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

[phaenix-ash.livejournal.com]

it's funny that i only just saw these this past week and it was my introduction to Cpt Jack. i've since watched ep. 1 and 2 of TW and...yeah. there is no going back. i'm smitten.

anyway - the angel line got me as well. the "give me this one" in the empty child arc too. i think christopher eccleston is a brilliant Doctor, one of the best. rose in the the parting of ways was stunning. i've heard that she was known in the UK as a one-hit-wonder pop artist and lots of people thought they were insane to cast her as the companion.

if i remember right, you didn't watch the earlier incarnations of DW? i remember tom baker as the Doctor vividly and had nightmares about the daleks as a kid. seeing a high(er) budget version of the daleks was downright terrifying for me.

i think the christian/gnosticsim angle is purely cultural - i've noticed similar trends in all the british SF/F that i read/watch. i think they just find lots of fodder there in ways that make it weirdly accessible for more people.

you think those are clunky effects? you should've seen the old versions where you could see the sets wobbling. it's part of the show's charm, the low budget cheese factor ;)

[rm.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I never watched the old DW because the effects annoyed me too much. Also, I never liked children's programming even when I was a child so from what I've been given to understand it would have grated on me in that context too. Amusingly, the pinball machine I can most annihilate is the old Doctor Who machine that I used to play at a pizza parlor in suburban Maryland.

Rose was amazing. I'm surprised how smitten and charmed with her I am. And that whole episode had to be one long bad actor day for her, so I'm pretty impressed.

And Jack, Jack! I thought this was going to be my character to lust after not identify with, and that is so proving to not be the case. Interesting to like the gregarious handsome character for a change.