[Summersmith @replies]

Belated birthday wishes, @craig.

Not related to days of the week, but I saw this singer song-writer busking in Guildford last weekend. I think the song’s rather nice although there’s no video. (fingers crossed the link works).

[Summersmith @replies]

@scaryb – thanks for the welcome.  I’m actually from the Home Counties (Sussex currently).  The cute Shetland trolls are my niece and nephew (well cute some of the time) who gave me the troll in my avatar.

[Summersmith @replies]

@purofilion – I should have added that if they don’t want to engage back then it’s their problem.  They’re the ones who miss out.  Take good care of yourself.

[Summersmith @replies]

@purofilion – isn’t trying to engage with some one – even the bad troll kind – what a good teacher does?

On the fifth series, I’ve always seen it as a story about where stories come from, an in particular a story about the tv programme itself.  Amy meets The Doctor when she’s a kid, just as RTD and Moffat watched old Dr Who when they were kids.  The Doctor goes away but she keeps faith with him; she doesn’t forget him, she makes all kind of fan-art.  In The Big Bang she brings him back from the place where forgotten things go.  Amy in her wedding dress, jumping on the table and calling to her raggedy man as we hear that wheezy groaning is one of my favourite little scenes in the show.

[Summersmith @replies]

@jimthefish  & @bluesqueakpip – the Ulysses / Odysseus comparison is a nice one.  Ulysses often used tricks – the wooden horse, hiding his men among the sheep to fool the Cyclops – rather than brute strength and fighting skills.  Perhaps the sadness of The Doctor is that he doesn’t have a Penelope waiting for him at home.

[Summersmith @replies]

So much here…

@johnathan – this is one of the friendliest sites around, thanks to the people who post here.

@purofilion – That class teacher sounds wonderful.  I think good teaching is about the facts – the length of the Amazon, how to calculate the angle of a triangle – but great teaching is about something more – how to find comfort in the world.

And the image of “a wayward balloon” that might, quite unintentionally, break your wrist is a lovely description of the Doctor.

[Summersmith @replies]

@jimthefish

Always felt there was something slightly Brer Rabbit about the fourth Doc.

It’s the grin.  A very Brer Rabbity grin.

[Summersmith @replies]

@purofilion – I was lucky enough to watch Buffy from the start when it was broadcast on BBC 2.  I only missed one episode – thanks to my sister getting married.  I’ll probably put some thoughts up on the blogs at some point.

[Summersmith @replies]

@purofilion – over fifty years, 13 different versions – there’s a lot of different sides to his character.

Moralist might be slightly the wrong word.  I was thinking “you are a good person if you do good deeds” rather than “you are a good person if you follow this set of rules set down in the holy book.”.  Jesus vs the Pharisees (or how the Pharisees as depicted in the Bible).  The Doctor not destroying the Daleks in “Genesis…” even though he’s been ordered by the Time Lords, who presumably thing of themselves as Good People.

You’re right, it is all about the allusions – these stories in our culture that are used and reforged by writers.  I think RTD used a lot of the religious allusions to examine religion – by getting rid of the Time Lords he creates the Lonely God – and in his pre-Who show “The Second Coming” he actually has Christopher Eccleston cast as Jesus.  But as I said it’s an examination of rather than a defence of.

On the other hand Moffat uses different stories – fairy tales.  I always feel his two Doctors are Tricksters.

P.S.  When I said The Doctor wasn’t a warrior, I forgot the one time he actually had a choice about his next regeneration in “Night of the Doctor” he did chose Warrior.  To be fair, he did seem to hate himself for it afterwards.

[Summersmith @replies]

@mudlark and @purofilion – thanks for the welcome.  I am a Pratchett fan (I will use the present tense goddammit) but the Summersmith name came before Wintersmith was published.  There may have been some Discworld type magic going on – I’ll ask Ponder Stibbons the next time I see him.

@ichabod – I think there’s a similarity between The Doctor and the Jesus story: both from “heaven”; both teachers / healers / moralists rather than warriors; both work miracles although the Doctor’s are more to do with him being a very clever boy than divine intervention; and of course both of them “die” only to pop up again.  And RTD did use a lot of religious imagery (Tenth Doctor lifted up to heaven by angels in Voyage of the Damned) even if it was often tongue firmly lodged in cheek.  Like many atheists he seems quite fascinated by theology.

Of course the Jesus story has been engrained in Western culture for a very long time and has shaped a lot of the stories we tell.  In fact the story of a god who dies and comes back to life to heal the world goes back even further.

[Summersmith @replies]

@barbaralefty Thank-you! The avatar is a Shetland troll (I’ve family up there).  A much better class of person than the internet troll.

[Summersmith @replies]

Earliest memory…

Commander Linx taking off his helmet in The Time Warrior.  I thought his face looked like liver.  And since liver, served up on a Saturday with overcooked cabbage, was the most disgusting meal a kid could imagine, I think it kinda traumatised me.  At least the new Sontarans look more like a tasty baked potato.

It’s funny watching the old Who episodes and the bits I remember.  The Stones of Blood still gives me the willies when I see standing stones –  I always check to make sure they’re not moving behind my back.

[Summersmith @replies]

Oh.  Um.  Hello.

[Nervously fiddles with bow-tie.  Checks notes.]

I’m Summersmith (Andrew really but Summersmith is a much cooler name).  I like Doctor Who and stuff*.  Long time lurker but since we’re about half-way out of the dark to the next series, I thought I’d say hello.

[Sits down.  Wipes perspiration from brow]

*Stuff being mainly Moffat and Joss Weedon and anything else that’s quirky, funny, emotional, and most importantly smart without taking itself too seriously.

[Author]

Posts