I thought I might try (again) to blog each month about my reading but I have found that so far this year I have been watching more TV than reading. This is partly because of ... the world. It's been hard to concentrate with everything that is going on. It's easier to plop in front of the TV and shut out the world for 2-3 hours a night. And it is winter. And there is a pandemic and I'm not going out. So I've watched A LOT of television. Movies and TV shows. Old and new.
Here's a summary:
Doctor Who 2021 New Years Special (BBC America/Itunes) What better way to start the New Year than with the Doctor. And this had the benefit of having Captain Jack as a guest star.
Bridgerton (Netflix). This is the new Shondaland Netflix series that dramatizes a romance
novel series that has been around for a while. I've never read the books but this was the perfect escapism TV to start 2021. It's Jane Austen with a lot of sex. There is a bit of an an alternate reality to it, but I was OK with that. It isn't deep but it is entertaining.
The Mandalorian Universe
First, let's go back in time. I watched season 1 of The Mandalorian last summer and then watched season 2 when it aired last year. In between, when I heard that Boba Fett was probably going to make an appearance I realized that I remembered next to nothing about Boba Fett. So starting last summer I started re-watching the Star Wars original trilogy (which I had seen multiple times). That simply reminded me that Boba Fett had died (apparently) in the jaws of ... something. Then I decided to watch the prequel trilogy again (which I had only ever seen when it first came out). It was just as annoying as I recalled but I had forgotten that Boba's dad was a part of the story (as well as young Boba). So it was not time wasted. Then I decided I needed to watch some of the things I had never seen. So I watched the animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars (which I REALLY liked) and followed it up with the animated series Star Wars Rebels (which I liked even more). I didn't have a lot of time to watch TV last fall but the animated series were perfect because the episodes were about 20 minutes long. Finishing those took me up to the end of 2020. This month, after Disney announced all the coming Star Wars series, I decided to continue and watched the following (and then I re-watched The Mandalorian Seasons 1 and 2 and got much more out of them after finishing all this background viewing):
Solo (Disney +). This was also a re-watch. A lot of people didn't like this movie but I enjoyed it the first time I saw it and on this re-watch. It was a decent heist movie. Well acted. If it had just been a heist movie set in the Star Wars Universe I think more people would have liked it. But we didn't really need it a Han Solo prequel. I still think that.
Star Wars: Clone Wars the Movie. (Disney +). I realized that before the animated series Clone Wars, there was an animated movie. So when I watched this it was out of order because I had already watched the whole Clone Wars series. But I wanted to watch everything with Ahsoka in it, in preparation for the upcoming series. It wasn't as good as the Clone Wars series, but I'm glad I watched it.
The Force Awakens (Disney +). This was a rewatch. The sequels take place after The Mandalorian time period but I thought I would re-watch them. But I only made it through this first one. I saw this twice when it first came out. I enjoyed it again.
Zoe’s Extraordinary
Playlist (Hulu) I've been watching Season 2 as the episodes roll out. I watched Season 1 last year thinking that it would be a nice break from real life. I love musicals. It was one of the few shows I watched in real time last year. I did not expect that the season would end with the grief of Zoe losing a parent (which hit close to home). This season is showing Zoe working through grief. At first I wondered if I really wanted to watch this. But I am. And I am enjoying it.
The Orville (Hulu). On the recommendation of a friend I started watching this last year. I'm still working through Season 1. It's going slow, not because I don't like it, but because it just isn't my first choice. I'll continue to slowly watch it.
Enola Holmes (Netflix). This was a made for Netflix movie about the younger sister of Sherlock. Entertaining. I would
watch a sequel if they made it.
The Crown Season Four (Netflix). I didn't have time to watch this last year when it first came out. But I finally got to it. It covers the Thatcher and Diana years. I liked it better than last year's.
One Night in Miami (Amazon). A made for Amazon film that was very good. The casting was perfect and the direction was perfect. I remember the reviews of the stage play and wanted to see how it would translate to film.
Miss Scarlett and the
Duke (PBS). This is the January weekly PBS Masterpiece Mystery series. Miss Scarlett has to prove herself as a detective because she is a woman.
All Creatures Great
and Small (PBS). This is the Masterpiece January series. A re-make of the original, which I don't remember seeing. On the one hand, this is comfort TV viewing. I can feel my blood pressure lower as I watch it. On the other hand, it makes me
miss my mom because she was looking forward to watching this.
Good Omens (Amazon). This has been on my list to watch since it was released. I'm a big David Tenant fan. It was about 2 episodes too long. But in general I enjoyed it.
The Expanse (Amazon). I have been watching Season 4 slowly. I don't usually see them the week they are released but I'm never more than a week behind. Sometimes I have a hard time getting myself to watch because this season is full of trauma (more than usual). But it is a Series I've been watching from the beginning and enjoying.
Brockmire (Hulu). I finished season 2 in January. I like it because it's about baseball and each episode is short.
Lupin (Netflix). This is a French series on Netflix that I am watching with sub-titles. I've only seen the first two (of 5) episodes. It's smart and full of twists.
WandaVision UNiverse (Disney+). I have been watching WandaVision as it is released weekly. But I realized before it started that it would probably make more sense to me if I had a better knowledge of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I had seen all of the Avengers films so I knew who Wanda and the Vision were, but I knew I was missing a lot of details. I've seen many of the Marvel films but none of the first ones. So I've been catching up. Here's what I've watched:
Iron Man (Disney+)
Iron Man 2 (Disney +)
Thor (Disney+)
Captain America the
First Avenger (Disney+)
The Avengers (Disney+) This was a re-watch. It was the first Marvel film that I saw and I saw it when it first came out. I didn't remember it completely and wanted to refresh my memory.
Captain Marvel (Disney). I watched this after I saw Episode 4 because I wanted to know who Monica Rambeau is.
That's it for January. Hopefully, I will be able to get more into reading in February as the world calms down.
Let's start with the fact that I am not the obvious target audience for comic book based TV shows. I don't read comic books. I've never read comic books. Not because I have anything against comic books but because I just don't read them.
But I have watched superhero television. And enjoyed it. I haven't seen that many movies. But between the few movies I've seen and the television, I can identify some of the major superheroes.
For instance, Superman. I know Superman. Of course I do. Doesn't everyone? I watched every episode of the old George Reeves television show in reruns during the 1960's when I was a child. I think I watched it with my dad sometimes. I can still recite: "Look! Up in the sky! It's a bird. It's a plane ..." You know the rest. I also saw at least the first Christopher Reeve Superman movie. I saw quite a few episodes of Lois and Clark in the 90's. And I saw a few Smallville episodes, but probably not more than 10 or 15 over the entire run of the show. I know enough about Superman and Lois Lane and Jimmy Olson and Lex Luther that I don't feel left out of a Superman conversation.
I can also identify a fair number of characters in the Batman universe. I watched every episode of that show multiple times when I was a child. Yes, yes, I know. The TV show was a camp version of Batman and that the comic books were "darker". But from that TV show I know Batman and Robin (and Joker and Catwoman and Riddler, etc). I don't know the whole back story though. I saw the Tim Burton/Michael Keaton movie version that came out when I was in my 20's but I don't remember much of it. I've never seen any of the Christopher Nolan versions.
I think I know Spiderman pretty much only from the Sunday funny pages. But that gave me a pretty good knowledge of Peter Parker. I never saw any of the Spiderman movies. I must have watched a Spiderman cartoon on Saturday mornings too because I can hear the Spiderman song in my head as I type this.
I'm pretty sure I saw a few episodes of Wonder Woman, but I really don't remember them.
Finally, I know the Incredible Hulk from the Bill Bixby TV series. I don't know much because I was in college when it was on and didn't see much television. But I have a general idea of what the Hulk is.
So I have a history of superhero TV but not really a true understanding of superhero universes. When I went to the movie theater to see The Avengers last year, I went only because it was a Joss Whedon movie and I like to support Joss. Sitting in the theater with some friends, I turned to them right before the lights went down and asked if they had seen any of the other Marvel movies. They hadn't. "I hope we have a clue what's going on and who these people are," I said.
We did. I figured out that Iron Man didn't have any powers and was just a rich guy with a suit. I figured out that Captain America was (surprisingly, at least to me) from World War II and had been frozen (or something) and was now thawed (or something). I knew enough Norse mythology that I could follow the Thor/Loki thing. I loved the Hulk - but that's probably because I knew who he was. I never really understood what Black Widow was or who that guy was who she was so upset was kidnapped by the bad guy. But it didn't really matter. It was light hearted fun. I'd never want to see it again, but I enjoyed it enough that I didn't feel like it had been a waste of money.
So when ABC announced that there was to be a new TV show, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., to be produced by Joss Whedon, I decided that I would watch it. After all, I watch all things Joss. And I've enjoyed superhero television in the past even though I haven't watched a full season of anything superhero related since I was 8 years old. I also decided that I would give the show one full season because I knew that most of Joss's shows take a while to get started.
Let me be honest. After watching a couple of months worth of episodes, I'm having a hard time imagining that I will actually watch this for the rest of the season.
The main problem I'm having with the show is that there is not a single character that I care about. Not only that, I find that I actively dislike Agent Ward and I truly find Sky and the two scientists annoying. It's a bad sign when you find yourself wishing that all the characters will be killed off in a disastrous event. I can tolerate Agents Coulson and May. I'd be fine if they kept Coulson and May and started over with just the two of them. But I'm ready to write off the other characters.
I also find that I don't care at all about the crisis of the week that they have to solve. The villains aren't that villainous and the crises are just too .... big. We all know that the world isn't going to end every week.
I have wondered if I my reaction would be different if I were a real
Marvel comics book fan. I mean, it's one thing to watch Lois and Clark
as an adult (yeah, I know he's DC comics and not Marvel), but that was essentially a
romantic comedy. But this is supposed to be a true tie-in with the
Marvel comic book/movie universe and I don't really understand that
universe.
Maybe I'm just not able to tolerate comics book based TV anymore.
Then, scrolling through Netflix to find something to watch, I happened upon Arrow in my Netflix to-be-watched list. I had put it on the list because I had heard that some actors I enjoyed on Doctor Who were appearing in it: John Barrowman (Captain Jack Harkness), Colin Salmon (Doctor Moon, from Silence in the Libarary) and Alex Kingston (River Song). I remembered hearing that it was based on a DC comics character called Green Arrow. I knew nothing about Green Arrow. Literally nothing. I hadn't even heard of him until this TV series premiered.
So, on a cold, damp night when I had nothing better to do, I decided to watch a couple of episodes. I settled in at 6:30 that night, intending to watch 2 or 3 episodes - about 2 1/2 hours of television (without commercials). I would be finished by about 9:00 and then I intended to read a book.
At midnight I told myself that I had to stop watching TV and go to bed. I've basically mainlined season 1 of Arrow on Netflix over the last couple of weeks. Then I went to the website of The CW and caught up on all the episodes of season 2 that have aired so far. In fact, last Tuesday night I skipped Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. to watch episodes of Arrow so that I could watch Arrow in real time on Wednesday night.
It is really a fun show. Not a perfect show. You certainly have to suspend disbelief, but that's ok. There are some issues with some of the women characters. But aren't there always? On the whole it is really a fun show that keeps my attention with characters that I care about.
If, like me, you know nothing about Green Arrow, here's how The CW describes the premise of the series:
After a violent shipwreck, billionaire playboy Oliver Queen was missing
and presumed dead for five years before being discovered alive on a
remote island in the Pacific. When he returns home to Starling City,
his devoted mother Moira, much-beloved sister Thea, and best friend
Tommy welcome him home, but they sense Oliver has been changed by his
ordeal on the island. While Oliver hides the truth about the man he's
become, he desperately wants to make amends for the actions he took as
the boy he was. Most particularly, he seeks reconciliation with his
former girlfriend, Laurel Lance. As Oliver reconnects with those
closest to him, he secretly creates the persona of Arrow - a vigilante –
to right the wrongs of his family, fight the ills of society, and
restore Starling City to its former glory. By day, Oliver plays the
role of a wealthy, carefree and careless philanderer he used to be -
flanked by his devoted chauffeur/bodyguard, John Diggle - while
carefully concealing the secret identity he turns to under cover of
darkness. However, Laurel's father, Detective Quentin Lance, is
determined to arrest the vigilante operating in his city. Meanwhile,
Oliver's own mother, Moira, knows much more about the deadly shipwreck
than she has let on – and is more ruthless than he could ever imagine.
That description really doesn't give any spoilers, most of that is revealed in the pilot.
Why is this show different from S.H.I.E.L.D.? (For one thing it doesn't have periods to type, which is a relief). It has a compelling lead character that I bought into from the first episode. I wanted to know what happened to Oliver on the island to turn him into the man he is. Clearly there is more than he is letting on. The flashbacks show him how he was and we see him now how he is. His body is covered in scars. He is a deadshot archer, where he had no such skill before. He now has amazing physical fighting skills. He also now speaks Chinese. And Russian. And he is ripped. No, I mean seriously ripped. I'm not really into guys with big muscles but Stephen Amell, who plays the Arrow character ... whoa, baby.
The other thing about him is that he is maybe a little bit of a psychopath. Or at least has tendencies. He is a killer. He can lie like anything. And yet, he is also a nice guy and as a viewer I really want him to become a hero and not a psychopath. It is not, however, clear at the beginning of the show how he will get to the point where he can be a hero.
The villains are also much, MUCH better than on S.H.I.E.L.D. I've already outlined my entire knowledge of the comic book universe and clearly I don't know much. I'm pretty sure Superman isn't going to show up in Starling City, or Batman. But apparently the show has a lot of latitude to bring in DC Comics characters and do what they want with them. (Similar to the latitude that Once Upon a Time has with Disney fairy tale characters.) Most of the time I can't tell if the villain is a DC Comics character or someone made up for the show, but it doesn't matter. They are very villainous. And they have defined personalities (maybe being in costume helps). S.H.I.E.L.D. villains always seem ... bland.
The people who the Arrow producers have found to play all these weekly villains are often actors I know from other series. Ben Browder (Crighton from Farscape), James Callis (Dr. Baltar from Battlestar Galactica), J. August Richards (Gunn from Angel), Seth Gabel (Lincoln from Fringe). Just to name a few. And that was who they got in Season 1. It was exciting to see them show up. They really ought to think about finding a character for Tatiana Maslany that can recur on this show - she'd be great as a supervillain (or other superhero who shows up from time to time).
On S.H.I.E.L.D. the guest stars haven't been bad, but the characters they play don't seem fully developed.
Arrow has a multi-layered story and the writers aren't leading us along slowly. We have been immersed in the island story from the first episode. At first I was doubtful about how they could maintain the flashbacks to the island without it becoming a combination of Lost and Survivor. But I soon found that part of the story as engrossing as, and sometimes more engrossing than, the present-day story. On S.H.I.E.L.D. there is clearly supposed to be a back story to Coulson's death and resurrection. But they just refuse to go there. At this point I pretty much don't care.
The stakes always seem higher on Arrow than they do on S.H.I.E.L.D. I'm pretty sure the writers of S.H.I.E.L.D.aren't going to kill off any of the cast members this early in the series (not even Joss does that) and I'm pretty sure that the Earth isn't going to be blown up, etc. So there is never any real tension in the episodes. On Arrow the threat is never to the world, it is always to something in Starling City or to people that Oliver cares about. So the stakes are lower but that means that there are stakes. Maybe if S.H.I.E.L.D. were in a smaller universe the plots would mean more. Maybe having them on the plane is the real problem. If you have a big plane you have to travel. Maybe the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. need to stay in one place.
In Arrow, Oliver has a version of the scooby gang that I've grown to know and love. I won't give too much away but over the course of season 1, Oliver ends up with a few people who learn his identity and begin helping him while also trying to keep him on the straight and narrow. Each of those characters is a likeable and interesting character in their own right. They don't seem to be types. On S.H.I.E.L.D., Agent Coulson's entire group all seem like types and not real people.
Finally, Arrow has a Big Bad. The Big Bad isn't a supernatural Big Bad, like in Buffy the Vampire Slayer days. But the Big Bad exists and you have someone to root against. This gives the overall season a story arc that's very good. S.H.I.E.L.D. has yet to introduce a Big Bad. There is not yet any story arc, although there are hints of one with the mystery of Coulson's death and resurrection and now the mystery of Skye's parents (but really, I don't care about her parents because I don't care about her).
Mostly, the character of Oliver Queen is interesting. He has had mysterious things happen to him. He has demons. He is a good person who is also a killer. He is complex. There is no one like him on S.H.I.E.L.D..
As I said, Arrow isn't perfect. Sometimes I get tired of the fight sequences. Everything looks a little too much like the Pacific Northwest (as most Vancouver shows do). And some of the women characters are annoying - especially the character of Laurel, the girlfriend Oliver cheated on before he disappeared. I admit that I regularly hope that Laurel will get killed off. Oliver's sister Thea was also somewhat annoying at the beginning of the show, although she does get better as the show goes on and the writers finally figured out what to do with her.
But these are fairly minor complaints. Is this great television? No. I'm sure it's no Breaking Bad. It's no Orange is the Next Black. But it's entertaining television. Hope they can continue to make it so.
The first six months of this year have been full of many great television series. That's one reason that I've read fewer books - I've been too caught up keeping up with good television.
In April I blogged about what I had been watching up until then. Since then I've been caught up in:
1. Orphan Black. I had started watching this in April and it finished in May. Tatiana Maslany gave one of the best performances I've ever seen in any medium, playing about 7 different roles. Some of them in scenes with each other. Sometimes having one character impersonating another character. On top of that it's a fun premise for a show and a couple of the supporting actors are very good. Highly recommended.
2. Defiance. I also started watching this in April. I've continued to watch. On the one hand, it contains every cliche ever used in any space western. On the other hand, it is set in a future St. Louis with the Arch still intact - how can I pass it up. They've done a pretty good job of building a believable world but they haven't made the story very interesting. What this show needs is a Big Bad. Can't Quite Recommend.
3. The Fall. This BBC drama is airing on Netflix and stars Gillian Anderson (using her English accent instead of her American accent). It is only 5 episodes and moves slowly. But it kept my interest. We know from the first episode who the serial killer is (and he is played by the same actor who plays the sexy Huntsman in Once Upon a Time - I'll never look at him the same way again.). On the whole I liked. Recommended.
4. House of Cards. A made-for-Netflix drama starring Kevin Spacey. It kept my interest but I did not enjoy it as much as the original British production. It lacked the laugh-out-loud black humor of the original. And I did not find myself appalled at the thought that Francis Underwood could ever be running the country - well, not any more appalled than I am at the thought of most real-life politicians running the country. And at least he gets things done unlike most people in Washington these days. Recommended.
5. Rectify. This originally aired on the Sundance Channel and had the pacing of an independent film. Beautifully shot, it moved very slow. The story concerns a man who had been on death row for 20 years, since he was 16. Now he is released and trying to assimilate back into life in the small town where his family is. If you are a person who likes a lot of action this is not for you. If you are willing to sit back and quietly watch a show that makes you think - go for it. Recommended.
6. The West Wing. This is a re-watch for me although there are many episodes that I've never seen before. I've finished the first two seasons. I did not remember how fast the story moved - I forgot that the President's health issues were revealed in the first season. I thought Mrs. Landingham was in many more seasons than two. I forgot that there was actual physical comedy in it. This is going to be my summer "go to" show when I have nothing else to watch. If you've never watched it, you should.
That's it. The Opera Theatre of St. Louis season has started up again and there was also Shakespeare in the Park. So narrative is big in my life, just not in written form right now. But I am collecting books to take on vacation when I expect to spend quality time with the written word.
April was not a great month for me for reading, at least in terms of volume. In fact, looking back on the month, I'm a little shocked to find that I only finished four books last month. Here they are:
1. Lean In, by Sheryl Sandberg. I wanted to read this book but I also needed to read it because the women at my firm decided to have a discussion about it at a brown bag lunch one day. And it turned out to be great discussion.
While I think that any woman could read this book and get something out of it, it clearly isn't directed to all women. Sandberg is pretty up front about that. It will appeal more to women who see themselves in a career rather than a job, and will especially appeal to women like me who made the decision early on to climb some kind of ladder - either because that is what drives them or, like me, because I am in a career that is "up or out" (i.e. you either keep rising or you are asked to leave). Women whose priorities in life are not, and may never be, related to their job may not find themselves as interested in this book.
Our work discussion was great because all the women in the group were lawyers committed to practicing law for the rest of our lives. While some have young children and have cut back on their hours temporarily, they do not see that as taking them off the career path (indeed it can't because, as I say, law firm life is generally "up or out" still, no matter how much people may deny that it still is). These women fully expect to return to full time work when their kids are older. And all of us, whether we have children or not, face the same issues during the work day. When I say we discussed the book, it would be more accurate to say that we used the book as a jumping off place to discuss the many issues that we face every day in our work day.
Sandberg does fill the book with a lot of helpful data (backed up by many pages of footnotes). None of it was news to me but it was helpful to have it all in one place written in accessable language. I found myself wishing that some of the MEN in my organization would read the book so that they could more fully understand what the women are up against from an institutional point of view.
I've read a lot of reviews of the book. The negative reviews mostly seem to complain that it isn't a different book. Many wished that Sandberg had spent more time discussing how to change institutional barriers (and reviewers who say that she doesn't discuss them at all are totally off base - in fact, I found myself wondering if some of the people who wrote negatively about the book had even read the book. Sandberg manages to touch on almost everything, she just doesn't explore everything).
This is definitely a book that focuses on women taking control of what they can control and helping them with some strategies for that. That appeals to me and I found it appealed very much to the women in our discussion group. But then, it would. Women who go to law school tend to be self-starters, very independent, and, most of all, pragmatic. We recognize that institutional barriers exist (oh trust me, we recognize it all the time) but, in the meantime, while we wait and hope and work toward removing them, we have to get on with our own careers. Talking in practical terms about what we can do in the here-and-now to help those careers is always welcome.
I've gone back to one of reading groups I had temporarily dropped out of and they will be discussing this book next month. It will be interesting to compare the discussions. I recommend this book.
2. Cannery Row, by John Steinbeck. As I said, I've returned to one of my reading groups and this was their choice this month. I know that I've read Cannery Row before, many many years ago when I was on a John Steinbeck kick. But I really didn't remember it, so it was all new to me. I had a recollection that I loved the way Steinbeck wrote and wondered if I would feel the same 20 or 30 years later. I did. This novel is a series of vignettes of the people (most of whom are down on their luck but don't see it that way) living in a California coastal town whose main employer is the fish (sardine) canneries. Not that any of these people work for the canneries except occasionally when they really need money. There isn't much in the way of plot, which is fine with me. Lots of characterization - Steinbeck makes me think well of people who, if I met them in real life, I'd probably run away from. And, oh how he can string together sentences. Recommended. Although if you've never read any Steinbeck, I'd recommend Grapes of Wrath instead.
3. Ancient Lights, by John Banville. I've been reading this through my NOOK app for a few months now. It took me a long time to finish even though it is not a long book, partly because I used it as my lunchtime reading and I didn't have much time for lunch reading but also because I wanted to read it slowly. Like Steinbeck, Banville is an expert at stringing together sentences. I found myself re-reading paragraphs, sometimes aloud, just for the joy of his language (another reason it was hard to read at lunch unless I was alone). There is, again, not much of a plot. The book is written as a stream of consciousness memoir by an older character remembering the sexual relationship he had as a young boy with the mother of a friend of his (which at first gave me pause) combined with his more or less present day writing about a film he is in (he is an actor) and his thoughts on the death by suicide of his daughter. I didn't realize until I reached the notes at the end that this novel is the third of a trilogy. I might go back and read the first two books. Recommended.
4. Arcadia by Lauren Groff. When I first started practicing law I worked with a woman who had lived in a commune in the 1970's. I never talked about it with her, other people told me. I remember thinking "How horrible. I would never want to live in a commune." This novel about a boy who grows up in a commune in upstate New York was not, therefore, something that I expected to really find myself relating to. And I didn't. Groff did keep my interest through the first two sections which covered the main character's childhood and adolescence at the commune. But it was downhill for me from there. The third part takes place years later after the commune fell apart and his own marriage has fallen apart. Since I couldn't see the joy of communal living and certainly didn't see the appeal of the character's missing unstable former drug addict wife, I kept waiting for him to come to his senses and just move on. The fourth part takes place in an apocalyptic near-future when the climate has changed so much that some food is no longer available and some kind of flu is wiping out much of the population. I think it was 2018 (which I found hard to buy into since that is right around the corner). I disliked that section intensely in terms of plot and characters.
Groff writes well which is why I kept going. And I can't say that her characters were caricatures - she made them very real to me. And she certainly didn't portray the commune as a utopia, nor did she portray it as a terrible place (at least not until the end). Her portrayal seemed even handed to me. The truth is that I have, and have always had, a viscerally negative reaction to the kind of people are most likely to think living in a commune is a good thing and especially to the kind of character who, after escaping from one, would actually miss it. That's really just me and not a problem with Groff. So while I can't recommend this novel since I mostly just wanted it to be over by the last part, people who don't have the kinds of issues I have might enjoy it.
And that was it for April. One of the reasons I read fewer books was because I became caught up in a number of television series. Oddly, all of them were on cable and I don't have cable. But the descriptions intrigued me enough that I bought iTunes season passes for them. They included: (1) Spies of Warsaw, based on a novel by Alan Furst that I read last year; (2) Top of the Lake, an original Sundance Channel series directed by Jane Campion, set in New Zealand and starring Elizabeth Moss and Holly Hunter; (3) Vikings, an original scripted drama from The History Channel (!) about, well, Vikings and based on Scandinavian sagas about Ragnor Lothboke; (4) Doctor Who ('nuff said); (5) Orphan Black an original BBC America series about a group of human clones all played by Tatiana Maslany; and (6) Defiance, set in a post-apocalyptic, post-alien invasion, St. Louis (how could I not watch it, if only to see how they kept the Arch still standing despite missing a chunk). I enjoyed and recommend all of them.
I wasn't wild about the novel Spies of Warsaw when I read it, I thought it moved kind of slowly and didn't have a real ending. The television show is much better (and has more plot than the novel; I think I read somewhere that the screenwriters also used parts of other Furst novels), although it still moves slowly and doesn't have a real ending. Top of the Lake reminded me a bit of Twin Peaks. It was full of odd characters and, in many ways, the actual solution to the mystery wasn't all that important - although it did manage a few surprises for me at the end.
I truly loved Vikings and am thrilled it is coming back next year. It is violent but not gratuitously so - after all it's about ... Vikings! Someday, someone should adapt Dorothy Dunnet's epic novel King Hereafter as a series. It takes place about 200 years after this television show, during the late days of the Vikings, after Scandinavia becomes nominally Christian.
Of all the shows I've watched, the one I can't stop telling people to watch is Orphan Black. Tatiana Maslany is doing amazing work playing human clones who look alike but have completely different personalities (including characters impersonating other characters). In a just world she would get an Emmy. And the story is odd and entertaining. I regularly think that this series is what Dollhouse should have been and wonder if Joss Whedon is watching it. I might write about it when it is over. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
Defiance has just started and while it seems somewhat derivative of other science fiction shows, I love this kind of science fiction. Hopefully, once the writers set the stage and establish all the characters it can develop a unique voice. And they still haven't explained the Arch fix yet.
Because I knew my history and knew what bloody carnage the War was, I began to suspect that many of the characters I had grown to love were not going to make it. I didn’t worry only about the boys, but also about the girls because they went over as nurses and, in Dorothy’s case, as a doctor. I found myself adopting a very fatalistic attitude about it and began to assume that all the boys would die. And possibly some of the girls.
I was thinking about this as I tuned in to last week’s episode of Downton Abbey on PBS. We met the Crawley family and all of its servants last season, before the War began. The first season ended with the surprise announcement that Britain was going to War against Germany. This season has tried to show the effect of the War on the house called Downton Abbey and its inhabitants.
Just as when I read The Children’s Book, I assumed that there would be a lot of death and that most of the men we had met in the first season would be dead by the end of the second season. But until last week we really hadn’t seen much in the way of death and I thought this was a failing of the series. Certainly many of the staff members have experienced deaths, but they have happened off screen. The cook has lost a nephew – shot to death by his own side. O’Brien, the ladies’ maid, has lost a brother to shell shock. We’ve seen the soup kitchen that was set up for the returning men. And of course the house has been converted into a hospital for soldiers recovering from their wounds – we’ve seen many of the wounded come through the hospital. At one point early in the season, Lady Sybil remarks that all the men she knows are dead and this spurs her to become a nurse. But we don’t meet any of those dead men. The male characters have come through the War singularly unscathed – both the doctor and the Earl not being sent to the front and Bates being unfit for duty having been wounded in the Boer War. The former footman, Thomas, goes to the front but intentionally wounds himself so that he may return home.
The writers tried to remedy this in last week’s episode, which was very sad. One of the younger footmen died and the heir to the title is gravely injured.
And yet I still felt as if the show still has not really brought out just how overwhelming the War was for society. Even setting up the house as a nursing hospital hasn’t really shown the true horrors of the war.
This week I read Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey: The Lost Legacy of Highclere Castle, which was written by the current Countess of Carnarvon. As a book, it isn’t perhaps the best biography I’ve ever read, but it introduced me to a fascinating real life character who lived through World War I much as the fictional characters of Downton Abbey are supposed to be living through World War I.
Highclere Castle is the stately home that is used as the fictional Downton Abbey. During World War I, the occupants were the Earl and Countess of Carnarvon. I knew a bit about the Earl because he and Howard Carter had been the pair who discovered King Tut’s tomb. But I knew nothing about his wife Almina.
Almina was allegedly the illegitimate daughter of Alfred de Rothschild, who undoubtedly showered her with money. Although not allowed into “good” society until she married the Earl, she led a privileged life and never wanted for anything. The Earl certainly married her for her money. Prior to World War I Almina was a typical socialite, the perfect hostess at Highclere Castle. But she also discovered that she was good with sick people, so when War loomed she made the decision, on her own, to convert the castle into a hospital. Unlike in the television series, the real Highclere Castle was used as a real hospital with rooms set aside for surgery rather than just rooms for recuperation.
In reading about all the work Almina and her daughter put in at this hospital, I realized that she wasn’t at all sheltered from the true horrors of war. And unlike the fictional countess of the television series, she didn’t just happen into the situation of running a hospital, she took the reins into her hands and made it happen.
Then, when the numbers of wounded became more than the Castle could accommodate, Almina, with the financial assistance of her father, opened a hospital in London.
Almina secured the lease on 48 Bryanston Square, a delightful town house in Mayfair overlooking a peaceful garden behind the railings. The Cadogan Trustees noted in their minutes that ‘they were loath to entertain the application’ from Lady Cararvon but, if they declined it, the War Office might use their powers to commandeer the premises. So, they agreed to Almina’s request. The house had two distinct advantages over Highclere: specialist doctors were never more than half an hour away, and it could be far better equipped to treat a wider range of injuries than the Castle ever could. Almina installed a lift, a purpose-built operating theatre and an X-ray machine. Then she transferred all her staff from the country up to town and put them under the charge of sister Macken, the head matron.
It seems amazing today, in an age of professional hospitals including military hospitals, that private persons were obliged to set up hospitals to care for the wounded men coming back from the continent. Almina seems to have been completely involved in the running of the hospital and grew attached to many of the men who came through its doors. She only returned to Highclere to stay with her family on occasional weekends.
Because this book was written by “family” it portrays Almina in a very good light and doesn’t say much about her life after the untimely death of Lord Carnarvon. In fact, this biography is noticeable for not really finishing the story in any detail, which made me google Almina. I understand that there are other biographies that go into her life after the death of Lord Carnarvon, in which she ran through all of her money.
But it is a fascinating account of Almina’s time running the private hospital during the War. I found myself thinking that the story of the real Countess is more interesting than the story of the fictional Crawley family. I could feel Almina’s exhaustion as hundreds of thousands of wounded were shipped home and her beds were constantly full. The War seemed more real to me than it has seemed as I was watching the television series.
So, about half way through watching Battlestar Galactica for the very first time, I started to wonder about the people who created and wrote the series. I always do that. I'm a writer-follower, maybe even a writer-groupie.
I wanted to watch it in the first place because I try to watch everything that Jane Espenson writes. Sometimes it takes me a while to get to it, but I always want to get there.
I knew she had joined the staff at BSG about half way through the series and I had heard her speak about working with Ron Moore. Naturally there came a point where I wondered, who is this Ron Moore guy?
So I googled him.
And discovered that he was one of the principal writers for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, which I just finished re-watching. He was that Ron Moore. Oh, wasn't I the smart one to re-watch DS9 right before watching BSG? I patted myself on the back for that. No wonder some of the themes seemed so familiar!
I'm not sure I necessarily liked BSG better than DS9, although I liked both of them. The Star Trek Universe of DS9 created limitations on character development and story line. Star Fleet could not be evil. The Federation had to win. Life on Earth was utopian and the Federation wanted to bring that to other parts of the galaxy. But within that imposed structure, the writers pushed the envelope and created a very compelling story line with very compelling characters who I cared about. And by caring I don't mean "liking", although I liked many of them. I mean I cared what happened to them - whether they were good or bad I wanted to see what happened to them and I had certain hopes for what would happen to them. And it was exciting to see the writers manipulate that as they did. For instance, with the character of Damar who went from "dislikable" to "sympathetic but still not likable" to "heroic but not necessarily likable (although not dislikable)". I found myself mapping out all the possible outcomes for Damar and trying to decide which would be best for him and for Cardassia and the galaxy. And keep in mind that Damar was a minor recurring character through much of the series!
BSG didn't have those same limitations. The writers created a side we were obviously supposed to be rooting for - humans. And a side that was clearly the Big Bad - the Cylons. But then they seemed to throw any rules out the window. The humans were not limited by Federation style rules, they were human in the way that 21st century humans are human. We have ideals but we throw them out the window when necessity or fear dictates. Yes, these humans had all of our flaws. The humans turned out to be an incredibly complex set of people (as society actually is) with some deeply dislikable ones in their midst. Even the likeable humans were dislikable at certain moments. There was a point where I thought to myself "I hope none of these people actually reach Earth." I was fascinated by them as creations but I didn't really care about them, in the sense that I didn't really have hopes for any of them. The only one that I found myself hoping would survive was Helo - who was probably the most Star Trekian of all the characters, a deeply moral fellow. (By the way I finally see what people see in Tahmoh Penikett - who I thought was miscast in Dollhouse. He was pitch perfect as Helo.) Conversely, I didn't really hope that any of the dislikable ones would be killed off. I was regularly tired of the character of Doctor Baltar but I didn't care enough about him to hope whether he lived or died.
This is perhaps because the Cylons were, at first, so good as a Big Bad that they destroyed any real hope. Oh boy were they bad. In the opening of the show they destroy the population of nine planets with nuclear weapons, wiping out billions of people. Then they seem determined to chase the remaining humans (less than 50,000 souls) across the galaxy until they too are obliterated. And it seems likely they will succeed. The Cylons have weaponry more advanced than the humans. The Cylons can't die - their consciousness gets uploaded into a clone body. And, more frightening, they have evolved so that some of them seem completely human - twelve versions with multiple copies. Some programmed to think they are human until they are triggered. And some living among the remaining human population. What a very big and very bad, Big Bad.
By the end of the second season that was a problem. Because it offered no hope. There was no hope that the humans at any point would be able to turn and fight the Cylons and win their freedom. Winning by fighting wasn't an option. They could only hope for two very unlikely things - either the Cylons would grow tired of chasing them and finally leave them alone OR the Cylons would change. The first seemed unlikely and the second seemed impossible - the Cylons were machines after all.
Compare this to the Big Bad in DS9 who is also a very big and very bad Big Bad. But their foot soldiers weren't immortal and they had a weakness - a dependency upon a synthetic drug. The administrators were clones whose consciousness was downloaded into the next version when they died - but they were only administrators and did what they were told by the leaders. And the story line always left open the possibility that the leaders would change. And of course we knew that in the Star Trek Universe the Federation doesn't lose - something that we didn't know about the humans in the BSG Universe. (But of course Star Trek maintained tension because the Federation could win but all their allies could still lose). So even in the darkest moments, hope abounded.
In BSG they reached a point where, as an audience member, I started to wonder if we were just going to watch these people until the last one died. The writers dealt with the problem by using both options for change. They had the humans believe that they had outrun and hidden from the Cylons. Boy did that turn out to be wrong. You can't hide from the Cylons. And of course at the moment that the Cylons find them they had the complete wherewithal to wipe them out. End of story.
So the only thing left if there was going to be any continuing story to tell was to have the Cylons change. In the end, the story of BSG turned out to really be the story of how the Cylons changed. On the one hand, that was an interesting twist. But on the other hand, for me it was a problem from the caring point of view because I deep down didn't really care what happened to the Cylons. Sure, if they changed maybe they should survive and live on. But they had destroyed billions of lives. And the fact was that, because the Cylons weren't a race of individuals and each Cylon had the memories of their last version downloaded into their consciousness, the Cylons we were dealing with by the third season were still essentially the same exact persons who had nuked nine planets - even though they had learned a lot since then. In our universe, people don't change THAT much, even if they do in a Sci Fi Universe. Since they never seemed at all remorseful about killing billions of people I found it hard to really care what happened to them.
Before watching I had heard that many fans deeply disliked the ending and complained about the religious aspects to the ending. I disliked that all the threads weren't tied up at the end. I really think we needed a bit more about Kara Thrace and the part about her dad and the music. But I'm not sure why the fans were surprised by the "religious" ending. The first two seasons were CRAMMED with religion. Maybe because I watched Caprica before I watched BSG the idea that religion was an important part of any story of the Cylons seemed natural to me. When the version of Caprica Six who existed in Doctor Baltar's head turned out not to be a chip implanted in his head and told him she was an angel from god - I always believed that she was intended to be an angel from god. That doesn't mean I believe in angels from god - it means that the only logical explanation in the storyline was that she was an angel from god and that a higher power was at work in that story line. So I went with it. And, in the end, having the two "angels" walking through Times Square worked for me.
DS9 made religion a large part of their story too, but because it was Star Trek and had to be based on "science" the writers created a scientific explanation for the Bajoran gods, or Prophets, that viewers could cling to. You could choose to think of them as the wormhole aliens we met in the pilot episode or you could choose to understand why the Bajorans worshipped them as gods OR you could understand why the science officer Jadzia Dax would always refer them as wormhole aliens and yet still choose visit the temple to thank them "just in case" after learning of some very good news.
On the whole I liked BSG. I liked the large and complex cast of characters. I liked that each version of a Cylon, while looking the same could be slightly different and I could begin to tell them apart. I liked that the writers set up situations where there really was no "right" answer - to insure safety meant sacrificing values. I liked that it was a show that seemed to be driven by exploring concepts rather than dead set on telling a coherent story and skimming over the big issues.
There were some things that I disliked. In the first season especially I was irritated by the fact that every female character who had sex turned out to be "bad" in some way - even if, in the case of Starbuck, it was simply letting her heart get in the way of her duty in passing Zach out of flight school. The "good" women were Dualla and the President and neither were sexual beings that first season. I also disliked the fact that Caprica Six was always taking her clothes off. Sure I can justify it by the plot and the characteristics of the Baltar character but in reality I was always pretty sure it was there to keep the men in the audience coming back. I was really glad when they finally had the scene where the nude Six in Baltar's head finally laughed at him and in the next instant was wearing a sweatsuit. I also disliked the Baltar character (which is different than disliking Baltar). In general I found it hard to believe that anyone actually took Baltar seriously -- ever, but especially in the first season. I thought that was a flaw in the writing and/or acting of the character. Although in the end it did make it more believable for me that a higher power had to be behind things, otherwise he would have been killed by someone in the first season out of sheer annoyance.
How would I choose between it and DS9? Well, first, I don't think I have to. They are what they are and I can enjoy both. I know I don't think DS9 is the lesser show because of the Star Trek constraints put on it. After all, Michelangelo was given a whole lot of constraints when told to paint the Sistine Chapel but that doesn't make it not a masterpiece. It simply makes it different than it would have been without constraints.
In DS9 the writers were clearly finding their way in the first two seasons and then finally changed direction in the third season and the story took off. Parts of the ending weren't what I would have chosen but the ending made sense and there was a satisfied sense of closure (while still leaving things open for future movies). In BSG the writers seemed to have a very clear direction right out of the box and the first two seasons made a lot of sense. But perhaps sensing that they had written themselves into a box by making the Cylons so invincible, the story changed direction in the third season. For a time it became more exciting but it didn't seem, in the end, that they knew where they were going with it and I didn't feel a deep sense of closure.
Yes, it has been a while since I’ve been here. Life has been … busy. To say the least. But in the midst of all that busyness I watched all seven seasons of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. I’d seen it before but after watching Enterprise I wanted to watch it again to see if it was as good as I recalled. It was. Oh, it was.
It’s a wonderfully written series and the entire ensemble cast is terrific. And there is a plethora of recurring characters, all as well developed as the regularly appearing characters.
But, even the second time around, I still found myself wishing the writers had let Kira be the character who conquered Gul Dukat instead of Sisko. But this time through I found myself suspecting that women writers would have allowed that to happen and maybe part of the problem was the dearth of women writers on the series.
The relationship between Kira and Dukat through 5 1/2 seasons was one of the best television relationships ever between a series character and a recurring character. In many ways it was even better than the relationship between Captain Picard and Q (wonderful though that was).
Gul Dukat is probably the best villain in Star Trek history because he is such a complex villain. The writers understood that Bad People don’t think they are bad. Dick Cheney didn’t wake up every day and think “Ah, I’m so evil.” No, Bad People usually think they are good. And in certain parts of their lives they may, in fact, be not that bad.
The joy of having a recurring character is that the writers can have the character make wide character arc swings. If the writers did that with regular characters, from week to week, the audience wouldn’t buy it. The audience needs to believe that they know the regular characters, so character changes have to be incremental. But recurring characters are those people you don’t know all that well, who always surprise you.
As Gul Dukat appeared in occasional episodes he was charming and grating and generous and evil. The swings didn’t jar because we were always trying to figure out who he really was. Kira knew he was evil and couldn’t be trusted but we, the audience, hadn’t lived through the Bajoran occupation and so we weren’t so sure.
And then the writers did a very clever thing. They sent Dukat and Kira on a mission together and they had Kira let her guard down a little. And, yes, there was something between them. Some connection.
Don’t get me wrong, I was never one of those people who wanted the writers to have Dukat find redemption and end up with Kira. Dukat was not Spike from Buffy – if he saved the world it would only happen because it was good for him. But I liked that they made the relationship between the two of them more complex. Because let’s face it, sometimes people we dislike are also very attractive. And we can find ourselves sucked into their orbit only to later kick ourselves for letting our guard down.
And that’s what seemed to happen at the beginning of Season 6. The Cardassians had captured the Space Station, Gul Dukat was occupying Captain Sisko’s office and Kira was forced to play her part and try to get along with him. He had the upper hand; he had all the power. He could bait her and she could not fight back.
It was a perfect scene of the kind of subtle sexual harassment that often happens in an office environment. The person in power knows they can make insinuations that just brush against the bounds of decency but they have plausible deniability and the person without power must just stand there and take it. It was a great scene and so well played by Nana Visitor and Marc Alaimo.
Ah, I thought. This is really going to make their relationship interesting. He’ll just keep pushing and pushing but one day, she’ll get him. And he’ll be sorry.
But no. Instead they shifted Dukat’s story away from Kira and over to Sisko. Oh, they had an episode where Kira had to find out that Dukat had a relationship with her mother (the revelation of which seemed to come out of nowhere) and there was the episode where Kira had to watch as Dukat tried to be a messianic cult figure – but those episodes seemed to lack something. They weren’t really about the relationship between the two characters, they were about other things.
Instead the writers tried to make the key antagonistic relationship be between Sisko and Dukat. I never really bought that because for 6 years Sisko mostly treated Dukat as a minor annoyance.
This time through I found myself wondering if the male writers found themselves in a situation where they had created great tension (sexual and otherwise) between Kira and Dukat but they just couldn’t imagine a scenario where that tension didn’t resolve itself without a hookup of the two characters. I’d like to think that women writers would have seen the potential in the harassment aspects of the story and run with it. Kira was such a strong character. In the end she could have taken Dukat down.
And that would have been so satisfying.
But despite my disappointment with the end of that particular story arc, I still love the series. I’m finding myself thinking about all of the other story arcs and wishing that Hollywood had seen fit to make follow up movies of DS9.
Via Alyssa Rosenberg I read a Tim Carmody article about how Netflix and Amazon Prime streaming both are offering full seasons of old television series.
Seriously: Blockbuster movies make for great one-off meals, but the back catalog is the video streamer’s comfort food. Viewers love snacking on old favorites when there’s nothing better on and binging on shows or seasons they missed during their first run.
It’s one of the few things that is an order of magnitude easier on a digital service like Netflix than actually popping in a DVD or managing a folder full of torrented movie files: The service perfectly maintains your place in the series, no matter what device you’re using, and you can just hit “play next episode” over and over again. Or you can easily scan for a rewatchable favorite. (Readers with kids know this is particularly useful.)
I concur. In fact, I find myself almost unable to watch television on DVD anymore if it is available on streaming Netflix. In June a friend of mine lent me the first season of Star Trek: Enterprise, because it was the one Star Trek series I had never seen. Between July and the end of September I had watched about 1/2 of that first season. Then I discovered it was also on streaming Netflix. I’m now into the third season. In just one month.
With a series on DVD I have to be in the room with the DVD player and every 40 minutes I need to switch to the next episode. With streaming Netflix I can carry it around on my iPad and watch while I’m in the kitchen or doing laundry or cleaning a room that is not the room with the DVD in it. And at the end of one episode I just press the button for the next. Let’s face it – I’ve gotten lazy. Streaming Netflix is just too easy.
The real downside with watching on my iPad is that I find myself doing that instead of reading at night. My reading has fallen off the cliff. Partly I just haven’t found any books that I’m dying to read but partly it’s that I’m really caught up in watching old television.
I spent last night at the 7th game of the World Series watching the Cardinals win. It was a totally different experience from the 2006 Series game that I went to even though both were games where the Series was won by the Cardinals.
In 2006, I knew that they hadn’t had a great season and it was a shock that they got to the Series and I was on pins and needles the entire time. Everyone in the crowd around me was the same. This time, they had a terrible season up until the end and it was a shock that they got to the Series but I was just so happy they were in it that I didn’t even really care if they won. And many of the people around me weren’t even paying attention to the game, they were too busy taking pictures to show that they were there.
There was a large group of people who didn’t get tickets to the game who brought lawn chairs and watched through the left field gates. As the game went on the crowd out there grew until there seemed to be thousands of people. The benefit (perhaps the sole benefit) of big empty lot next to the stadium, where the old stadium used to be, is that it can hold thousands of partying people. And they did party. The streets were packed when the game was over. Everyone was so happy. Strangers were high fiving each other.
The parade is Sunday and that should be a lot of fun.
And then the hot stove league starts and we find out of Albert is staying or leaving us.
I’ve always felt somewhat good about the fact that I was a Colin Firth fan before he became well known in America. I was a Colin Firth fan even before he starred in what is, for me, the definitive film version of Pride and Prejudice. I became a Colin Firth fan way back in the 1987 when the PBS Masterpiece Theater series aired Lost Empires.
I remember watching Alistair Cooke introduce each episode and explaining that if the novel/film had been set in America it might have been called “Lost Palaces” because this was a story of vaudeville in Britain and every small town had an Empire Theatre, just like every town in America had a Palace Theater. But of course it was also a play on words because it was a film looking back on the days when the British Empire was not yet in decline – pre World War I.
Firth played Richard Herncastle, a young man who loses his parents and is left with only one living relative, his uncle Nick who is a very successful vaudeville magician. Richard joins the act and travels the music hall circuit. Lawrence Olivier was in the film, playing a sad, washed up comedian.
I’ve always been fascinated with “back stage” stories that show the good and bad about theater life. Richard isn’t interested in a vaudeville career, he wants to be an artist. But he meets a lot of interesting people.
Lost Empires is being released on DVD. I’d like to see it again. Maybe someone will give it to me for Christmas …
First. I love Doctor Who and an average season (or even a bad season)of Doctor Who is better than most of what else is on television.
Second, I’ve never really liked any of the season finales for New Who except last season’s “Big Bang”. In the Russell T. Davies era the stories were so over the top that my eyes got tired of rolling. I particularly disliked the season finale where they had to tow the Earth back to the solar system.
Third, I constantly remind myself that this is a show that is essentially meant to be a silly show for the family to watch. I think of Doctor Who the way I think of those old fashioned Disney movies starring Fred MacMurray. I don’t usually expect deep character development; I understand that there are going to be many stereotypes and some of the characters will verge on cartoonish.
So, keeping all of that in mind, I thought the finale was fine but not great. It was a visual treat and it tied up lots of loose ends. It’s one of those episodes that, on the one hand, you can’t think about too much or it just doesn’t make sense. On the other hand it is the kind of episode that you will think about a lot and eventually figure out twists that you missed the first time. Just like the rest of the season it had a lot of potential and just like the rest of the season it did not, for me, hit the high mark that the fifth season hit.
But I give them credit for trying.
I think Steven Moffat is one of the most creative writers in television today. I applaud what he experimented with this season. Doctor Who has done story arcs in other seasons of New Who but not to the extent that was tried this season. There is a big difference between putting the words “Bad Wolf” in every episode or putting a glimpse of the crack in the universe in every episode and what was tried this season – a character driven story arc.
In my opinion it didn’t quite work, but that’s ok as long as they learn from it. Maybe a thirteen episode season in which the audience expects (and likes) many stand alone episodes was just too short for the kind of story that Moffat was trying to tell. It felt rushed. The emotions felt undeveloped. It didn’t hang together at times. If this was an American series with 23 episodes it might have worked. Maybe.
But although the execution was a bit flawed I do think he achieved what he set out to achieve. He has deconstructed the Doctor and moved the Doctor back into a position where he can act more like a traditional Doctor who isn’t seen as a superhero and isn’t known in every corner of the Galaxy. As far as character development of the Doctor went, I think this season was very successful. I look forward to what Moffat tries to do with the Doctor next season.
I also think Moffat was fairly successful with the character of Rory. Not perfect, but very good. At one point I said I had a theory that this season was “all about Rory” as opposed to last season that was all about Amy. Well, that didn’t end up being completely true, it was really all about the Doctor. But Rory definitely shone in the spotlight.
The Companion is always a lens through which we, the viewer, see the Doctor and this year we saw the Doctor very much through Rory’s eyes. Rory was not enamored of the Doctor and saw the Doctor as dangerous. That worked very well for Moffat’s plan. And I sort of liked that we did, for once, see the Doctor more often through the male companion’s eyes rather than the female companion’s eyes. To think that only the female companion can be the eyes of the viewer is really somewhat sexist.
But the weakest part of this season was, undoubtedly, the female characters – both River and Amy. At this point I feel like a broken record in my complaints about Amy so I’m not even going to go into it again other than to say that, while Amy’s speech to Madame Kovarian was a nice moment, it didn’t make up for the lack of emotion she showed over the entire season about what happened to Melody/River or, for that matter, what happened to her in being kidnapped and her body used to carry a child that was immediately taken from her.
On the other hand, I will complain about what was done with the character of River Song in the second part of this season. River Song went from being a strong female character who we assumed had a career as an archaeologist separate and apart from her interest in the Doctor to being a woman who is completely and totally obsessed with a man. We find that she became an archaeologist solely for the purpose of tracking the Doctor. She is willing to destroy the whole Universe because she cannot bear the thought that she is the one to kill the Doctor. She goes to prison for killing the Doctor when he and she know darn well that he is not dead. In the Library River gave up her life for the Doctor and it seemed noble. But in this episode she gives up her freedom for the Doctor and it just seems like she’s being the dumb woman who will do anything for her man. I almost expected Tammy Wynette to start playing after the scene in Utah.
But while all of that was disappointing, it was the way the Doctor treated her in this last episode that really struck me. The moment when the Doctor tells her that he’s going to marry her (after telling her that he doesn’t want to marry her and that she embarrasses him) and she needs to just do as she’s told has got to be the low point in the character development of River Song. That was the moment that I realized that Moffat had destroyed River as the unique female character that she was when the Doctor met her in the Library. She has now become just like all the other Doctor Who women – there to serve the Doctor.
What a disappointment.
As I said, I think Steven Moffat is one of the best writers in television. But even the best writers sometimes get it wrong. And when it came to the women of Doctor Who this season, he really got it wrong.
After Let’s Kill Hitler I decided not to blog every week about Doctor Who. It is, after all, a show aimed at kids (although not only at kids) so analyzing it too much takes the fun out of it, in my opinion.
But as we go into the home stretch on this season I find that I want to go on record about a few things. With two more episodes to go, I don’t have any compulsion to make a definitive judgment about the season yet. That would be like judging a 1300 page novel after finishing 1100 pages. So I fully intend to wait to see how Steven Moffat winds up the story arc before judging it.
I just want to record my own temperature at this point to see where I am now versus where I was a few weeks ago.
I complained about direction in previous posts. The last two episodes (The Girl Who Waited and The God Complex) were both beautifully directed by Nick Hurran who seemed to get that little extra something out of his actors that has sometimes been lacking this season. Or at least he managed to capture their very good acting and see that it showed up on the edited final product. I really felt involved with each character and understood what each character was thinking. I really hope they use him again.
The stories for the last two episodes have been very good. The Girl who Waited was written by Tom MacRae. His previous effort was a two part story for the Tenth Doctor and although I know that critics didn’t really like The Rise of the Cybermen and The Age of Steel I remember liking them very much. The God Complex was written by Toby Whithouse who also wrote one of my favorite episodes for the Tenth Doctor – School Reunion which saw the return of Sarah Jane Smith. (His other episode was Vampires of Venice which, while not a favorite, I did enjoy.) When Moffat decides to leave Who they might want to consider Whithouse as the next head writer.
I enjoyed Night Terrors enough but thought it was weird to have a story about a terrified little boy and never have Amy or Rory mention their own daughter (although it was also weird that Old Amy in The Girl Who Waited never mentioned that failure of the Doctor either). Then I read that Night Terrors was originally intended for the first half of the season and was switched with The Curse of the Black Spot. That’s a shame. It would have made much more sense in the first half and The Curse of the Black Spot, with its very fallible Doctor constantly guessing wrong and the alien medic who harmed through kindness, would have fit much better in the second half. I hope there was a production reason why it had to be switched and not simply a realization that they needed the Pirates to already exist before A Good Man Goes to War for that brief second where they stop Madame Kovarian from getting on her spaceship.
Unfortunately, despite the ending of The God Complex I don’t for a moment believe that we’ve seen the end of the Pond-Williams duo (and it really annoyed me that the Doctor tried to change her name to Williams at the end). At a minimum, if the action goes back to Utah and the death of the Doctor, which is where the season began, they have to be there because, well, they were there. But I really really hope that this is the end of them as regular Companions. I feel very much about Amy Pond as I felt about Rose Tyler – in fact I’ve gone through almost the exact same arc. I really liked both characters a lot at the beginning and thought the story arc that brought each character to the end of her first season was brilliant. By the middle of each character’s second season I disliked what had been done to each of the characters and by the end I was more than ready for both to go. It isn’t necessary to suck Amy into an alternate universe since there isn’t any silly love story that can’t go anywhere. But she needs to leave the TARDIS permanently and the Doctor needs to move on. I wouldn’t mind seeing River visit them occasionally.
After this story arc is finished, I’d like to see the Doctor begin to travel more to other planets that are not either places made to fool people into thinking they are on Earth or terra-formed planets filled with earthlings who have migrated at some point in the future. I miss alien planets like we used to get in the old Classic Who. There hasn’t been enough of that in New Who. Maybe being in an alien culture could mean that the companion could act more independently and help those people from other planets who will (inevitably) be in distress. I’m really getting tired of the companion as “Damsel in Distress saved by the Doctor” meme, both of which were present in the last three episodes.
I previously complained about the lack of emotion this season. The Girl Who Waited made up for that in spades. Lots of emotion and handled almost flawlessly (except for the failure to mention Melody being stolen). Lots of emotion in The God Complex too, although I find it hard to believe that Amy could give up her faith in the Doctor just like that when he told her to. I would have liked to have seen a gradual failure in faith through this entire season with this episode being the final straw that finally puts him in perspective for her. I liked Whithouse’s story but he was called upon to find a way to get that entire complicated concept into one episode. They spent 13 episodes in the first season building Amy’s faith and not nearly enough time in the second season destroying it. Truthfully, a part of me really wished it had been Old Amy who had survived in The Girl Who Waited. Or at least that more was made of Young Amy realizing that Old Amy kind of had a point about the Doctor – that would have made The God Complex episode a bit more believable.
And that leads me to the whole concept of pacing. I’ve felt from the beginning of the Moffat seasons that part of his plan was to deconstruct the Davies years and take the Doctor back to a place that is closer to the Doctors of old: A brilliant, arrogant alien who travels through time and space observing the wonders of the universe but, while he fights bad guys along the way, someone who is still a fairly irresponsible being. The Eccleston/Tennant years saw the Doctor evolve from a war damaged alien who still basically thought the way the old Doctors thought, to a godlike being who was responsible for all of humankind. The Lonely God was very effective, although a bit exhausting.
But it leaves you nowhere to go with the character except to start bringing him down a few pegs. Davies destroyed all the other Time Lords so the journey down can’t be inflicted on him, it has to be a slow realization of his own. (I admit that I wondered if Moffat would bring back the Time Lords since Time Lord atoms were in the TARDIS when Big Bang 2 occurred.) So Moffat is slowly breaking the Doctor down with a long slow process where he realizes how he is thought of and what effect he can have on people – completely unbalanced of course the way people in a depression are unbalanced. All the emphasis is on the “dark” Doctor and not remembering all the years of the good, heroic Doctor. But while the set up for the descent has been long and slow, I fear that the descent is going to be brief and fast and over too soon. It took Davies and Eccleston/Tennant five years and a whole lot of emotion over all of those five years to bring the Tenth Doctor to the point where we believed that he was, or at least thought he was, The Lonely God. To have the emotional part of his descent back to ordinary Time Lord crammed into a few episodes at the end of this season seems way too fast.
Finally, even though I have so many good things to say about The God Complex I still find myself relatively cold on the season. In general, I find myself less satisfied at this point in the season than I have with any other season. Although it probably doesn’t help that I’m watching this season in real time and not straight through as I did for the other seasons.
And so we’re off to the end of the season. Throughout this past year Moffat has seeded his stories with allusion upon allusion to past episodes in the Doctor’s life. It has been clever and fun. It remains to be seen how many of those allusions are clues to what is going to happen and which (the vast majority) are just red herrings and there for fun.
I remember watching the original when I was very young. Actually I remember sitting there with my dad when it was on. At the time I liked Lost in Space better (I was young). But I’ve always liked space travel shows. And time travel shows like … Time Tunnel. Ah … television in the 1960’s. Those were the days.
Since I was so young, you can guess which was my favorite episode:
I’ve been thinking about the first part of Series 6 in anticipation for the beginning of part two (which I’ll have to watch through iTunes). I’ve liked the storyline about Flesh Amy and Constantly Dying Rory and Who is River Song. On the whole I think the Steven Moffat era has been high quality and overall has contained more interesting episodes than the RTD era. But … I do miss the high emotion of the RTD era and I find myself wishing for slightly less complicated puzzling and a touch more emotion.
I’m not really complaining because on the whole I love the Steven Moffat era. RTD era plots were often silly in ways that Steven Moffat episodes are never silly. And during the RTD era there was too much emphasis on the attraction that some of the companions felt for the Doctor. I like that Moffat had the Doctor emphatically reject the idea of any canoodling with Amy Pond. But … the RTD era regularly had episodes that brought tears to my eyes and/or smiles to my face. I don’t find myself tearing up and/or smiling as much these days. Mostly my face has a screwed up look as I try to figure things out.
The thing is, I really like Matt Smith’s Doctor. I like that he is a young actor who plays the Doctor like an absent minded, eccentric old guy. I like that he can pull that off. But I don’t think he’s given enough to work with in terms of emotions. It isn’t that I think he can’t do emotion, I think that he isn’t given enough emotion to do.
The last episode, A Good Man Goes to War, was supposed to contain moments where the Doctor reached his highest high only to be plunged to his lowest low. But the way it was written, things happened so fast that there was no time to feel a high or really to feel a low. I was too busy trying to just figure out what was going on. Highs and lows are emotions. Emotions take time. There just wasn’t enough time. It’s odd that the Flesh story was a two=parter when the whole story could have been told in one episode but A Good Man Goes to War, which could have used 2 parts, was crammed into one episode.
Maybe the problem is that I’ve seen the RTD series. Maybe for those who haven’t seen it, they aren’t missing anything. But compared to the highs and lows that David Tennant (or even Christopher Eccleston) reached during the RTD series, I didn’t feel that this episode was the character of the Doctor’s highest high or lowest low. It’s almost as if Moffat never saw the RTD series. Ten would get angrier and/or sadder during any average episode than Moffat has ever allowed Eleven to be at his very angriest or saddest. And nobody could possibly be higher than Ten at his most manic. Even Nine had that wonderful moment of happiness when the nanogenes figured out that Nancy was the mother of the gas mask child -- which in retrospect makes Nine seem happier than Eleven has ever been. And that was a Moffat script – so he can write highs if he has to. But notice that he built that up for Eccleston to act over a two part episode.
So I’m waiting to see how the second half of the season works out. I trust that most of the loose ends will be tied up and we’ll find out the answers to most of our questions. But I’m still waiting to hit the emotional heart of this season.
I downloaded the 2011 (half) season of Doctor Who from iTunes and I watched it. (And may I say how much I dislike that Doctor Who has picked up on this modern invention of half seasons? It’s bad enough where there are 23 episodes so at least a half season would give you 12 episodes. But where you only have a 13 episode season, the whole concept seems absurd. Or particularly exploitative of the audience. But I digress.)
Reviews of the new Torchwood are starting to come out and it premieres on Friday. Over the last couple of months I’ve been reading some bloggers who have been watching Torchwood in preparation for the new series. I’ve noticed that those who don’t want to watch Doctor Who seem really confused about Captain Jack’s background.
So I present the only Doctor Who scene you have to watch to kinda sorta understand Jack’s past. In this scene he has re-joined the Doctor for the first time since his very first death at the hands of the Daleks. The Doctor has been less than welcoming to him. But then, suddenly, the Doctor volunteers Jack for a mission in a room full of radiation that is certain to kill anyone who enters. Jack, of course, goes along with the plan.
It really is a nice scene. The Doctor seldom gets to talk to a man his own age who isn’t an enemy. And this might be one of John Barrowman’s best scenes as Captain Jack. And as a bonus, you get glimpses of Derek Jacobi trying to remember what he has forgotten. That isn’t important for these purposes, but I always like to see Derek Jacobi.
