Mark

Is he leaning on that dalek?

That's pretty damned cool...

In a velvet suit* while sipping a glass of wine, by the look of it. That is, indeed, pretty damn cool.

*I want one! My dress style largely amounts to "why yes, I am cosplaying as a goth Doctor Who, why do you ask?" and aalready includes several velvet jackets, so I'm reasonably confident it would fit neatly in with the rest of my wardrobe...

So, I've quit my shitty job. Well, I've handed in my notice. How long I end up having to stay before leaving for good is subject to discussion, but probably either the end of December or the end of January. So, hooray!

I've never rage-quit a job before. It feels good. I haven't made a big fuss yet, but before I actually leave I'm going to write a proper letter of resignation outlining just why I'm leaving, and why they're never going to be able to hold onto anyone remotely qualified in the same position unless some major organizational changes are made. I love being able to get all (self-)righteous.

Wonderful character, no doubt, but I'd question that Jek is the villain of The Caves Of Androzani, though: surely Morgus is the real bad guy?

He's probably the ultimate antagonist of the story, I suppose, but Jek definitely slots into the 'tragic villain' role. I'd argue that just about everyone in the entire story other than the Doctor and Peri is a bad guy, really - that's one of the things that makes it so great, although also unrelentingly grim.

God damn, I love 'Caves of Androzani'.

Oh, you just want actual single-character enemies? Sorry, genuinely misunderstood the question.

One-off villains is one of the few areas where the pre-revival show absolutely walks all over the modern version - that's partly down to a philosophical shift away from the one dimensional "evil for its own sake" characterisation that tends to come with the sole antagonists, but the downside is that we've had very little to match scenes like "We play the contest again, Time Lord" in Curse of Fenric, or Tom Baker facing off against Davros in Genesis.

I'd second dogpoet's suggestion of Fenric, actually, but probably give the edge to Sharaz Jek from Caves of Androzani. Wonderfully fleshed out, genuinely unnerving (some of his scenes with Peri are skin-crawling), and downright Shakespearean in his on screen presentation. A triumph of writing and performance.

Heh.

Best villains? The Time Lords. Ever since the end of Troughton they've been antagonists at least as often as they've been allies, and per 'End of Time' and now 'Night of the Doctor', they're proper effective ones. Not the Master - outside of a handful of Pertwee stories, The Deadly Assassin and his new series appearances (one of them, anyway) he's been pretty consistently rubbish.

(The correct answer is, obviously, Michael Grade)

Still the sexiest Doctor by a mile, although I'm fully aware that there's something about Tennant that just doesn't quite do it for me. McGann, though? Rawr.

I don't have any problem sitting beside someone else who wants to do it though. I mean, I have done normal everyday NZ farmer things, in the name of gathering food, that would make most of you go into shock, I imagine. Though I have never been 'clinically' inhumane, killing animals one after another because forty people are going to come to a feast later in the week, is kinda chilling, actually, and only 'technically' humane.

Until you get used to it, then it is just like chopping the firewood, or digging the hole, for the Hangi, kinda boring repetitive work that you would prefer to avoid but seeing you have to do it, you do it as quickly and as painlessly as you can.

I think this is a fairly good thing, though. I've got no problem at all with eating meat (huge problems with the way a lot of it is produced, and we could all stand to eat a lot less of it, but that's a different issue), but I do feel that, if you're going to chow down on something else's once-living flesh, you should be able to confront the fact that that's what you're doing face-on. Your relationship to meat changes a bit when you've actually killed the animal yourself, and it's an experience I think more meat-eaters should have.

All of which is, of course, just further hypocrisy. Something I make up so that I can feel good about eating meat while simultaneously feeling superior about it. Because, as you say, that's just what humans do.

Ew. Sounds nasty - brought on by anything in particular?

Wow, that would be a wildly successful imagining, Mark, it fills me with desire to watch that show !.

 

Fitz ? ?.

 

I now also want to watch that show. So much.

canon

Ugh. Hate that word. It's all canon already, along with every book, every comic, every piece of fanfic and every Dalek Death Ray Lollipop. Or none of it is, including the TV show. But canon/canonicity, in the sense of "these stories *here* are the ones that count, while those ones over *there*, by extension, don't", isn't a concept that has any place in my version of Doctor Who. So there.

Of course, that doesn't mean it doesn't have any place in your version, which is every bit as valid as mine. One of my favourite things about Who is the extent to which it can be any number of completely different shows, entirely dependent on who happens to be watching it at the time - my Doctor Who is different from yours, and both of ours are different from Steven Moffat's, which is different from RTD's, which is different from...and so on, and so on.

But it was mainly just absolutely awesome to hear all those names mentioned at all. The idea that a spin-off audio released within the past year is being explicitly referred to in the show itself fills me with delight - it's all the same thing, in the end. It's always good to be reminded that Davies, Moffat et al are, at heart, just big ol' nerds like the rest of us (further underlined by interviews like this one, in which he abandons all pretence of being a grownup TV professional and just gushes like the obsessive fanboy he is).

Again, again. Again, again.

Very true but it just niggles me that [a whole extra incarnation has been added to do stuff that he himself doesn't want to be held responsible for. However Moffatt tries to dress that up, it's still him at heart. If it wasn't, what's all of the guilty moaning since the relaunch about? I'm not sure that taking exception to that is merely nitpicking.]

That said, I love the explanation for the spare incarnation to pieces.

I think that's getting a bit premature - it's pretty clear from the end of 'Name of the Doctor' that [he *does* feel responsible for it - the 'War Doctor' thing is an explanation, not an excuse, because the subsequent Doctors clearly do consider his actions a part of their collective past (plus, of course, we haven't actually seen the episode yet, and there's almost certainly more twists to come, because Moffat). It's a shame that they couldn't persuade Eccleston to come back, because I quite like the fanfic idea of Doctor Hurt turning out not to be able to do...whatever it is he's going to do....and having to turn back into the Doctor before going through with it. That seems pretty comprehensively impossible sans Eccleston, though. Either way, though, I'd be willing to forgive a lot for "physician, heal thyself". Young John Hurt in the reflection at the end was a nice touch too - it would appear that the 8-and-a-halfth Doctor was a pretty long-lived one, which I like. If Moffat's fitting a whole extra incarnation into the character's past, it's good that it would appear to have been a substantial one - makes it feel more like a proper revelation and less like a one-shot plot gimmick].

Elegant is the word. Even though I don't like everything he does, there's no denying that Moffat is an exceptionally talented writer - for a seven minute short that packed in a remarkable amount of content, and achieved quite a few things which I'd never have imagined they'd be able to pull off.

I could probably come up with a few nitpicks if I really, really tried (I sort of agree with Jason's grumble, but don't think the alternative idea he suggests would have been any better), but why would I bother? An absolute delight, a wonderful surprise and a perfect lead-in to the anniversary special.

No. Words. I saw that earlier today and have been downright giddy ever since.

OK, maybe a few words. Does "EEEEEEEEEEEEEE" count as a word?

I like that John Hurt is wearing, either literally or effectively, Christopher Eccleston's leather jacket and Paul McGann's waistcoat. Fits, if he's a hitherto-unmentioned between-eight-and-nine Doctor - if there'd actually been a proper Doctor between those two you'd have expected him to have had his own outfit, but since Hurt is being retroactively slotted into history, it makes a certain visceral sense for his outfit to be a straight blend of the two.

Awe.Some.

Congratulations, Greg - that's really great news, and very impressive. Glad to hear about it.

Oh, that is good news. Moffat's been consistently good about bringing in new-to-the-show directors since he took over, and while it hasn't worked out perfectly every time, it's paid off brilliantly in plenty of instances. This should be one of them.

In further New Old Who news, 'Web of Fear' is so far, much as expected, a bit on the unremarkable side. Generally well shot, some absolutely brilliant sets (not damning with faint praise at all - the London Underground sets were so good that the producers were apparently threatened with legal action because it was assumed that they must have actually shot on location in the Tube without permission, and 40-odd years later it's still easy to see why), and Troughton is absolutely splendid. But the plot is a bit by-the-numbers, it feels a lot less well-paced than 'Enemy...' (the fact that episode 3 is still missing, unfortunately, really hurts it on that score), and while it's easy to see why the Yeti, and this story in particular, went down so well with audiences at the time, they haven't dated well. None of which takes away anything at all from the sheer joy of being able to finally watch the damn thing properly, of course, and there's still a huge amount to enjoy - it's not a bad story, just not quite the awesome classic that fan lore has managed to paint it as over the past few decades.

Last time Doctor Who Magazine did a fan poll 'The Web of Fear' ranked 23rd, with 'Enemy of the World' languishing way down at 139. As and when they get round to doing it again, I'm fully expecting that to be, if not quite entirely reversed ('Web...' is just too well-ensconced as a Classic Story, and that sort of received wisdom takes a lot of overturning), than certainly turned on its head to a significant degree.

They're the Top 2 TV downloads on the UK iTunes store and 1 & 3 in the US, by the way. Not bad for a couple of episodes of a low-budget children's scifi show that haven't been seen since before the moon landing.

This would, I think, count as a fairly legitimate Doctor Who Thing:

http://hellblazer.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=8333&st=800&do=findComment&comment=356721

(Please don't tell my wife I called her a Doctor Who Thing)

If you grant my request to be added to the StH Flickr group, I'll upload it there along with a couple of other photos I've got for you.

It was a fancy dress party, it was fairly inevitable that one of us would end up going as the Doctor. Since I spend a lot of my time essentially cosplaying a goth Doctor Who anyway (it was the velvet frock coat I've finally acquired that really tipped me over the edge), it seemed only fair that it be Malin...

All costume details not exact, mainly the scarf being a bit too short and the wrong colours (the actual pattern is spot-on, mind - she found it on a website and everything - she just didn't like the colours of the original, so made some adjustments). But aside from that and the lack of a floor-length coat, it's an eminently respectable stab at a gender-swapped Season Eighteen Tom.

Pretty sure I can do better than that. Hang on...

For reference:

 

Cornrows: out

Undercuts: IN

Heh - while I completely agree with this summation, my preferences lean strongly in the other direction - the cornrows amuse me greatly, 'cos I'm all in favour of people having fun with their appearance. The undercut, on the other hand, I've never particularly cared for, at least on Pål (sorry, Pål! Still, you clearly like it, so who am I to judge?).

Anyway, I've been informed that there was an interest, during my absence, in a photo or two of my good self, so here you go:

It will surprise absolutely nobody to learn that this costume was thrown together at the very last minute. Firstly because I'm shambolically disorganised and clearly having several weeks' notice that I'd be going to a costume party was insufficient reason for me to have actually figured out a costume, and secondly because of course I have a variety of crossdressing options available to me on a moment's notice. I am, after all, a British man, and if decades of UK comedy have taught you all anything it should be that the majority of British men are, at all times, about two drinks away from dressing up in women's clothing. Obviously. This was also the first time I've seen my chin in at least seven years - I kept it beardless for a couple of weeks afterwards, but it still felt wrong, so the beard is just about back now.

And yes, I did my own makeup.

'Enemy of the World' was very nearly as good as I'd hoped it would be. Which, given that based on the audio alone it was already one of my favourite Troughton stories, is very good indeed. The script is, of course, excellent - David Whitaker is one of my favourite Who writers - but the main thing it shows is just how much of Troughton's brilliance is lost when you can't see him. His performance is so packed with tiny little facial tics, quirks of body language and other things that really don't translate well to audio-only recordings. The fact that he's playing two different characters in this one - complete with the inevitable scenes where he gets to depict one character pretending to be another - really gives him room to shine, and that's exactly what he does.

I think we now have a new story that will serve as a perfect introduction to the second Doctor, supplanting 'Tomb of the Cybermen' (which, much as I love it, is marred by some very rough performances and the fact that the story ultimately boils down to "after the Cybermen are woken up, they spend three episodes trying to go back to sleep, and eventually succeed").

It's completely and utterly batshit - starts out as a fairly conventional action thriller, but features one of the most wonderfully bizarre twists in the history of Doctor Who - and I think it'll play very well to newcomers to the classic series. It's beautifully directed, the cast are almost all splendid, the script is clever, dramatic and witty, it's got the Best Doctor Ever at the top of his game, and aside from some obvious budgetary constraints and slightly dodgy pacing at times, it's dated very well indeed.

I'll be surprised if I'm as impressed by Web of Fear, which I've always felt is somewhat overrated by fandom as a whole. It's a pretty basic base-under-siege runaround, with what feels like a lot of padding - I'm curious to see what difference the visuals make. It's directed by Dougie Camfield, though, which bodes very well indeed on that score.

We shall see...

I can neither confirm nor deny suggestions that I actually cried - like, proper tears - with delight when this was finally made official.

My original plan was to start watching these stories last night, but then I accidentally went to the pub for a quick post-work drink that somehow stretched into an evening that didn't end until well past 5am (and I didn't get home until about lunchtime today). Bu now, through a cunning act of deceit, I've managed to buy and download the episodes even though they aren't technically available on the Norwegian iTunes store.

Wheeeeeeeeeeee

They are on iTunes now. Enemy of the World and the Web of Fear. They are on iTunes for download NOW.

I have work in the morning. I shouldn't even think about it. I should go to bed. 9 whole episodes of Doctor Who I've never seen before. Waiting for me when I get home tomorrow afternoon.

WheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeee

Shawn: better than that. Two *stories* from the Troughton era. At least. This is a huge, huge deal and I am way, way beyond thrilled about it.

Pål: I believe I said this already elsewhere, but just in case...hahahahahahHAHAHAHAHAhahahAHAHAhahahAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAhahahaHAhaHAHAHA. Awesome.