Hello Eleven

I just finished the 2010 season of Doctor Who and I’m quite liking Matt Smith as the Eleventh Doctor.  I worried that, after being swept up in David Tennant’s tour de force performance as the Doctor, I wouldn’t. But I do.  I like him and I like what he has done with the role. 

I think it helps that Smith has had great scripts to work with.  In fact on the whole I think he had better scripts to work with as a whole in 2010 than David Tennant did over all his years.  DT was saddled with the whole silly Rose story his first season.  He inherited Rose as a companion and inherited her relationship with the Doctor.  It also seemed as if Russel Davies wasn’t quite sure in what direction he wanted the Tenth Doctor to go.  Or, at least, couldn’t let the character go there until Rose was out of the way.  There was a lot of silliness in the scripts DT had to work with in his first season but by his second season he was firmly ensconced in what would be the Tenth Doctor’s persona.  A combination of wonderful people-person and arrogant all-powerful being.

Smith, on the other hand, entered into a story that seemed to know exactly where it was going from the first episode.  He got a brand new companion so there was no need to provide any continuity between the old and the new.  But he did inherit River Song, who was one of the best characters from the DT era.   I think that helped.  And of course Smith got Stephen Moffat as the show runner and chief writer. 

I do keep finding myself wondering what DT could have done with the 2010 scripts, since he was so wonderful in the Stephen Moffat stories that were given to him during his tenure. But he’s gone and Smith is here and I’m enjoying Smith’s  performances.

The Eleventh Doctor’s chief characteristics seem to be manic energy combined with intense thoughtfulness.  Manic intensity?  So far he doesn’t seem to have the angst that the Tenth Doctor had.  The Tenth Doctor reacted to his difficult regeneration by slipping into a coma-like state; the Eleventh Doctor reacted with ravening hunger. The scene where he has Amelia make him lots and lots of food, none of which he likes, and then settles on fish sticks dipped in custard was funny.  It was almost like he was pregnant.   And he was – pregnant with a new doctor who wasn’t yet fully formed and out of the womb yet.

I worried that he was too young. The Doctors seem to be getting progressively younger looking while the Doctor himself continues to age.  But there is something about the combination of Matt Smith’s eyes and the way that he plays the character that makes him seem older than DT’s Doctor.  Whereas DTs Doctor had to come to grips with the danger that he himself posed to the Universe, the Eleventh Doctor seems to simply accept that he is powerful. (In that way he reminds me of the much older Doctors).   He almost seems tired of it.  The Tenth Doctor had a certain edge to him that made him seem dangerous – culminating in the Time Lord Triumphant scene in The Waters of Mars.  The Eleventh Doctor doesn’t seem dangerous at all.  He just reminds aliens of the fact that he could be dangerous if he wanted to be.  And they believe him. 

Compare the two, both of them in episodes scripted by Stephen Moffat in scenes with similar themes – he’s the Doctor and doesn’t need to prove anything.   Here is David Tennant’s Ten – “I’m the Doctor, look me up”:

Now compare Matt Smith’s Eleven in his very first episode.  Again he reminds the alien that he is the Doctor and makes the alien look at his history.  It’s a longer scene because it sets Smith within the history of all the previous Doctors (I particularly like how they run images of the past Doctors and have him walk out of the image of the Tenth Doctor).  But his “basically … run” moment is much more calm and controlled than Ten ever was:

Ten was a Doctor in the heroic tradition – always rising to the occasion is a big way.  But then beating himself up a bit after.  Very Shakespearean, as befits an actor like David Tennant.  When Ten tells an alien to watch out because he’s the Doctor, his eyes blaze. 

Eleven is a Doctor who looks and sounds like an ordinary guy even when confronting the bad guys, but who really isn’t an ordinary guy.  He’s a more tired Doctor.  When he says “basically … run” his eyes don’t blaze. You know that he means it, but you also can tell that he’s said it many, many times before.  He looks almost tired of having to say it one more time.  So in an odd way, Eleven seems older than Ten even though the actor is younger.

At the end of the 2010 Season, the Doctor gets locked in the Pandorica.  The Doctor says “Think of the fear that went into making this box”.   He says that it was meant to hold a “nameless terrible thing soaked in the blood of a billion galaxies.”  Nothing could stop it or halt it or reason with it.  He had no idea that it was him.

I think if DT had acted that scene I might very well (MIGHT) have guessed that it was the Doctor it was meant to hold.  The Time Lord Triumphant who is beyond reason with no one to restrain him.  But that version of the Doctor was redeemed when he sacrificed himself for an old man.  And he has been regenerated into a Doctor who has the power to destroy galaxies but really seems to not want to think about those kind of things anymore.  He just has to keep saving the universe because that’s what he does.  So I could understand Matt Smith’s Doctor’s surprise when he found out that it was him it was meant to hold.

The other thing I like about the 2010 season is the Doctor’s companions, Amy and Rory.  I enjoyed Rose during her time with the 9th Doctor.  Nine needed someone to bring him out of himself.  If Eleven is manic intensity, Nine was manic moroseness.  Rose was more sympathetic than Nine in many ways.  I remember wondering, though, if the creators of the New Doctor Who didn’t trust that the actor or even the character of the Doctor could carry the show without a strong companion who could take the full focus off the Doctor.  I feel a bit the same way about Amy.  Having her be such a strong character really worked in this first Smith season.  It let Smith ease himself into our imaginations.

But I didn’t enjoy Rose so much the second season.  DT could have carried the show from the first moment he appeared on screen; yet the writers couldn’t relegate Rose to a fully subjugated companion position.  So they wrote the love story that every Doctor Who fan knew could go nowhere and could only end badly. It wasn’t until the Tenth Doctor got Donna as a companion that they worked out a good modern buddy-relationship between Doctor and companion where the Doctor was the full focus but the companion was a good foil.  In fact, the writers went so far as to have the Doctor travel for a time without a companion but gave him story lines that proved he needed a human to restrain him.  In a way, it was a way to justify him having companions at all. So the character of the Doctor needs a companion to rein him in even if  the actor playing the Doctor can carry the show himself.

Amy seems to be a bit of a combination of both Rose in the first season, keeping the audience’s entire focus off of the new Doctor, and the outspoken Donna.  In general, I like her.  I didn’t mind that she was the center of the entire first season for Eleven.    And I liked that they brought back little Amelia at the end of the season.  As I said in a previous post, Stephen Moffat seems to be good at writing scenes for children.  

Eleven and Amy have good chemistry but it isn’t sexual (although they do enough to keep us guessing at mid season to keep things interesting).  Rory is very likeable so I don’t wish or expect Amy would dump him in the way that Rose dumped Mickey.  And it is nice for the Doctor to have a guy around.  It happens so seldom.

The story arc for this first Eleven season was written in a way to keep my attention although I’m still not sure I completely understand how the rift in the Universe happened in the first place.  I liked the way they used the River character during the season.  Alex Kingston does such a great job with that character.  Yes, I did find myself wishing for DT during those episodes because the two of them had such great chemistry together on screen.  But she and Smith do fine together.

All and all a good season of Doctor Who.  We’ll see how I feel after another season.  By the end of the Tenth Doctor I had grown very fond of him and was really sad to see him go.  So far I like Eleven but I don’t feel the same strong attachment.  Not yet.  But he has time.

I’m considering downloading the 2011 episodes from iTunes so I don’t have to wait for it.

A Little Aside about Who’s Stephen Moffat

I’m more than halfway through the 2010 season of Doctor Who, the first season with Matt Smith as the Doctor.  This is also the first season where Stephen Moffat took over as show runner.  I went back to look at the episodes that Moffat wrote for the other seasons of Doctor Who and realize that he wrote almost all of my favorite episodes. 

In the Christopher Eccleston era he wrote the two part story The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances. It was a great “historical” episode, capturing the life of orphaned, homeless children during the London Blitz.  It introduced us to Captain Jack Harkness.  It reflected a period of growth for the emotionally damaged Ninth Doctor who learned to dance again (with all the double entendres that entails).   I thought that it was the most creative episode of that season, with the “monsters” being ordinary people living during the London Blitz who had been turned into zombie like creatures with gas masks fused to their faces. And what was especially scary was that the principal “monster” was a little boy looking for his “mummy”.

In 2006, for David Tennant’s Tenth Doctor, he wrote the Girl in the Fireplace, the episode where the Doctor meets Madame de Pompadour.  The creativity of this episode was that it combined great “historical” drama with futuristic space drama since the Doctor and his two companions were stuck on a spacecraft in the future which contained windows into 18th Century France.   The relationship between the Doctor and Reinette is beautifully written and it is a serious story but still has great comic bits (I love the horse on the spaceship).  

Much of the first season of David Tennant involved the Doctor in situations where he reacted with his “silly Doctor” persona.  But in Girl in the Fireplace Moffat gave Tennant scenes of quiet intensity and Tennant took them and ran with them.  And again Moffat created new “monsters” in the clock/clown people (I’m sure they have a name but I don’t know what it is).  He also proved that he is just very good at writing scary scenes that involve children:

Then in 2007 he wrote Blink.  I know I’m sounding like a broken record when I say that it is one of the best pieces of television I’ve ever seen.  David Tennant’s Doctor is barely in it and the story is carried by Carey Mulligan before she became a well known actress in the United States.  Again, he created new “monsters” with the Weeping Angels, incredibly scary but very simple (and cheap) creatures who don’t move if you look at them directly.  They turn to stone and look like statues.  But the minute you aren’t looking … watch out.  I may never look at stone statues the same way again.  I don’t even like to put a clip of it on, because I don’t want to ruin it with spoilers for anyone who hasn’t seen it.  But here’s an early scene that doesn’t give much away:

In 2008 he again wrote one of my favorite two part episodes:  Silence in the Library/ Forest of the Dead.  Of course I loved the concept of the little girl and the library in her mind just to begin with. Again, a great use of child actors. Again, he created really scary but very simple (and low budget) monsters – just shadows really, but shadows that eat the skin off of people.  Forest of the Dead was an especially good vehicle for Catherine Tate’s character Donna Noble.  I always hoped (and still continue to hope) that Moffat finds a way to reunite Donna with the guy she met in the virtual world (yeah, I know she’s now married to someone else but …). 

And of course those episodes introduced us to River Song.   I’ve now seen River reappear in the 2010 season (with the Angels) and YES I’VE SEEN ARTICLES WITH SPOILERS from the 2011 season but I don’t want to talk about it or the remainder of 2010 until I actually see those episodes. But I loved River in that 2008 season because she was the first human woman character I can remember in Doctor Who who not only acts as an equal of the Doctor but who proves she is as much of an equal as any human is ever likely to be.  And although I don’t like sexist behavior in men or women, I have to admit to a chuckle at this scene:

The really, really nice thing about these episodes is that Moffat got such great actors to play the parts he wrote.  He of course had David Tennant, but he also got a great actress to play against DT with the casting of Dr. Corday, oops I mean Alex Kingston.  (Funny, I seldom watched E.R.but the moment I saw her I thought “oh look, there’s Dr. Corday”).  David Tennant always is at his best when the actor on the other side is great and the scenes with he and Kingston together were wonderful.  DT was always good at the talking side of the Doctor, spewing forth lines of dialog in record time episode after episode, but here, with a wonderful script by Moffat and playing against Kingston, his reaction shots show his incredible strength as an actor:

Oh heck, I’m going to throw in one more scene.  I love the following scene for the lighting and the camera angles and the way that the Doctor and the TARDIS are facing each other like people.  It is just beautifully filmed.  And I also love it because David Tennant never says a word, the story is in his face.  River has previously said that the Doctor (HER Doctor) can open the TARDIS with a snap of his fingers.  The Tenth Doctor (who doesn’t yet trust that he really has met River in the future) disputes this and says it is impossible.  But here at the end, after an emotional separation from River, he comes back to his TARDIS and tries it out  …

In 2009 there was no series, only a few specials that culminated with the regeneration of the Tenth Doctor into Eleven and the end of the David Tennant era and the beginning of the Matt Smith era.   Moffat had no part in those specials except that he wrote the final moments of The End of Time part 2 which introduced Matt Smith’s Doctor.

I didn’t realize all of this when I started watching the 2010 season.  But as I watched the first episode of 2010, which again involved the Doctor (the Eleventh Doctor) working with a child and a scary (low budget) crack in the wall, I started to think that there were some parallels with earlier episodes I liked.  Then, when I saw the return of the Angels and  River Song, I finally decided to look him up. 

There’s no point to all of this other than that I like to pay attention to specific writers once I figure out I like his or her work.  Once I discovered all of this I wasn’t surprised to learn that Moffat had a hand in the new modern, updated Sherlock that ran on PBS last year with Benedict Cumberbatch.  He co-wrote A Study in Pink and has creative credit on the series.  

So you know what’s coming from me, don’t you?   Yes, of course you do. 

I’d like to see Stephen Moffatt and Jane Espenson do something together.   And since she’s just worked with former Doctor Who showrunner Russell T. Davies on Torchwood maybe that’s a possibility?  Maybe?  Pretty please?

Torchwood: Children of Earth

Ok, everyone was right.  Children of Earth was a game changer for Torchwood.  Before CofE Torchwood was an enjoyable but uneven program that couldn’t seem to decide if it wanted to emphasize science fiction or detective story.  After CofE Torchwood is a Serious Television Show.

When all the children on earth freeze for minutes at a time and then start to recite the same words together, well that’s a clue that something is going on that might not be of this world.  So far, pretty typical.  But then the writers set us up to believe that a new character is going to join the Torchwood team only to reveal that he is part of a group working against Torchwood.  Then we find out that the government has ordered a hit on Captain Jack because … well, we don’t know why.  Then the government tries to kill Captain Jack but he can’t die, even when he’s blown up.  Then they decide to encase him in concrete.  It’s all very exciting but all the time there is a big scary alien coming that has something to do with the children. 

Then when Torchwood finally manages to force its way into the situation and take control of the situation, it all goes horribly wrong.  And the ending.  Captain Jack had a hard choice to make and he made it. 

Lots of deaths.  Lots of people important to Jack dying because of Jack.

After all that, who can blame him for deciding he needed some time away and beaming up to the nearest starship a la Arthur Dent.  He must come back to earth though because I hear he’s in the new series that starts next month. 

Last time I wrote about Torchwood I said that they needed to create either a Big Bad institution or a Big Bad person for Jack to go up against.   I also said I didn’t think that Ianto and Jack didn’t have any chemistry and I wouldn’t be sorry to see him go. 

They created a governmental Big Bad that was a bad as anything I’ve ever seen.  There is a scene where the government is trying to decide whose children to sacrifice to the alien and they decide it can’t be the children of the elite, not their children.  It was a pretty chilling scene as they made the decision that it was the low achievers who had to go.  So it was a good Big Bad to put Jack up against.  It allowed Jack to be Jack without any necessity of toning down his act.

And they got rid of Ianto.  I admit that I was sad when he died.  But I still didn’t think that he and Jack had chemistry.  I’m going to admit here that it went through my mind at the end of Season 2 that Ianto was a double agent sent to infiltrate Torchwood and be a honey trap for Jack.  I never believed that he really cared for Jack. He had more passion for the robowoman in Season 1 than he ever showed for Jack. But, in CofE I did believe that he cared for Jack.   I still didn’t think they were good together but I stopped thinking that the writers had some evil plot that hadn’t yet been revealed.    But now that he’s gone, I’ll drop it and just say I’m sad he had to die a horrible death.

So now we wait for the next season, which I won’t see because I don’t have cable.  Coming off of CofE, I have high hopes.  Plus Jane Espenson is one of the writers.  Plus they are moving part of the action to Los Angeles.  Normally I wouldn’t be excited by that but I think Jack in Los Angeles could be fun.  Los Angeles is BIG and Jack is BIG.  And the people of Los Angeles … well they seem kind of alien to me.

I continue to think that Jack plays better in a setting that is a little, oh, less than normal.  Los Angeles is certainly that.

I tried to watch Torchwood and Doctor Who in the order in which they aired.  So I saw the last few Doctor Who episodes after the end of CofE.  In the episode where the Tenth Doctor dies and regenerates, he has a chance to visit all of his friends one last time and do something nice for them.  In one scene he looks up Captain Jack.  Jack is in a space bar (very reminiscent of Mos Eisley Cantina in Star Wars).  So the Doctor gets to see a lot of the aliens he has encountered in this lifetime as well as Jack.

It seems right that Jack is in a bar.  He’s lost Ianto and he’s lost a member of his own family.  He’s sitting at a bar drinking.  He’s not the same Jack. And the Doctor gives him a little push to get back into the human scene.  Sure, this scene could have been a Torchwood scene.  But Torchwood took place in Cardiff.  He would have been sitting in a bar in Cardiff and the lighting would have been dark.  Very Torchwoodesque and dark.  But since this scene took place in Doctor Who, they could set it in a space bar and make it Really Fun!  And that’s what Jack needs – a really fun setting.  Because his character is Really Fun.   And as I watched that scene I thought …. Yeah, this could be Los Angeles.

See what I mean:

There was this guy …

I’m still in the throes of Tenth Doctor withdrawal. 

Here’s the lovely scene where the Doctor says goodbye to Sarah Jane … finally!  Only six Doctor Lives after he should have said goodbye properly.  David Tennant was only a child when the Fourth Doctor left Sarah Jane behind on earth.   I think he played this scene with Elizabeth Sladen beautifully.   And it makes it even sadder to know that she recently died.

It’s funny.  I don’t have any desire to go back and watch old Doctor Who episodes for the old Doctors.  But I might want to go back and watch Sarah Jane.

Goodbye to Ten. It has been an honor.

I’m now up to the Eleventh Doctor in the Doctor Who Series.  Before I jump fully into Matt Smith’s version of the Doctor I want to take the time to think about David Tennant’s Tenth Doctor.  I’m really going miss Ten.  What a terrific Doctor. 

In David Tennant’s first episode an alien invader demanded of the Doctor “Who are you?” and the Doctor bellowed back in a mocking voice “I don’t know!”  This was literally true because the Doctor was still in the midst of regenerating, leaving behind Christopher Eccleston’s excellent 9th Doctor and becoming something totally new. But it was also the theme that the writers and David Tennant would spend the next few years exploring.. 

The series was given the gift of a highly talented actor in Tennant and the writers took full advantage of that in crafting situations that really stretched the Doctor’s concept of who he was. 

Spoilers ahead.

As I said before, Tom Baker was my Doctor.  I didn’t grow up with him as a child; I was in my early twenties when PBS was re-running Doctor Who.  But he was my first Doctor and he shaped all my expectations.

Of course, in some ways it is silly to compare them. It’s like comparing apples and oranges. The nature of television has changed over the years. There are new production values.  Audiences tolerate more.  Audiences demand more. The Tenth Doctor couldn’t have existed in the 1970’s any more than the Fourth Doctor would excite audiences in the 21st century. So at some point I stopped comparing them in my minds and simply accepted that they were different.

It was good to ease back in with Christopher Eccleston as the 9th Doctor, before being bombarded with Ten.  As we picked up the story line with the 9th Doctor, it seemed that many of the Doctor’s existential battles over whether he had the right to exterminate the Daleks had been long ago fought. Not only had the Doctor exterminated the Daleks, in doing so he had exterminated his own race and was the last remaining Time Lord. 

The 9th Doctor is very much alone when we meet him.  He is a Doctor who is still dealing with the immediate personal after-affects of his choices even though he doesn’t doubt he has done the right thing. Even after he takes Rose on as a Companion, he is still dealing with the arrogance in his nature that it took to wipe out your own race. He is a Doctor who, in an early episode, decides against all advice that it was a good idea to let a race of aliens arrive through a time rift to inhabit (even temporarily) human corpses, and then he must watch as that decision turns into catastrophe. He is a Doctor who pleads with some unknown power in the universe for a group of little computerized nanogenes to recognize the DNA of a mother and turn her son back into a human boy; this Doctor pleads to the universe that Just This Once Please it will turn out well and people will live. He is very much living day to day and doesn’t seem to be thinking ahead to what he should become.  And yet, every time Rose makes him laugh, you can see that the essence of the fun loving Doctor is in there somewhere. And he learns how to dance again.

Eccleston seemed like a Doctor who wasn’t so pleased with life that he was sad to leave it.  It is only his interactions with Rose that makes him sad to move on; but his exit is stoic.  Nine seemed at peace with the idea of regeneration perhaps because he had never been completely comfortable in his own skin.  

Yes, Eccleston’s Nine was a good transitional Doctor. 

And then came David Tennant’s Ten.  David Tennant inhabited the Doctor completely and totally in a way I haven’t seen since Tom Baker and in a way that Tom Baker didn’t.  In the end it always comes down to the words on the page and the actor’s ability to convey the words and their essence to an audience. And. He. Nailed. It.  He killed it.  Yes, the fact that he is an award winning actor certainly helps. The fact that he’d wanted to play Doctor Who all his life probably helped.  But the main thing was that he seemed to love being the Doctor.  Which is, perhaps, why it was particularly poignant when it came time for him to move on.  “I don’t want to go” were his very last words. And I believed him.

Ten was a multilayered character in what was essentially a children’s cartoon series.  Think about how hard that is to pull off.  Let’s face it.  Doctor Who has never been a series for sophisticates.  It has always required an audience willing to completely suspend disbelief in the face of cheesy 1950’s style monsters.  And the updated Who didn’t update the monsters very much.  The Daleks and the Robomen were shinier but were still cumbersome robots.  That’s why it was nice for the writers to make Ten’s final foes live actors.  I always think human actors are more fearsome than cheesy robots. 

No, Doctor Who has always relied on the character of the Doctor to carry the show.  And the writers gave Tennant a character that he could fully inhabit from the beginning and then they and he began to stretch that character as far as it would go. Ten’s Doctor was a Doctor who spent almost the entire first episode asleep because the regeneration was so difficult.  This should have been our clue that he was coming back a fully new man, unlike any Doctor we’ve ever seen. 

This was a Doctor who, from the moment he appeared, was funny and sort of whacky but then could be utterly ruthless when necessary.  He believes it is always necessary to give everyone a chance and sometimes those chances could go on for a very long time.  Butthere are  “No second chances” he said in the first episode as he ruthlessly killed the alien with nonchalance.  In one episode he patiently went into hiding from a group of aliens who are out to get him.  He strips himself of his Time Lord powers and becomes totally human so that they won’t detect him.  Is that because he is afraid of them?  No.  By hiding he was giving them a chance to move on and not incur his wrath.  They don’t and ruthlessly takes care of them.

Ten is a Doctor who takes delight in the wonders of the universe and sharing those wonders with everyone around him.  He is unabashedly outgoing, he seems to be a born people person.  And yet the fact that he is alone permeates every scene and he is, ultimately, so lonely.  And Ten is a Doctor who is angst ridden in a way that the Doctor is seldom angst ridden.  And clever.  Too clever:  “It's not like I'm an innocent. I've taken lives. And I got worse, I got clever. Manipulated people into taking their own.”

And boy could he talk.  Words just spewed out his mouth as thoughts raced this way and that way through his mind.  It was hard to keep up with him.  He could be a lot of fun. 

Where Nine seemed to wonder why he bothered so much with the human race (so backward, so irrational, so helpless). Ten unabashedly loved earthlings. He loved them even when he disapproved of whatever they were doing. Love was, perhaps, the defining feature of Ten and that made his wrath so powerful.  Ten was perhaps the most godlike and the most human of the Doctors - all at the same time. 

All of that is makes for a difficult character to write and a difficult character to act.  It requires a character to change on a dime and it requires a character who can be moralistic one moment and a great pal the next. And Tennant did it, seemingly effortlessly. 

I’ve seen multiple Doctors regenerate and I admit that when Tom Baker ended his run it was a scene that brought tears to my eyes even though I knew in advance it would happen.  But I was unprepared for how emotional the end of Ten would be.  The end of The Death of Time left me unabashedly crying.   The look on David Tennant’s face as he moves from joyous wonder that he is still alive, with music soaring in the background, to the look on his face the next second when he hears the four knocks that prophecy his demise was worthy of an award all on its own.   The light literally went out of his eyes and they became blank as he (and the camera) turned to face his fate. 

And how appropriate that Ten didn’t die saving the entire human race (again) but died to save one man.  One useless old man who even told him – leave me.  I’m old, leave me.   And it is true.  As Ten says, “look at you, not remotely important. But me... I could do so much more.” Oh, how Ten railed against his fate.  He does not go quietly without a fight, even if the fight is only with himself.   It’s not fair! he shouts.  He is so human at that moment.  But no one is forcing him to do it, no one CAN force him to do it.  It is his choice.  Or perhaps he realizes that it is one of those fixed moments in time that cannot be changed.   It is his time.  And he faces it with grace.   “I’d be honored.”   I think the moment he says that pretty much sums up the Tenth Doctor.

After watching that episode I wondered if Russell Davies was a long ago fan of Jesus Christ Superstar.  Because that scene had a touch of Gethsemane about it.  Very much gospel channeled through rock opera.  

And then another surprise.  He’s not gone.  This is a long slow death that allows him to come back out of the death chamber and walk among his followers once more for a limited time.  Leaving them something to remember him by.  If it sounds very archetypal it was.  And it could have been terrible but it all worked.  I weeped.

But that was at the end.  I also laughed, I laughed a lot, through all the seasons.  So I want to end with some general thoughts picking up where I left off the last time.

• Donna annoyed me at first but she grew on me.  I thought what happened to Donna was sadder than what happened to all the other companions who were simply left behind.   On the other hand, even though she grew on me I was ready for her to move on and I was glad she didn’t carry over into a Companion for the next Doctor. 
• Whatever were the writers thinking when they wrote the end of Journey’s End?  They should have left Rose well enough alone where she was.  This is Doctor Who – we all knew they couldn’t end up together.  They had a very poignant goodbye at the end of Season 2.  Leave it at that.  It was ok to have that little moment at the end of the End of Time when the Doctor tells her 2005 is going to be a really great year.  That was nice.  But having her end up with the Other One? That was just dumb.
• I loved that Sarah Jane was brought back to the series.  She is still my favorite Companion.  I hope that at some point the writers recognize the death of Elizabeth Sladen by making the Doctor mourn the death of Sarah Jane.   In the first episode she appeared in, the moment when David Tennant sees Sarah Jane across the room was just magical.  He played it so well.  I wondered if they were going to write it so that she never knew he was the Doctor.  But having her find the TARDIS and then realize it was him was perfect.  And the end of that episode when he called her “my Sarah Jane” and hugged her was somewhat cathartic, after the Tom Baker episode where he showed almost no emotion when she left.   And her other cameos was nice too.
• I still think “Blink” was one of the best episodes of television ever.
• I loved how the first David Tennant episode had the Star Wars reference with his hand being cut off a la Luke Skywalker and the last David Tennant episode had the Star Wars references with them shooting at incoming starships (not to mention the space bar with Captain Jack).  Nice balance.
• Rude and not Ginger.  Why do I think Ginger is going to be an ongoing theme – yes I’ve seen three episodes of the Matt Smith Doctor.   Here’s the brand new Doctor discovering he’s rude but no red haired.

• Here’s another scene with with Martha (who I really liked) that also includes Captain Jack AND Sir Derek Jacobi (I was really excited when he appeared in an episode).  The whole hand thing always did creep me out:

On to Eleven.  From what I’ve seen so far he will be fine.  Although he seems soooo young.  

Oh, and Torchwood to follow at a different time.

Torchwood

A number of weeks ago, when I had finished watching all the seasons of Stargate Atlantis on streaming Netflix, I said that I was going to start watching the new Doctor Who. I was a Doctor Who fan back in the Tom Baker days and I stayed through most of the Peter Davison days too. But then I stopped watching and then it went off the air. I don't have cable so I never got to see the new Doctor when he regenerated but through the magic of streaming Netflix I can now catch up.

I was told by people I trust that I should also watch the spinoff, Torchwood. I was already intrigued by Torchwood because I had heard that Jane Espenson, my favorite television writer, was scripting part of the next season. So I looked up the lists of episodes of Doctor Who and Torchwood, figured out the order they would have aired, and started in.

At this point I've seen the first three seasons of Doctor Who and the first two seasons of Torchwood. I wouldn't usually write about them in the middle of watching all the seasons but I saw that Alyssa Rosenberg is also watching Torchwood, to catch up in anticipation of the new season. And then I saw that Ivey West at Cliqueclack is also catching up on Torchwood. Both of them are writing about it while in the middle and I found myself agreeing with some of what they are writing. So I thought I'd throw out my thoughts after two seasons and then see if they took any of my advice for season three.

First, I love Captain Jack. But I loved him more on Doctor Who. I was sad when the Doctor and Rose left him behind at the end of the first season of new Doctor Who, but I assumed that they didn't know he wasn't dead. When he showed up on Torchwood I understood why the writers didn't want to give away his entire background and make him mysterious to new viewers and leave some mysteries for Doctor Who fans. Such as ... how the heck did he get to the 21st century from the future where the Doctor and Rose left him?

I think the reason that I liked him more on Doctor Who is because he is such a BIG character as written and John Barrowman really took that character and ran with it on Doctor Who. Of course he could do this because whoever plays the Doctor, they always play him BIG. So the BIG Doctor and the BIG Captain Jack could play off each other. PLUS they were travelling through time! There isn't really any reason to play Doctor Who as a realistic show - it isn't. It never has been. It's like a cartoon or a comic book so the actors can play the characters BIG like a cartoon character or a comic book character.

But Torchwood is stuck in the 21st century (at least most of the time). And all the people who work at Torchwood are just regular people who happen to believe that aliens exist exist and the earth needs to be protected. And Captain Jack was stuck on earth beginning in the 1800's (don't ask) and all through the 20th century. I he had acted as BIG as he acted on Doctor Who .... well, it's beyond belief that he would have been able to fit in. So, of necessity, the writers had to tone him down and Barrowman had to play him a little smaller. I understand that. But I like him when he's BIG.

I think the show needs a regular character who plays it BIG. Maybe a big bad. Or a crazier member of the Torchwood team. When James Marsters guest starred it was magical. The character was written BIG and nobody can play BIG like James Marsters. And that let Barrowman loose to play Captain Jack BIG. Wow. And that made the reaction of the other normal members of the team even more realistic. At the end of season 2 it was clear there were going to be cast changes and I hope that means that they came back in Season 3 with a BIG new character.

The other thing I think they need to do is to anchor the idea of Torchwood better than they have. Season two of Doctor Who gave us lots of hint dropping about the Torchwood Institute and most of the publicity was negative. We were led to believe that the Torchwood Institute was not necessarily a good thing - although it wasn't an unqualified evil either. It was very ambiguous. But the concept of Torchwood doesn't play off that. The Cardiff branch of Torchwood is (apparently) the only branch of Torchwood left after the Canary Wharf war and they are trying to "do the right thing". It would be much more exciting if they were fighting the system. Even the unabashedly militaristic Stargate often showed the Stargate team in conflict with the institutional military. And was better for it. Alyssa pretty much says the same thing:

Similarly, the fact that Torchwood Three appears to be the only functional branch of the institute isn’t actually a good thing for the show. We don’t get a training montage that really introduced Gwen to Torchwood’s practices and traditions, which would be both a fun thing to do, a great way to introduce viewers to the world the creators are building, and a good way to establish the constraints Torchwood agents work under. Without constraints, it’s hard to know what it means to be a Torchwood agent. As is, they’re basically private dicks who know that aliens are out there. My understanding is that we get more context later for why Torchwood Three is what’s left. But even if, and especially if, they’re what remains of a tradition, that should be an interesting burden to carry out, a legacy to carry on, something that should be part of Gwen’s experience and ours.

Maybe they'll pick up on this in Season 3.

Those are my main issues with the series. I really like the character of Gwen and I think they can do more with her. And I really like her boyfriend/husband. Tosh and Owen are obviously off the show after Season 2 and I don't think I'll miss them. I liked the quietness of Tosh's character but it just didn't play well with a Captain Jack who needed to be BIG. Same with Owen. The same characters without a Captain Jack may have worked although it would have been a totally different kind of show. But if they are going to have Captain Jack they need characters that set him free.

Truthfully I'd be fine if they'd ditch Ianto too. I don't think that he and Jack have any chemistry. Which is weird because Jack has chemistry with pretty much everyone else who crosses his path. He especially had chemistry with James Marsters. But I just don't feel the chemistry with Ianto.

But on the whole I've really liked it and I'm looking forward to watching Season 3. It was a surprise to find that Doctor Who and Torchwood are only 13 episode seasons. After watching the 22 episode seasons of Stargate, this seems too short.

I also really like the new Doctors (both of them). Tom Baker is still MY doctor but I think David Tennant is coming in a close second. I was tired of Rose by the time season 2 ended and was glad she was gone. And I totally object to the whole love interest issue - this is Doctor Who for gosh sakes. THE COMPANIONS AREN'T LOVE INTERESTS. I was irritated that they had Martha hitting on him but at least he wasn't interested - which is as it SHOULD be on Doctor Who. It's a kid's show. No kissing!

But I've pretty much loved it. Even the rehabilitated Daleks, which remain just as corny as ever. And I think that Blink was one of the best episodes of television I've ever seen. Right up there with the Buffy episode Hush.

I've just started Season 4 and I'm pretty sure that Donna is going to drive me crazy. But at least she isn't hitting on the Doctor. Whew.

Gotta go watch another episode.

Stargate Atlantis

I haven’t felt much like reading lately, too busy reading for my job to want to read in my free time.  So I’ve been using streaming Netflix at night before I go to bed and catching up on television series that I missed the first time around.

First I watched Veronica Mars, all three seasons.  I wrote about it here. I just finished watching Stargate Atlantis, all five seasons.

I’ve written before about how much I enjoyed Stargate SG-1 and how I was disappointed by Stargate Universe.  So I wasn’t sure what to expect from Stargate Atlantis. 

I liked it.  I’m not sure I liked it better than SG-1 but I liked it.  I think, in many ways it was better made than SG-1 (at least better made than the early years of SG-1), with higher production values.  It had a lot of the same kind of humor.  And there was real synergy among the cast.

Most of the cast I was not familiar with, at least in the first three seasons.  The exception was David Hewlett who reprised his Rodney McKay character from SG-1, but tempered to make him more bearable.  In season 4 they brought in Amanda Tapping’s character, Samantha Carter, to be the commander of the base.  I love the character of Sam Carter but really felt that the writers didn’t know what to do with her.  I was sorry she was gone in Season 5 and was not sure that replacing her with Roberto Picardo’s long running character, Mr. Woolsey, would work.  I shouldn’t have doubted him.  Picardo had been playing Woolsey on SG-1 for many guest appearances and, once made a regular character, did a great job showing the growth of his character (some of you will remember Roberto Picardo as the holographic doctor on StarTrek the Next Generation).

You may recall that one of the problems I had with Stargate Universe was that the writers did not create a unique “Big Bad” for the new galaxy.  Stargate Atlantis didn’t have that problem, they created a big bad right from the beginning and they were very Big and very Bad.  The Wraith were scary.  They looked scary and the concept behind them (that they fed on human lives) was scary.  Not scary like the Reavers on Firefly, who literally raped and ate their victims.  The Wraith were less monstrous and more alien.  And one of them, Todd the Wraith, was a sometimes ally. (Todd, you ask?  Well, they had to call him something.)

Another difference between Atlantis and Universe was that the writers didn’t hesitate to kill off characters.  Well, they killed them off in the way that Stargate characters get killed off – they come back as clones or memories or whatever.  But they do get killed off.   Stargate Universe needed to kill off some characters.

Like SG-1 and unlike Universe, Atlantis was filled with strong women characters.  The leader, Elizabeth Weir, is a scientist and no pushover.  Teyla Emmagan, a member of the team of explorers, is an alien woman who is the leader of her people.  The Wraith have queens who are VERY scary.   In Season 4, Jewel Staite joins the cast as a doctor and while she is not a military person, she is a smart and capable doctor.   There are, in fact, more strong women characters than there ever were on SG-1.   Universe, of course, had women characters who bored me.

The other cast members were very good.  I’d never seen Joe Flanagan in anything before but his portrayal of the main character, major (then colonel) John Shepherd, was very winning.

In general, I think five years is long enough for a series to run.  I thought SG-1 got a little tired by the last few seasons.  On the other hand, I have no idea why they shut down Atlantis and replaced it with Stargate Universe.  Atlantis was a much better show.

So now … what next.  I’m thinking … Doctor Who? 

Wherein I finish my Veronica Mars Marathon …

OK.  Now I get it. 

I mean, I watched the third season of Veronica Mars back in Real Time because many people told me I should.  And I liked it.  I was sorry it got cancelled.  But I can’t say that I loved it.   That’s because I didn’t really get it because I hadn’t seen Seasons 1 and 2. 

I liked the Nancy Drew aspects of the series, but I didn’t really understand why Veronica had this incredibly boring boyfriend named Logan - who lived in a hotel, which just seemed weird. 

I kept thinking that Veronica needed a real boyfriend.  She needed to get together with that guy Piz, who clearly liked her and seemed like a normal college guy.  He lived in a dorm room.   He worked at the college radio station. But then she did get together with him, and I found myself unsatisfied.

Then the series ended.

A couple of weeks ago when I was doing my taxes and having my annual lovefest with the shredder, I discovered that all three seasons of Veronica Mars are on streaming Netflix.  So I started watching.  And now I get it.

I have no idea why the writers decided to drastically change Logan in Season 3.  I suspect it was intended to be a transitional year.  After all, they put him through a lot in the first two seasons.  Pretty much every important person in his life died – except for his best friend who ran away to Australia.  And Veronica.  Now that I’ve seen the first two seasons I can understand the season 3 Logan much better.  And the character seemed to be transitioning toward the end of the season into someone better.  Someone like an older version of the younger Logan, it turns out.  But then the series was cancelled so there was nothing to transition to.

But now I get it.  And I’m sadder than ever that Veronica Mars was cancelled.

 

What I’m Watching

I got my hair cut this week and my hairdresser, Grant, and I dissected the new TV season.  He’s a big Glee fan too.  Here’s my take on the new TV season and what I’m watching.  Keep in mind that, except for Castle, I don’t watch almost anything in real time.

Castle (ABC on Mondays at 9:00 central) – Luv it.   I wondered if this third season would see the writers run out of ideas, but I think this may be the best season as far as plot-of-the-week goes.  They’ve kept me guessing.  And there seems to be a lot more humor this year.  Not that there wasn’t humor in other years but it seems as if the writers and actors aren’t holding back this year.  There are some plot holes in the ongoing stories.  What happened to the boyfriend Alexis had over the summer, for instance?   But so far a great season.   A-

Glee (Fox on Tuesdays at 7:00 central) – Uneven.  The writers are giving Brittany more air time this year.  There seems to be a cult-like following for Brittany and I just don’t understand it.  I don’t think her lines are that funny.  But she’s a fabulous dancer and that made the Britny Spears episode tolerable.  They still have at least one too many musical numbers per episode and the lip-synching isn’t always accurate and that bothers me.  I’d prefer fewer numbers, better performed.  But I like the ongoing storyline about Kurt this year.  And I like the new football coach.  And next episode they are doing Rocky Horror .  Oh yeah.  Let’s do the time warp again … ahem.  Anyway.    B

Bones (Fox on Thursdays at 7:00 central) – Better than I expected.  They built a weird “almost a year has gone by” into the break between last year and this year which I thought wouldn’t work.  They introduced a new love interest for Booth which I thought wouldn’t work.  They made Angela and Hodgins a formal couple with a baby on the way and I thought that wouldn’t work.  But so far it is all working well.   It might be my imagination but the dead bodies this season are even more disgusting than in other seasons.   And I’m not sure how they are managing to get all the squinterns back after a year, but that’s a minor point.  On the whole I’m enjoying it. B+

Fringe (Fox on Thursdays at 8:00 central) – Surprise of the Season so far.   I was not a big Fringe fan before.  I generally only watched it if I had nothing better to do.  I always thought Anna Torv was miscast as the lead.  But this year?   I’m totally hooked.  Torv is showing dimensions I didn’t suspect playing both Olivia and Fauxlivia – and it’s even more complicated because Fauxlivia is pretending to be Olivia and Olivia is brainwashed to think she is Fauxlivia.  Got that?  Having the episodes jump back and forth between the alternate universes, a different world each week, is working for me.  I find myself invested in the characters.  A

I’ve only watched one episode, each, of SGU and Caprica so I’m reserving judgment.  I’ve found myself liking 30 Rock again this year. Last year I found myself deleting it from my Hulu queue without watching it.  I might not have even watched it this year except for Matt Damon being a guest star.  But I’m enjoying it.  

The one show I have not seen this year that I miss is Big Bang Theory.   I’m seldom home at the time it is on and when I am it is up against Bones.  CBS doesn’t participate in Hulu and I find the CBS site difficult to navigate.  So I have not seen a single episode this season.  I guess it will give me something to watch during “repeats”. 

Winners Circle

I haven’t fallen off the face of the earth, I’ve just been busy and sort of brain dead.  In my free time I’ve been (finally) watching the last season of The Wire.  I’ve been putting off watching it because I didn’t want it to end.  But my cousins who live in another state had worked their way up through season four and I said I’d watch season five with them when they got there.  We discuss by email.

I saw this today via Kottke:  #WireDerbyHorseNames.   Someone started thinking of naming racehorses after characters in The Wire and it was taken up by twitterers.

But of course, the beauty in naming Kentucky Derby horses rests not in actually naming them after characters from The Wire, but rather, naming them after catchy ideas and pithy quotes from the show. (There are exceptions. Like, Poot.) So that concept soon began to spread, and it wasn't long before the masterpieces rolled in, fewer than 140 characters at a time.

I liked “Always Boris”. 

Fiction vs. Reality

A couple of times I’ve blogged about the difficulty some authors seem to have, when writing historical fiction, in coming up with the fiction part.  When I blogged about Loving Frank I complained that the author, Nancy Horan, seemed constrained by the historical facts she was working with and that made her narrative dull in parts. 

The novel suffered from too much exposition and not enough "scenes". It also suffered from lack of a dramatic arc. One of the problems with writing historical fiction is that history is history and lives don't always have dramatic arcs although they may have dramatic moments. To make a better story the author might have to alter history. Since Horan obviously didn't want to do that, it seemed to me that she really wanted to write a nonfiction work but didn't have enough research to make a whole book.

One of the books I am currently reading is Lindsey Davis’ Rebels & Traitors and I’m finding it far too full of exposition about the English Civil War and not full enough of the story of the characters.  So I’ve been thinking a lot about historical fiction lately.

I was, therefore, delighted to read a piece that David Simon recently wrote in the Times-Picayune in connection with his new television series Treme that addressed this issue.  In Treme Simon is portraying the post Hurricane Katrina New Orleans and he says

… we have tried to be honest with that extraordinary time -- not journalistically true,  but thematically so. We have depicted certain things that happened,  and others that didn't happen,  and then still others that didn't happen but truly should have happened.

This is a nice way of saying we have lied.

I’m glad he put it so bluntly.  I’ve come to believe that lying is essential to good historical fiction – lying is the “fiction” part of historical fiction.  If you stick only to the “historical” part and ignore the “fiction” you might as well write a non-fiction book or do a documentary.  There is nothing wrong with documentaries or non-fiction books, they convey truth.  But do they convey the whole truth?

By referencing what is real,  or historical,  a fictional narrative can speak in a powerful,  full-throated way to the problems and issues of our time. And a wholly imagined tale,  set amid the intricate and accurate details of a real place and time,  can resonate with readers in profound ways. In short,  drama is its own argument.

It is a delicate balance.  Too much reality and the argument can be ruined.  Not enough reality and the argument isn’t made.  How does a writer find the balance?

If we are true to ourselves as dramatists,  we will cheat and lie and pile one fraud upon the next,  given that with every scene,  we make fictional characters say and do things that were never said and done. And yet,  if we are respectful of the historical reality of post-Katrina New Orleans,  there are facts that must be referenced accurately as well. Some things,  you just don't make up.

Admittedly,  it's delicate. And we are likely to be at our best in those instances in which we are entirely aware of our deceits,  just as we are likely to fail when we proceed in ignorance of the facts. Technically speaking,  when we cheat and know it,  we are "taking creative liberties, " and when we cheat and don't know it,  we are "screwing up."

I don’t have cable and I haven’t seen any episodes of Treme, so I can’t say if Simon achieved the right balance.  At least, not until it comes out on DVD. 

Dialogue

One reason I’ve never even considered writing any kind of fiction is my dialogue-writing induced asthma.  Back in high school I took my one and only creative writing class and it was torture.  It didn’t help that I’m not very good at creating narratives, but that wasn’t the real problem  With a whole lot of effort I could come up with some kind of plot.  But dialogue.  No.  And since I dislike reading fiction without much dialogue (a problem I’m having with 2666) I wouldn’t want to create fiction without dialogue.

If my psyche was looking for a good nightmare scenario it would put me in a room full of screenwriters all staring at me, waiting for me to come up with some pithy bit of dialogue.  And as I opened my mouth, out would come toads. 

Because of my own limitations, I have respect for television and movie writers even when I’m making fun of the bad dialogue they have written.  After all, at least they try. So I was interested in reading Jane Espenson’s latest blog post (yes, she’s back) in which she talks about the early days of movies and the transition from silent films to talkies.  I never thought about who “wrote” silent movies.  I guess I assumed that someone came up with the narrative but I never thought much more about it.  I certainly never thought about whether novelists would be good at writing silent movie scripts.  But Jane has:

The skills of a novelist were very appropriate for this kind of screenplay writing, which was descriptive, evocative, and internal. By "internal" I mean that it was concerned with what the character was thinking and feeling.

But when the transition to talkies came and Hollywood was looking for writers who could write good dialogue, they expanded their universe of writers.  Who did they find was good at dialogue?  Journalists.

They had an ear for naturalistic dialogue and they knew how to write concisely and tell stories with clear-eyed details, not evocative prose. The novelists tended to write longer and more stylish (or stylized) speeches and descriptions. Beautiful stuff, but not as valuable as something short and potent.

It makes sense but is not something I ever thought of before.  So Jane’s advice is:

Think like a reporter -- pare the story down, find the bones of it, and listen to your characters talk in the language of whatever street they come from -- even if you let them ramble on a bit in the first draft, eventually try to find the succinct quote.

A Galaxy Far, Far Away

Stargate Universe returns this Friday for the second half of its first season (and by the way, I dislike these split seasons). For those of you who don’t remember, this is the show about a group of humans who are suddenly transported to a decrepit old alien vessel in a galaxy far, far away.
As I wrote in November:

A group of persons, most of whom never really wanted to do space travel, were transported to an old spaceship whose operating code they cannot crack. Like The Flying Dutchman the decrepit old ship just sails on not needing a live crew. But the newcomers need to figure out how to replenish the power, the water, the food supply. Every day is a struggle to survive.
All of that might be realistic. If you happened to be transported to a decrepit old spaceship you probably would be concerned with those things. But it isn’t particularly fun to watch. Mostly the passengers all just want to go home and I can’t blame them. The problem for the producers is that I have no limitations on my ability to leave the ship – all I have to do is change the channel (or, in my case, turn off hulu).

I was thinking about this as I’ve been working my way through the DVDs of FarScape (I’m now in the first half of season 3). Like SGU, FarScape involves an astronaut suddenly transported to a galaxy far, far away who is stuck on a spaceship with a group of people who have a hard time getting along. Unlike SGU there are tons of great special affects to watch when the arguments get boring.

The first thing that struck me about FarScape was that it was an expensive show. The original Stargate:SG1 was laughable in its lack of effects. Every planet they went to looked like the boreal forests of Canada – because they were the forests of Canada. Most of the aliens were humanoid (and spoke English, which was never adequately explained). The first four or five years of the show I described it as cheesy because it was so low budget compared to a sci fi movie, or even a Star Trek series. Later, they got more of a budget and things improved. SGU has more effects but mostly these people are stuck on a spaceship that is visually uninteresting (and dark).

FarScape is a visual treat. I recently read somewhere that George Lucas was planning a live action sci fi television series set in the years immediately before Luke meets Obi Wan. It wouldn’t involve any of the Star Wars major characters. They ought to salvage the old FarScape sets and costumes for it because that’s what FarScape looks like (when they actually get off the ship). The aliens (created by the Henson Creature Shop) are truly alien just as they were in the bar scene on Tatooine in the first Star Wars. In fact, I keep expecting the FarScape cast to eventually walk into the bar on Tatooine. Two major characters are aliens that are depicted by puppets (as jabba the hut was). But the humanoid aliens are often very different from regular humans, especially their eyes (which make me think of something out of Dune). Even the space ship is a living character and is visually interesting.

The main characters of FarScape are interesting because none of them are human except Crichton. And, unlike, SGU, it isn’t a cast of thousands. There were originally four passengers and a pilot on the ship (and some small animal-like mechanical creatures very reminiscent of the one Chewbacca scared on the first Death Star). There were a couple of additions made over the years (and one loss, so far) and there are a couple of bad guys (well, one is reformed, we think). It’s easy to keep track of who is who, unlike on SGU where you have no idea who all those people are (I hear that they are introducing a new character who they are going to claim has been on the ship the whole time. Presumably, in the great mass of unnamed people who mill around at meetings.)

The acting on FarScape is better than the original SG-1 actors (and, so far, the SGU actors) – although maybe that’s because the dialog is written better. SG-1 had better jokes but the drama was cheesy. FarScape is almost all drama with a few jokes here and there from Crichton (that mostly the other characters don’t get). Ben Browder and Claudia Black later joined the Stargate SG-1 cast and I’m amazed at how Claudia Black’s facial expressions are totally different on FarScape than on SG-1.

But where FarScape and SGU unfortunately collide is in the plotting. Yes, being stuck on a spaceship would be hard. Yes, wanting to go home is a natural feeling. Yes, sometimes tempers flare when people who aren’t alike are stuck together. But after a while … watching it gets old. Especially in the first season of FarScape I felt like I was caught in a never-ending loop where the plot would involve some big crisis where everyone had to learn to trust each other (because otherwise they were all going to DIE!) but then the next episode would start and it was as if that other episode never took place. (Maybe this wouldn’t be so obvious if one were watching on a weekly basis rather than back to back episodes on DVD.) Recently, in my season 3 viewing the character of Pilot sent two characters off on “shore leave” because he and the ship couldn’t take their bickering any more. I approved.

Just as I said in my discussion of SGU, it would help if they had a mission. Star Trek had a mission and it worked. Star Trek Voyager didn’t have a mission and was just trying to get home and it didn’t work so well. Firefly had a mission – smuggling etc. It worked. SGU has no mission. It is, so far, not working. FarScape really doesn’t have a real mission; they aren’t positively trying to achieve anything except getting home. They are trying to achieve negatives: elude the bad guys who are chasing them.

Everyone fights a lot. Everyone tries to avoid getting killed (week after week of WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE, just like SGU). It’s a wonder I’m still enjoying it. And I am. I just keep hoping that the characters will stop fighting so much. I was very happy when, in season 3, the crew split off into two parts and half stayed on the original ship and half went with the gunship Talon. It made for a change. So far season 3 seems different than the first 2 seasons and I’m hoping that the writers finally figured out where they were going with the plot. Although it won’t matter; I’m hooked despite the flaws and will watch it all the way through.

I’ll also keep watching SGU for the remainder of season 1 in the hope that they turn things around. But I really REALLY hope they get off that ship more or at least stop arguing with each other.

This and That

Real life has been a little hectic so even though I see things that interest me, I haven’t found time to blog about them.  Here are a few of those things:

• Maybe Emily Dickinson was more interesting than I’ve always thought.  Or at least, maybe her family was.   Her latest biographer thinks so.
  
  
• Stephen Emms didn’t like the ending of Anna Karenina.   Heh.  I thought Anna Karenina’s pastoral ending was a dream compared to the end of War and Peace which you might recall almost did me in.
  
  
• An interesting experiment in writing speeds on various modern gadgets.   With graphs.  Turns out the iphone keyboard, that most of us don’t like,  isn’t really that slow to type on.  (h/t Kottke)
  
  

• Finally, here’s an interesting youtube that shows how much television is shot in front of green screens (h/t Kottke).
  
  
  

  

Caprica

I’ve watched the first four episodes of Caprica (on hulu) and, while it is a totally different show than Dollhouse, I’m constantly reminded of Dollhouse.  

The whole question of what makes a person a person is the chief question of this show.   Briefly, a real live teenager named Zoe died in a terrorist explosion but she left behind a computerized avatar named Zoe who looks like her and has all of her memories (up to the night before the real Zoe’s death).  The virtual Zoe “lives” in a virtual world, a sort of holodeck type of world that gamesters have hacked into to “play” in through a device invented by Zoe’s  millionaire dad.  But when the real Zoe’s dad finds about about avatar Zoe he “captures” her and experimentally attempts to download her into a six foot robotic killing machine he is designing for the military (a Cylon). 

It’s still Winter?

It’s bitterly cold again and we got a light dusting of snow overnight. Thank goodness it’s almost February and the shortest month of the year. I know we have six more weeks of winter but by March, with the light at the end of the tunnel beginning to show, I have a much better attitude toward winter.

To remind myself that summer will come again, here’s a summer picture from a couple of years ago. This was the first time Truman met his “cousin” Max. Now Truman is as big, if not bigger, than Max. And he loves the snow.

It’s going to be a long couple of winter months without much on TV to watch. Glee doesn’t come back until April. Stargate Universe doesn’t come back until April. And now Dollhouse is over.

Dollhouse: Getting Closer

To the end, that is.

Spoilers under the fold. And if you haven’t watched it yet I strongly advise you to not click through.

Stargate Bye Bye

My Stargate Sg-1 viewing has come to an end with the end of the 10th season on hulu. Hopefully they’ll start putting up early seasons of Stargate Atlantis at some point.

If SyFy hadn’t canceled it, and if the actors probably weren’t incredibly tired of doing it, I think Stargate SG-1 could have gone on forever. The writers figured out (a la Joss Whedon) how to have a Big Bad each season with an overarching story arc but with stand alone episodes interspersed here and there. So the mythology was consistent but the stories were always (relatively) fresh. They also figured out (a la Joss Whedon) how to successfully introduce new characters while never quite losing old characters.

Few characters ever died a final death on Stargate Sg-1. They either came back to life, or returned as the same person from an alternate reality, or appeared in flashback-type scenes. If their character was in the USAF the writers didn’t have to kill him, they could just promote him to the Pentagon where he would disappear into its bowels for months at a time. Or send him on a mission to Atlantis.

As the show evolved it continued to work although in all honesty I think the middle years were the best. The writers replaced the commander of Stargate Command three times and made it work. The writers managed to replace Richard Dean Anderson and make it work.

Since Stargate SG-1 constantly made comedic references to other sci-fi movies and sci-fi television series it seemed appropriate that, by the end of the series, 2 out of 5 members of the SG-1 team were refugees from the cancelled FarScape series and the Big Bad for the last season was the cancelled Firefly’s Morena Baccarin.

In the show’s 200th episode the writers brought back one of my favorite characters, Marty the alien. Marty showed up in two earlier seasons, first as an ordinary looking guy who is convinced aliens exist. It turns out he is an alien who has had his memory wiped and a human memory implanted. But the memory of finding this out gets wiped too, although maybe not completely. Marty shows up in a later season as a writer for a television series about a space transportation mode that looks suspiciously like a stargate and with a cast that looks suspiciously like the SG-1 team: USAF colonel Jack O’Neil, Archaeologist Daniel Jackson, USAF Major Samantha Carter and Teal’c the alien . A hilarious episode.

For the 200th episode, the writers brought back Marty. His TV series was cancelled after only 3 episodes but now he has convinced a studio to make a movie out of the concept.

Daniel Jackson: Who makes a movie out of a TV series that only lasted 3 episodes?

Teal’c (the alien who loves human pop culture): It allegedly performed well on DVD.

The SG-1 Team is supposed to act as script advisors.

For all the FarScape fans out there, here’s the clip where Claudia Black’s character, miffed to find that the movie is still going to use the old SG-1 team and there won’t be any character based on her, tries to sell Marty on other script ideas. As an alien, Black’s character has been spending time acquainting herself with Earth television and movies. First she floats an idea that sounds suspiciously like The Wizard of Oz. Then she tries this:

My family is so cool that, even though none of them watch Sci Fi, when I said someone should find me a FarScape DVD for Christmas my sister did. So I’ve watched a couple episodes (all Season 1) which is enough for me to sort of get the parody (although from youtube comments I guess it includes characters from later seasons).

Now I’ve got something else to watch as I withdraw from my nightly Stargate-before-bed fix.

I’ll leave you with one of my favorite moments from the last couple of seasons of Stargate. The alien, Vala Mal Doran (Claudia Black), has been missing for months and has returned to tell SG-1 that she has suddenly just “found herself” pregnant without doing any of the things one does to get oneself pregnant. The Airforce team (Ben Browder, Amanda Tapping and Beau Bridges) are speechless but the other alien, Teal’c (Christopher Judge), is not:

Big Bang Theory

One of the science consultants for Big Bang Theory has a blog, appropriately named:  Big Blog Theory.   When I read it, I feel like Penny.

But, like Penny, I know the important stuff: