#ashtag update and Doctor Who - updated version with housing resolved and wacky theories

[rm]

Thank you all for your generosity of housing offers, suggestions, and re-boosting the signal.

Patty is sleeping because of her cold, but I'll wake her soon and we'll have dinner, figure this out, and get back in touch with all of you. We are now housed.

In the meantime, I want to talk about Doctor Who



I've watched the first Eleven episode and the one that just aired. I've not had time to squeeze in the second one yet, but here are my random thinky thoughts.

- Overall, I love it.

- I see echoes of both Nine and Ten in Matt Smith's performance. Especially tonight's episode which you folks outside of the UK haven't seen yet -- there's Nine, loud and clear. And, you know, I think of Ten as "my Doctor" -- he and Jack as awesome ex-boyfriend superheros was always a narrative that hit close to home for me, and I was surprised how deeply moved I was, how much I fucking missed Nine, how much I'd forgotten that he broke my heart first watching Matt Smith's performance tonight.

- There are things I actively don't like, including the "DoctorVision" shit we're treated to in the first episode and the candy rainbow Dalek redesign.

- Amy Pond is AMAZING.

- I'm interested in the degree to which there are tiny echoes of other things in the Whoniverse scattered throughout the two episodes I've seen so far ... Amy Pond mentions "dabbling" and here's a WWII story in which the Doctor has to make a call about an RAF pilot sacrificing himself or not. Here are all sorts of things that have happened in the Whoniverse before happening, not again but not quite right.

Here is a world that echoes both backwards and forwards, which is fundamentally why I watch this show. Because mine does too. Because I felt that way before I ever saw this thing.

But seriously, in addition to the above mentioned - Amy was about to get married; she has red hair. She's Donna. She's this wrong world Donna. And the crack in the wall, it's all about how Rose got lost. And I've been told about the space whale (in the episode I've not seen yet) and the new Daleks from tonight hark back to (god help us all) "Daleks of Manhattan."

IS MOFFATT DOING WHAT I THINK HE'S DOING?

- I am also interested in the degree to which this Doctor Who is explicitly a children's show again, yet I am gripped. The episodes feel both as optimistic as we've seen since the end of "The Doctor Dances" and yet, the potential in the overall arc is HORRIFICALLY dark. It's clear we're working with big mythology here -- the creature that lived in Amy's house in the first episode has the same teeth as the vampire women scene in the trailers and everything is connected ot the crack in the wall, and all of it is going to link in with River Song and the terrible, terrible Weeping Angels.

- This show always makes me so proud of it. This is an indefinable, hard to explain emotion in me, but it's there and solidly, solidly true.

- More than one conversation I've had going into the Eleven episodes, especially after friends had seen them and I hadn't had time was "I want to know what you think, but I also want to know what Jack thinks." I love it, and I'm stamping my feet and squeeing as I watch it. But Jack? Profoundly fucking melancholy for who he was when he was mortal. Something about Ten made that past seem far away. Eleven, makes it seem like it happened five minutes ago. I can't explain, but come on, half of you are here for this sort of fucking crazy anyway.

Comments

There's a line in Terry Pratchett

[penguineggs.livejournal.com]

In Hogfather, to be precise.

It's talking about myth.
It's talking about how, at bottom, myth is about blood, hunger, and cold.
It's talking about how children, not having yet gained experience at self-deception, know there are fucking invisble bears in the cellar, right?

Pratchett's a children's writer, in many ways. Who is a children's show.

Both of them turn to kids and say, "You're too damn right there are invisible bears in that cellar. Other people pretend there aren't, but those people are stupid. Of course there are invisible bears in the cellar - you've heard them moving about, I've heard them, we've all heard them. And you're right to be scared of them -hey, invisible bears, fucking scary, eh? Only a really, really stupid person wouldn't be scared of those invisible bears in that cellar. But - you know what? Here's this poker. One good whack with that, and the bears are going to run. OK?"

Who and Pratchett exist not to tell children there cannot b invisible bears with big teeth waiting to gobble them up. They exist to tell them that there is always the poker.

Re: There's a line in Terry Pratchett

[lillian13.livejournal.com]

...which leads into my favorite quote ever.

“Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.” -- G.K. Chesterton

Re: There's a line in Terry Pratchett

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

I started reading Pratchett when I was seven and I couldn't agree more.

Re: There's a line in Terry Pratchett

[beccaelizabeth]

*points to this*
yes

and important stuff about what you can use as a poker, and how to talk the bears out of it, if you get the chance

Re: There's a line in Terry Pratchett

[penguineggs.livejournal.com]

Or, that you can hold off three Daleks with a jammy dodger, if you've got the brass neck.

Re: There's a line in Terry Pratchett

[penguineggs.livejournal.com]

Actually, talking about holding off the Daleks with a jammy dodger and a brassneck, that's a metaphore for this episode. Some Chicken. Some Neck. .

Re: There's a line in Terry Pratchett

[brightlotusmoon.livejournal.com]

And this is why Hogfather is one of my top favorite books of all time.