that narnia christmas special thing.
Dec. 27th, 2011 09:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
intrikate88Hope you all had a lovely winter holiday of your parents' choosing choice!
So, the Doctor Who Christmas Special. The Doctor, the Widow, and the Wardrobe, or, That Thing Douglas Gresham Is Still Reviewing Legal Papers On. I watched it on Christmas, after having spent months resenting the copyright infringement.
It wasn't that bad, though. I mean, it wasn't GREAT, but I didn't loathe it, so I consider that a win in the recent history of Doctor Who. Mostly I felt that the Doctor was mostly extraneous to the plot and it would have stood on its own just fine as the story of a woman dealing with her own personal struggle while spending Christmas with her children in a mysterious country house. The Doctor was really only necessary so far as to be the reason there might be a time portal in a box in the drawing room, but apart from that, he didn't need to be there.
It's almost as if this, and other recent episodes, have been incomprehensible wannabe Twilight Zone stories, with BECAUSE THE DOCTOR shoved in as a reason or a deus ex machina.
That aside, I liked Madge very much, and would love to know the story of this family where Mum can say seven impossible things before breakfast and no one blinks an eye. The children were watchable, though I wouldn't say they were particularly memorable; it was really Madge that shone, and I do appreciate the story of a mother who says fuck the world, I am getting my children back. She'll pilot a Transformer across the forest despite only having sat in a cockpit once, she'll pull a gun on a couple of soldiers and then tie them up, she'll take a whole world into her head and then guide everyone home.
Then three-quarters through, I realized Madge was played by Claire Skinner, who is Sue on Outnumbered, and the fact is, the Doctor will obey her motherly commands when Jake, Ben, and Karen will not. Therefore, Jake, Ben, and Karen > the Doctor. I feel entirely cheated we didn't get an Outnumbered episode on the TARDIS, as Karen is capable of asking impossible questions even faster than the Doctor is capable of saying impossible things.
So that was that, and basic premise aside (Uncle Digby? REALLY?) it didn't violate Narnia at all, really, so I am mostly content.
It did make me wonder about Moffat's mother issues, though. His first episodes with Nine were during WWII and all about a mother's love honestly revealed being the only thing that can stop the gas-mask plague. In the Library episodes, he gave River in her non-death (he can't let his characters die, a motif repeated in this episode) was to play mother in the archived world, despite her not really ever showing motherly instincts. He put Amy through a forced birth. I felt like in this episode there was some clumsy attempt at a feminist apology, explicitly stating that only a woman's strength (specifically a woman who is a mother) could save this world and take them home. I don't quite know what he was going for, or what he is drawing it from, I just find it strange and a little sad, since there are so many ways women can be strong and be heroes whether or not they become mothers.
So, the Doctor Who Christmas Special. The Doctor, the Widow, and the Wardrobe, or, That Thing Douglas Gresham Is Still Reviewing Legal Papers On. I watched it on Christmas, after having spent months resenting the copyright infringement.
It wasn't that bad, though. I mean, it wasn't GREAT, but I didn't loathe it, so I consider that a win in the recent history of Doctor Who. Mostly I felt that the Doctor was mostly extraneous to the plot and it would have stood on its own just fine as the story of a woman dealing with her own personal struggle while spending Christmas with her children in a mysterious country house. The Doctor was really only necessary so far as to be the reason there might be a time portal in a box in the drawing room, but apart from that, he didn't need to be there.
It's almost as if this, and other recent episodes, have been incomprehensible wannabe Twilight Zone stories, with BECAUSE THE DOCTOR shoved in as a reason or a deus ex machina.
That aside, I liked Madge very much, and would love to know the story of this family where Mum can say seven impossible things before breakfast and no one blinks an eye. The children were watchable, though I wouldn't say they were particularly memorable; it was really Madge that shone, and I do appreciate the story of a mother who says fuck the world, I am getting my children back. She'll pilot a Transformer across the forest despite only having sat in a cockpit once, she'll pull a gun on a couple of soldiers and then tie them up, she'll take a whole world into her head and then guide everyone home.
Then three-quarters through, I realized Madge was played by Claire Skinner, who is Sue on Outnumbered, and the fact is, the Doctor will obey her motherly commands when Jake, Ben, and Karen will not. Therefore, Jake, Ben, and Karen > the Doctor. I feel entirely cheated we didn't get an Outnumbered episode on the TARDIS, as Karen is capable of asking impossible questions even faster than the Doctor is capable of saying impossible things.
So that was that, and basic premise aside (Uncle Digby? REALLY?) it didn't violate Narnia at all, really, so I am mostly content.
It did make me wonder about Moffat's mother issues, though. His first episodes with Nine were during WWII and all about a mother's love honestly revealed being the only thing that can stop the gas-mask plague. In the Library episodes, he gave River in her non-death (he can't let his characters die, a motif repeated in this episode) was to play mother in the archived world, despite her not really ever showing motherly instincts. He put Amy through a forced birth. I felt like in this episode there was some clumsy attempt at a feminist apology, explicitly stating that only a woman's strength (specifically a woman who is a mother) could save this world and take them home. I don't quite know what he was going for, or what he is drawing it from, I just find it strange and a little sad, since there are so many ways women can be strong and be heroes whether or not they become mothers.
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no subject
Date: 2011-12-28 02:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-28 04:25 am (UTC)Madge in a Transformer FTW.
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Date: 2011-12-31 11:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-31 11:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-28 10:46 am (UTC)Eh. I'm glad the ep wasn't horrible. I still haven't watched anything since "A Good Man." (And I haven't finished "Miracle Day" yet, either. Oops. >_>)
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Date: 2012-01-01 12:01 am (UTC)“Because I’ve never been a 17 year old girl, it’s rather interesting to think like one, or rather to force yourself to consider the world from that perspective. And it actually started to make me angry. I’d never really thought about it before, but you know, when I’d consider the world from the viewpoint of this dynamic, highly intelligent, highly talented 17 year old girl, and think what’s going to happen to her, think about how much harder it’s going to be for her than it would be if she’d been a boy, it made me SO angry." - Steven Moffat on writing Lynda Day in Press Gang.
And so I'm just bemused as to why he ditched that view and instead started with Solve Women With Motherhood instead.
There were some... less offensive episodes since "A Good Man", but again, those are all like Twilight Zone wannabes with some strangeness and then the Doctor tacked on to force an explanation. It doesn't make for a cohesive story, or main characters we want to care about.
Spoiler: Miracle Day had a bunch of douchebags realize that the earth has a sentient butt crack and it wants Jack's blood. Trufax.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-01 08:18 pm (UTC)I may go back and watch the episodes I haven't, one day. I'm sorry the Doctor's become an unconvincing deus ex machina instead of a character. I wish Eleven had more to him than that.
...And now I have to watch the end of Miracle Day. The last ep I watched was Jack going THE FLOOR IS MAGIC TELL NO ONE. I think that killed my interest a bit. Yes, okay, magic floor and morphic fields. Whee.