The Weekend In Review

[kingandy]

Definitely a good weekend.

Friday evening was spent mostly assembling my new computer table - it's bigger than the old one but has more usable shelves so I'll probably have more room in the end.  My chair needs to be further over, though, so I've less space to pile clothes on the floor (this being my only actual clothing storage space).

Also watched House of Flying Daggers.  The flying daggers themselves (the items, not the secret society) were quite nifty but most of the fight scenes were a bit silly and the plot itself was overly convoluted in the sense that some earlier scenes didn't quite make sense in the light of later revelations.  (That said, I did sleep through some of the later segments.)  But still, reasonably pretty.

Saturday spent far too much money on club gear before proceeding to zheers' house to watch Doctor Who.  An excellent episode, cracking end to the series, suffers slightly from the Magic Plot Device ending but otherwise most enjoyable.  Personally I prefer the TARDIS to be used as a plot device in the strictest sense, purely a device for getting the characters into the story, rather than a magical device for saving the day.  But as deus ex machinas go, at least it wasn't entirely pulled out of the ass (the catch-all "translate you into whatever you need to be" effect being previously established in Boom Town), and the granting of onmipotence powers was clearly shown to have fatal consequences for mere mortals, so I don't think we need to worry about it being used overly often.

(I recall reading how Isaac Asimov hated writing serial SF books, in particular the Foundation series, as in each book he had to come up with a reason why the plot device used at the end of the last one wouldn't work again.  In this case they've carefully nipped that problem in the bud...)

The regeneration took me entirely by surprise, what with the news of the 10th Doctor's casting coming relatively recently.  icklejo was of the opinion that they probably brought him and Ecclestone in for pickups following the latter's resignation, but thinking back to the furore following the BBC's premature announcement of such, I have this vague suspicion that this was the plan all along; I recall there having to be apology, and I wondered why Ecclestone would have been so keen to keep it under wraps.  The thought that maybe he only ever signed on to do one series, and the team wanted to keep the regeneration as a surprise, is a nice one.  Of course it's likely that this is nothing more than a nice thought, but a nice thought it remains.

Right, when's that first series box set out?  Hmm, November 21 ... wonder if I can get them to release it a week earlier so I can have it for my birthday.  (Gah, I was going to complain that they'd just put all the disks in a single box rather than do a special space-saving edition, but it turns out it is a special box ... it's just hideously bulky by design.  Oh well.)

After that, off to the Wendy House, purveyors of fine Lucida Handwriting logos entertainment.  Much fun was had by all and I'm certain pictures will be forthcoming.  Thence back to Lee's house for more entertainment, all of which was most enjoyable.  Bed was taken at about 5am.

Today was therefore spent sleeping the fitful sleep of the dehydrated, and later watching many movies on DVD.  I have now completed my reverse-Smith-cycle by watching Clerks, and now may with some trepidation look forward to watching Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back at some future date (I started with Dogma and worked back).

Ta ta for now

Comments

[pax-draconis.livejournal.com]

According to my mostly-reliable-insider...

The plan was always to have David Tennant as the Doctor, but the BBC wouldn't buy itbecause he was a relative unknown. So, RTD cut a plan for Chris Eccleston to do one season (thus re-establishing the series and additionally giving Casanova time to run, creating a name for Tennant), and to spring the regeneration at the season end as a total surprise.

This elegant plan was kippered by none other than Eccleston himself, who got beered up with a Mirror journalist at the pilot party and ran his mouth off, ruining the surprise and creating the weirdly-timed quit announcement.

The majority of this has been media manipulation.

[kingandy]

Aha. I only remember reading the BBC announcement citing Ecclestone's wish to not be typecast, and the subsequent apology for putting words in his mouth, or something - didn't know about the Mirror scoop. (The popup A/V link on that report has a telling interview clip where Ecclestone is asked whether he'll be the Doctor for a long time and he hesitates and says that he "can't talk about that".) I find this level of subterfuge on their part somewhat endearing, it's a shame it didn't pan out.

I seem to recall another occasion not so long ago where somebody in the BBC publicity department's jumped the gun with something, but I can't think exactly what. I may be thinking of the leaked pilot episode.

[wulfboy.livejournal.com]

Davies made some comments on the documentary stuff about this first series being a "closed arc" around the Ninth Doctor dealing with the whole Time War arc which tends (in my mind) to support the "planned to regenerate" theory.

[arwel.livejournal.com]

Am I the only one that thinks Dr. Who was a bit crap?

[kingandy]

The series in general or this episode in particular?

[arwel.livejournal.com]

Not really in a position to comment on the whole series, since I only saw a handful of episodes. What I did see though didn't leave me that impressed, and the final episode sucked quite a lot. The reasoning behind Bad Wolf was just nonsense, Ecclestone made me cringe one too many times, the stupid god mode that killed the Doctor but not Rose. Reversing the fucking polarity. At least the crap sets are true to it's predecessors though. It's by no means all bad, but they really should have done much better.

[kingandy]

"Reversing the fucking polarity. At least the crap sets are true to it's predecessors though."

Those two sentences are almost the exact opposite of reality. The sets were good, whereas reversing the polarity is something they did all the time in the old series. Jon Pertwee liked the phrase "reverse the polarity of the neutron flow" so they worked it in as often as they could.

Maybe you were watching a different programme.

[arwel.livejournal.com]

Some of the sets do indeed look like some effort went into them, but others are just appaling like The Big Brother house and a lot of the space station rooms.

They may well have reversed the polarity all the time in the originals, but the whole Delta Wave thing just grated. It just feels too cheesy. I'll reserve my judgement on the series until I've seen the whole lot though.

[wulfboy.livejournal.com]

Um. The point of the delta wave to my mind was that the Doctor didn't use it. He wiped out his own people (we surmise) but not humanity. The Daleks were really just background to Doctor/Rose character stuff. Or some such.

[kingandy]

The point being that humanity was innocent ... even if they would inevitably fall to the Dalek empire he couldn't just wipe them out.

Something RTD pointed out in this week's Confidential - the Time Lords started it. From the Dalek point of view, right at the moment of their inception, who was there? Time Lords, trying to wipe them out before they were even born. Gallifrey made the first move.

[jacob-xiii.livejournal.com]

No you're not. Although I liked most of the series I too was disappointed with that last episode.

[ed-fortune.livejournal.com]

The thing is:

If you always found Dr Who a bit crap, there's a good chance the new stuff won't convert you.

If you liked the old stuff, but hate the new, let me lend you Silver Nemesis and do a compare/contrast.

[jacob-xiii.livejournal.com]

No, I liked the new series, I just thought that the ending of this last episode was a bit lame, what with Rose becoming all omnipotent via the heart of the TARDIS. I was expecting something quirky and unexpected, but not that.

[stsquad.livejournal.com]

So it was at least unexpected? If there is a super-power/tech get out clause to pull out of your ass then the Tardis is it. I have less problem with that than "inverse tachyon beams" in certain other Sci-Fi programs.

*winking smiley*

[arwel.livejournal.com]

The stench of Star Trek was overpowering in that episode. They used the power of technobable to reverse the polarity of the transmat and turn it into a death ray.

[kingandy]

You're saying a device that takes people apart and puts them back together in the right order hundreds of miles away is somehow more believable than the same device just taking people apart?

[arwel.livejournal.com]

Believable has nothing to do with it. Just the whittering on about Delta Waves and using them to scrambe people's brains made me cringe. He should have just said he can modify the transmat to anhialate all mater in it's range or something.

I was ammused at how the space station designers reinforced the doors against meteor strikes, but only put sugar glass in the vieports.

[kingandy]

Yeah. On the other hand, seeing the Dalek's little ear-lights light up, as it was clearly screeching "EXTERMINATE!" in the vacuum of space, was one of the highlights of the episode for me.

(If we're looking for a hard-SF explanation ... maybe the window in that room - a viewing platform or something - had to be unreinforced glass, which is why the inner door was so much more sturdy than elsewhere in the station? But Who is unashamedly Soft-SF, so we shouldn't overthink it too much...)

[arwel.livejournal.com]

"Yeah. On the other hand, seeing the Dalek's little ear-lights light up, as it was clearly screeching "EXTERMINATE!" in the vacuum of space, was one of the highlights of the episode for me."

Yes, I did enjoy that bit.

(If we're looking for a hard-SF explanation ...*snip*
But Who is unashamedly Soft-SF, so we shouldn't overthink it too much...)

Can't... stop... myself... from... overthinking...

I thought the force field had stoped the Daleks from storming the station's upper levels, and the fact that they entered on the floor below the field kind of confirms that. Then the writer conveniently forgets about it.

[kingandy]

People were talking over the scene where they leave Lynda in that room, but I got the impression it was in the lower levels somewhere (or at least, not in the top ten). I think it was a sensor hub or something, an observation post.

[kingandy]

Oh, btw, the Delta Wave wasn't made out of the transmat, it was made out of the station's transmitters. The same transmitters that were earlier affecting everyone's brains so they couldn't see the Daleks. Not such a stretch from their to frying them, really.

[arwel.livejournal.com]

Must have missed that. I still maintain that the Delta Wave scene sucked. I did like the fact that they gave the Doctor a doomsday device to play with, just not the way they went about doing it.

[kingandy]

As I say, I prefer when the TARDIS is used purely for travel. Attributing it with cosmic powers (even if they are locked under a control panel which requires the mighty powers of a tow truck to open) becomes problematic.

In fairness, though, it has been established that the control console contains a lot of the power of the TARDIS (back in the old series), as was its semi-sentience and independent thought.

I was expecting something unexpected, but I didn't expect that.

[kingandy]

It was a bit lame, but it didn't spoil the rest of the episode for me.

Re: I was expecting something unexpected, but I didn't expect that.

[jacob-xiii.livejournal.com]

I was expecting something unexpected, but I didn't expect that

Ooo, that's almost a Meatloaf song...