A long-delayed ramble....
Feb. 2nd, 2011 02:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
setraSo this is going to be long and rambly about Doctor Who and Torchwood and the fandoms that have consumed me over the past couple of months. There will be babbling and there may be talk of fic as well as canon. You've been warned.
In the old days of LJ, I would have been ranting about each and every episode on my journal as I got into the show. Reacting and interpreting and squeeing madly and remembering every single detail over and over again. Instead I've blazed on through three and a half seasons, plus another one and a half of Torchwood and written nothing at all about it except for tweets and status updates.
So... here goes and this may get long:
I just finished the "Silence in the Library"/"Forest of the Dead" two-parter and ... I am blown away. If the head writer for these episodes is the one taking over for the future seasons, I am quite confident of the quality of the show for the future.
So... the Doctor. I know I used to watch episodes of original Who on PBS when I was much younger. And I know that it frequently kept me awake all night. Unfortunately, my memory is so bad that apart from being interested, confused as to why the characters kept changing, and there being something about a minotaur once... I really don't remember too much of what I thought. I did like the scarfy one with the frizzy hair (Tom Baker) the best.
I don't really know whether my instant infatuation with Doctor Who is some echo of what I felt before or not... so all I know is the experience I've had with the new series. There is some magic in these stories, some magic in these characters. The Doctor in particular (both Nine and Ten, but in very different ways) has a certain addictive charm. He just assumes that the world will fall in line to making things right and keep him entertained and pulls us all along for the ride just as surely as any of his on-screen companions.
I'll be able to say more about the early seasons as I rewatch them with Jess. I feel that there was something truly special about Rose too. She wasn't exceptional in the way that a character often has to be for me to love them, but she was brave and not at all stupid, and she won me over almost without me noticing it. I adored Martha as well, and I still do... but she was too much like the Doctor, too willing to drift in and out of worlds. She didn't bring him down to reality quite enough. Donna.... is present. It says something sad that my favorite episode so far has been the one that introduced it's own pre-experienced companion and sent Donna off to a hard drive. I suppose there are people who count Jack as a companion, and I ought to... but it's hard to get past the squeeing when I think of Jack. He was too wrapped up in his own story to really be there for the Doctor's anyway.... and seeing more of that story may be the only thing that draws me to the next season of Torchwood, if I manage to bring myself to watch it at all.
Which brings me to what happened tonight that inspired me to start writing this whole thing at all:
"Silence in the Library"&"Forest of the Dead"
River Song.
Bloody brilliant beautiful amazing mysterious woman. Why doesn't the whole damn fandom ship her with the Doctor yet? Maybe because she doesn't have enough history built up yet. Maybe because her chemistry with Eleven won't be as good as it was with Ten. And it was very very good with Ten. I mean, not to the level of Rose. But clearly their relationship is different, and will probably be much more splintered. She's clearly the sort to challenge him while still keeping up with him intellectually... and that is a dynamic I want to see more of.
(Though my final thought on the episode was: I have never hated the word 'Spoilers' with such an unbridled passion as I do at this moment.)
And then after a couple days of thumb twiddling, I have some things to day after two more episodes of Torchwood and one of Doctor Who...
So, Torchwood. There are things I like. Like Jack. I love Jack. A lot. And Tosh is all right and Owen is now all wrong and not at all endearing. And Ianto. I like Ianto. Problem is, the show doesn't anymore.
Somehow, or maybe it was just these episodes, it seems to me like once it was canonized that there was Jack/Ianto going on behind the scenes, it became a throw-away joke. It's a tension breaker, a soft laugh, something Owen is bitter about. And Jack is off dancing indecently close to Gwen at her damn wedding reception, and Ianto is in a holding pattern. I /know/ that Gareth David-Lloyd can act, but I learned that from seeing him as Watson the other night, Torchwood lately? Is making me crazy. In the beginning of season two, he was great, he was witty and clever and was growing as a character... and now... he's flat. He's in the background. He's following Jack around. He's /trying/ to be something, but only managing to make me feel sad and annoyed. But anyway. I suppose that's what I have fic for.
Then suddenly there's "Adrift" - and things are stranger. Like there's a relationship there, but we're not permitted to see it. And there's still this painful shame in Ianto, even though sometimes he says things ("He cheats. He /always/ cheats.") that make you blink and raise an eyebrow and confirm that there's something there. And then after all my bitching about his personality, he's displaying this lovely initiative and humanity as he helps Gwen with the case. Of course, as things go on, I wonder if the betrayal that Jack will see in him leading Gwen here will put another rift between them.
Though... ok... WHY for the love of GOD, did Gwen not retcon the mother? WHY?
Also, wasn't she supposed to take time off for a honeymoon or something? When is that going to happen?
Ahem. Anyway. Um... there isn't much to say about "Midnight" now that I've slept on it. The best episodes are the ones where Donna is locked in a box and isn't involved much, so. Yeah. It was good. And there was random shortly-pre-Merlin!Colin Morgan. Who was lovely and angsty. And it was a joy to see him, because he is quite lovely. (Also made the "Endless Midnight" fic I downloaded a couple weeks back make a lovely sort of sense.) But all of it was overshadowed by that one moment of rose on the monitor. Because... I need to know what's happening. I'm sure it's coming soon, we're close to the end after all. But even more than Bad Wolf or Torchwood reference throughout earlier seasons... this is eating at me. And I have two more episodes of Torchwood to catch up on before I jump into the final sequence of series 4.
In the old days of LJ, I would have been ranting about each and every episode on my journal as I got into the show. Reacting and interpreting and squeeing madly and remembering every single detail over and over again. Instead I've blazed on through three and a half seasons, plus another one and a half of Torchwood and written nothing at all about it except for tweets and status updates.
So... here goes and this may get long:
I just finished the "Silence in the Library"/"Forest of the Dead" two-parter and ... I am blown away. If the head writer for these episodes is the one taking over for the future seasons, I am quite confident of the quality of the show for the future.
So... the Doctor. I know I used to watch episodes of original Who on PBS when I was much younger. And I know that it frequently kept me awake all night. Unfortunately, my memory is so bad that apart from being interested, confused as to why the characters kept changing, and there being something about a minotaur once... I really don't remember too much of what I thought. I did like the scarfy one with the frizzy hair (Tom Baker) the best.
I don't really know whether my instant infatuation with Doctor Who is some echo of what I felt before or not... so all I know is the experience I've had with the new series. There is some magic in these stories, some magic in these characters. The Doctor in particular (both Nine and Ten, but in very different ways) has a certain addictive charm. He just assumes that the world will fall in line to making things right and keep him entertained and pulls us all along for the ride just as surely as any of his on-screen companions.
I'll be able to say more about the early seasons as I rewatch them with Jess. I feel that there was something truly special about Rose too. She wasn't exceptional in the way that a character often has to be for me to love them, but she was brave and not at all stupid, and she won me over almost without me noticing it. I adored Martha as well, and I still do... but she was too much like the Doctor, too willing to drift in and out of worlds. She didn't bring him down to reality quite enough. Donna.... is present. It says something sad that my favorite episode so far has been the one that introduced it's own pre-experienced companion and sent Donna off to a hard drive. I suppose there are people who count Jack as a companion, and I ought to... but it's hard to get past the squeeing when I think of Jack. He was too wrapped up in his own story to really be there for the Doctor's anyway.... and seeing more of that story may be the only thing that draws me to the next season of Torchwood, if I manage to bring myself to watch it at all.
Which brings me to what happened tonight that inspired me to start writing this whole thing at all:
"Silence in the Library"&"Forest of the Dead"
River Song.
Bloody brilliant beautiful amazing mysterious woman. Why doesn't the whole damn fandom ship her with the Doctor yet? Maybe because she doesn't have enough history built up yet. Maybe because her chemistry with Eleven won't be as good as it was with Ten. And it was very very good with Ten. I mean, not to the level of Rose. But clearly their relationship is different, and will probably be much more splintered. She's clearly the sort to challenge him while still keeping up with him intellectually... and that is a dynamic I want to see more of.
(Though my final thought on the episode was: I have never hated the word 'Spoilers' with such an unbridled passion as I do at this moment.)
And then after a couple days of thumb twiddling, I have some things to day after two more episodes of Torchwood and one of Doctor Who...
So, Torchwood. There are things I like. Like Jack. I love Jack. A lot. And Tosh is all right and Owen is now all wrong and not at all endearing. And Ianto. I like Ianto. Problem is, the show doesn't anymore.
Somehow, or maybe it was just these episodes, it seems to me like once it was canonized that there was Jack/Ianto going on behind the scenes, it became a throw-away joke. It's a tension breaker, a soft laugh, something Owen is bitter about. And Jack is off dancing indecently close to Gwen at her damn wedding reception, and Ianto is in a holding pattern. I /know/ that Gareth David-Lloyd can act, but I learned that from seeing him as Watson the other night, Torchwood lately? Is making me crazy. In the beginning of season two, he was great, he was witty and clever and was growing as a character... and now... he's flat. He's in the background. He's following Jack around. He's /trying/ to be something, but only managing to make me feel sad and annoyed. But anyway. I suppose that's what I have fic for.
Then suddenly there's "Adrift" - and things are stranger. Like there's a relationship there, but we're not permitted to see it. And there's still this painful shame in Ianto, even though sometimes he says things ("He cheats. He /always/ cheats.") that make you blink and raise an eyebrow and confirm that there's something there. And then after all my bitching about his personality, he's displaying this lovely initiative and humanity as he helps Gwen with the case. Of course, as things go on, I wonder if the betrayal that Jack will see in him leading Gwen here will put another rift between them.
Though... ok... WHY for the love of GOD, did Gwen not retcon the mother? WHY?
Also, wasn't she supposed to take time off for a honeymoon or something? When is that going to happen?
Ahem. Anyway. Um... there isn't much to say about "Midnight" now that I've slept on it. The best episodes are the ones where Donna is locked in a box and isn't involved much, so. Yeah. It was good. And there was random shortly-pre-Merlin!Colin Morgan. Who was lovely and angsty. And it was a joy to see him, because he is quite lovely. (Also made the "Endless Midnight" fic I downloaded a couple weeks back make a lovely sort of sense.) But all of it was overshadowed by that one moment of rose on the monitor. Because... I need to know what's happening. I'm sure it's coming soon, we're close to the end after all. But even more than Bad Wolf or Torchwood reference throughout earlier seasons... this is eating at me. And I have two more episodes of Torchwood to catch up on before I jump into the final sequence of series 4.
