Doctor Who, series 1

[rm]

The Sliveen or however they are spelled are really the most irksomely boring villains ever. The return of them though in the episode about the Rift surfboard had a lot of nice acting in it and a decent plot. Certainly, lots of explanations of useful stuff (often clunky) and some amazing character insights.

And then there is The Game Station and The Parting of the Ways. These episodes upset me deeply, despite not being as good as The Empty Child arc. The Daleks are scary by the sheer virtue of speaking at the most aggravating pitch/tone in the universe. The Doctor asking the Dalek emperor if he would be his highest angel was downright chilling, but again leads me to ask -- what's with the Christian mythology in Doctor Who and hey, what's with the Gnosticism in SF/F in general (a source of endless fascination to me and a reminder that _someone_ needs to return my Milton to me)?

Anyway, my suppositions about Jack figuring out he is immortal (which apparently doesn't happen the way The Parting of the Ways left me thinking it happens) led me to annoy redstapler with questions which led me to the Doctor Who wiki, which led me to the fairly common theory that Jack may be the Face of Boe which led me to writing melancholy Face of Boe fic.

In all these bad effects, clunky explanations and cheesy bits of humour there are some deeply, deeply strange, unsettling, sad and even slightly profound things going on. What a weird show.

Comments

[rm.livejournal.com]

But at the same time we don't have Jack spending lots of energy on trying to be "straight acting" or "not gay" -- he is what he is, and one of the things I like about the character is how much he is of the culture (at least as we perceive it, I suppose it's a moot issue for him, but to get into that more would involve my having to deal with the timeline from hell) without being a victim of the self-ghettoizing of it.

[tommx.livejournal.com]

Couldn't have said it better myself.

My only regret so far is that Jack has had no occasion to sing. Maybe if there's a Season 3 of Torchwood, he and the crew can go to a karaoke bar that has a lot of Cole Porter.

[rm.livejournal.com]

OH my god. We were totally discussing this at Dances of Vice. The guy who plays Ianto also has a voice and a half and we were all saying that we _need_ a Torchwood: The Musical episode.

[blackbird-song.livejournal.com]

Jumping in to say that Kai Owen, GDL and James Marsters have all said they'd love to do such a thing, as well. I really hope this happens!

Catherine

[rm.livejournal.com]

OH excellent. It would so totally rock. It would be crazy not to use all that talent.

[blackbird-song.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't it? It would be the best piece of crack ever to hit the small screen. They could have the weevils droning in the background for pathos in a gloomy ballad.

[tommx.livejournal.com]

James Marsters would be great for such an episode too, as would Billie Piper. May as well throw Tennant in there too.

Then would come the Jell-O wrestling episode. ;-)

[fleur.livejournal.com]

On the DVD extras he does "Anything Goes"!!

The Musical would be SO great.

[rm.livejournal.com]

And that answers the question of whether I need to Netflix the DVD extras. It's also slightly weird, as I've been walking around singing that song for no reason for days (i mean, granted, I'm always walking around singing something).

[fleur.livejournal.com]

It's from the episode "Captain Jack Harkness". Makes sense, they were already in a period nightclub as it was, he might as well do a little ditty.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Hahahaha. Fucking awesome.

[fleur.livejournal.com]

It's really fun. They *really* filmed it, too, it looks like a legitimate scene, not just 'point the camera at him, it'll be funny'.

[weirdquark]

Just when I think my love for Captain Jack Harkness cannot increase...

[fleur.livejournal.com]

Here ya go:

http://www.johnbarrowman.com/recordings/recordingsindex.html