the top of Craig’s house and again in the bowels of the Kennedy space-centre / Silence lair.
These count-downs could link to a story where all the previous incarnations of the Doctor are “counted down from”.
If you are going to do a Valeyard story/ deal with the Valeyard and then give the Doctor a whole new bunch of regenerations going forward, the 50th seems like a good time to do it.
14 January 2013 at 23:36 #1431Ah yes, Pertwee gives a “science, not sorcery” speech in the Daemons, doesn’t he.
This really nice tribute fan video to Pertwee and his Unit years with Liz Shaw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yH3K8FNClM
I think captures the certain “man of science” characterisation which was always in the background then – the Brig refers to the Doc as “a scientist” and there’s a lot of chemistry and other equipment in the lab which you can see in the background on a regular basis.
But you’re right, Who was never an educational “hard science” show. Moreoever, the dandy (in flamboyant Bessie) and the Bond-flavoured action hero sides of Pertwee’s Doctor, as well as his characterisation as a scientist, are also in evidence in this vid.
Yes, it’s true that RTD was responsible for the creation of the Doctor as a “lonely God”, although not in a mystical sense but in a sole-survivor of an advanced technological civilisation sense, with exaggerated megalomania towards the end of Tennant’s reign. This theme has continued, as an undercurrent, under Moffat, perhaps most evidently in The God Complex (where the title puns on the Doctor’s own “God complex”).
I would be fascinated to delve into Time Lord society in present Who, should the Time Lords return (which I’m still firmly convinced they will). Gallifreyan society, what we saw of it in the past, was ornate and ceremonial, but there was no hint of a religious system (at least not in the TV show – I know the priestess-oracle Pythia was involved in the Loom novels in Time Lord pre-history). What might Time Lord religion look like? Or, how tempted might the Time Lords have been to set themselves up as Gods to be worshipped by “less advanced” cultures without time-travel tech?
It is clear that when watching a Matt Smith episode alongside Pertwee or Baker old YouTube clips, the fairytale sprinkled cosmic-dust (“magical”) qualities of the present flavour of the show are very apparent. No doubt the influence of Harry Potter is in the mix there somewhere!
Re the relationship between Romanticism and the Enlightenment – yes, it was complicated. In fact I’d say that, postmodernism nothwithstanding, that tension continues to define British culture today. The Olympics and Paralympics opening and closing ceremonies were a fascinating mix of references to the Enlightenment (Newton featured) and yet to magic (The Tempest was also chosen as a prominent theme, with Ian Mckellan as Prospero the sorcerer).
@rob Oh yes, Planet of the Spiders was one of my favourites too (in retrospect as I was too young to see it first time around). Metebelis Three and its blue crystals…
14 January 2013 at 01:07 #1407@jimthefish – nice follow-up.
It’s probably important to distinguish between the RTD-showrunner and Moffat-showrunner perspectives. RTD is a passionate atheist and although religion/ spirituality entered Nu Who under RTD, it was personified by the mad Dalek Emperor who styled himself a God. Moffat’s scripts-as-showrunner have been more inclined to mention the “soul” and it’s perhaps interesting to compare Rose’s possession by the Time Vortex/ TARDIS as “Bad Wolf”, when she became a kind of all-seeing super-being but the “soul” was not a prominent feature of the transference, with Idris in The Doctor’s Wife where the “soul” of the TARDIS was explicitly referenced and personified.
Many movements and periods of scepticism towards the Enlightenment concept of “science and reason as truth” have arisen since the 18thC – Romanticism can be understood as a “backlash” against Enlightenment (as well as the child of it) for instance.
I suppose you could argue that our present era has a number of different threads of scepticism towards science-as-truth. There is the scepticism which has been encouraged by the concerted and deliberate PR of the oil industry towards climate science, for example. There is also the (in my view more well founded) scepticism towards mechanistic perceptions of the body in the Western medical tradition which have maintained a mind/ body split and which have led to popular interest in “alternative medicine” as part of the search for a great wholism. Scientfic narrative is itself continuously evolving, with developments in understanding such as neuroplasticity (that the environment can affect the brain’s pathway developments) likewise undoing previous “truth foundations”.
The “science vs spirituality” debate is an artificial one in any case, I think, given that many scientists (such as Darwin) have been and are also religious/ spiritual.
I don’t see “mysticism” as a “bad thing”, where it concerns a sense of awe regarding the obviously mysterious wonderment of the universe.
The fact that contemporary Who is more overtly infused with a “magical” element isn’t a regrettable de-railing of the advancement of rationality, at least for me, but part, perhaps of a broader cultural “re-enchantment”.
14 January 2013 at 00:37 #1405@craig and @blenkinsopthebrave and @jimthefish
I think we have a richness here that a single thread wouldn’t capture. For instance, we’ve had conversations about fan-creativity, thanks to that thread here, that we did not touch on whilst on a single “episode discussion” thread on The Guardian.
I can see that endlessly proliferating threads could be a problem however.
One solution might be to add a thread called “On the Sofa” which could be a drop-in general chat about anything thread, which could also cover my “welcome newbies” idea as well. That could be maintained as a drop-in, first port of call, discuss anything you like space – the first place we all head to – and people can hive off into the other threads for more specialist topic discussion?
Sure, we can leave links to Linda Lee’s reviews to post under particular episode discussion threads. Although sometimes websites have a “blogroll” of their own favourite recommended blogs, so alternatively we could have one of those and recommend her there?
We’re only in the beginning stages of a 50th Anniversary Year fantastic experiment, so let’s just play with it, see what happens and enjoy the journey!
13 January 2013 at 19:26 #1397He’s also one of the few examples of a positive portrayal of a scientist and the virtues of reason and scientific curiosity. And, of course, he’s a great champion of the brains over brawn solution.
I think the Doctor was depicted as a scientist and his solutions connected to the virtues of the deductive scientific narrative in much of the “Old Who” that I remember (perhaps particularly when Pertwee was grounded on Earth tinkering in his own Unit lab as their “Scientific Advisor”) but I don’t consider that narrative to be so prominent in Nu Who – which is very interesting as I think the contemporary world is less enamoured of the primacy of “scientific reason” than it was when Who began (for various reasons).
In Smith’s incarnation, the Doctor is oftentimes presentated as technically and deductively genius (as in all previous incarnations) – his solution to the communication problem re sending the location of Prisoner Zero to the Atraxi in the Eleventh Hour for instance. However, I feel this is emphasised much less than before the RTD reboot.
The Doctor is being thoroughly explored under RTD and Moffat as mistaken and flawed in many instances, whereby the powers of “science” cannot save him. For instance, Eleven almost frys the Starwhale’s brain in The Beast Below because he has failed to read the situation correctly on an emotional level, whereas Amy gets it right emotionally and provides the “right” answer as a result.
This shift began with the Ninth Doctor, where we see, for instance, Ecclestone making the mistake of allowing Rose to go back and see her dead father in time because his emotional involvement overrides his reason.
The Eleventh Doctor also has a “magical” quality to him, which adheres to his membership of a (now dead) “advanced civilisation”. For instance, he cures Cleaves of the blood clot on her brain in the Almost People two-parter with some kind of Time Lord medical tech and he heals River’s broken wrist with that glittering and magical “regeneration energy” in the Angels Take Manhattan.
Moreover, as I’ve mentioned in previous threads on The Guardian, in Nu Who I see the arrival of “spirituality” of sorts in Dr. Who. The Doctor’s Wife for example refers to the “soul” of the TARDIS.
Justice. Science. Reason. Three great principles to guide you as you grow up in my opinion.
I think the Dr. Who of our youth certainly upheld the Doctor as someone who was prepared to question what was going on in any given situation – an extremely valuable “always think for yourself” principle which should be at the heart of all true education (but, as education is also usually about enculturating us to obey “authority”, that is often not the case).
However as Enlightenment perspectives on “Justice, Science and Reason” have increasingly been called into question, in particular from the 1970s onward with the advent of post-modern thought (as well as continuing to be foundationally important to our understanding of the world of course) I am very interested to observe the shift in Dr. Who from Old Who to Nu Who in this respect. Nu Who values emotional understanding and the “soul” and even “magic” in a way that Old Who did not…
Discuss 🙂
13 January 2013 at 16:39 #1377Hi @craig – the website continues to evolve splendidly.
I wonder about a thread titled something along the lines of “Here Be Dragons (Honestly, Not). A Space for Newbies and Quieter Comrades” which might offer something like “a space to welcome you here, whether you are new to the site or have been part of the community for a while but have maybe been felt a bit shy about posting”?
I’m just conscious that for new folk or the less gob-shite among us (obviously I fall into the gob-shite category 🙂 ) this space might provide a gentle “entry point”?
13 January 2013 at 01:42 #1343@phaseshift – fantastic 🙂
I am now smiling at the thought of the entire Guardian Who blog, on their various sofas scattered throughout the UK and indeed across several other continents, all in Who cosplay for the 50th Anniversary episode.
13 January 2013 at 01:37 #1341@janetteb – love the story about the marzipan TARDIS cake and the joint Dalek salt and pepper shakers you still have – how romantic!
@phaseshift – my eight year old self would have loved to meet Tom Baker.
Baker was my first Doctor and I remember my heart thumping in anticipation on winter evenings (on the sofa naturally) as the Doctor Who music began and his familiar face materialised down that silver corridor of time.
No one else in the household was allowed to speak whilst the episode was on.
I adored his iconoclastic, bombastic, badly-behaved lightening-storm of a character. I suppose, reflecting back in time now, that the Fourth Doctor helped me with my sense of self-identity. He was entirely unafraid to be his own eccentric stripey scarf-trailing, jelly-baby waving self, however much consternation he caused along the way (in fact, he postiviely enjoyed causing it). And somehow, travelling with him in those days, I felt a little less afraid to be my own “odd” self, however lost or tentatively evolving I was then.
13 January 2013 at 00:54 #1337@phaseshift – how well remembered of you 🙂
I’ve seen some really great Supernatural Dean and Castiel gender-bending cosplay. Lots of young women as Castiel in the videos from the Supernatural panel at Comicon this year.
Sometimes people are chary about their images being reposted, either without attribution or in spaces or places without their consent (I think perhaps because there is something both bold and vulnerable about cosplay). Not being a cosplayer myself (although I’ve always liked dress up) it can be hard to work out the etiquette.
I saw this Sherlock one recently which I really like http://benedictatorship.tumblr.com/post/20837304202
Why, are you planning an outfit of your own for the 50th? 🙂 Your avatar perhaps?
If I was going to pick a Who character for myself I’d fancy either Tom Baker’s Doctor or Madame Vastra, although how to get the green scaly effect…?
12 January 2013 at 21:53 #1323@phaseshift – yay cosplay! And of course, my favourite – gender bending cosplay 🙂
The dalek comic link looks good as well – I haven’t dived in yet as I can’t worship the great god Procrastinatus too frequently!
I like this portrait of Ten http://society6.com/Amyla/Snow-Falling-Like-Stars_Print
I’m really looking forward to the possibility of an Eleven, Ten and Nine conflab for the 50th!
12 January 2013 at 21:46 #1321@bluesqueakpip Interesting – there’s also that odd picture in the hallway in the Lodger which was much speculated about at the time, which looks like a scary alt version of Eleven.
Maybe the villain of the entire piece – of the whole Moff era – the one responsible for the hissing voice in the TARDIS and for the creation of Madame Kovarian and the Alliance IS the Doctor – perhaps the Valeyard is going to come into play for the 50th and only the combined force of all previous Doctors can stop him?
12 January 2013 at 12:11 #1303Should we also have a link to LindaLee’s Dr Who reviews? What do you think? 🙂
Latest here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIh15zQMHXk
12 January 2013 at 09:09 #1277Hi @craig – the website continues to grow and is looking good!
@jimthefish suggested a thread for “Dr Who Memories” and I really like that idea – can we have it? Please :-)?
I know nothing about creating websites but re your battles with spammers etc. – thank you!
12 January 2013 at 09:04 #1275Yes, like you, I was a young fan of the Target novels, Terrance Dicks in particular – I’ve got a battered collection of a dozen or so still.
Look forward to your collaborative written/ illustrated piece.
There could be a whole thread just on Dr. Who cakes – I really love this slightly wonky Dalek one:
http://www.daleksoftheday.com/2011/08/dalek-cake-of-week_27.html
Good idea for a memories thread – I’ll suggest it in the “website section”
10 January 2013 at 22:41 #1191Could Clara be Jenny? I know they kissed which would need some de-yukkifying
I think she could well be a Pond of some description….
I like the idea of “The Master’s Daughter” – she (running away from her shifty Dad but nevertheless harbouring some divided loyalties) could be a great future-companion.
10 January 2013 at 22:27 #1189@scaryb – I see those shoes!
Another artist? Any Who-art of your own?
As for your “What is going on in the world?” post btw – I’m with you – on my sofa escaping into starry starry skyscapes (not that I’ve abandoned my rage, but you have to put it down) like this incredible one of Amy inspired by Vincent and the Doctor:
10 January 2013 at 20:29 #1175No sooner do I mention Steed and Mrs. Peel over on the Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2013/jan/10/too-much-romance-on-tv than, by the laws of synchronicity, I discover that Dame Diana Rigg is to star in Dr. Who this year!
This news is on the BBC website so it’s hardly a “secret spoiler” (or a particularly new one) but still…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-18675589
Oh, and @IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan I now demand that Baker play the Master!
10 January 2013 at 19:57 #1159Oooh – fellow-Fish art! (not fellow art – I can’t draw for toffee).
I like it! Back to the start – and just look at those cheek-bones 🙂
Yay for @craig – this thread now has its own picture-graphic spot on the front page.
Please keep recommending your fave fan-works people, including posting reviews of the same.
That was not my fic recommended above btw – and did I mention it’s funny (made me laugh anyway)…
10 January 2013 at 18:54 #1129Nice back-up over on the Graun 🙂
And precisely – Dickens was the television of his time – popular serialised narrative…
I had an argument with someone on Tumblr recently – really intelligent-seeming young scientist (no offence to scientists in general!) who was convinced that television fiction was an evil brain-rotting drug which should be outlawed, and his case was based on the fact that it evoked emotional attachment to fictional characters (which he saw as a distraction from “real life”). Plato wanting to kick the poets out of the Republic all over again…
Imagine a world without fictional worlds within it <shudders>
10 January 2013 at 17:16 #1125Thanks for link!
Click/ fan-bait
Accurate is accurate 🙂 “Have your say, as ever, below the line…” And in need of an edit too!
But I guess we shouldn’t be unduly mean about our parent-home…
Suddenly Buffy is back on the agenda? Are they reading our blog? 🙂
10 January 2013 at 16:32 #1119For anyone who enjoys a spot of fan-fiction (as I do) the places on the interwebs are numerous, from LiveJournal to An Archive of Our Own to the commercially run FanFiction.net (a website which sells ad-space).
The most comprehensive spot for Dr. Who fanfiction, run entirely by fan volunteers, is A Teaspoon and An Open Mind http://www.whofic.com/ .
If you are new to fan-fiction, be aware that not all “fics” will be suitable for work, as there are genres of sexually explicit fan literature out there, just as is the case with commercially available literature. It is, however, common practice (although not universally followed) to tag fictions with “ratings”, to give the potential reader some idea of the material involved in advance.
Writing quality varies significantly in fan-fiction of course, but one of the things I like about it is that it is a creative labour of love, undertaken for pleasure and shared for free in communities of mutual fervour.
A great community of “beta readers” (fan editors and constructive critics), some of whom write themselves and some of whom do not, also exists in fan-fiction communities to assist fic writers in improving their work before “publication”.
Well, after that spiel, here is a little fan-fiction recommenation, involving the Eleventh Doctor and the Brigadier (entirely suitable for work) called The Wedding of Lethbridge-Stewart by Jane Turenne on An Archive of Our Own http://archiveofourown.org/works/260200 .
I like it because I think it captures the Brigadier’s voice charmingly, because it paints a tender portrait of their friendship, and because it depicts the Eleventh Doctor as wonderfully alien, which of course, he is.
-
AuthorPosts
