Ten Little Chances to be Free (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
tenlittlebullets) wrote2011-07-13 08:56 pm
tenlittlebullets) wrote2011-07-13 08:56 pm
Entry tags:
Reviews of a few random Who-related things
- Chameleon Circuit's new album is out! And it is fabulous, much more musically interesting than their first album, which is fun but often sounds like a garage band propped up by a geeky premise. There are a few tracks I'm not really sold on, but there's also a lot of excellent stuff, especially "Teenage Rebel" (best track on the album IMO), "Travelling Man" (so warm and fluffy it should come with suffocation warnings, but awwwwww), "The Sound of Drums" (hell yes six-minute power ballad about the Master), and "Still Not Ginger." Actually, I keep listening to everything from "Teenage Rebel" to the end on repeat, it's all awesome. "Nightmares" I'm on the fence about, I love the use of the s4 theme but did they have to write a song about how the Doctor's life near the end of the RTD run became a Linkin Park song?
- Did a mostly-sober rewatch of the TV movie the other night. What can I say, I wanted something stupid and pretty and it delivers both in spades. Also, the only other time I watched it was at a gathering of friends where the most frequent comment was "Dear God, pass me more wine or I can't deal with this," so my memory of everything after the motorcycle chase was a meaningless, contextless jumble of images. I chalked this up to misunderestimating my alcohol tolerance, but on rewatch, no, it's just that everything after the motorcycle chase makes no fucking sense. Before that point it's camp as hell but you can see a plot taking shape; afterwards it could give Russell T Davies lessons in nonsensical asspulling, and it doesn't actually require that much impairment for the brain to just give up on forcing it into a coherent narrative. Eye of Harmony? Beryllium clock? Temporal orbit? No, fuck it all, Eight is in bondage and Roberts!Master always dresses for the occasion and the TARDIS interior is gorgeous and this is all you need to know.
- Speaking of rewatching terrible Who, last night I watched the Daleks in Manhattan two-parter. And you know what? Once your expectations are lowered, it's not that bad. Actually, it's kind of like a Dalek/human hybrid: in theory it is really cool and has a lot of fascinating themes and issues, in execution it's a guy in a suit wearing a stupid alien mask covered in dongs. So yes, Dalek Sec's head is covered in dongs and the American accents are cringeworthy and the actors have to spit out some terrible lines, but I actually love everything that involves the Doctor investigating or interacting with the hybrid-Dalek plotline. Mostly for Tennant's acting and body language: the familiarity, the flat-out burning hatred, the dawning realization, and for once, an offer to help his enemies that is both 100% sincere and obviously costs him a lot to make. It's an interesting concept and great acting working against a bad script, and when Ten does get talky during the confrontation in the theatre it devolves into preachy crap, but for a while there he gets some Time War-related angst that isn't mopey or self-indulgent. Not that that stops these episodes from being chock full of "really, Ten? really?!" moments--actually, my biggest problem with this two-parter isn't phallic tentacles or bad accents, it's that... well, everyone is a bit rubbish. Everyone. The Daleks are skulking in sewers, the Doctor has an inexplicable death wish and seems to be trying to get rid of Martha most of the time, and Martha does an awful lot of screaming and trying not to cry and generally getting slotted into the Hapless Companion role no matter how OOC it is for her. I do wonder if this is where the perception of her as mopey and pining and not living up to her Smith & Jones potential comes from, and if so... between that and Ten's gun thing in Sontaran Stratagem, Helen Raynor has a lot of bad fanon to answer for.
- Did a mostly-sober rewatch of the TV movie the other night. What can I say, I wanted something stupid and pretty and it delivers both in spades. Also, the only other time I watched it was at a gathering of friends where the most frequent comment was "Dear God, pass me more wine or I can't deal with this," so my memory of everything after the motorcycle chase was a meaningless, contextless jumble of images. I chalked this up to misunderestimating my alcohol tolerance, but on rewatch, no, it's just that everything after the motorcycle chase makes no fucking sense. Before that point it's camp as hell but you can see a plot taking shape; afterwards it could give Russell T Davies lessons in nonsensical asspulling, and it doesn't actually require that much impairment for the brain to just give up on forcing it into a coherent narrative. Eye of Harmony? Beryllium clock? Temporal orbit? No, fuck it all, Eight is in bondage and Roberts!Master always dresses for the occasion and the TARDIS interior is gorgeous and this is all you need to know.
- Speaking of rewatching terrible Who, last night I watched the Daleks in Manhattan two-parter. And you know what? Once your expectations are lowered, it's not that bad. Actually, it's kind of like a Dalek/human hybrid: in theory it is really cool and has a lot of fascinating themes and issues, in execution it's a guy in a suit wearing a stupid alien mask covered in dongs. So yes, Dalek Sec's head is covered in dongs and the American accents are cringeworthy and the actors have to spit out some terrible lines, but I actually love everything that involves the Doctor investigating or interacting with the hybrid-Dalek plotline. Mostly for Tennant's acting and body language: the familiarity, the flat-out burning hatred, the dawning realization, and for once, an offer to help his enemies that is both 100% sincere and obviously costs him a lot to make. It's an interesting concept and great acting working against a bad script, and when Ten does get talky during the confrontation in the theatre it devolves into preachy crap, but for a while there he gets some Time War-related angst that isn't mopey or self-indulgent. Not that that stops these episodes from being chock full of "really, Ten? really?!" moments--actually, my biggest problem with this two-parter isn't phallic tentacles or bad accents, it's that... well, everyone is a bit rubbish. Everyone. The Daleks are skulking in sewers, the Doctor has an inexplicable death wish and seems to be trying to get rid of Martha most of the time, and Martha does an awful lot of screaming and trying not to cry and generally getting slotted into the Hapless Companion role no matter how OOC it is for her. I do wonder if this is where the perception of her as mopey and pining and not living up to her Smith & Jones potential comes from, and if so... between that and Ten's gun thing in Sontaran Stratagem, Helen Raynor has a lot of bad fanon to answer for.