lizbee | Stuff consumed lately

Books

Well, I finished A Feast for Crows by George R. R. Martin, so now I get to join everyone else in waiting anxiously for A Dance With Dragons. This is especially nasty, given that it ended with cliffhangers for a lot of characters. Cersei: hoisted on her own petard. Brienne: hoisted on someone's petard. Just what is a petard anyway? And where the hell is Tyrion?

Let's play the casting game: I would like to see Billie Piper playing Brienne. She's too short and not really muscular enough, and probably isn't interested in a supporting role whose ugliness is commented on by nearly every character who encounters her, but still. Brienne needs pluck and charisma, which Billie has, and she's described as having a square jaw, full lips and prominent teeth, which ... well. You know. Anyway, I ♥ Brienne, and I think Billie would be nifty.

Incidentally, the pilot for the HBO series is being filmed, among other places, at Castle Ward in Ireland, which once belonged to the family of Lalla Ward, before the money ran out and the National Trust took over. Good times. Good, obscure-connectiony times.

First Generation by Mary Tamm: was pretty awesome. Very light, and written in a style that makes you feel you're sitting in a pub with Mary Tamm, drinking vodka and limes as she rambles on about her life story. Large sections are devoted to her journey to Estonia in 1990, where she met many of her relatives for the first time. Those were good, but I have to admit that I got more of a kick out of the showbiz anecdotes. Like the time Richard Burton ended up back at her flat eating fish and chips, or Peter O'Toole describing her future mother-in-law thus: "Who is that magnificent woman?"

Doctor Who comes almost as an afterthought after all of this; there are a few chapters about the filming of season 16, including a rather extraordinary bit where Graham Williams hints that he'd fire Tom if it meant Mary would stay. Equal space is given to a hilariously awful cruise-ship convention in 2003, in which Mary, Peter Davison, Deborah Watling and their plus-ones hid out in each other's quarters, smoking and drinking champagne.

Then I read Breakout: How I escaped from the Exclusive Brethren by David Tchappat. It was ... the early chapters, about his life in the Brethren, and his attempts to escape before finally getting out were interesting. But once out, the book basically goes like this: "Went out drinking with the boys. Meditated on how much I hated women. Picked up a girl. Had a relationship. Broke up with her/She broke up with me. Single again. Went out drinking with the boys. Meditated on how much I hated women. Went on Big Brother." None of which is either interesting, or likely to hold my sympathy for long. The book was borrowed from work; I'm very much hoping it will be deemed to be in salable condition when I return it, because otherwise I'll have to buy it, and I don't really want or need to own it.

TV stuff

Am into season four of my Babylon 5 rewatch. By this stage the first time around, I was pretty obsessed and watching quite closely, so I'm not picking up new things the way I did with the first couple of seasons. So I've been watching some other things this week, starting with SJA's "The Eternity Trap"

Nothing could ever match the heights of "The Wedding of Sarah Jane", but this was not bad. The first half was particularly good -- very tense, very well-directed and acted. The second half was a bit of a letdown, mostly because it seemed to take an awfully long time to actually come out and admit that Darkening was an alien. Someone on

sarahjane_fic suggested that he was, in fact, a Time Lord, and I am totally in favour of this theory. For one thing, he's wearing the Valeyard's hat. Anyway, I like the idea of adding him to the list of rogue Time Lords: the Doctor, the Monk, the War Chief, the Master, the Rani, the Alchemist.

I wasn't so keen on Sarah Jane being all YOU SHOULD BE STUDYING AWESOME THINGS LIKE ALIENS, NOT WANKY PARANORMAL STUDIES. 'Cos that was a little bit ... hrm.

Sorry to say that I totally forgot about Luke's absence, and it wasn't until I saw other reviews complaining of missing him that I remembered he was gone. Oops.

Somehow, SJA always leaves me in the mood for some Pertwee. So I dug out my DVDs and watched "Doctor Who and the Silurians" for the first time.

I knew the bare outline of this, but I had an idea that, being a seven-parter and all, it would be a bit dry. HOW WRONG I WAS! Those seven episodes flew by. It was AMAZING, what with INTELLIGENT REPTILOIDS and DINOSAURS and LIZ SHAW and GEOFFREY PALMER. And the Brig blowing them all up in the end, which was understandable but wrong, if that makes sense. I mean, yes, the Silurians had made a pretty good attempt at genocide themselves, but the Doctor had provided an alternative. Honestly, you turn your back on the army for five minutes and they're blowing people up.

On the other hand, can you imagine what would have happened if it had been Torchwood dealing with the Silurians? "Ooh, intelligent reptiloids! Quick, let's blow them up, then we can go back to promiscuous shagging." Well, it was the '70s.

Even though it was AMAZING, I sort of wonder if it really works as Doctor Who. I once read an interview with Stephen Moffat where he said that DW fails when it forgets about the children in the audience. (This is also why, imho, the NAs and EDAs haven't stood the test of time.) And I sort of wonder how much a child would be engaged with this story, which is full of talk of neuroses and undersecretaries (permanent or otherwise). On the other hand, DINOSAURS. What do I know?

Naturally, I had to have MOAR THREE, so I scouted through my files until I found something I'd not seen before: "The Time Monster". Now, I've always had this idea that it was a bit rubbish, but obviously my mind was poisoned by silly fanboys who don't appreciate feminist scientists with a sense of humour, or the inherent comedy of the Master wooing the queen of Atlantis. Also: RANDOM ATLANTIS.

So this starts with Three having a ~~sexy~~ dream about the Master being all dominant and powerful while Three sprawls seductively on a couch. Already I could understand why the fanboys didn't get it. Three wakes up, and he's all, BRIGADIER I HAD A DREAM ABOUT THE MASTER YOU HAVE TO TELL ALL THE UNIT BASES AROUND THE WORLD TO HELP FIND HIM!!! And the Brig is like, WTF DOCTOR I FEEL LIKE THERE'S SOME TMI THERE. While Jo looks on and smiles affectionately, while wearing an amazing outfit.

So the Master is off ~~offending feminists~~ and running experiments in time travel. His real purpose is to unleash Kronos, because the time vortex is full of monsters, and Kronos is the worst of them. And UNIT, among others, are off to have a look at these experiments, because apparently their charter is ... well, wide. Needless to say, shenanigans ensue. And I shouldn't have been surprised when the final two episodes were set entirely in Atlantis -- hello, shenanigans! -- because it had been foreshadowed rather neatly through the whole serial. But no, Atlantis, like the Spanish Inquisition, is always unexpected.

In Atlantis, the Master seduces Queen Gallaea, who has magnificent cleavage. No, really. He's like, "Totally, you can be in charge and I'll just help you out, and I promise I won't kill your husband. Look, cross my hearts." Again, I totally get why the fanboys are a bit "..." about this story, because it's all getting a bit sexual, and Gallaea keeps perving on the Master. Needless to say, this doesn't end well, for or or Atlantis. Lucy Saxon got off quite light, y'know?

So the Master has released Kronos, and Atlantis is going down, and the Doctor has the means to destroy the Master (and himself), but they're too busy bickering to use it. So Jo does, thus saving the universe. Because Jo, even though she has been brainwashed by the patriarchy into thinking that she's "exceedingly dim" (in her words), is actually quite bright. Sometimes I want to smack Three for the way he patronises her, but it usually spurs her on to try harder, so maybe he's just being manipulative. I don't know; Three is no Seven, and should have been more direct. Anyway, Jo is win. And she thinks they're all dead, but in fact, Kronos has saved them. Because Kronos isn't just a monster; it turns out she can manifest in any form or gender she chooses. And for the Doctor, she chooses to be an attractive woman wearing lots of gold eyeshadow. More fanboy discomfort: she flirts outrageously with Three. It would be nifty to see fic where Rose encounters Kronos whilst doing the Bad Wolf thing, but I'm far too lazy to write it.

IN SHORT: fanboys hate "The Time Monster" because they are scared of women and sex. There, your daily stereotype! But seriously, I saw a lot of discomfort with the female characters in the reviews I read, and while it's all a bit naff, fanboys have loved naffer things. So: scared of women.

After that, my last unwatched Three serial was "The Time Warrior", aka Sarah Jane's introduction. Now, I'm no great fan of Sarah Jane in her companion years, but everyone assured me she was better with Three than Four, and I do love a bit of SJA. So I finally bit the bullet and watched it.

And everyone was not wrong; Sarah Jane was quite awesome here. Especially when she was taking the Doctor prisoner, quite plainly the moment when he fell in love. Otherwise, it was a fairly unremarkable romp, although anything would look a bit dull after the sheer win of "Silurians" and "Time Monster".

One bit I liked: EVERYTHING WITH LADY ELEANOR. Yes, that counts as one bit. Also, a random line from "Invasion of the Bane" makes sense: Mrs Wormwood describing Sarah Jane as "narrow-hipped" was obviously a reference to Irongron describing Lady Eleanor the same way. I also liked how Eleanor was a much stronger, more decisive figure than her husband, but no big deal was made of it, and no one referred to this as a negative.

Now I'm sort of Pertwee-d out, so I'm going back to B5. Ah yes, the exciting life of a nerd.